Postcard from Bishkek

The other day we had a visit at the hotel from some officials who seemed to be convinced that there was “something wrong”. It’s not the first time we’ve had such a visit – so we went into “automatic mode” and asked – “where are your papers?”.  They fished out their ID-cards and so that […]

A few years ago I was asked to be a visiting speaker at a class in the American University of Central Asia, (AUCA). The class was part of a course on Business Studies and was titled Business Ethics. At first I was reluctant to agree, because I thought they’ll want to hear about bribery and corruption […]

The other day I had the occasion to write a letter of complaint … the following is a slightly redacted version of it.  I think that it speaks for itself … so I won’t spend time “setting the scene” except to say that those people who know me well, will vouch for the fact that […]

Today, the fourth Thursday in October, is a another one of those special days: Paper Free Day. It’s the fourth time that AIIM (the Association for Information and Image Management – a global, non-profit organization that provides independent research, education and certification programs for people that they term “information professionals”), have organized such a day. It’s […]

I’ve said it before … and, no doubt, I will say it again, and again: “Every day is a special day for somebody.” It may be their birthday or an anniversary, … or it may be a public holiday or a religious festival, … or it may be a specially designated day which is intended […]

We had an inquiry the other day from a client who wanted a single room in one of the hotels.  They had stayed with us before pm a previous visit to Kyrgyzstan and were about to pay a return visit and wrote to ask about availability and if we could give him our “best price”. […]

Today marks the anniversary of the first transmission of the cult science fiction series Star Trek on BBC TV, back in 1969. The series had been proposed by Gene Roddenberry as early as 1964 and a pilot programme filmed in 1965.  It finally went on the air in the states in September 1966 and although […]

From my regular scanning of the news sites on line, I came across an item reporting the results of a survey conducted in Britain … with the headlilne declaring that “Cold calls and spam emails top the list of ‘bugbears of modern life’“. Although the list of the top 50 irritants did contain some interesting […]

During recent years, as public holidays have approached, banners and signs have appeared bearing the slogan “Mairamynyzdar Menen!” It’s obviously in Kyrgyz, so I asked a Kyrgyz member of staff what it meant – and was told that it’s the Kyrgyz equivalent of the Russian “Se Prazdnikom!” … “with the holiday!”.  It turn, this is […]

The other day I was sent a link to a news article that I hadn’t seen before even though it was a couple of weeks old and it’s a page that I frequently look at given my background in Mathematics and Statistics. As I run a couple of hotels, my correspondent thought that it might […]