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Another tourist-blogger writes about the Kyrgyz Hospitality:

They Kyrygz people we met in the mountains were invariably sweet. They welcomed our “Community based tourism” with genuine hospitality. Having come from China, I was shocked that they didn’t try to sell us anything along the way. I saw in them the same patience and kindness that I think can be found in the people of the sierra around the world.

Just sitting in the computer-room of the Kyrgyz Service of the Radio of Liberty in Bishkek, as I was invited for their round-table on SCO summit results. So, everyone, who is in Bishkek can listen my speech at this the radio. I cannot remember what the FM is this. But you can also listen the podcasting through their web-site: www.azattyk.kg

Another news, yesterday Ben has suggested to write round-ups from Kyrgyz blogosphere for the Global Voices Online. As my english is not well to be more professional my stuff, he suggested his help on reediting them. So, I’ll write to them as soon as possible, if there is any interesting stuff from the KG Blogosphere :).

Another one is we are in a process of writing a new appeal on SCO summit held in Bishkek. I mean that Youth liberal Platform I take part at. That appeal will not be as support of the summit results or just critics. We’ll say we would not like to turn off the way forward to West and the United States. i think it is relevant for today’s situation as every western authoritative media has called the summit as “anti-western”. I also think it is built to stand against the west and USA, therefore I don’t support the idea of beeing with China, Russia and other Central Asian countirs in a one military block!!!

Yes, one more news. That is I will attend American Courses in Bishkek to improve my English forehead. So, see my English after three months to be more professional. And i hope I can begin writing for Neweurasia too…

World Bank has published a new report which shows the tendency of decreasing the number of population in postsoviet countries. Kyrgyzstan, in this report, is included to a list of the countries, who will have increase of population’s number.

The largest absolute declines will be in Russia, followed by Ukraine and Romania. The Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, as well as Albania and Turkey, will still have growing populations. For most other countries in the region, the projected changes in absolute population size are expected to be less pronounced. By 2025 the population of Kyrgyzstan will increase for 1.3 people.

Let me introduce to you the newest kyrgyzstani blogger, Almurad, who already works on creating a new information agency “Today.KG”. His blog can be found at http://blog.today.kg.

When we were in Prague, Tolkun was telling about the idea of his friend of creating a new weblog, called as “The Oshington Times” (not Washington). The name “Oshington” is taken from the name of Kyrgyzstan city “Osh”, it is in south part of country. So, at this moment this blog is created and it’s author is writing different kind of posts, which are interesting for me too. For instance, one of the last was about the people, who are leaving our country, and he also gave some advise to managers of the State on what to do.

It was interesting to hear from him “putting together a favorable taxation system, making sure small and medium enterprises grow?”, as a recommendation for the Kyrgyz Government.

It is very interesting of reading the posts of foreigners, tourists, who are telling about their trip to Kyrgyzstan. Today I’ve found another one, Christina wrote about her travel to Naryn at TravelBlog.

I got back from visiting Naryn yesterday, a lovely city nestled in the mountains in kind of the middle of the country. The weather was refreshing and cool, such a change from Bishkek, where I was completely unable to sleep last week because it was just SO HOT! But now that I’m back, for some reason, the weather smells like fall and there’s a bit of a breeze, for which I am incredibly grateful…

And next the pictures from Naryn. It really is a beautiful city. I’d been told before that Bishkek is European (comparatively), Osh is Uzbekified, and (aside from the villages) the place to find the realKyrgyz life is Naryn. Almost everyone speaks Kyrgyz here, which meant that I was very grateful that I came with Nazgul and a friend of hers from Naryn, Eliza. We had a great time.

