1000 little things

June 15th, 2012 Sections: Bishkek, From an Expat, ianbek

ianbek

Today, ianbek hits a milestone … and joins the shop in the West End of Bishkek with the enticing name, 1000 Melochei - 1000 little things.

Actually, like most of the “trade centers” here, 1000 Melochei it is not a single shop; it was originally an open plan space on the ground floor of an apartment building which rented space out to individual entrepreneurs who ran little shops or stalls, as in a typical market.  When I first came here it was a sort of hardware shop with “1000 little things”, (and more), for the home and was one of the places to check out when searching for this or that.  It was like wandering through a veritable Aladdin’s Cave – you were never sure what “little gems” you might come across.

Well, today, this is my 1000th postcard.

To be honest, there are a couple of topics that have been posted twice, (the Swiss journalist and traveler Ella Maillart, for example, the Soviet revolutionary general Mikhail Frunze and the archetypical Kyrgyz dish, Beshbarmak), but on the whole I have tried to cover a wide range of new and interesting topics.  (Well, they were at least interesting to me.)

I accept that they represent a somewhat eclectic mix …

  • postcards about Kyrgyzstan in general:
    • the geography,
    • places to see,
    • the history,
    • characters from history
    • aspects of traditional nomadic culture;
  • postcards with a glimpse at everyday life tinged with reminiscences of, both life back home in the UK and in my early days here; including the culture shock that I experienced and the differences I have noticed - especially when it comes to education;
  • postcards containing stories about my experiences doing business here in Kyrgyzstan, especially about tourism and relationships with the various authorities;
  • postcards reflecting my interest in history, mathematics, (especially statistics), and trivia of all sorts.
  • and, of course, for the last couple of years there has been the weekly postcard where I try to look at the events of the past weeks news;

In a way, it’s a bit like that shop … an “Aladdin’s Cave” with, I hope, the occasional “little gem”.

It all began, many years ago, by my sitting down and writing the odd postcard on the odd occasion when something interesting or odd either happened or occurred to me.  When the first revolution occurred in 2005, I wrote a number of postcards as emails to friends and relatives to assure them that all was well.  I did the same when the second revolution occurred and they evolved into a regular weekly postcard.  In addition to the occasional “observations from an ex-pat”, and these weekly postcards, I started adding some in response to questions and requests … and so the postcards became more frequent.  Since the start of 2011, I have tried to add a postcard a day.

 

Since I started the flag counter in September 2010 there have been almost 20,000 visitors from 164 different countries or territories, averaging about 40 a day.  Most of them haven’t stayed for very long, having been referred to the site from a search engine, but some have stayed and had a look around and there have been over 40,000 page views, (averaging about 70 a day).  About a third of the visitors have come the United States and just under a fifth from here in Kyrgyzstan.  I know that these statistics are not all that impressive, but the records were 126 visitors on March 29th this year (Visa Free Regime – The First Step) and 354 individual page views on April 12th, 2011.

 

 

 

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