Postcard from Bishkek

One of the side effects of the postcards from Bishkek is that I sometimes get approached by a wide variety of people with diverse questions, which may be purely a request for information – (for example, for a school project – or maybe the contact details for the Minister of Tourism), or requests for help […]

On 30th October, 1947, The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), was founded … which became the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which came into being on 1st January, 1995. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the […]

At the intersection of Prospects Chui and Molodaya Gvardia, (The Avenue of the Young Guards), in downtown Bishkek, there is a striking memorial depicting two soldiers on a granite pedestal – a young Russian in a Red Army helmet, dressed in an Army coat and boots, holding a rifle in his hands. Next to him […]

On October 3rd, 2009, the presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkey signed the Nakhchivan Agreement on the Establishment of Turkic Council –  or, to give it its full title, the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States, (CCTS; in Turkish: Türk Dili Konuşan Ülkeler İşbirliği Konseyi - TDİK ). As a result, today has been designated the Day of Turkic […]

In Saturday’s postcard I mentioned that I had been invited to a ceremony at a school, Bilimkana, in Luxembourg, a village about 20 kilometers East of Bishkek. It was a two fold celebration, to mark Posledniy zvonok, the last day of the school year and also the an opening ceremony.  When I first heard about […]

Most days the doorbell rings and a little old lady hands over the newspapers which I eagerly take, and start scanning before anyone else gets their hands on them,  If I don’t, then there’s a good chance that I won’t ever get to see them as someone else will pick them up and that’s the […]

Over the weekend there was an “Avalanche Warning” issued by the Ministry of Emergency Situations, in connection with the forecast of more snow due in the next few days. The Ministry of Emergency Situations, (MChS), was established just before Kyrgyzstan declared Independence from the Soviet Union. In December 1990, The Council of Ministers in Moscow adopted […]

January 21st , 2008, is known as “Black Monday” in worldwide stock markets.  The London “FTSE 100″ had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since 11 September 2001, and Asian stocks dropped as much as 14%. Although it is a bit of a closed world to me, (I […]

I got a bit lazy over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, after all, the office was closed and I wasn’t expecting visitors or having to go to any meetings. For several days I didn’t shave. One day, Maxim told me he was going top have a hair cut and then suggested that I might […]

On 20th December, 1998, Kyrgyzstan joined the World Trade Organization, (WTO). It was a somewhat controversial step because there was an informal agreement between the members of the Central Asian Economic Union and the Customs Union, (no, not the one that is currently in the news), that such a step should only be undertaken through […]