Balykchy

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Balykchy is a town with a population about 40,000 people located at the western end of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan, at 42°28′N 76°11′E and an elevation of about 1900 meters. A major industrial and transport center (wool and crop processing, lake shipping, rail terminal, and road junction) during the Soviet era, it lost most of its economic base after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the closure of virtually all of its industrial facilities.

It was named Rybachye (fishing place in Russian) during the Soviet era. In the early 1990s, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the town was known as Issyk-Kul, taking the name of the adjacent lake. Shortly after independence, its name was changed to Balykchy [1]which means fishing place in Kyrgyz language.

The main road from Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, to China named Silk Path for many decades in past centuries went through Balykchy before it started its long and arduous way across the Alpine ranges of Naryn oblast in central Kyrgyzstan to the Chinese border at Torugart Pass. Plans for rail road are now under discussion for a link from China to Balykchy, where the line from Bishkek currently ends.