Take a long piece of cloth or ribbon, add a blob of mud to it, and hurl it high onto the ceiling of the grotto. If it sticks, your wishes will come true. If the ribbon falls flat on the ground, well you can either give up, or try again. 🙂
It is a ritual which people from across Turkmenistan carry out at the 50-metre-high grotto in Lebap Province, in remote north-east Turkmenistan. Starting a new job, getting married, or want a baby—it would not be amiss to make a pilgrimage here first.
The cumulative result of this act of faith and millions of wishes is a grotto, along with a web of smaller caves around it, sheathed in hedgehog-like stalactites. Except that instead of being made of some mineral concoction, they are of bright swaths of cloth.
Turkmen believe that a saint once lived in this grotto located at the end of a deep canyon, and that the spring inside has healing properties.
I met these two sisters the day I went. One managed to make her ribbon stick. The other could not figure out where it fell. Either way, they were in the best of spirits as we walked back together through the canyon to the entrance at the road-facing end.
[Note: This blog post is part of a series from my travels to Turkmenistan for 12 days in October 2023. To read more posts in my Turkmenistan series, click here.]
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Wow, this blog post on the Kyrk Giz Grotto is absolutely captivating! The way it describes the ribbons and mud sticking together creates such a vivid image. I’m already daydreaming about visiting this magical place. Thanks for sharing!
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Welcome to my blog, Eugenio. Am happy you enjoyed the post. Turkmenistan is full of unusual places. I had a look at your blog. You have written some very interesting posts!
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What a beautiful story. There is great power in faith and power evidenced by all those ribbons! Thank you for writing about this.
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Faith keeps the world going round. 🙂 It is interesting how faith takes different forms and beliefs, both structured and unstructured, across the world, yet is one of the most common threads all humans share.
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Wow! What a beautiful ritual! 👌well shared
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Thank you, Priti. 🙂 It is an incredible place. Huge, with zillions of strips of cloth, accompanied with hopes and laughter. Quite unlike anything I have ever seen.
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☺️🙏
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Fantastic Rama. Did you have a go and succeed?
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Hehe, no. Stopped making wishes many years ago. 🙂 What Is meant to be, will be.
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NICE POST 🌷🌺🌹
Blessed and Happy afternoon from 🇪🇸
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Many thanks! 🙂
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NICE 💚💓💖
Blessed and Happy day 🌞
Greetings from 🇪🇸
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Love it.
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Thank you. 🙂 Glad you enjoyed reading it.
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Something new that I did not know! Excited to read more from your travels, Rama
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Thank you, Arvind! Turkmenistan is full of ‘new’ experiences. It is a very special country. 🙂
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Awaiting to be unveiled on your blog, Rama
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🙂 Coming up tomorrow, it’s three UNESCO world heritage sites — all three were world cities in the ancient/ medieval world.
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Great
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