Archive: October, 2010
To help preserve the priceless, pristine, virgin, natural resources that it possesses, Kyrgyzstan has a total of 83 Specially Protected Natural Territories, (SPNT), with a total area of about 800,000 hectares, which is 4% of Kyrgyzstan’s total land area. Perhaps, the most famous of these specially protected regions is Ala Archa – just outside Bishkek. [...]
There is an old maxim in Real Estate … the only thing that really counts is “location, location, location”. It is such an overriding principle that in 2001 it was used for the title for a TV programme on Britain’s Channel 4. The mantra basically encapsulates the idea that identical homes can increase or decrease [...]
I am sometimes embarrassed by the fact that, although I have lived here for some fifteen years, I still can’t speak Kyrgyz. My excuse is that I don’t get the practice … I live in Bishkek, in the North of the country, where everyone speaks Russian, or they want practice speaking in English. That’s not [...]
I am not particularly good at sports, although I am willing to try my hand at most. Apart from needing a certain level of skill, most, if not all, sports also require a certain amount of dedication and a level of fitness. It won’t come as a surprise, therefore, if I say that I am [...]
This was part of the initial draft for the page Nothing in life is simple. In the end, I decided to edit most of it out … but thought I would include as a “subpage” … just in case anyone is interested.
I have a friend whose favourite phrase seems to be: “It’s simple!” My response is normally, “No it’s not. Nothing in life is simple.”
There are six basic questions that sum up any story: Who?, Where?, When?, What?, How? and Why? When I knew that I was coming out to Kyrgyzstan, I signed up for a weekend Russian language course which was being held in a village in Kent. It was run by a voluntary organization, not a college [...]
Isn’t it annoying when you get a tune in your head and you can’t get rid of it. When it happens to me I find that it is usually just a short phrase, maybe a line or two, from a song heard long, long ago. It goes round and round in my mind, repeating over [...]
Apart from being the tenth day of the tenth month in the tenth year of the century, an auspicious date in Chinese astrology, Sunday was a day of special significance here in Kyrgyzstan. It was Election Day.
The days before the election proved to be quite busy for me. Each day I came to the office intending to tidy my desk and catch up on some of the backlog of work that has been steadily building up as I have had my attention distracted onto other matters – but it seems that [...]
