unique occurrences

Mister Kyrgyzstan 2013

May 1, 2013

This event was amazing. It’s ranked up there with the cat show for Best Things I Ever Experienced In Kyrgyzstan. This was the Mister Kyrgyzstan 2013 competition. Thirty-three of Kyrgyzstan’s most strapping young fellows competing for a coveted title and a free trip to Turkey. (This post is really heavy on the photos, so click [...]

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Cat Show in Bishkek

April 1, 2013

I first heard about a cat show hosted in Bishkek over a year ago (maybe even two), but news about the event had only ever reached me after it had already happened. Until now. I went to a cat show in Bishkek, and it may have been the best day ever. I had a few [...]

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Galactic Marshrutka

March 25, 2013

Can dreams come true? Yes. Yes they can. I finally photographed the Galactic Marshrutka this weekend. I wasn’t prepared, except that I had my camera out at the moment it drove past me. The pictures aren’t amazing (they’re a bit blurry, in fact), but good enough to prove its elusive existence. As you can see, [...]

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art studio visit

February 20, 2013

A few weekends ago, a friend and former coworker was visiting from Almaty and offered to show us her father’s art studio in Bishkek. Her father, Jyrgal Maturaimov, is a very talented painter. Farrell had seen some of her father’s paintings that she had posted on Facebook, and we had already decided that we need [...]

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and now I have a broken door

September 13, 2012

(Update, 10/27: About a week ago, the police came back to explain all of the diligent work they had been doing on our case. You would not believe how crazy this story turned out to be! All along, we assumed it was a group of spoiled rich hooligans that broke our door, but the police [...]

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Kirstin gets sued (hypothetically)

September 12, 2012

The revelation that some House Hunters and House Hunters International episodes might not be as truthful as they first appear hit some people hard. When I was back in the states one woman’s account of making her episode was national news. But nothing was affected more seriously than the strained diplomatic relations between Kazakhstan and [...]

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Bishkek Fashion Week

May 10, 2012

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, even Kyrgyzstan has a Fashion Week. In fact, more than 150 Fashion Weeks a year are organized all around the world. Still, having never attended any sort of fashion show myself, I was curious to see what sort of fashion I’d get to see here [...]

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Bishkek Rock Festival

March 17, 2012

It’s necessary to set the scene with this music, a clip from the movie “From Dusk til Dawn.” The details of my night are a bit different from the movie. I walked into the Russian Drama Theater with my husband and members of his band. We’re late, having not known this event existed until it [...]

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Diversity Festival

January 15, 2012

On December 16, a friend and I went “on assignment” to an annual festival that celebrates the diverse group of ethnicities that call Kyrgyzstan home. It was hosted in the Kyrgyz Drama Theater and included an open house of foods, crafts and souvenirs from each group, as well as a performance of songs and dances.

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Kyrgyzstan vs Uzbekistan

July 31, 2011

Wooo! Football! (Oh. I’m not actually a fan of sports. Nevermind.) A friend invited me and Farrell to a World Cup qualifying game between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek national teams. I considered that there was at least a moderate potential for rioting, so I grabbed my camera and went along. The attitude of the group [...]

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