Postcard from Bishkek

The other day I came across some new research … well, it was new to me, although the paper is dated April 2011. What attracted my attention in the first place was the “teaser”: “Living at a high altitude can protect you from certain diseases“, which was accompanied by a link to a short article with […]

Today is the International Day of the Mountains, so I thought I would take a brief look at one of the main mountain systems that cross the country – The Pamir Mountains:

Kyrgyzstan is over ninety percent mountainous territory.  The mountains criss-cross the country.  As a result, almost any journey, anywhere in the country involves crossing over a mountain pass.  Some of them are quite dramatic – others more prosaic.

Lenin Peak in the Osh oblast lies on the border with Tajikistan – it rises to a height of 7134m and was the third highest mountain in the former Soviet Union, shaped something like a “high armchair”. The outline, however, is not always obvious because the summit is almost always covered in cloud – and […]

  Khan Tengri: lies in the Issyk Kul oblast near the border with Kazakhstan. (The name is translated variously as “Prince of Spirits” or “Ruler of the Sky”) Until recently the summit was said to be 6995m a.s.l. but a recent survey announced that it is, in fact, 7010m – however some people treat this […]

I am sure that most people in the world have heard about the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World“, although not everyone could name them all.   In fact, most of them no longer exist with only  The Great Pyramid at Giza still surviving. There has been some controversy over the fact that the list […]

One of the newswires that I subscribe to had a link today to an interesting article in the Guardian newspaper about the growing pressure of work on mountain rescue services in the UK. It caught my attention because Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous country and I wondered about the situation here in Kyrgyzstan.  In fact I […]

Yesterday. December 11th, was International Mountain Day. If that caught you by surprise, don’t worry about it … it seems to have gone almost unnoticed, even here in Kyrgyzstan where something like 94% of the country is classified as mountainous and the demarcation of December 11th as International Mountain Day is actually the result of […]

The Kyrgyz range of the Tian Shan (or Celestial) Mountains has several valleys that cut into or through it.  The most famous are Kaindi, Too Ashu, Sokuluk (with the village of Tash Bulak), Ala Archa, Alamedin, Issyk Ata, Kegeti, and Shamsy. Each with their own characters and attractions. Many of the valleys have associated with […]

Now, if I was looking for a slogan to advertise Kyrgyzstan, then I might well look for something to reflect the mountainous landscape … after all, it is often said that 94% of Kyrgyzstan is mountainous.   This statistic sometimes surprises visitors … especially those who come looking for alpine landscapes with towering craggy peaks, snow […]