You can take a bus or a marshutka to Naryn, but it’s advisable to take a taxi, given that the trip is at least 4 hours. So we bounced up and down and I prayed that we wouldn’t crash the whole way there. The mountains are gorgeous, and I included a bunch of pics so you get some idea of the scenery. I HAVE to come back next year and do some hiking! Also along the way are a lot more people living in yurts, at least for the summer. Most of them seem to be raising herds of horses or herding sheep or selling kimiz, the mare’s milk that I am less than enchanted with, along the side of the road. We also saw a huge animal market taking place on Saturday - it really felt like we were getting the authentic Kyrgyz experience.

Naryn isn’t too big, although I’m not sure how many people live there. We walked allover the city on Saturday, and I’ve thrown in a picture of the central square. We went to the Art Museum (had to negotiate a cheaper price for me, as most foreigners have to pay a very inflated rate to get in), and I’ve included a picture of a hockey game And they had a yurt all set up, with all their beautiful blankets and hangings.

whole text you can read here: http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Kyrgyzstan/blog-191873.html 

I wasn’t able to write a round-up yesterday. Some problems were with money transferring from Osh to Bishkek, therefore I spent all my time for that till 5:30 p.m., then at 6:00 p.m. I went to meet my friend, and we were talking about “everything” till night. So, today I am combining two day’s round-up into one. Let’s read it?!

The main issue for these two days was again SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) summit. People were discussing things of the preparation for SCO summit in Bishkek.

kosmoslkl, blogger www.mylivepage.ru platform, quotes the link about SCO summit preparation in Bishkek. There is written there will be 140 cars and buses working for summit service. The is going to be policemen in each 7-10 meters and helicopters in air.

zigeunerin_kgz publishes exclusive photos from the road over the Philharmonic in Bishkek. I just… recommend you to look at photos of this girl. They say about the post of kosmoslkl, particularly about policemen, helicopters and etc.

A little before khaan and morrire were telling (Morrire, Khaan) to their readers about this, particularly, khaan was telling about the car over the road, which was taken by policemen away, morrire has been telling about the general preparation for SCO summit.

antipodean_wor, blogger from Bishkek, reports, Bakiev has stolen the quote of Confucius and publishes the photo of this slogan.

Ben translated this into English at Neweurasia, ”…perhaps the visiting Chinese delegation could raise some intellectual property rights issues with the hosts”.

diykanov, kyrgyzstani, currently lives in istanbul, published in kyrgyz language a list of SCO summit participants. He also included the information about the place of the participant-countries on population amount.

Djigit, Neweurasia contributor on Kyrgyzstan, made the same, but in Russian language. He says: “Kyrgyzstan has never seen such amount of Dictators in it’s own area”.

These posts were the part of the main issue for last 2 days. There are a lot of other issues, like, kyrgyz bloggers are “simpsonizing”, writing personal stories of a different adventures are not so interesting, I think.

Nevertheless, there were two things I was interested: (1) I’ve found the blog of a Fulbright Fellow in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, called as “One year in Kyrgyzstan“. She is, as she says, “keeping this blog updated for all those interested in my adventures in Central Asia during the the 2007-2008 academic year”. Another one (2) a diary on one russian alpinist, who reports on their trip through the Kyrgyz Rocky and Icy Mountains. As he mentioned, “there were 5 alpinists, who couldn’t come back”, as they are not alive any more…

Photo of antipodean_wor

I have found some other opportunities of improving my English. One of them is writing daily round-ups of kyrgyz (russian-speaking) bloggers’ posts. I think this can make easier the work of different english media organizations, such as neweurasia, registan or CA blog of foreignpolicy… So, this is the first round-up post.

The main issue for Kyrgyz bloggers to discuss for today is Shanghai Cooperaton Organization’s Summit in Bishkek, which will be provided from August 16-19, 2007.

morrire publishes a picture of tree from the road from Manas Airport to Bishkek, and she calls to pay attention how poplars are whitewashed and only that part of trees which is visible from road is painted.

President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev on August 4, 2007 participated in a ribbon cutting ceremony to launch Reception and Guest houses for the heads of states attending the SCO Summit in August 16 in Bishkek, reports kyrgyzreport.

nuraika shares her opinion about the view of Youth Alley, over Philharmonic in Bishkek. She also tells a funny story when policemen with a big stomach came to them and they talked about ecology in this area without any trashes. She also publishes some photos from that place.

