Archive: August, 2010
Independence Day – 31st August – marks the formal declaration of independence of the Khirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic (KSSR) from the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) in 1991.
The question of insurance of insurance has occupied my mind a lot in the last few months – but it’s been mainly a routine matter so I haven’t thought of commenting on it here. Routine? – yes, our policies were due for renewal in July so I spent time in June putting the proposal forms [...]
In many ways, this week has been a quite week but also a strange week … it has provided to be a hiatus in lots of different ways.
“Another Website?” That was the astonished reaction I got a short while ago when I announced to my staff that I was thinking of launching yet another new website into the company’s constantly growing family of websites.
Homosexuality was legalized in Kyrgyzstan on 1st January 1998, with the repeal of Article 121 of the Soviet Criminal Code, after concerted pressure from international human rights organisations. Article 130 of the new criminal code – concerning “violent actions of a sexual nature” – punishes “homosexual, lesbian or other actions of a sexual nature resorting [...]
It’s odd that in these days of the internet and Information and Communication Technologies, with i-pods, i-phones and i-pads, Blackberries and Bluetooth, the printed word is still in many respects the preferred version of many people when handling documents. Last week I wrote about an Oral History Project, run as part of a journalism course [...]
People often ask me why Celestial Mountains has so many websites. It’s a good question, and I usually answer by saying that they each address a different topic.
I wrote about Svetlana’s trip to Kashgar … well, she’s given me a report on the trip and I thought I would share with you some of her gems. At first I thought of revisiting and editing the page to include some quotes – but then I thought it might be better just to give [...]
Crossing the border from Kyrgyzstan, over the Torugart Pass, or the newly opened (2002) Irkeshtam Pass, the first major town is the Uighur city of Kashgar – the farthest-west city in China. Kashgar is most famous for it’s Sunday Market, (“Asia’s most mind-boggling bazaar, a technicolour sea of people…. a photographer’s dream”). The Bazaar is [...]
A few weeks ago I wrote about an invitation I had received to attend an exhibition across the border in Kashgar, in China. I was tempted – very tempted. It is over ten years since I was last in Kashgar and I have heard much about how the city has changed. The Chinese are developing [...]
