Postcard from Bishkek

I keep getting questions about the Celestial Mountains Logo. Some people like it – “it’s simple and easily recognizable” … others don’t – “it’s too complicated” they say. It is has been suggested to me that a plain white stripe would be better than the more complicated design that we have at the moment. Well, […]

This was originally included in an email “postcard” sent out on July 16th, 2010 – What planet are you from?

The “postcards” is what the website ianbek.kg is all about – why it was set up as a personal website some years ago, before the days of blogs and social networking sites like Facebook.

I am not sure that I like the idea of including this page … but … in recent weeks I have been advised that we should include in the informational resources that we provide, a set of terms and conditions which outline the rights and responsibilities of both, ourselves and the individual users.

A few years ago I was asked by an acquaintance who was lecturing at one of the local Universities, if I would appear as a guest speaker at one of his classes.  He was in charge of a course on Business Ethics.  Although a certain amount of the discussion touched upon Bribery and Corruption, there […]

Are there two companies: The Celestial Mountains Tour Company and the Celestial Mountains Guest House (Naryn). Both Were ESTABLISHED in 1997 and Registered under Kyrgyz Law AS Kyrgyz companies. Although They Are, Actually, two separate companies – They HAD the Same three investors . One Came to Kyrgyzstan at about the time of Independence and […]

Kyrgyzstan (or The Kyrgyz Republic, to give the country its official name) is in the very middle of the Eurasian continent, bordering China (to the east), Kazakhstan (to the north and west), Uzbekistan (to the south and west), and Tajikistan (to the south west and south). (Actually, the geographical center of the Asian continent lies […]

Sometimes, when I write a postcard, it strikes me that some of things I refer to might be surprising, or cause confusion, or warrant further explanation.

I am a creature of habit. One of my routines back in the UK was, every Sunday to take the weekly washing that had been put into the washing machine and do the ironing listening to Radio Four … the Brit’s reading this will understand what that means … it’s a Talk Radio station run by the […]

The first part of the name is easy to explain … my name is Ian. So, why “bek”?