Archive: June, 2010
One of the oldest and best-selling data CD’s about Kyrgyzstan, (with photos, video, text, music, and maps), and the companion DVD, are both called: “Unknown Land Kyrgyzstan“.
John is a consultant who has been working on a project here in Kyrgyzstan, off and on, over the past two. His contract has finally come to an end and he flew out early this morning. From the airport he sent me an SMS to tell me that he was boarding, and to say “goodbye”. [...]
The week that has just passed has been like marking time in limbo as we await the referendum. When thinking of a theme for this week’s postcard I toyed with the idea of “Waiting for Godot” … the trouble is that in Beckett’s play, Godot never arrives. The government is intent that the Referendum should [...]
Here in Kyrgyzstan, people tend to consider June 1st as the first day Summer. This always strikes me as odd because when I was growing up, back in the UK, we used to consider that summer started on June 21st – the date of the Summer Solstice, when the sun’s path across the sky appears [...]
Hidden at over 3000 meters in the Ferghana range, about 100 km northwest of Djalal Abad, near the Kurgat Pass is the remote, small plateau of Saimaluu Tash. The name means “Patterned stone” and refers to the fact that here is a gallery of thousands of stone paintings – petroglyphs which are littered around the [...]
Petroglyphs – the word comes from the Greek (petra = “stone” and glyphe = “to draw”) and is used to denote pictures drawn or etched onto stones. These drawings, left for us on high rocks and in deep caves can provide evidence of the way of life and the environment of times gone by when there was [...]
This week has been a real “roller coaster” of a week, full of ups and downs, twists and stomach churning turns. The worst was probably watching the news and reading accounts of the events down South as the week unfolded. Remember that I am based here in Bishkek, and so I don’t have any direct [...]
Unfortunately things don’t always go right … even in the the best run establishment, things can go wrong, problems can arise, and grounds for complaint can occur. There are some people who complain “at the drop of a hat”, who think nothing of making a scene at even the smallest mistake or mishap, whilst others [...]
It might seem surprising, but despite the events in Kyrgyzstan since April, there are still tourists visiting the country … not many, but the season is not “as dead as a doornail”. Not yet, at least.
Shortly after we opened our hotel in Bishkek we held a “review meeting”, to see how things were going, what needed attention, and so on. One of the staff expressed the view that things were going well, that we had been through all of the situations we could expect to meet, had dealt with them [...]
