Postcard from Bishkek

One of the questions I am most frequently asked , by foreigners and locals alike, concerns what changes I have seen here in Bishkek in the eighteen and a half years I have lived here. Although there are other things I could note, when answering I normally concentrate on three topics … the number and […]

Prospect Manas, runs from Jibek Jolu in the North, up to the Railway line in the South.  Further up towards the mountains, the road becomes Prospect Mira  … (Peace Avenue). It used to be known as Belinskaya and is still referred to by this name be many older residents. It was renamed Prospect Manas in […]

Earlier this week I came across an interesting post on the kloop internet portal …  although the site has a blog in English, this particular post was in Russian – which makes sense because it was really aimed at a local audience.  Even so, I thought it was particularly interesting and well worth sharing with a wider […]

In 13th January, 1951, Bishkek opened a brand new era in public transport in the city … the first Trolleybus service was introduced. It is run by the Bishkek Trolleybus Company, an independent legal entity which is owned by the municipality.  The company has two depots: the original one which can house up to 60 […]

I am sometimes asked about where I get the inspiration for different postcards … and there are different, many different, answers.  Sometimes postcards are prompted by an anniversary or event, others are because I have seen an interesting news article, on occasion people write and make suggestions and, in fact, I have quite a long list […]

They say that moving house is one of the three most stressful experiences that a person can go through.  On 1st November, 1800 John Adams moved into a new home but he probably had plenty of other stressful things to worry about apart from that … he was, after all, President of the United States […]

Baitik Baatyr was a manap (tribal leader) of the Solto tribe in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and played a decisive role in the liberation of his people from the Kokand Khanate in 1862 – and in doing so helped to shape the future of his people. Baitik was born in 1820 to the […]

I understood the cri de couer  only too well. I had come across a plea on one of the internet discussion groups from someone who was looking for a complete list of street names here in Bishkek. There must be a list, I thought.  Perhaps the city’s architectural department of the State Registry Service kept […]

I was looking some photos of Frunze, (as Bishkek used to be called), when I came across a clip on the video sharing site Bilive – a sort of Kyrgyz youtube, with some photos set to the song “Frunze” by  by Kuban Turdukulov and performed by the Kyrgyz pop group Eles. The photos were indeed quite […]

At dinner the other day, I was sitting with a group of ex-pats and an interesting topic cropped up in the conversation … swimming pools. One of the diners has a young family and was interested in places which catered for children whilst another seemed to be a serious swimmer and interested in a pool […]