The Walnut Harvest of Arslanbob: A Unique Cultural Experience

A cool breeze rustles leaves overhead as families call out to one another through the woods, punctuated by the quiet sound of walnuts dropping to the forest floor. These are the forests of Arslanbob, an uncommon landscape in a country more famous for being 90% mountainous. For two months each fall, these forests become the social and economic heart of Arslanbob, as villagers move to the forests en masse.

Travellers to Kyrgyzstan are often drawn by horse-riding nomads and remote mountain lakes rather than the small, peaceful pockets of forest in the south. However, in Arslanbob, the combined appeal of splendid landscapes and hospitable local culture has quietly attracted a few adventurous travellers to the village and its surrounds.

Community-Based Tourism in Arslanbob’s Forests

In late September or early October each year, a handful of international visitors wander through the village. They are not here for trekking in the surrounding Babash-Ata mountains (as it’s too late and too cold) or skiing the backcountry slopes, which will be covered in snow in a few months. Instead, they have come for Arslanbob’s annual walnut harvest. This traditional harvest has been repeated for hundreds of years. Villagers spend days in the forests, finished off with meals among friends and family or long evenings of drinking tea. Many residents spend months at a time in the forests, where daily life revolves around the trees—collecting walnuts, preparing them for sale in local markets, and carting them back to the village for profit.

Arslanbob is located in the center of Kyrgyzstan, at the end of a long road out of Jalal-Abad, the country’s third-largest city. The village’s surprisingly busy center buzzes with locals streaming in and out of minibuses and shared taxis, complemented by calls to prayer from the village mosque. The din of shoppers bargaining with vendors creates a lively atmosphere along a small road that crosses the town’s namesake river to the main bazaar. Nonetheless, wander down any street and this buzz gives way to the peaceful sounds characteristic of a rural village.

Arslanbob’s tourist-facing identity is built on its village vibe. The local community-based tourism (CBT) office emphasizes this. The office runs numerous social projects in Arslanbob—from installing park benches to establishing ski courses and organizing bike races. They believe tourism should help distribute income across the local community; thus, visitor experiences are constructed on this premise through a long roster of villagers keen to work with tourists. Travellers can stay in family-run guesthouses and enjoy home-cooked meals. Local guides offer excursions to nearby mountains and lakes. In autumn, as the walnut harvest commences, visitors can venture deep into the forests to experience this local tradition firsthand.

Life with a Local Family

Hosting travellers are locals like Anvar, whose family plot of land is around an hour’s walk from the center of Arslanbob. Each morning, before the sun has even crested the surrounding mountains, the children have already left their family tent to search for walnuts that have fallen from the branches overnight. After a breakfast of local borsook (fried bread) with fresh cream, the young boys will climb high into the trees and use their insubstantial body weight to shake even more nuts free. The sound of walnut husks bouncing from bough to bark to forest floor punctuates the day at irregular intervals. Meanwhile, the daughters of the family move in to fill sacks with the fallen fruits. While a slow year might see only 500kg collected, a good harvest can yield more than triple that. Regardless, the small additional income from hosting travellers, whether by offering a place to stay or just a midday meal, contributes to the thin profits Anvar’s family will rely on to make it through winter.

Traditions of Hospitality

Playing host to travellers and passers-by is a long-standing tradition in Arslanbob. Many claim that Alexander the Great’s soldiers once tarried here, wounded and weary, resting and hunting in these forests before continuing their long journey back to Europe—with pockets filled with nuts that would plant Greece’s first walnut forests. Regardless of the legend’s truth, modern tourists seek much the same: rest and an opportunity to immerse themselves in local life.

Life in the forest is simple, and visitors should anticipate limited services or infrastructure. However, sharing meals with a family and wandering through the forest each day presents many opportunities to connect with local culture. Laughs ensue as the youngest son climbs high in the trees. Economic insights arise as unshelled fruits become a currency accepted for trade at temporary stores that spring up along the forests’ dirt roads, providing essential commodities for families that would otherwise have to return to the village.

The other lingering reminder of these months in the forest, Anvar says with a smile, is his family’s hands. Dyed brown from the constant picking and shaking and peeling, the color of these oily shells lingers long into the winter, serving as a souvenir of the annual walnut harvest and staining the skin of tourists and locals alike as they live together among the trees. Visitors searching for an authentic cultural experience will discover a local tradition as unique as this hidden among the forests of Arslanbob.

Make it Happen

Arslanbob is located in southern Kyrgyzstan, a 3½-hour drive or bus ride from Osh. The local CBT office can arrange walnut excursions during the autumn harvest season, as well as treks, horse riding, camping, and homestays with local families year-round.