Tamchy, Kyrgyzstan

Tamchy is a village in the Issyk-Kul District of the Issyk-Kul Region of Kyrgyzstan. The name used to be transcribed into English as Tamchi, and some local road signs have it, surprisingly, as Tamczy, which seems to be based on the Polish orthography. The village stretches for a couple kilometers along the shore of a bay formed by promontories at Kosh Kol (to the west) and Choktal (to the east). A gently raising desert plain stretches for more than ten kilometers north of the village, towards the foothills of the mountain range that separates Issyk Kul basin from the Kemin Valley farther north. Remote snow-covered mountain tops can be seen from the village, and, on a clear day, one can see the Tian Shan mountains across the lake to the south.