Postcard from Bishkek

I passed a milestone last year … I was 60 - sixty years old, that is. I didn’t, however, make too much of a fuss about it … I made more of an effort at 30 - the so-called, dangerous age, 40 - the onset of middle-age after which, (at, least, according to the advertisers), you need “fortifying” […]

Tomorrow is Christmas Day here in Kyrgyzstan … Orthodox Christmas, that is. Back home, in the West, Christmas is more or less over. I say “more or less” because, technically, traditionally, the Christmas season ends today – The Twelfth Day of Christmas … Epiphany – the “manifestation” of Jesus as the Son of God and […]

This year is still very young … but there are definite signs that there is change in the air … possibly “revolutionary” changes – albeit without the political and social upheaval usually associated with that word … but definitely serious and radical changes … and they are emanating from an unlikely source … The Ministry […]

Back in 2007, the Kyrgyz Post Office issued a stamp showing a man looking awfully looking like Santa Claus: a jolly looking, “portly”, round faced old man with red cheeks, sporting a long white beard, and a flowing red coat … apart, perhaps, from the fact that he was wearing a white Kalpak – the […]

Today happens to be Beethoven’s Birthday … So, Happy Birthday, Ludwig!!! Actually, to be honest, no-one knows exactly when Beethoven was born. He was baptised on 17 December and his family celebrated his birthday on that date, but there is no documentary evidence that his birth was actually on 16 December. Now, considering how many […]

Today is the second of the St, George’s Day of 2013.  It’s actually St. Yuri’s Day, but Yuri is one of the Russian equivalents of George. In the Orthodox calendar, Russians commemorate two St. George’s Day: the first in the Spring falls on April 23rd – as in the West – but there is a […]

Today is the first day of Winter … in just a month’s time it will be New Year – the biggest holiday of the year. The place basically closes down for several days  - virtually all the shops close for New Year’s Day, January 1st, even the Narodniy supermarkets which are normally open all day […]

  Tomorrow is St. Andrew’s Day … Saint Andrew happens to be the Patron Saint of Scotland, so I wish all my Scottish readers a Happy St. Andrew’s Day. As it happens, Andrew is quite a popular Saint around the world … as well as being Scotland’s Patron Saint, he also fulfills that role for […]

A couple of weeks ago Andy put on his Facebook page a link to a poster … two boys had gone missing, one six years old and another as years old. He called me and asked me to put a link to it on my page as well, so that as many people as possible […]

Today happens to be International Students’ Day. The day owes its origins to the occasion in 1939 when Nazi authorities stormed the University of Prague to suppress student demonstrations – and executing some nine of their leaders, sending over a thousand of the others to concentrations … and led to the closure of Czech universities […]