Postcard from Bishkek

As I mentioned in a previous postcard the Oxford English Dictionary declared selfie as the Word of the Year for 2013, citing its rapid increase in usage as the reason for their choice.  Well, the selection of the guardians of the English language has a competitor … in the choice of the American Dialect Society: because. Now, […]

A short time ago I saw an article about the attractions of Central Asia and the traveling along the Great Silk Road.  One of the options it highlighted was Soviet Tourism. I have long felt that here in Kyrgyzstan we don’t make enough of Soviet Heritage when pointing out the attractions of the country  In […]

It may not look very impressive, but the photograph on the right was the result of many years of work and effort and was a staggering effect on life in the modern world; it was one of the first photographs ever taken with a camera and the oldest that survives.  It represents the view from […]

Of the six basic questions in life, (Kipling’s “six honest serving men”: Who?, Where?, When?, What?, How? and Why?), five are basically descriptive and the last one – Why? – is analytical, giving an explanatory justification.  Also, it can often involve speculation.  It’s a very powerful question – perhaps the most powerful of them all. There’s […]

A few years ago I was in a meeting where one speaker stood up to make a point and once having been granted the floor would not release to podium until, basically, the microphone was turned off.  Actually, I felt that the point he was making was a perfectly valid one … that the document […]

  Christmas is over … at least, in the West … and Boxing Day traditionally marks the opening of “Holiday advertising season” as people’s minds turn to the question of where to go for their next major break.      Going away on holiday is supposed to be a pleasurable experience … and in most […]

I suppose that, like most people, the first time I came across the acronym MICE, I thought of rodents – little furry creatures that either make us cringe as they scurry around … or fawn over as cuddly, adorable and humourous characters, (such as Mickey or Jerry). Working in Tourism, it was only a brief […]

A few years ago I was asked by a friend where he could take his wife ind in-laws for a weekend away. As it happens, he knows Kyrgyzstan quite well, (his wife is Kyrgyz), and he had already been to many places around Bishkek. He wanted to avoid the obvious places like Ala Archa, which […]

A short while ago we did a short presentation of the hotel for a group of students following a Hotel Management course at one of Bishkek’s universities. As I understood the request, the idea may simply to get them out of the classroom and into a real hotel … it wasn’t clear how many of […]

One of the problems of being an Englishman here in Kyrgyzstan is that I am often about English, like questionhs “How do you say in English, xxx?“, where “xxx” can be a simple word, or a complicated phrase … and I sometimes have to think hard to some up with an answer; especially if I […]