Postcard from Bishkek

The world is changing … it always has and always will.  Most of those changes are small scale and happen slowly over a period of time … but just occasionally we can point to something as being so significant that they are a “signal event” – something notable out of the ordinary, a one-off event, […]

Opyat Dvoyka is the name of a very famous painting by the artist Fyodor Pavlovich Reshetnikov in 1952. It depicts a boy coming home from school with his report card … and the attitude of the family to him.  He stands disheveled, (his clothes unbuttoned and casual and his blond hair ruffled), and dejected; unable to look […]

Manas is the hero of the Kyrgyz Epic Saga … and many consider that is fundamental to understanding how the Kyrgyz see themselves. Some years ago I was told something about the epic by someone that I would call a “secular Kyrgyz”, (by which I mean a “Russified Kyrgyz”  … someone who had been born […]

Josef Stalin is, perhaps, one of the most enigmatic characters in Soviet history … one man who was, at the same time, both a hero and a villain. Hero: The leader of the nation for thirty years, (from 1922 until his death in 1953), shaping the nation and bringing it into the modern world, leading […]

Today, I want to mark an anniversary of a significant event in human history … but, paradoxically, although the event took place on today’s date, February 24th, this is not the actual anniversary. Confused … I am not surprised … Some years are recognized as historically significant … such as 1066, 1492, 1812 – to […]

Today, February 23rd, is a public holiday … Defenders of the Fatherland Day – commemorating the role of the armed services in defending the country. A few years ago I wrote a postcard about the background and history of the holiday, (… how it started as the Day of the Red Army in the Soviet Union […]

Puss gets the boot, was the name of a short cartoon released just over seventy five years ago, on 10th February, 1940. It introduced a pair that have gone down in history as friends … and enemies rivals … and comrades in arms in the face of adversity.

The week began with a series of heartfelt sarcastic tweets on twitter … The author appeared to be reacting to criticism of the Kyrgyz for insisting of using the Kyrgyz language rather than Russian … To be honest, having seen only her comments and not what she was reacting to, at times it wasn’t always clear what […]

One hundred and ninety nine years ago today, on 20th February, 1916, The Argentina Theater on Rome staged the premiere of a new, two act comic opera by Gioachino Rossini: Almaviva, o sia L’inutile precauzione, (but these days we know it better under a different title; The Barber of Seville). Over the years Rossini’s opera has […]

The explorer Sven Hedin was born in Stockholm on 19th February, 1865. He made several trips through Asia, including to what is now Kyrgyzstan. His first trip, in 1890/1, took him South from Tashkent to the city of Osh – and then he crossed the mountainous border to Kashgar. Returning over the Torugart Pass, he […]