In Kyrgyzstan, the services rendered by healers are so popular that some consider it good luck to get an appointment with some of them. However, after a while, the results of this hype turn out to be ambiguous.
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The country has a demand for alternative medicine along with state and private medical practice. The former expands due to citizens who call themselves as folk healers, witch doctors and possessors of the special gift of healing.
There’s a difference between witch doctors: some practice mental healing and use low potency medicinal herbs, and do not dare to treat serious illnesses. Others promise to heal from a variety of abnormalities, even from oncological diseases, by various rituals and prescribe high potency herbal teas.
Their services are not free of charge. Some leave it up to their clients to determine the fee, others have special fees from a few hundred som per visit (2.5-5 dollars) and so on. Very often, the “therapy” can consist of a few visits.
If just a few decades ago rural residents used to visit healers, this is not so today. Various categories of people make appointments: wealthy and educated, the elderly and young, the poor, the middle class, urban and rural residents.
There may be some reasons why people prefer to go to folk healers instead of conventional doctors: some want to believe in miraculous healing, others decide to go to alternative medicine because of medical errors or their improper conduct, according to psychologist Aizada Tanaeva. Another critical factor is the financial capacity of people, she said. Sometimes prices of medical services and medications become a real obstacle to low-income citizens, and their faith lets them improve their health if their disease is not grave.
Promotional newsletters, roll captions on TV channels, internet forums and social media in towns and the capital are riddled with promises of miraculous healing.
Despite the large number of healers and witch doctors in Bishkek and Chui region, the very few of them agreed to meet with our photo reporter and tell about their work.
Those of them who permitted to take photos of them and their work for the photo report on CABAR.asia, said they warned their visitors honestly of the diseases they could treat from, and what they could not treat. According to them, sometimes doctors become their clients, and what they prescribe or do during the therapy is not only safe, but also has positive impact on the patients’ health.
Syiagul Nazarbekova, whom many people call Nur-apa, performs the ritual of treatment with the use of a ‘kamcha’. According to Syiagul Nazarbekova, she treats mainly “heartaches”, helps to kill the hoodoo, “clear” the way in business and personal life. She receives people in the village of Panfilovka, which is one-hour-ride westward of Bishkek.
Tools of the folk healer. Nazarbekova said that beads help to meditate, the knife puts off and expels malignant fiends, the kamcha (thong) has a benefit to health.
According to Syiagul Nazarbekova, the gift to heal various diseases was given to her by inheritance – her grandmother was a ‘bubu’ (sorceress).
Syiagul Nazarbekova is examining her patient. She said people must be “clean both in thoughts and in deeds” not to concentrate “unclean and evil spirits within them.” She also said that she could feel the illness once she passed her hand over the body of a patient.
Folk healer Fatima Duva of the village of Vinogradnoye, near Tokmok, is disenchanting the child and removing black energy by means of burning paper.
According to Fatima Duva, she was born a very sick girl. Her grandmother, who could treat illnesses, took care of her. She does not charge a fixed rate; she accepts whatever the patients give to her.
Fatima Duva treats not only with her hand or spell, but also gives various medications that she orders from China.
Folk healer Bubuzainap Ashyrova is treating the patient. She said that she takes negative energy with her palm off the patient.
According to her stories, she was treating patients since 1991, after the completed the courses of folk healers in Khudzhand, northern Tajikistan. Her predecessors were healers, too. According to Ashyrova, the secret of her treatment is in medications that she prepares from 178 kinds of medicinal herb, as well as in her natural energetic ability. Bishkek, 19 Feb 2021.
Folk healer Bubuzainap Ashyrova is transferring the energy via her palms and treating the patient.
Folk healer Bubuzainap Ashyrova said that she could treat remotely. She passes her hand over the girl’s photo. The girl is suffering from meningitis and is currently staying in Russia.
The woman sips ‘uu korgoshun’ (Aconite is a species of poisonous perennial plants belonging to the buttercup family) from the tea bowl.
Healer Azharbubu Zhamankulova treats with ‘uu korgoshun’. According to her, she treats such diseases as diabetes, hypertension, goitre, kidney and many other diseases. Folk healer Azharbubu Zhamankulova treats with both aconite and hand action currents.
Folk healer Daiyr Zhaichyev said that he treats mental, psychic and nervous diseases, as well as skin diseases, various diseases of the internal organs. He has accepted patients for six years, the fee is 500 som (about 6 dollars).
Folk healer Daiyr Zhaichyev is trying to treat the man from alcoholism by suggestion. The healer forces the patient to make a burp so that the disease ‘comes out’ of his body.
Folk healer Daiyr Zhaichyev is treating the hand ulcer of the patient who came to him from Issyk-Kul region with a knife.
Ulan-Bek said he is a folk healer, a psychic medium and a foreteller. On the photo, Ulan-Bek ‘charges the water with energy and performs the rite ‘dem salu’, which can be literally translated as ‘filling with energy’.
Ulan-Bek is driving out the evil spirits from Aida’s head with a knife. Aida said that after sessions with the medium, her sleep improved, and panic was gone. She became cheerful.
Ulan-Bek is performing ‘dem salu’ while reciting the Quran.
Nargiza (not her real name) worked for more than 10 years in Moscow and had a cyst removed there. But the disease returned, and in 2019 she again had a surgery in Kyrgyzstan and a part of the colon was removed. In 2020, she had putrefactive discharge and the woman came to folk healer Azharbubu who treated her with ‘uu korgoshun’. According to the woman, she felt better after 45 days of treatment. Bishkek, 26 Feb 2021.
Shaiyrbek Khidirov is walking with crutches in the hall of the National Oncology Centre.
Two years ago, he had a tumour in the inner thigh. Then it increased and became the size of an egg and it was feeling sore. Doctors in Osh referred him to the National Oncology Centre in Bishkek. Doctors here were going to remove the tumour by surgery, but Shaiyrbek learned about a miraculous healer – mullah from Osh, and refused from the surgery. According to Shaiyrbek, the healer promised to cure him within two months. Every session cost him 200 som. In these months, the tumour grew and blew out, and the pain got worse. When Shaiyrbek came again to the hospital, he was told that the malignant tumour was putting his life at risk – his right leg was cut off. The man neglected the ailment and lost his leg. Now he is angry with himself for his naivety and blind confidence. Bishkek, National Oncology and Haematology Centre, 05 Feb 2021.
If we could cure oncological diseases with herbs or magic, I wouldn’t be working at a hospital. I would we curing people with miraculous herbs and methods, said Turusbek Abdyldaev, Doctor of Medicine, Professor, head of the chemotherapy department of the National Oncology Centre.