Archive sections: ‘For the Record’
“Who drinks Kumys will live a century” “Kumys is man’s blood, air is his mind” To some people it is just fermented mare’s milk, but to the Kyrgyz it is a symbol of their nationhood – a gift from god from which they derive energy and inner strength. Today, variations are also made from camel’s [...]
The word “Orozo” is Kyrgyz for “fast” – refraining from eating. Orozo Ait is also known as the feast of “Eid al Fitr”. It is a celebration to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is the month in which Muslims believe the first verses of the Quran were revealed to the prophet Mohammed – [...]
Independence Day – 31st August – marks the formal declaration of independence of the Khirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (KSSR) from the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) in 1991.
The question of insurance of insurance has occupied my mind a lot in the last few months – but it’s been mainly a routine matter so I haven’t thought of commenting on it here. Routine? – yes, our policies were due for renewal in July so I spent time in June putting the proposal forms [...]
Homosexuality was legalized in Kyrgyzstan on 1st January 1998, with the repeal of Article 121 of the Soviet Criminal Code, after concerted pressure from international human rights organisations. Article 130 of the new criminal code – concerning “violent actions of a sexual nature” – punishes “homosexual, lesbian or other actions of a sexual nature resorting [...]
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 [...]
Crossing the border from Kyrgyzstan, over the Torugart Pass, or the newly opened (2002) Irkeshtam Pass, the first major town is the Uighur city of Kashgar – the farthest-west city in China. Kashgar is most famous for it’s Sunday Market, (“Asia’s most mind-boggling bazaar, a technicolour sea of people…. a photographer’s dream”). The Bazaar is [...]
The “Red Book” is a phrase used for a list of endangered species. The Red Data Book of the USSR (also known as the Krasnaya Kniga) was the Soviet Union’s contribution to the IUCN Red List maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural resources (IUCN – www.redlist.org). The book took [...]
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.
Saratan is a film made in 2005 by the Kyrgyz director Ernest Abdyjaparov, with financial assistance from Germany, and distributed in the West by a German company. The film was made more than ten years after the demise of the Soviet Union - when the various socialist republics suddenly found themselves with unexpected independence – which brought with it an economic malaise following the withdrawal [...]
