Postcard from Bishkek

One confusing feature in Kyrgyzstan is that since independence there has been a tendency to change place names, especially from the older Russian version to new Kyrgyz names.  In many cases the new name is a form of an even older Kyrgyz name – but not always.  In a way, this is isn’t altogether surprising.  […]

I’ve missed an anniversary.  Surprisingly, little was made of it here, even though it was a nice round number – “It was twenty years ago …” as the Beatles sang on the title track of “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, that the Supreme Soviet of the Kyrgyz Republic, then a constituent republic of the […]

When I first came here I often ran into problems over names.  Back in the UK, for example, as a school teacher, I would have “hit the roof” if one of my pupils had dared to call me Ian.  The correct form of address is “Sir” or “Mr. Claytor”.  The use of the given name […]

In the post about Izhkak Razzakov, I mentioned that after his death in 1979, his body was buried in the Kuntsevskom Cemetery in Moscow, but that in 2000 his remains were returned to his native Kyrgyzstan and interred in the Ala Archa cemetery in Bishkek. Somebody wrote me an email saying that they were confused – as […]

In Shakespeare’s play “Romeo and Juliet”, the heroine, distraught that her beloved is a Montague, cries: Tis but thy name that is my enemy; … O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; What she meant is clear:  ”What matters is what something […]

One of the podcasts I download each week is “From our own Correspondent” from the BBC.  Their  reporters based in different countries around the world prepare short background essays on events and life in the places where they are stationed and these are then compiled into a broadcast.  As their webpage describes the programme, it […]

The other day I had give a statement to the police, (nothing serious, I was a witness … see  An attempted robbery), and I had to fill in a form.  Fortunately, a young policewoman was delegated to help me.  She asked me questions, I answered, and she typed the information onto the form.  I also […]

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