Postcard from Bishkek

BBC travel have been running a sort of on-line game or or competition, Geoguessr,  allowing surfers to test their knowledge of the world.

‘Players’ are catapulted to some spot around the world and presented with an image … using, I presume, Google’s Street View.  They can take their time and move around and when they think they have worked out where they are they can click on a map … direct the cursor to where they think they are and submit their guess.  The receive points base on, for example, how close there “guess” is to the actual coordinates and the time it took them to make their guess.

I remember, the first time I ‘played’ I found it quite frustrating … I had worked out from clues in the images that it was a French speaking country … probably France judging from the card number plates … but where, exactly?  Then I saw a road sign … so I zoomed off to the map … and went looking for features I had seen while directing camera before making my guess … which turned out to be pretty good.

I presume the starting points for each round are carefully selected …  If they were simply chosen at random then it could make the game either, far too easy or far to difficult.  There has to be a certain amount of ambiguity, (is that an alpine scene? – so we can rule out large swathes of the world, and that’s the sea which eliminates even more …), but there also has to be something to help you recognize and identify where you are – even if you have never actually been there.  

Some starting points would make the game trivial, because the image presented would contain some iconic, instantly recognizable locations, such the Sydney Opera House, the Tower of Big Ben, or the Matterhorn.

One of those iconic images might be of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square in Moscow.  

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On Wednesday, all the news agencies [*] carried a story about an unwelcome visitor to Kyrgyzstan … an American, as it happens, but more of that later. 

All the stories were basically the same … obviously based on the same Press Release or a statement made at a Press Conference.  I presume it was the latter, as they showed signs of having been rewritten and not simply lifted verbatim.

The basic facts were:

• The American White Butterfly has been discovered in the Chui oblast (in the Sokuluk region – covering some 40 hectares) and in 2 regions of Bishkek, (Pervomaiskaya and Sverdlovka – where some 256 infected hectares are identified).  (Just under 4500 hectares were inspected).

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Vladimir Vitalievich Obraztsov was one of the first professional artists in Kyrgzstan, and his name is frequently associated with that of Chuikov.

He was born on 10th July 1891 in Vologda, (in European Russia), where he grew up and went to school.

Although we know that he arrived in Kyrgyzstan in 1920, we don’t know exactly when he arrived in Central Asia … but it is thought that it was during the First World War, when he was drafted into the army and posted in Turkestan where he worked on on the railway system and as a theater director in Ashgabat, (currently the capital of Turkmenistan).  At this time he also gave drawing classes to children in local schools – a commitment to education and helping young talented artists that was to be a major feature throughout his life.

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One of the many claims made in order to attract tourists to Kyrgyzstan refers to the traditional hospitality offered by the nomads …

Now, this has always struck me as a strange claim … not because I think there’s any doubt about the traditional value placed on hospitality amongst the nomadic Kyrgyz down the ages … but because it’s a claim that can be made by many peoples around the world.

Yes, it is true that some cultures were not particularly welcoming … especially here in Asia.  Both China and Japan, for example, went through xenophobic periods when foreigners were definitely not welcome.  On the whole, however, dating back into antiquity the visitor has always held a special place in traditional cultures – with strict rules about the hospitality that had to be shown to them … and, incidentally, what was required of them in return.

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A number of our staff have been nagging me to go and see a doctor … but I have been resisting.

One of my friends told me in an email that I should be more careful of my health and he thought that I was probably in a state of “denial” … like an adolescent, I seemed to have the attitude that I am invincible – that “nothing can touch me”.  I suppose that, in a way, he is right – I am in a state of denial … but the thing that I deny is that this is the case.

Like most people of my age, I feel like Peter in the Gospels … “the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”.  I admit that psychologically I still feel as I did as a young man – say sixteen or eighteen – but, hopefully, with a little more common sense derived from my knowledge and experience  … and I am more than fully aware that my body is showing signs of age.  I am, for example, no longer going to even think of running around a rugby field as I did well into my 30s – yet alone attempt to do so.

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The second half of the 1990s saw a number of of monuments which portrayed important people in the history of Kyrgyzstan  - although it also saw the unveiling of a monument dedicated to the two hundredth anniversary of Pushkin.

