The snow capped mountains of Tash-Bashat, around 345 kilometres southwest of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.
During winter, this remote woodland can only be accessed by horse.
It’s home to the Bugu Maral deer farm where Maksatbek Orozbek uulu tends to the animals, feeding them grass and oats.
He lives nearby with his wife and young daughter in a simple wooden house surrounded by snow. There is no electricity, mobile network or water supply. He spends the whole day taking care of the deer.
In this area the temperatures often fall to around minus 40 Celsius. Orozbek uulu and his co-workers shelter from the cold during their workday and enjoy a home cooked meal.
“Every morning, I wake up at eight to eight-thirty and feed my horse. I then feed deer. And I spend around one hour to walk by foot and feed the deer. I come back, eat and then go get some wood, so that the kids do not freeze. And soon it is evening, I then go feed deer again, as they need to be fed two times a day. Since we live 5 kilometres from the village, it is not possible to live there. I have two kids, the oldest is four-years-old. He lives with his grandmother and grandfather, where he goes to a kindergarten. And my daughter lives with me, as well as my wife,” says Orozbek uulu.
He says he was not able get a higher education and decided to move to the mountains to live in the middle of nature.
“When I was finishing school, I wanted to enter a university, but there was no opportunity and I did not enter. But I like nature, I want to live among the animals, trees, in the mountains. What can you do in the village? You stay around with friends, drink alcohol and smoke. It is better in the mountains. Are there better places than mountains with clean air? I like the deer and this area. I’ve worked three years already. I began to work in 2014. I got married in 2011, which is six years already.”
The Bugu Maral Reserve is one of many deer sanctuaries and was set up nearly 30 years ago.
It’s part of the larger Naryn State Reserve which is a protected area for conservation and scientific research.
Head of Forest Protection at Naryn State Reserve, Orozobek Aliev explains the background to the Bugu Maral deer sanctuary.
“This farm Bugu Maral was organised back in 1988 with a government decree. In the beginning, they were catching one or two. Then, when the USSR fell down, nothing was left. And only in 1997, they began to raise, catch fawns of deer, which were born in the territory of the reserve. Currently, there are 22 deer. The main target of raising the deer is to get as many deer as possible and to transfer them to other Kyrgyz reserves. This is the first and the main goal. And the second task is to set up a viewing farm.”
Aliev says his team helps look after the deer during the harsh winter when there isn’t much food available for them. But he says predators are always a problem.
“On the territory of our reserve there is around 300 wild deer. We count them every spring and autumn, but I think there might be more of them. There could have been even more deer, but their main foes are wolves. For example, right now, the height of the snow is one metre and high in the mountains there is nobody, we can’t get there, but the wolves can, and they are killing them. If it weren’t for the wolves, there would be more deer.”
The oldest deer in the farm is 17 year old Kanybek. All other deer usually leave the farm for the mountains in the summer, but Kanybek prefers to stay.
“It is the oldest of all of these. It is very friendly with people. It does not even leave in the summer, it stays here. A man when he gets old also needs help and it needs us. During the summer, it eats cookies, sweets,” says Aliev.
Red Deer are farmed throughout the world for their antlers.
Male deer grow antlers during the spring and they are usually shed in the winter. The antlers of Red Deer are used in some medicines and supplements.
(AP)
