Postcard from Bishkek

I have a confession to make … I have missed an anniversary … it was on 26th July, 1995 that I arrived in Bishkek, originally for just one year to help set up an office for a friend of mine … but things never seem to go according to plan and that year has now […]

  I don’t come from a farming background, but I do value the few days I spent working on a chicken farm in the depths of the Worcestershire countryside.  I was quite happy with the long hours and prepared to cope with the mess of mucking out … but I realized that it wasn’t for […]

One hundred and twenty five kilometers from Bishkek, the Konorchok Canyons, (sometimes called Konorchek or Konorchak), branch off to the West from Boom Gorge.  The canyons form an entire system of deep canyons with vertical walls, (some large and some small), which stretches for some 200 kilometers into the Kyrgyz Range. The system is often likened […]

Bishop Theodosius of Bishkek and the Kyrgyz has moved on and Bishop Daniel is about to move in as his replacement. The transition of leadership of the Russian Orthodox community here in Bishkek and the Kyrgyz Republic has not been without controversy … it hasn’t exactly been a smooth transition.

Let the festivities commence … Oh, they have already … ee are in the Festival Season here in Kyrgyzstan … Last Month, for example,  saw a large crafts festival up at At Bashi,  Then, last weekend, there was a festival of horse games in the village of Kyzyl Oi, in the Kekemeren Valley otganized by […]

There is a little known monument in one of Bishkek’s less well known parks that was inaugurated on 26th July, 2008: The Good Angel complex in Fuchik Park. During the inauguration ceremony, the then Prime Minister, Igor Chudinov described it as the first monument to philanthropy in Kyrgyzstan. “This is not a monument, this is […]

Bread is a basic food and there are many different forms …  from Leypioshka - the traditional flat breads, soldatski – a tin load, rezheniy – a black bread … down to the modern synonym for technological advancement – slices bread. Here is a selection of dough that are often encountered as accompaniments to meals here […]

Kadji Sai is a village on the southern shore of Lake Issyk Kul, about 20 kilometers East of Bokonbaeva, , surrounded by low, cabyons carved by the action of wind and water. The village itself actually lies a few kilometers from the shore. There is a bus stop on the main road between Balykchy and […]

I am often asked what sort of music I like … and the standard is that I can listen to almost anything … I just need to be in the right mood at the time. Some of my friends have an encyclopedic knowledge of music … names, dates, composition titles …  and are surprised when […]

A few years ago I wrote a postcard about Alexander the Great, how he brought his armies to Central Asia and conducted a campaign to subdue the Scythians and other peoples of the region, reaching as far North as Samarkand, and how he sent walnuts back to Macedonia where they became so prominent that they […]