#211: Missionaries

I don't mind missionaries, Muslim of Christian, - they tend to be very nice people - except when they tell me I am on the path to hell and the only salvation is their way. Unlike some of my friends, I don't like to pester them with endless questions trying to find a flaw in their reasoning. However, I am dumb struck when I see an American football team called Evangel Crusaders (OMG!).

"They [Kyrgyzstani] were totally lost in the darkness. They had no clue about Christianity."

Darkness? They probably had no clue about the half a million of Orthodox Christians. In fact, these guys probably think that Orthodox Christians are not even Christian enough.

#209: Talas

Last week I was in Talas (east of Kyrgyzstan) for couple of days and I took a few pictures. I am posting some of the interesting ones here. This is the mausoleum of Manas, the epic hero. Karool Choku (Peak of Guards) is in the background.
Herders moving to the Suusamyr summer pasture on this old Moskvich with the self-made trailer from another Moskvich with yurt parts on it.
It seems that the Kyrgyz traffic police (GAI) found a way to address the problem of deadly traffic accidents on Kyrgyz roads. GAI decided to place crashed car carcasses along this major artery.

#203: Tien Shan Gold Belt

This is written on the website of a mining company that operates in Central Asia:

"The Tien Shan Gold Belt is one of the most prolific gold belts in the World extending from Uzbekistan in the west into China and Mongolia to the east. The Tien Shan Gold belt is host to one of the world's largest concentrations of multi million ounce gold and silver deposits in the world."

A lot of companies looking for possibilities to dig gold in Kyrgyzstan.

#199: Naryn

Here are some pictures from my recent trip to Naryn. This one was taken as you come down the Dolon Pass on the way to Naryn. There was still a lot of snow in Naryn in April.
The road between Bishkek and Naryn connects Kyrgyzstan to China, which has been exporting tons goods (food, clothes, electronics, etc.) to Kyrgyzstan. This one is one smaller trucks. They also have bigger trailer trucks.
China imports scrap metal from Kyrgyzstan, although some are saying they are looking for sources in neighboring Uzbekistan because there is not much scrap metal left in Kyrgyzstan. This is a picture of a crash scene with a broken trailer and all the scrap metal laying on the road.

#192: Garbage

Today I had an opportunity to see where all the waste from Bishkek ends up. It is not a pleasant scene. The waste dump is located 15 km outside Bishkek and covers an area of 22 hectares.
In addition, there are squatters who built small mud houses illegally across from the waste dump. The wind was blowing the smoke from burning plastic, food, and other unknown waste towards the neighborhood of squatters.
This lady was sorting and collecting wood .
Kyrgyzstan gotta do something about sorting and recycling garbage

#184: Kyrgyz Cafe in Mongolia

I highly recommend a very amusing post about Issyk-Kul cafe in Mongolia.

#181: Manas Airbase

Last week the Pentagon banned Google from mapping street-level video maps - i assume these are like 3D images - of US bases. It turns out that the ban does not apply to the satellite images from Google Maps. This is what I was able zoom in. The bottom part of the image is the actual base. You can see USAF cargo planes (grey) parked on the tarmac along with the civilian airplanes (white) at the Manas International Airpot. This actually is not the limit of zoom.
This is one of their checkpoints

#171: Kyrgyz Hockey

A fellow blogger, morrire, took a dozen of great pictures from the hockey championship in Cholponata, Kyrgyzstan. I did not know we had hockey teams, let alone the Hockey Federation of Kyrgyzstan. Theses are morrire's pictures.
Home-made mask for the goalie...
NHL will soon recruit hockey players from Kyrgyzstan! The rest of the pictures are here.

#162: Happy New Year!

Forgot to congratulate all the "western" Christians with Christmas ("eastern" Christians will celebrate it on January 7). Merry Christmas! This week many people are recapping the past year and making plans for the coming year. Was my life better this year? I don't know. Changing jobs was the biggest event of 2007. Other than that everything was ok. Politically and economically, I am disappointed with the way Kyrgyzstan is developing.

At least 2007 was very good for the 53 $billionaires and 119 000 $millionaires in Russia.

#151: Best Central Asia Blog 2007

If you think that your blog is the best and you deserve a prize for for all the time and effort you put into it, apply here. Good luck!

#143: Euro 2008

As I have said in the past, Kyrgyzstan is a Russia-oriented country (two Russia-based TV stations get the most viewership in the country, ahead of the Kyrgyz National TV, and Putin is probably the most popular politician in Kyrgyzstan, ahead of you know who), we tend to follow the European football closely. We cheer when Russia wins a game. We use the word nashi (Russian for 'our') for the Russian team. With England's defeat to Croatia, Russia got a chance to play in the European Championship in 2008.

Commenting on the Russia-Israel game, Russia's Channel1 news reader said that it would be an interesting game because Israel's coach is a Russian citizen (Russia's is a Dutch) and wondered how loyal he would be to Mother Russia. Plus, the news reader mentioned all the Israeli football fans who had emigrated from Russia. Which team they would root for? Regardless, the Russian team lost to Israel. Shame on the English team though.

#137: Traffic Accidents

While reading reports from GAI (Kyrgyz traffic police) in the news, I get a feeling that on an average day at least two people die from traffic accidents in Kyrgyzstan. The most dangerous zones are Bishkek and the 500km-long Bishkek-Osh highway. You also get some accidents in Issykkul, especially during the summer swimming season, and Naryn.

