Archive: May, 2010
This week saw revelations in a Sunday newspaper about a “Sting” operation, where a journalist pretended to be an international businessman and recorded the Duchess of York “selling access” to her former husband, Prince Andrew – who has a sort of “roving ambassador” for British Trade and Industry. For some five hundred thousand pounds, it [...]
I had a visit the other from yet another journalist who wanted to take an interview about the state of tourism in the country. This time it’s for an article to appear in a new journal which is being planned to be published here in Bishkek by a European publishing house. It will be in [...]
My father used to have a phrase he would use to say whenever he was astounded by something: “Well, I’ve got a bloody hell …!”. A friend of mine, Paul, had another phrase which he would use in similar circumstances: “The things you see when you haven’t a gun!”
Bishkek is known as the Greenest City on Earth, and it owes this honour, largely, to one man, Alexei Fetisov. Aleksei Fetisov has been described by Daniel Prior as “one of Pishpek’s most brilliant and energetic early enthusiasts”. He is credited with creating the “central greenway” – centered around Prospekt Erkindik – and laying the [...]
Bishkek is renowned for being a “green” city, with more trees per head of population than any other city in Central Asia. It owes this distinction to the Russian Army Engineers who drew up the plans for the city when it became the regional headquarters towards the end of the nineteenth century, and to individuals [...]
Saturday morning saw something a little strange … I got out of the office for the morning! It doesn’t happen that often! When I eventually returned, Lisa took one look at me and said, “You’ve been in the sun, you’re sunburnt.”
I have some “house guests” at the moment … four of the baseball kids are staying with me … they called me late in the evening on Monday night a few weeks ago to tell me that the roof on their house had “fallen in” and landed on two of the girls. They were obviously [...]
About 520 km from Bishkek, 125 km (1.5 hours), from Naryn, 17 km from the end of the paved road (just after the emergency airstrip) 90 km (1.5 hours) short of the border at Torugart, and at an altitude of about 3500m above sea level is the ancient caravanserai of Tash Rabat. According to one [...]
There has been a big change over the years in the questions I get asked about my being here in Kyrgyzstan. The main question that I used to be asked was how I came to end up here, in small, remote, country, so far from home. In recent times, however, the question I seem to [...]
The events of 6th and 7th of April in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, were nothing short of extraordinary. They brought with them great sadness, renewed hope, tragic destruction, victorious triumph and, above all, confusion about what to do next. Ian Claytor, General Director of the Celestial Mountains Companies in Kyrgyzstan, has lived in Bishkek for nearly 15 [...]
