The “Red Book” is a phrase used for a list of endangered species.
The Red Data Book of the USSR (also known as the Krasnaya Kniga) was the Soviet Union’s contribution to the IUCN Red List maintained by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural resources (IUCN – www.redlist.org). The book took its name from this worldwide “list”- and was not connected with the politics of the Communist regime. More…
I was taken aback and intrigued by an email that arrived over the weekend. It really grabbed my attention.
A film crew are preparing a documentary film on camels and I was asked if I had any advice for them. More…
In Britain, August is known as the “Silly Season” – the period during the summer months typified by the emergence of frivolous news stories in the media due to the “lack of hard news” as people are away on their holidays and governments and businesses close down for the holidays. It’s the same here. The place usually gets very quiet over August as everyone disappears up to Lake Issyk Kul or abroad.
This week, however, the news hasn’t been dominated by “frivolous” stories … and it was while I was contemplating the weeks events that I posed the question: “What’s the most important news this week?” I was a little surprised, however, with the answer that I got from Lisa, our Office Manager, who replied: “It’s raining in Moscow.” More…
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and is considered a holy months, although the name itself probably comes from an earlier time. As the Islamic calendar is a lunar one, then the date of Ramadan according to the Gregorian Calendar changes each year. More…
On Wednesday of this week, I had a meeting with a friend and we had arranged to meet in a local cafe for a light lunch.
When we had appointed the time and place for the meeting, we had only consulted our diaries to see when we would both be free … and so we had settled on Wednesday lunchtime. More…
A news item during the week attracted my attention: “Kyrgyz yachtsmen Ignatiev and Soleny won Royal race of 20 miles in Thailand“
Kyrgyz yachtsmen wining a race in a sailing regatta? … but Kyrgyzstan is a landlocked country. As it says in the CIA World Factbook: “Coastline: 0 km (landlocked);” It goes on to record under the heading Trasportation: “Waterways: 600 km (2007); Ports and terminals: Balykchy (Ysyk-Kol or Rybach’ye)” More…
Following last week’s postcard about developments in Kyrgyz Cinema … I was intrigued to come across a news item about a young Kyrgyz born filmmaker, Dair Karakeev.
The story appeared in a youth orientated newspaper, “Limon“, (“Lemon”), because although the hour and a half long film is not due to receive its premiere until September, a clip and a couple of trailers for his romantic comedy, “Hearts of Three“, have already appeared on the internet.
I tracked them down on the site www.blive.kg – a sort of Kyrgyz youtube. More…
This weekend I got a bit of a surprise and although to say that I was “gobsmacked” might be a bit of an overstatement, I was certainly taken aback. More…
Douglas Adams, the author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy“, (HHGTTG or H2G2 to aficionados), may be famous for his answer to “the great question of … Life, the Universe and Everything … “, (that is: “forty-two”), but his quirky sense of humour also resulted in a number of interesting “one liners”. One of my favourites is: “This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.” (O.K., I know – that’s two lines!) More…
Almost two weeks ago, we marked my fifteen years here in Kyrgyzstan. Today, Saturday August 7th, we mark the tenth anniversary of the opening of our hotel, The Silk Road Lodge, here in Bishkek.
Birthdays and Anniversaries are taken very seriously here in Kyrgyzstan. People like to take every opportunity for holding a celebration. When my brother realized that it was fifteen years since I left the UK, he asked if the celebrations were going to stretch over the weekend. “Is it one day of partying for each year?” Now that’s an idea that would go down well here. More…
