I moved to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan a little more than two months ago. It’s always hard to start a new posting in the winter, but I have been coming here on and off since 2001. I am very pleased to have a good long stay.
Some notes:
1) It’s been snowing since December. It blows away and then snows more. It’s very pretty and very cold. My Kyrgyz colleagues tell me this is a mild winter.
2) North is downhill in Bishkek. For those of us raised on the Mercator projection, that’s confusing.
3) There is an opera or ballet performance pretty much every weekend.
4) The country’s official English language name is the Kyrgyz Republic, which leads to much confusion over whether it’s properly abbreviated as KG or KR.
5) The Kyrgyz republic is famed in song and story (or at least sector assessments) for having one of the most vibrant NGO communities in the former USSR