Postcard from Bishkek

To the South of Bishkek lies the Kyrgyz Ala Too, the Kyrgyz Range of mountains.  You can see them from the city center, rising majestically and towering over the city, and because the city was laid out in a grid pattern, (with streets running North-South and East-West), by the Russian military engineers who were charged […]

A souvenir is a momento or keepsake, valued for the memories that are associated with it.  The name actually comes from the French for remembrance or memory. Tourists often like to take things home with them that helps them to recall their holiday.  It could be something small and inexpensive,  a book or a recording, an […]

Today happens to be Stay out of the Sun Day – I wish I had remembered that last weekend when we took our regular trip up to Naryn, This time we made a number of Photo stops so that Maxim could snap away some more of his artistic creations – including one at the Lenin […]

On my recent trip up to Naryn I got a bit of a surprise … a pleasant surprise, I might add.  Normally, I don’t like surprises … but it was nice to see how things have improved. The road forms part of the main highway from Bishkek to Torugart – and as such is one […]

Saturday saw one of my rare, unfortunately all too rare, trips out of the office into the mountains. Having taken some of the family up to Issyk Kul, (warm lake), we decided to give the others, especially the youngest (Edic and Alicia), a day out.  This time we didn’t go far, just eighty kilometres outside […]

Well, I am back from my annual trip up to Lake Issyk Kul with some of the the kids.  This year we took Andrei and Maxim and their older brother Jenya, (the girls having already been up to the lake earlier in the season), and a couple of their school friends. There’s plenty of choice […]

They say that you can experience all four seasons in one day in Kyrgyzstan.  I have come across this myself in the past.  The mountainous nature of the terrain creates plenty of scope for microclimates in different valleys, varying with altitude, aspect, (North, South East or West facing), different soils creating habitats for differing types […]

Sunday was a rare “day off”. Tatiana, my accountant, has a friend, Anna, staying from Russia, and suggested going into the mountains so we decided to make a day of it. The obvious choice for a day trip from Bishkek is to go to one of the valleys in the Kyrgyz Krebet, just South of […]

I have just got back from my monthly trip to Naryn.  These trips are so much a part of my routine that I don’t normally write a postcard about them, but this one was slightly different, so I thought I would this time.

I wrote about Svetlana’s trip to Kashgar … well, she’s given me a report on the trip and I thought I would share with you some of her gems. At first I thought of revisiting and editing the page to include some quotes – but then I thought it might be better just to give […]