Archive: July 20th, 2010
In Soviet times the shores of Lake Issyk Kul were home to over a hundred Sanatoria, most of them clustered around Cholpon Ata on the Northern Shore – although some returning Cosmonauts were brought to a sanatoria at Tamga on the Southern shore. Many were established by trade unions or some other organization, (for example the [...]
The name Djety Oguz means “Seven Bulls” in Kyrgyz. About 25 km South West of Karakol is a lush valley with some striking red sandstone rock formations (the “seven Bulls” from which the valley takes its name)
Barskoon and Tamga are twin Kyrgyz and Russian villages at the mouth of the Barskoon valley – which has an impressive waterfall and is a good centre for trekking and horse riding. The 11th century scholar Mahumud al-Kashgari (also known as Barskhani) was a native of this area. He is best known as the author [...]
If you travel along the road from Bishkek to Issyk Kul, as you leave behind the roadside yurt encampment of Holodniya Voda (Cold Water) and enter Boom Gorge there is a monument on the right hand side of the road – where a series of whitewashed stones display the date 1916, which commemorates Urkun – an important event in [...]
Today, I learned something new. That’s not unusual, as Tom Jones used to sing … In fact, a piece of “homespun advice” that one of my schoolteachers gave us when I was young, was that we shouldn’t think of education as a process that finished the day we left school. It is a lifelong, on-going [...]