SCO summit will be provided very soon, so the main work of it has finished, zigeunerin_kgz writes a post about the preparation to summit in Bishkek. She says: “Houses for presidents, Congress hall are built, reconstructed the Philarmonic, The city is being more clean”. She publishes photos of Congress hall and Houses of presidents.

kyrgyzreport publishes the RFE/RL interview of Ednan Karabaev, Kyrgyzstan Foreign Minister, where the minister says “Of course, the heads of six member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will attend the summit. They are Kyrgyzstan, Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan — there will also be presidents of observer countries Iran and Mongolia, as well as the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan. There will be many other guests, the president of Afghanistan, [Hamid Karzai,] among them. For the first time, Turkmen President [Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov] and the deputy head of the UN chairman on policy issues will arrive upon the invitation of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev”.

All residents of the house, called “Ocean”, the windows of which go to the Philharmonic, where the SCO summit will be provided, were forbidden to open their windows and balcony doors from August 14 to the end of the summit. “It’s for your own safety,” reassured the representatives of the police, “because everyone who appears in the window, will be in a risk of being shot. There will be Russian snipers excluding ours”, writes in her blog lena. She says, that bunch of students were expelled with brushes and others in front of a Philharmony, and they washed stone surface. We were just walking there in evening, so it is purely, well guys, cool. During our walk we’ve met a polite young policeman and he asked us do not allow children to go to a water in the fountain and borders of lawn - order of Bishkek mayor. All for the good of the people, well, just everything, explains lena.

The another interesting case for discussion was the press-conference of the ex-prime-minister, the Opposition leader Feliks Kulov.

shaihutdinov, who participated in his press-conference briefly describes the situation there, and shares his opinion that Kulov is no more famous and respected politician. He thinks the union with Russia will lead us forward authoritarianism, if we will take as a strategic partner some countries from islamic World then we will be oriented to more-islamic values, and at last, if Kyrgyzstan will go towards of joining EU than we will be more democratized.

shaihutdinov writes another post, called “One more Disappointment”, where he tells how Feliks Kulov gave up from his young wing “Kanjar”, activists of which have became asylum seekers.

nuraika publishes photos from Kulov’s press-conference, and is happy as one of her political idols - is him.

There are some other issues that local bloggers are discussing, for instance, the new cell-phone operator Nexi.KG… It is the end of my first report…

Three days ago I’ve received a letter from Tina, http://imtina.wordpress.com blogger. She has adopted a baby from Tokmok city, near to Bishkek. She was interested in learning traditions, particularly, why mothers give up their babies. She wrote to me:

I am trying to understand the Kyrgyz culture and perhaps understand why my baby’s mother gave her up. Culturally speaking, is it unacceptable to be an unwed mother? Are young women who get pregnant out of wedlock pressured to give up their babies? I’d love your insights, whatever they may be. Part of what we were told was that my baby’s mother in Kyrgyzstan left a false address. Does that mean she most likely never wants to be found?

She updates her blog regularly, as I’ve seen, and already added to her blogroll other weblogs. I thought it would be interesting and useful for her if you could leave a comment about her letter at her blog.

I have already answered her e-mail, and wrote something like this. Are you agreed with my opinion?

Actually it is the thing which i really hate. I hate the tradition, which is against the individual liberty of each people. A girl who is pregnant and still not married can have her baby. But, actually, if she is from village or small town, it is something like a shame for her parents. And especially, if parents do know who is father, then they talk to him, and let their girl get merried. If not, sometimes they can say “get an abortion”, or “Give up your baby”.

The another thing which is also necessery to know is - social-economic status of that girl. If she is not poor, and her parents are agreed to have grandson, then she can have her baby. If not, they have to give up their babies as they cannot take care of them…

What do you think about?