Postcard from Bishkek

Vasily Radlov was born Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff, in Berlin on 17th January, 1837; the only child of a local police commissioner.  The change of name is just one of the fascinating things about his story. In 1854, after finishing school, he enrolled at university and studied Philosophy.  His initial interest was in Theology but he […]

Arthur C. Clarke once wrote a short story tells of how a relatively unknown and insignificant scientist leading a humdrum and ordinary life during the Cold War is persuaded by a couple of strangers to change his name  … not in any major way, just by a single letter … and, they promise, his life […]

There is an old adage that you shouldn’t judge a horse by the harness. The Kyrgyz sage Toulbai wouldn’t have been fooled by harness – he was renowned for his knowledge of horses.  People would bring him their horses and ask for his advice. For example, they might ask if a particular horse was good […]

I have mentioned, several times, that there used to be a website which stated that “Kyrgyzstan is not particularly well endowed with festivals” … which, in my opinion, is grossly unfair.  They may not always be the best organized affairs, but there are a wide variety of festivals giving visitors the chance to see (and […]

On 24th March, 1907, a new institution opened its doors for business for the first time: the Pishpek Mutual Credit Society – Bishkek’s first local bank.  (At the time, Bishkek was called Pishkek.) Things have changed a lot since those days … Actually, There were other financial institutions around, which is understandable as Kyrgyzstan lay on […]

A recent report in the Daily Telegraph caught my eye … apparently the residents of a small rural town in southern England were surprised to discover that their housing estate, built back in the 1960′s, is shaped like a swastika. Nobody seems to have noticed the resemblance before – until, that is, it was spotted in […]

Konstantin Petrovich Kaufman was born on 19th February, 1818, (O.S. – that is according to the Julian Calendar … in most of the world where the Gregorian Calendar operated it was 2nd March) – although some sources suggesting it was one day later. He was to play a vital role in the Russian expansion into […]

Some years ago I went on a trip and one of the places where stayed was in a homestay.  On the television that particular evening there happened be a performance by one of the leading manaschi … and our hostess, shamefacedly lowered her voice and almost whispering told me a secret … “I don’t really […]

In a previous postcard, written to commemorate the birthday of Pyotr Semenov, (the Russian explorer whose accounts of his journey and the samples he took back to St. Petersburg opened the Tien Shan Mountains to Western science – for which he was given the honourary title Tienshansky), I gave a summary of his first foray […]

Today would have marked the birthday of an interesting character in Kyrgyzstan’s history: Djumabekov Asankulovovich Asankulov, who served two terms as the head of the KGB in Kyrgyzstan, (from 1967-78 and 1989-1991). The KGB, (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti – Committee for State Security), was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 – when it […]