Postcard from Bishkek

Today is special day … one in a thousand you might say … actually one in one thousand four hundred and sixty one! It’s 29th February … and there is only one of them every four years. (Well … almost every four years – there’s a catch once a century and another once every 400 […]

In Britain we talk about Rubbish, in America they refer to it as Garbage, in Russian it is called Musor … and in Kyrgyz, Tashtandy. One of the tasks in my daily routine is to walk around the hotel … it doesn’t take long, it’s a small hotel … to check on the tashtandy.

Today’s postcard probably belongs on 5th September  but a post on Facebook this week took me by surprise … and I thought it worth a comment or two. It showed a world map … but there was something different about it.  It was a normal Mercator projection … showing the countries of the world … […]

I never cease to be amazed by the number and range of special commemorative days that are recognized around the world.  Think of a cause, an animal, a food … and there is probably a day that has been declared in order to promote it … and every day seems to be dedicated to one […]

The IMF, (International Monetary Fund), have just issued their latest Country Report for the Kyrgyz Republic, (that is, Kyrgyzstan), prepared by a team of their staff members as a background paper for the regular consultation with the government. It costs USD18 for a copy but the text is freely available online in pdf format … which is […]

Readers of my postcards will know that I have a number of ‘heroes’ … some of them are heroes in the classical sense of  someone “who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through impressive feats of ingenuity, bravery or strength, often sacrificing his or her own personal concerns for some greater good“, but others […]

I have trying to persuade the kids to follow a particular page: Ya Izuchaiyou angliskiy online, (I learn English on-line). They post a wide variety things – stories and jokes, cartoons and word lists, list of different ways in which a word or phrase can be used, such as ‘to run’; lists of phrases used […]

Maxim is currently studying Tourism in one of Bishkek’s Higher Education Institutes, and the other day he was working on an assignment and started asking me questions like:what is a tour? and what is a tour operator? I am fairly sure that he knows the answer, but instead of trying the Socratic Method and drawing […]

Now, although you can get English books here in Bishkek, the choice can be a bit eclectic and it’s not like walking into a bookshop back home where you are spoiled for choice, and where I would often emerge with half a dozen or more bagged up – especially if I was buying for a […]

Every year, various groups of the Kyrgyz Community Based Tourism Association , (KCBTA), organizes a series of festivals around the country. Although it is basically a Tourism association, and these events are obviously intended for visitors to the country – to give them an opportunity to experience some of the features of the traditional nomadic lifestyle […]