Archive: February, 2011
The other day I was showing the kids the photos of our trip to Ala Archa and Alamedin, and the video that Alicia, Philippa and Sebastian shot and they asked me if it was possible to create a website for them so that they could upload posts about things that interest them. I know from [...]
They say that you can experience all four seasons in one day in Kyrgyzstan. I have come across this myself in the past. The mountainous nature of the terrain creates plenty of scope for microclimates in different valleys, varying with altitude, aspect, (North, South East or West facing), different soils creating habitats for differing types [...]
The postcard is shorter this week and a little late because I have been up to Naryn to deal with the end of year routines, (tax returns and so on). Surprisingly, it wasn’t as cold up there as I had anticipated, indeed Bishkek is colder. The prospect of a “third revolution” has taken on mammoth [...]
One of the books on my bookshelf which gets taken down every now and again in order for me to dip into and read a short section. It’s a 2004 reprint, of an 1829 translation from the original Arabic, of a fourteenth century account of his journeys around the then known world, written by Ibn [...]
A few months ago we had a film crew visit from the What Took You So Long Foundation, (Alicia Sully, Philippa Young and Sebastian Lindstrom). They were travelling the world searching for camel cheese. Having already been to China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan they came to Kyrgyzstan on their Uzbekistan and beyond. I wrote a postcard about their [...]
Maxim spent the back end of last busily scouring the internet for inspiration. For homework one of his teachers at school had given him the task of drawing a poster, (a gazeta), to commemorate February 23rd, Dehn zashitnika Otechestva, (Defenders of the Fatherland Day – otherwise known as Army Day or Men’s Day). February 23rd [...]
The International Business Council, (IBC), is a business association, which was established in December 2000, whose membership includes a wide range of local and international businesses that have created thousands of jobs and have a combined investment of over one billion USD in the Kyrgyz economy. The Celestial Mountains Tour Company was one of the [...]
Sunday was a rare “day off”. Tatiana, my accountant, has a friend, Anna, staying from Russia, and suggested going into the mountains so we decided to make a day of it. The obvious choice for a day trip from Bishkek is to go to one of the valleys in the Kyrgyz Krebet, just South of [...]
On Saturday I wrote about the Swiss charity Parmir Bridges and some events that they are organizing in various Swiss towns in March. In the post I mentioned that they had arranged for the translation for a book by Ella Maillart into Kyrgyz. Being a Swiss based charity concerned with Kyrgyzstan, their interest in Ella [...]
Every now and again we have experience which gives us a sense of having a “brush with history”. In fact we are living through history, it’s just that much of it is mundane and ordinary … everyday life, the details of which are “grist for the mill” for social historians who try to piece together [...]
