Archive: April, 2010
The events in Bishkek on April 7th were dramatic and tragic. Over eighty people died in protests against the existing government which basically fell from office and were replaced by an interim government headed by former Foreign Minister Roza Atunbaeva. The President left the city to emerge later in his home village not far from [...]
There is a basic accounting problem that we encounter trying to run a business here in Kyrgyzstan: sometimes it can be very difficult to obtain a receipt for payments. If, for example, we have to travel from one part of town to another and have to catch a bus or take a taxi, then it [...]
Economists sometimes refer to the economy as being like an iceberg: split into two parts, with one visible above the “water line” and the other “hidden” below the surface. The ‘hidden’ part of the economy is basically any economic activity which is not reported to the authorities, is not included in statistics, and on which tax [...]
I have referred before to the fact that “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley …”, and this postcard is just another example of how right Robert Burns was when he made this sharp observation.
Last year, 2009, those of us working in Tourism spent a lot of time lobbying the powers that be about a new draft law “On Tourism“. It all began with a quiet announcement in the press to the effect that a new draft law “On Tourism” had passed its first reading in the Jogorku Kenesh, [...]
Apart from the Maevka incident, which was widely reported here and in Russia, but received only limited coverage in the West as far as I can tell – presumably because there was so much else going on in the world: elections, volcanic eruptions, sports matches and the like – everything is fairly quiet here. The [...]
The Kumtor Gold Mine is an open-pit gold mining site in the Issyk Kul oblast, about 350 km (220 miles) southeast of the capital Bishkek and 80 km (50 mi) south of Lake Issyk-Kul, near the border with China. It is said to be the seventh-largest gold deposit in the world and the world’s second highest [...]
“When I was a lad, I served a term, as office boy in an attorney’s firm …” sings Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty, in Gilbert and Sullivan’s popular operetta, “HMS Pinafore”. I sometimes joke that this is really “my song” because, although I wasn’t exactly a lad when I arrived here in [...]
The Tien Shan is the largest mountain range in Asia, in surface area; length (2800km); and width (at one point reaching 800 km wide) – with a total of 40 peaks over 6000m. It stretches across several countries and about much of the system lies in the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic. Extending over 2800km [...]
Just outside Balykchi is a statue of the Russian explorer Pyotr Petrovich Semyenov leading his packhorse. He was awarded the honorary title TienShansky by the Tsar in 1906, some 50 years after his expeditions, in recognition of his achievements.
