Jalal-Abad - A not too atractive city with a Barça Academy


Jalal-Abad is definitely not the most attractive city in Kyrgyzstan, but it was a convinient stopover on my way to Osh. In travel blogs and portals you find virtually nothing about the city (only the area), but I discovered a few interesting things. One of them is what could be the smallest church in Kyrgyzstan, which is basically an old one-story house with a tiny "belltower" and cross attached to it. Then, if you don't have time to visit Arslanbob, there are many walnut trees in Jalal-Abad as well. But what surprised me the most was the Barça Academy. On my map it is marked as "brick factory", but instead there is a modern complex. It's fairly new, and for the opening some of the stars of the Barcelona football team visited Jalal-Abad. You can have a good view of it, as well as of the city, from a hill behind it. Another unexpected thing is a Polish war memorial, not far from the Barça Academy. It stands next to a cemeterey where both Muslims and Christians are buried. The rest of the city has a typical post-Soviet atmosphere, complete, of course, with a Lenin statue. But this is also different a bit, as the Russian revolutionary sits in this case instead of standing. Jalal-Abad otherwise is quite cheap: on the first night our host sent us to one of the poshest restaurants, and my 2-course dinner was around 500 som! And at last, I tried the famous beshbarmak, a dish with greasy pasta and horse meat, accompanied by a perfect cheese cake. 
 














































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