Archive sections: ‘Life In Kyrgyzstan’
As I have said before, I enjoy “Trivial Pursuits” – not just the game itself, but simply gathering useless but gathering interesting and unusual facts. For example – Do you know: who won the first ever Gold Medal in the modern Olympic Games in 1896?, (for the record it was: James Connolly of the United [...]
I was taken aback and intrigued by an email that arrived over the weekend. It really grabbed my attention. A film crew are preparing a documentary film on camels and I was asked if I had any advice for them.
In Britain, August is known as the “Silly Season” – the period during the summer months typified by the emergence of frivolous news stories in the media due to the “lack of hard news” as people are away on their holidays and governments and businesses close down for the holidays. It’s the same here. The [...]
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and is considered a holy months, although the name itself probably comes from an earlier time. As the Islamic calendar is a lunar one, then the date of Ramadan according to the Gregorian Calendar changes each year.
On Wednesday of this week, I had a meeting with a friend and we had arranged to meet in a local cafe for a light lunch. When we had appointed the time and place for the meeting, we had only consulted our diaries to see when we would both be free … and so we [...]
A news item during the week attracted my attention: “Kyrgyz yachtsmen Ignatiev and Soleny won Royal race of 20 miles in Thailand“ Kyrgyz yachtsmen wining a race in a sailing regatta? … but Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country. As it says in the CIA World Factbook: “Coastline: 0 km (landlocked);” It goes on to record under [...]
Following last week’s postcard about developments in Kyrgyz Cinema … I was intrigued to come across a news item about a young Kyrgyz born filmmaker, Dair Karakeev. The story appeared in a youth orientated newspaper, “Limon“, (“Lemon”), because although the hour and a half long film is not due to receive its premiere until September, [...]
Douglas Adams, the author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“, (HHGTTG or H2G2 to aficionados), may be famous for his answer to “the great question of … Life, the Universe and Everything … “, (that is: “forty-two”), but his quirky sense of humour also resulted in a number of interesting “one liners”. One of [...]
Almost two weeks ago, we marked my fifteen years here in Kyrgyzstan. Today, Saturday August 7th, we mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of our hotel, The Silk Road Lodge, here in Bishkek. Birthdays and Anniversaries are taken very seriously here in Kyrgyzstan. People like to take every opportunity for holding a celebration. When [...]
During the week I cam across a news item headed: “Initiative group translates famous Kyrgyz movies into English“. According to the article, a group of Kyrgyz citizens living abroad have put together a plan for a Festival of Kyrgyz films, and in preparation for this have already translated several films into English, such as: Gennadiy [...]
