Postcard from Bishkek

Although, I am not an avid sports fan, over the last few days, I have been a little distracted – thanks to the traditional sport of Alysh. Normally, I might have scanned the sporting headlines for news about: the games being played out in the US Presidential Election Race, () Chelsea’s less than outstanding performance back […]

On 11th March, 1914, (although it was still the 26th February according to the Julian Calendar in use throughout Russia at that time), at the age of 87, Pyotr Semenov Tianshanski passed away in St. Petersburg from pneumonia. He is famous for a number of things – but the epithet Tianshanky, (which Tsar Nicholas II […]

March 6th, 1958 … and the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic, (one of the 15 constituent republics of the USSR), got itself a new Prime Minister – although he wasn’t actually called that, rather he carried the title, Chairman of the Council of Ministers. The man who assumed the post on that occasion was Kazy Dikambaevich Dikambaev. […]

To say that someone is in for the High Jump is an idiom in English which means that they going to be severely punished or reprimanded for something they have done wrong … apparently it was a reference to the ‘long drop’ from the gallows. As such, it has nothing to do with the sporting […]

Today is International Workers Day – commonly associated with the Labour,  movement but complete with links back to Spring festivities in Pagan Europe – which was one of the main holidays during the Soviet period. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the holiday has not been so prominently celebrated.  This year, in particular, overshadowing […]

Sabyrbek Akylbekov was one of the first generation of professional Kyrgyz artists … and one of the founder members of the Union of Artists when it was founded in 1934. He was born on 15th February, 1914, (some sources say the 14th), in the village of Kum Aryk in the Kalinin district of the Naryn […]

On March 2nd, 2015, the Prime Minister signed a government listing sixteen anniversaries that were earmarked for commemoration during the year as they were considered of being of “national value”. The order allocated 100000 som (about USD1600) for the official commemoration of each anniversary, but also noted that local administrations could allocate funds from their […]

Today marks the anniversary of the death of the Russian explorer Pyotr ‘Tianshansky’ Semenov in 1914. In all he made six forays into the Tien Shan and I have already written postcards describing his first and second forays into the Issyk Kul basin in 1856, and the start of his journey into the heart of the range the following […]

Manas is the hero of the Kyrgyz Epic Saga … and many consider that is fundamental to understanding how the Kyrgyz see themselves. Some years ago I was told something about the epic by someone that I would call a “secular Kyrgyz”, (by which I mean a “Russified Kyrgyz”  … someone who had been born […]

Josef Stalin is, perhaps, one of the most enigmatic characters in Soviet history … one man who was, at the same time, both a hero and a villain. Hero: The leader of the nation for thirty years, (from 1922 until his death in 1953), shaping the nation and bringing it into the modern world, leading […]