Happily, I’ve just found out that an acquaintence of mine here in Osh, Tolkun Umaraliev, has started up his own blog, mostly in English. So far he has a great introductory post on Osh and his home village, Aravan, as well as a range of photos. Looking forward to reading more in the future.
Certain opposition figures once again gathered people on Ploshchad Ala-Too in Bishkek on Saturday for the promised protest (see also Yulia’s report). As with the previous protest on April 29, turn out was far lower than the organisers had advertised – my guesstimate would be 3 – 5 thousand, Vechernii Bishkek reckons on about […]
The political party “Unity”( “Sodruzhestvo”) started its public initiative aimed at protecting the official language, Russian, in Kyrgyzstan. As was announced in the official statement of the party issued earlier this week, the Russian language, which has traditionally served in Kyrgyzstan as a tool of interaction between representatives of more than 80 nationalities living […]
Today’s rally of the opposition forces gathered from 3 to 4 thousands of participants instead of anticipated 40 thousands at the central square of Bishkek. The speculations about this gathering have been stirring public for more than a week though the rumors predicting civic clashes turned out to be just fancied.
Protesters formed groups […]
According to the latest survey of the Freedom House a year after the revolution the freedom in the press in Kyrgyzstan remains restricted.
This announcement makes us feel a little odd wondering why, on earth, this long awaited process of democratization of mass media in the country never overcame a period of stagnation.
It’s really hard […]
What follows is one part of a cross-blog initiative, which takes the role of Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus as its central theme:
Last week was marked in Kyrgyzstan by a new invasion of a group of people characterized by officials as guerillas . These six were allegedly representatives of the Islamic movement […]
What follows is one part of a cross-blog initiative, which takes the role of Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus as its central theme:
Mentioning the words “politics” and “religion” in Kyrgyzstan, as with virtually any nominally Muslim country, instantly brings forth a string of negative associations. Islam is portrayed as threatening democratic values […]
An unexpected end to a story that had been whizzing around for the past month or so. Reputed Crime boss Rysbek Akmatbaev, who had controversially been elected last month, is dead.
Aside from the day Robert Mugabe departs, I will most likely never say these words again but, good riddance. Kyrgyz politics needs to […]
Celebrating Victory Day is taken seriously here in Kyrgyzstan, and Osh is no exception. In the morning a military parade honouring Veterans of the Great Patriotic War (photo 7) was held on the main square in front of the city’s administrative building with Lenin overseeing proceedings (photo 1). The afternoon was marked by a […]
Neweurasia has launched a new opinion and editorial page, and things have been kicked off with a piece on Kyrgyzstan entitled “Causes and Consequences, or Looking Beyond Tomorrow in Kyrgyzstan”. There’s been some interesting comments in response to the article, so head on over to take a look.
