Postcard from Bishkek

About a year ago I was invited by Victor Kadyrov, the General Director of the Rarity Book Shop in Dom Druzhba – Friendship House – at the side of the main Ala Too Square to visit the shop. I think it’s the largest bookshop on Bishkek, (I don’t know the actual figures), but it could […]

Tonight, at the Opera and Ballet Theater in Central Bishkek, there will be a performance of one of the popular ballets of all time; at least one of the most performed – and for many companies, their main moneyspinner:  The Nutcracker by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky. The popularity of the ballet is, perhaps, somewhat surprising given […]

I often say that, “Every day is a special day … for someone”. It may be a religious or National holiday, and anniversary of some event that happened in the past, of a commemorative day – whether, that is, me it be one of the official UN designated theme days, or a locally designated Professional […]

It’s not often that an event at the Sotheby’s salerooms in London hits the headlines in Kyrgyzstan, but that’s what happened ten days, or so, ago. Some journalists seem to have come across an entry in a sale catalogue – for a Royal collar and and Beads dating from the fifth century, examples of the […]

  On 16th November, 1934, a Union of Artists was created in Frunze … the capital of the Kyrgyz SSR  - one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union.   It was one of a network of Artists’ Unions established across the Soviet Union … each based on a geographical region such as an […]

Yesterday, up in Issyk Kul, there was an event to commemorate the 110th anniversary of the novelist and playwright, Kasymaliev Dzhantoshev, and a presentation of a new five volume collection of his works published especially to mark the occasion. According to a report of the event, during his speech to the assembled crowd, Asylbek Jeenbekov, (the […]

On 7th October, 1974, Bishkek got a new monument – a statue of Toktogul Satyganov. It wasn’t the first monument dedicated to the people’s poet, who in 1933 – one had been planned in 1939, just six years after his death.  The sculptor Olga Manoluva was invited to create a monument and she designed a […]

Although the territory that we now know as Kyrgyzstan has a long and colourful history, unfortunately, there are not that many places where it is visibly evident.  The great Silk Road cities have virtually disappeared and all that remains are archaeological excavations.

The Zoological Museum is currently part of the Biological-Soil Institute of the Academy of Sciences. The collection was begun in the 1920′s – and was part of the Central Museum for the Study of Local Lore. Specimens were donated by scientists from various parts of the Soviet Union and were housed in a small single-storey building. In 1943 the […]

There is a little known monument in one of Bishkek’s less well known parks that was inaugurated on 26th July, 2008: The Good Angel complex in Fuchik Park. During the inauguration ceremony, the then Prime Minister, Igor Chudinov described it as the first monument to philanthropy in Kyrgyzstan. “This is not a monument, this is […]