Today has been a busy day.
It began with a minor crisis – no internet. It’s at times like this that I realize how reliant we have become on the internet for our everyday operations: especially for communications and news. Anyway, having arrived in the office, as usual, at six, I was able to spend the first couple of hours catching up with some of the multitude of tasks that have been piling up on my desk. More…
During 2010, Kyrgyzstan has seen a drastic reduction in the number of tourists that have visited the country as a direct result of events that have taken place in the country throughout the year. There were tourists, but many less than in previous years. This has led to a reduction of income for those working in tourism, (tour operators, hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, guides, drivers, horsemen, makers of souvenirs, etc.) fewer workplaces and hence impact employment levels within the Republic, an impact on the GDP of the country, (including a loss of valuable foreign currency earnings), and a reduction in tax revenues from tourism. More…
I was invited on Friday to attend a business class at one of the local Universities to give a presentation about Doing Business in the Kyrgyz Republic.
The brief I received was that it should be about “doing business in KG, problems, issues, what’s it like to be a businessperson, what are the necessary characteristics of an Entrepreneur, what are the main problems in your business (Staff, cashflow, legislation, inspections, corruption, etc.).”
That struck me as quite a tall order – that looks like a minimum of thirteen points. Minimum? – yes, notice the open ended “etc.”
What’s more, I was told that presentations normally lasted “about 30-40 minutes – followed by Questions and answers.” More…
The kids went off to the cinema on Monday to watch the latest Harry Potter film.
I seem to have missed out almost entirely on the Harry Potter Craze, but it has taken off here just as much as in the West. The books are on sale, (in Russian, so I give them a miss), the films are popular and are shown on TV, (but I’ve never seen one all the way through, they are also in Russian and I tend to fall asleep), in the street you sometimes see a kid stand with their feet apart, rolling their torso and waving a stick at someone screaming something and you know it’s supposed to be a spell from Harry Potter, (although I do know someone who can quote most of the 140 spells, and tell you what they do, most of the incantations you hear seem to be simple gibberish).
Whatever happened to “Abracadabra” or “Izzy Whizzy, Let’s get busy …”? More…
A few years ago, we had an enquiry from a tourist who wanted to come to Kyrgyzstan “to see the apples”.
This caught me by surprise.
Although I was aware that we grow a lot of apples here in Kyrgyzstan, I was intrigued as to why someone would want to travel all this way to see the orchards when we grow an awful lot of apples in the UK as well. Indeed, in our garden we had four apple trees of different varieties, (two “eaters” and two “cookers”) which almost every year bowed on the weight of the plentiful fruit. Many fell to the ground before we could get to pick them – and one of my regular jobs was to rake up the “windfalls” and sort them into ones that could be salvaged and others which were to be composted.
So I went off and did some research. More…
November 22nd, 2010 Author ian Sections: ianbek
Those of you who have visited the site before will notice that something is new … very new!
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The GAI (pronounced guy-EE) are the State Automobile Inspection – basically, Kyrgyzstan’s Traffic police.
The GAI have a mixed reputation in the country, possibly because the main contact between members of the public and officers of the service is when they stop vehicles at one of their roadside checks to inspect documentation, or because of an alleged traffic violation and to impose an “on-the-spot” fine. This can be at either at a fixed post, (a roadside cabin), or at a non-fixed post which means they stop their own vehicle at the side of the road at some convenient point and wait beside it watching the traffic go by - unless, of course, they see a traffic violation in which case they waive a baton, instructing the driver to pull over. More…
This was written a few years ago and is based on an answer to an enquiry we received by email from someone who was planning to bring their own vehicle to Kyrgyzstan. As such it is written in the first person. It is not meant to be definitive advice or exhaustive.
Make sure you have all the right registration documents – we suggest you contact the embassy to check what is required. If the vehicle is in transit (i.e. you will leave Kyrgyzstan in it) there should be no customs duties etc. If the driver is not the registered owner of the vehicle (or the owner is not one of the passengers) then he will need authorization to drive – a “doverennost”.
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Have you ever noticed how something happens to people whenever they get behind the steering wheel of car?
It’s as if the body of the car becomes a shell and the driver takes on a new persona. They become aggressive, selfish, thoughtless, inconsiderate to other road users – pedestrians as well as other drivers – and possessive – of the road and their place an it as much as of the vehicle itself – as if they own it. More…
For those of us involved in tourism, we used to understand the acronym as World Tourism Organization – a UN agency which brought together the members of the United Nations to consider issues relating to one of the World’s major industries … but a few years ago we had to get used to a new acronym as it changed its name to UNWTO – The United Nations World Tourism Organization.
At the time we asked ourselves why on earth they would want do that – WTO is clear and simple, easy to remember and also rolls off the tongue. The answer was simple … there was a “new kid on the block” that had lain claim to those three letters of the alphabet – the World Trade Organization.
Well, yesterday I came across a new WTO, (well new to me – it’s been around since 2001), the World Toilet Organization. I kid you not!
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