#136: Kyrgyz Internet

The Kyrgyz blogosphere is widening. A new blogger is Bakyt Beshimov, AUCA's Vice President as well one of active political leaders in the country. His blog is both in Russian and English.

Also, learned that a Kyrgyz newspaper, DeFacto, is now available online. Not only that, now you can download the whole issue in a PDF file.

Today is a great day. First significant snowfall this year. Now I am praying that it will not stop for couple of days so I can get my snowboard out on the hills. As always, snow came suddenly in Kyrgyzstan. It was pretty warm for the past 7 days, as warm as 20C, although last night I could smell snow. And today in the morning I woke up to this view. This is a picture of zigeunerin.
Meanwhile, everyone is awaiting to see the lists of political parties offering the voters for the upcoming Parliamentary elections. Opposition Atameken has already published their list.

#134: Dushanbe

It was the my first time in Dushanbe and felt like it was between my hometown of Osh and Bishkek, which is my home now. Because I was there on a short work-related trip, I did not have much time to see the town. Here is my story of the trip in pictures:

This is the view from a plane flying over Kyrgyz (Alatoo) and Tajik (Pamir) mountains.
As we approached the city, we made a big circle above it and I got some understanding of how Dushanbe looked like.
Because of the 1-hour time difference, I woke up at 6 am to this view from my hotel room. Unfortunately, I did not ask the people of the name of this mosque.
I was also very surprised to see banana palms. Apparently, the warm season was long enough for bananas to blossom, but too short for them to reap.
I took a sneak picture of what Tajiks claim to be the biggest sleeping Buddha in the world.
It is 13 meters long. It is probably of the same origin as the Bamiyan Buddhas, destroyed in 2005 by the Taleban in Afghanistan.
Apart from this, I did not see much. Dushanbe is another Soviet city in Central Asia, although their sidewalks on the main Rudaki Street were wide. Plus, they banned all marshrutkas (chaotic system of vans imitating public transportation) from Rudaki. I also bought an Afghan hat, which you can see on my profile picture.

Although people in former-Soviet Union and abroad always laugh at the Tajik Air, as you can see from cartoonist Ted Rall's depiction below, I did not have a bad experience with it. On the way back, I flew a faster Kyrgyz carrier.
On the road back from the airport to Bishkek, I saw this sign. Just thought that I would share it with you. Just an off-the-topic picture.

#126: Kymyz or Vodka or Coke?

As a continuation on one of my favorite topics, I present you posters depicting the eternal human dilemma: Kymyz or Vodka or Coke?
These are parodies to the Soviet anti-vodka posters.

#124: Ole! Ole!

As I promised earlier, I am posting more information about the chairty game this Saturday. Boris, who annually organizes the game, said that it is more important than all that referendum and politics crap. He is right. The game at least makes the orphans happy. If you are in Bishkek, enjoy the game and donate! If you are abroad, just send your money! :) Contact Boris at bpilipenko@irex.kg.
THIRD ANNUAL CHARITY FOOTBALL MATCH -- COME OUT AND SUPPORT!!
IREX and alumni of exchange programs would like to invite you to the Third Annual Charity Football Match, which will take place on Saturday, October 27th, 2007, at 11:00 AM in Bishkek's Spartak Stadium, rain or shine!

IREX staff and alumni organize this annual charity football match between alumni of US government-sponsored exchange programs and representatives of international organizations working here in Kyrgyzstan.

The purpose of the charitable event is to collect donations to buy winter clothing, footwear and educational games for the children from Uch-Korgon orphanage in Batken oblast.

In addition to supporting your team, you can look forward to various competitions and games during this match, as well. This year, gifts for the competitions and raffle that will be held during halftime will be provided by Hyatt Regency--Bishek, Metro Bar, Soros Foundation - Kyrgyzstan, Embassy of the USA, and the Network of cinemas "Синематика", Fashion City.

In 2005, proceeds bought winter footwear to 74 children of the Uch-Korgon orphanage, and in 2006, they helped to buy the Nizhe-Serafimovsky nursing home an electric water pump and a hand cart for their heating facility.

Invitation cards for the game are available from Boris Pilipenko, Educational Programs Coordinator, contact him at tel: (+996-312) 65-68-48; 61-08-11, or email: bpilipenko@irex.kg. Suggested minimum donation is 50 som for locals and 100 som for expatriates. Invitation tickets also will be available at the gate.

P.S. 100som is about $3.

#121: Social Networking

Earlier I wrote about Facebook and MySpace and how many of my friends are on the first one. The Economist today also has a very small piece that offers a peek into that virtual world of schmoozing. "To many, the vague geek term “Web 2.0” means using social-networking websites to communicate with friends (and, indeed, anyone you've ever met). With some 78m unique visitors in August, News Corporation's MySpace is the biggest such network, and it hopes to grow some more. This week it said it would let outsiders put programs on its site, following the lead of Facebook, its fast-growing rival. Such programs range from the useful, for example to allow users to compare movie tastes, to the inane. Those outsiders would also get to keep any advertising revenue that such programs might earn. "

#45: Code of Conduct for Blogger?

The Guardian came out with an article, about how two bloggers - "Tim O'Reilly, inventor of the phrase Web 2.0 to describe the next generation of interactive communications, and Jimmy Wales, founder of the communal encyclopaedia Wikipedia" - tried to introduce a code of conduct in the blogosphere.

I am against this mainly because blogs were created as a revolt against mainstream media (which is already trying to make it into the blogosphere). Blogs is an alternative forum, where participants can be sure they will not be persecuted for what they write, therefore anonymity, against which the new code is speaking, is a very important feature of blogs.