Santa Saga 2…
Following on from Sweco’s tongue-in-cheek conclusion that it’s time for Santa Claus to up sticks from Lapland and move to Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz Tourist Board is capitalising on this arguably apolitical claim to fame: They’ve launched a competition, which runs until December 20, to find Santa Claus in the republic’s mountains.
As Akbar Dzhigitov of the Kyrgyz Tourist Board is quoted as saying,
“The state tourism agency always knew that Father Christmas lived here and finally Swedish scientists have proved it” […] “We have a lot of work ahead of us since Kyrgyzstan really wants to be recognised as the true home of Father Christmas,” better known in predominantly Sunni Muslim Kyrgyzstan as “Grandfather Frost,” Dzhigitov said.
It has to be said that if it was, say, April 1, rather than mid-December, it wouldn’t exactly be a surprise; somehow the words “Father Christmas / Ded Moroz” and “Sunni Muslim” are not entirely natural bedfellows even before Kyrgyzstan is added to the mix - it’s like a bizarre game of consequences.
That said, I’m enjoying the good-natured humour of the situation and, while there’s no such thing as bad publicity, it makes a change for international news coverage of Kyrgyzstan not to be linked to political crises for once, so let’s enjoy it in all its frivolity.
If anyone is tempted to enter the Santa-tracking competition, then this map might help as a starting point (based on these coordinates), but given that Santa might still be based in Lapland this year, it could be quite a wild goose chase.
on December 11th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Yeah right. Menwhile, look who has been spotted in a walnut forest near Jalalabad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsK_g81sJIE&feature=related
on December 11th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
If you read Kyrgyz, here is an interview with the SWECO rep. Rebekka Guenner (spelling?):
http://www.azattyk.org/rubrics/society/ky/2007/12/5678BF90-5AC3-44A7-979F-4323C4E4EFF4.asp
on December 12th, 2007 at 6:24 am
This is the kind of fun thing I wish Kazakhstan would get hip to instead of promoting tourism by announcing it has the largest population of wolves in the world!
on December 13th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
This is funny as hell. The latest news, that came today - saying that the Ministry of Culture is arranging a Santa Claus conference next year, that they will ascend some mountain in Ferghana and name it Pik Santa Klausa etc., is hilarious. I translated it from Russian and sent it to the Swedish newspaper that originally picked up this story, the Swedish newspaper readers will enjoy it, I’m sure.
And hey, maybe it actually will result in more tourists for Kyrgyzstan, who knows.
on December 13th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
KZBolg, as a matter of fact, it has many interesting places to promote eco-tourism at least if a proper understanding of the concept takes root there: wolves, the Ili-Balkash region, Altyn Emel, the Altay, the western steppe, the Caspian etc.