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This is not your father’s typical Festive Fans show. We’re trading our usual sentimental exploration of Christmas nostalgia for something more rugged, more physical, and a lot more harrowing. While we typically are on a pleasant exploration searching for festive holiday cheer, this one is more like a challenging expedition. So, lace up your hiking boots and come join us. We’re heading for Kyrgyzstan, a mountainous country where the scenery is breathtaking, the roads are nerve-racking, and this podcast is reaching new heights. It is a country of enormous mountains. The Tian Shan range dominates the entire landscape with its long, snow-capped ridges.
We also grapple with a difficult question. Can we find Christmas in Kyrgyzstan, even though the country is predominantly Muslim? The irony is you will find big, decorated trees, holiday gifts and outdoor markets here — they even have Ayaz Ata or “Father Frost” — but they are all part of the New Year’s celebration, rather than Christmas. The big public events are on January 1, while Orthodox Christmas arrives on January 7. There is a small Christian community, but they celebrate mostly with church services, carols, and quiet family events.
While we came looking for holiday cheer in this Central Asian nation, we instead watched Dicing with Death: The Father Christmas of Kyrgyzstan. This documentary made a sharp turn into the mountains and gave us a new way to consider our Kyrgyzstan visit. We have seen Christmas movies in which Santa has to navigate a blizzard, but not ordinary locals in an old Russian truck. The “Father Christmas” of the title has no sleigh or flying reindeer. Instead of a large jolly man with a sack full of presents, we watch two men journey along treacherous mountain roads to deliver clementines to children in remote villages for their only holiday treat. The children look forward to these rare fruits all year. This documentary lets us admire the breathtaking landscape, while also appreciating it’s brutal conditions. In Kyrgyzstan, even bringing joy to children can require a dangerous trek worthy of an epic.
This is a country where a short trip involves crossing an icy mountain pass. And if you happen to think that a clementine is an underwhelming Christmas present, watch how far they travel and the risks they take to make this delivery. After such a hazardous journey, these clementines look more precious than anything we put under our Christmas trees. Especially when you consider that these are real people featured in this film, who go to extraordinary lengths just to brighten the lives of children who are strangers.
We set out this episode to scale the mountains in search of a holiday story, but we may have reached the peak with these ambitious residents delivering their special fruit. Somewhere between the New Year decorations, the old-world customs and traditions, and the battered old truck inching through the bitter cold, we found what we had come looking for. The Spirit of Christmas is alive in Kyrgyzstan.
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Listen to this episode of Festive Foreign Film Fans podcast
Author: Bob & Mark
Title: Season 4, Episode 3 – Dicing with Death: The Father Christmas of Kyrgyzstan (Kyrgyzstan)
/ @closertochristmas… 