There were, for example, monuments erected to the writer Tokombaev (1996), the Avenue of Statesmen (1996), the Ballerina Bibisara Beishenalieva (1997), the poet Osmonov (1997), the poet Umetaliev (1999), Shabdan Baatyr (1999),  … and, of course, that statue of Pushkin, (1999).

For the record, it also saw the unveiling of the memorial to the veterans of the Afghan war, in Ataturk Park (1996) and the ill fated Erkindik – the Kyrgyz Statue of Liberty, (1999), which used to stand in the main Ala Too Square.

At the start of this period in the middle of the decade, (1995), there appeared the complex, El Kutu -  a Granite plinth, stretching some 17 meters and shaped like a Capital T, on which there were twenty nine bronze statues … effigies of prominent people in Kyrgyzstan.

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One of the first tour groups I had to deal with provided me with quite a few challenges.

It was part of a Silk Road trip … a group from New Zealand travelling from China through Kyrgyzstan into Uzbekistan (driving from Bishkek to Tashkent via Kazakhstan).

I had been corresponding with the tour company planning the itinerary.  He had been here the previous year on a familiarization trip and had a good idea of where he wanted to take the group … what to see and what to experience.

Because he had a clear idea of what he wanted to include in the itinerary – the places to visit (and even specific suggestions about where he wanted to stay) and what activities he wanted for the group, my role was really one of being just a facilitator.  This was fine and certainly easier than having to put a together from scratch but it did, however, rob me of some of the pleasure of the creativity of starting with a blank sheet and then planning and putting together the various elements to meet the clients wishes.

I needn’t have worried … as events were going to take a number of interesting turns.

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Technically, 5th June is Tynwald Day … although this year, because it falls on Saturday all the pomp and ceremony associated with it will actually take place on Monday.  Now, unless you have already encountered the word Tynwald, and soknow what it refers to, it seems to be a bit of an enigma.

It seems to be an odd collection of letters without any connection or relationship with other words – so that you could hazard a guess as to what it means … perhaps it is an acronym standing for something like Thank You Nigel What a Lovely Day … (well, yes, OK … I confess I had problems thinking of a suitable word for N), or maybe it’s a portmanteau word combining parts of two or more other words to create a new one in order to convey some subtlety of meaning, but if it is is then the obvious components are Tyn and Wald – neither of which are words in English, although Wald means Wood in German … which leads us to another possibility – perhaps it’s a foreign word that has been “borrowed” sometime in the past before it became an English word … and indeed it is.

I’m not sure if it is a Manx word, (the language of the Isle of Man which lies in Irish Sea between the mainland island of Great Britain – comprising England, Scotland and Wales – to the East and Ireland to the West), but is is derived from the word for the Place of Assembly in Old Norse.

Tynwald is the name of the parliament of the Isle of Man and comprises of the elected legislative chamber of the House of Keys … and the Legislative Council whose members are appointed by the Lord of Man (who happens to be the ruling monarch of England – yes, Queen Elizabeth is also the Lord of Man).

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The yurt is the traditional dwelling of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia – including the Kyrgyz. They are found from Anatolia to Mongolia and it is not possible to say which of the ancient nomadic tribes originally developed the traditional design.  However, it is clearly a very ancient device.

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Today happens to be Stay out of the Sun Day – I wish I had remembered that last weekend when we took our regular trip up to Naryn,

This time we made a number of Photo stops so that Maxim could snap away some more of his artistic creations – including one at the Lenin Outdrop 

I don’t know what the real name if – if, indeed, it has one – but that’s what I call it:  the Lenin Outcrop.

The reason is simple … the first time I saw it, it was topped with an image of Lenin, a silhouette cut in metal on the top … and it’s an outcrop of the rocks that form the step sides of the valley leading down from the Dolon Pass to Naryn, causing the Dolon river and the road beside it to swerve slightly.

For the Record: although he can still be seen in many places around the country … here Vladimir Illych has long since gone – he was replaced at one point by Askar Akaev, but when he in turn fell from grace following the 2005 revolution, his image was also removed … and nothing has taken it’s place … so far.

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