November 12, 2021 - took a picture of this sign for a ‘кымызкана’. кымыз (kumis) is a traditional Central Asian drink made from horse’s milk. I have heard that it is difficult to find kumis in Bishkek. In fact, the Wikipedia article on kumis makes reference to the fact that there is no large scale production of mare’s milk, meaning you can’t just buy it at the supermarket. Usually you find it for sale in villages. I tried some when I went to Issyk-Kul with my colleagues. The batch we had was particularly mild - it wasn’t very sour. I didn’t have a lot though because I’m slightly lactose intolerant and I was worried about what might happen if I had too much. Also, kumis is slightly alcoholic, but the alcohol content is fairly low so it’s not a good beverage choice if you are looking to get drunk.

кана is a word that means something like ‘a place/building’. For example, ашкана means ‘kitchen/cafeteria’ (аш: food + кана: place/building = a place where one can get food). дарыкана means ‘pharmacy’ (дары: medicine + кана: place/building = a place where one can get medicine). So кымызкана would mean a place where one can get кымыз. But given the rarity of кымыз in Bishkek, I wonder what kind of a place that was, or if that was just an advertisement for somewhere else