Current Time in Osh, Kyrgyzstan

Osh is the second largest city of Kyrgyzstan and the administrative centre of Osh Region, lying in the eastern part of the Fergana Valley in the south of the country. It stands on the Ak-Buura River where the fertile valley floor meets the foothills of the Pamir-Alay mountains, only a few kilometres from the border with Uzbekistan. The mountains rise steeply to the south, and the city has a warm, dry climate quite different from that of the capital.

About three hundred and forty thousand people live here, and Osh is often called the southern capital, since it functions as the political, commercial and cultural centre of a region that has its own strong identity. Its position on the routes towards China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan gives it lasting importance as a trading city.

Osh is one of the oldest settlements in Central Asia. Local tradition claims a history of three thousand years, and archaeological evidence supports occupation for at least two and a half millennia. It was a significant stop on the Silk Road, where caravans crossing the Pamirs from China descended into the Fergana Valley, and it was known for silk, cotton and its bazaar. The city passed through Turkic, Persian, Mongol and Kokandi rule before annexation by the Russian Empire. Its modern history has been marked by ethnic tension between Kyrgyz and the large Uzbek community, which erupted into serious violence in 1990 and again in 2010, events that still shape local politics.

The defining landmark is Sulaiman-Too, the Solomon's Throne, a craggy limestone mountain of five peaks that rises directly out of the city centre. It has been a place of pilgrimage for well over a thousand years, with caves, shrines, petroglyphs and a small mosque built by the future emperor Babur in 1510, and it became Kyrgyzstan's first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009. A museum is built into a cavern in its side. Below it lies the Jayma Bazaar, one of the largest and oldest markets in Central Asia, stretching for more than a kilometre along the river.

Culture in Osh is a blend of Kyrgyz and Uzbek traditions, reflected in food that includes some of the best plov and samsa in the region, in the tea houses along the river, and in the mixture of mosque architecture, Soviet monuments and mountain-nomad heritage. Traditional music played on the komuz, horse games and the crafts of felt-making and embroidery remain widely practised.

Transport is good. Osh Airport has frequent flights to Bishkek and to Russia and Turkey, the Pamir Highway begins here on its famous route towards Tajikistan, and the road over the mountains to the capital is one of the great drives in the region. The Irkeshtam pass leads east to China.

Osh State University is one of the largest in the country and attracts many international medical students, particularly from South Asia.

Osh is important as an ancient Silk Road city with a sacred mountain at its heart, and as the lively, complicated capital of southern Kyrgyzstan.