One thing I’ve noticed about a lot of Central Asian houses is just how sparsely furnished they are. A family usually owns a dining room table, a table for the topchan outside, a bunch of chairs, some couches in the guesting rooms, maybe a wall cabinet unit for memories, and possibly a few desks and wardrobes in the bedrooms. You probably have noticed that beds are not on that list. In fact, my room is the only room in my house that actually has a bed in it.
A lot of people across Central Asia spend their time sitting, relaxing, eating, and indeed, sleeping on the ubiquitous, portable, and ever-useful thin mattress-like тышык (tyshyk). Tyshyks are about two inches thick, made out of bright prints, sometimes even velvet, and stuffed with wool. In some places, they get re-stuffed each year. Most families must own at least 20, and possibly more, because they are so ubiquitously useful.
When you sit down to a picnic, the family pulls out some tyshyks to sit on. At dinner on the topchan, they’ll roll out a few extra to sit on as well. They get rolled out to sit on in the guesting room when watching a movie, and should a guest need to stay the night, a few might get stacked to make a quick bed anywhere it’s needed in the house. They even use them to add extra padding on beds if they have them.
It’s not just guests, though; everyone in my family sleeps every day on the floor on tyshyks. Some have “queen size” double-width tyshyks, while others use single-person-width tyshyks. Some like a bit more padding than others, while others only sleep on just one. In Tajikistan’s hot summer, my grandmother even rolled one out to sleep on outside on more than a few occasions.
Back in July, some of my fellow volunteers were coming to visit, and lo and behold, we rolled out two sets of tyshyks into beds for them, folding over the end to even have “pillows.” It seemed so simple, and they said they slept so well, that I decided to give it a try.
I haven’t slept in my bed since.
Instead, I tried making a tyshyk bed out of two tyshyks (too firm!), then four (that’s better). I tried folding once for a pillow, then twice, then no folds at all with a real pillow. It’s almost infinitely customizable, and the materials you need are just four tyshyks, a pillow, a flat sheet, a pillowcase, and in the winter, a duvet-tyshyk (the blanket version uses the same word) and a cover, and you’ve got a bed you can customize. Forget about paying $300 for the cheapest mattress you can find at Ikea!
There’s a lot of advantages to this system. Obviously it’s very customizable. Another bigger advantage is that every single house or yurt I go to has a large stack of them, so no matter where I am, my bed and sleeping arrangement feels the exact same as it does at home. Besides just that, I can roll up and neatly fold away my bed when I’m not using it and I want to use that space on the floor for something else, like yoga (although my room is so massive that this never happens).
I’ve never gotten an explanation for why this sleep system is so popular, but I have a few theories. One, it’s definitely cheaper than buying equivalently comfortable mattresses and frames. Two, it’s really comfortable! Three, from a nomad’s perspective, being able to roll out a red carpet for guests at a moment’s notice while just as easily being able to pack the bedding into the back of a horse-cart is a highly prized feature. Unlike air mattresses, tyshyks never pop and don’t require a pump or a functioning electric current. An added bonus for me, as a Tall Person, having a bed that I can make longer than 5’10 is a very welcome perk!
It’s a Peace Corps requirement that volunteers’ rooms be furnished with a bed frame and mattress. But, as I’ve learned in two countries now, sometimes the most comfortable bed is no bed at all!