Glossary
A work-in-progress of questions, unfamiliar terms I might use, and other references I’m sure the readers are all dying to know about.
Why Kyrgyzstan? I studied French in high school expecting to move to and work in France, I studied Arabic and all things Middle East in college expecting to live and work in the Middle East. I went to work in Iraq and figured out that there are a whole lot of experts there who know more than me, speak better Arabic than me, and are already doing all of the fun research I want to do. Central Asia? Not so much. So off to Kyrgyzstan to attempt to learn the languages, study the culture and the politics and the media and the craziness, and (hopefully) blaze the trail with some new and meaningful research.
How long am I staying here? The original plan was to stay at least a year, but I think we’re slowly convincing ourselves to stick around for at least two or three.
Holy crap, why so long? We’re trying to start a business and learn as much about the region as we can. I’d like to have a solid Russian knowledge, and it always takes longer than you think to learn a language well. Plus, I don’t think I could justify bringing the cat (see “Mama” below) back to the states if I’ve only had her for a year. But three years? That earns her a cross-global plane ticket.
Is it safe? Eh, it’s all relative. It’s no Baghdad, but I wouldn’t feel safe walking around by myself after dark. Political uprisings usually have nothing to do with the foreigners, but it always makes for a good excuse to rob and pillage. In fact, we got robbed, there was an explosion, and also a few earthquakes to keep us on our toes.
Where else have I been? I’ve traveled to France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Jordan, Syria, Thailand, Cambodia, Iceland, Egypt, Finland, Romania, Iraq, Malaysia, and now Kyrgyzstan. I spent a semester in Jordan to study and eight months in Iraq to work.
Why Ivory Pomegranate? I made a blog in February 2009 to be a food blog and poached the name from my History of Ancient Israel class; it’s an ancient artifact and isn’t really relevant to the blog.
Is it expensive there? The current exchange rate is about 47 soms to one dollar, but some things are surprisingly equal or more expensive to what they’d cost in the U.S. Food and services are cheap; a typical two-person meal at an average restaurant can come to about 450-500 soms, fast food can be as low as 40 soms per person. Rent is cheap; I’m paying $250 a month for a studio, but I know that $500+ can get you a palace. Consumer electronics and decent-quality clothing usually have at least a 20% markup, and don’t even get me started on how expensive a nice pair of heels can be!
Who’s “we”? Me, Kirstin, and my husband, Farrell. More on the About page.
Terms:
Beta Stores: Turkish-owned supermarket that was looted during the past two revolutions, pronounced “Bey-tah Stor-res”.
Narodni: 24-hour convenience store chain dotted around the city.
AUCA: The American University of Central Asia, supposedly the only English-speaking university in the region, usually referred to as “Ow-sa” (based on the English acronym) or “Ow-tsa” (based on the Cyrillic acronym АУЦА).
Lepyoshka: лепёшка, a round, chewy loaf of bread, usually costs between 10-15 soms.
Besh barmak: беш бармак, means “five fingers” in Kyrgyz, consists of boiled sheep over greasy noodles.
Shashlik: шашлик, hunks of meat and fat, skewered and cooked over a fire.
Lada: my generic (and sometimes inaccurate) word for any cool-looking, Soviet-era vehicle put-putting around Bishkek. My obsession with them is growing over on my Flickr page.
Mama: Short for Mamajan, my Bishkek cat.
My camera equipment: Canon 7D with the kit lens and a macro lens the thieves were too dumb to notice, and a Lubitel 166B (once I find 120 film).
Yurt: юрт, a collapsible felt house used by nomadic Kyrgyz.
Blogspot: BLOCKED! Thank you, Kazakhstan. 99.9999% of the time, all blogspot websites are blocked, despite that 99% of my favorite blogs are hosted by it. I still read them through Google reader, but just to warn you, if you have a blogspot blog and you leave me a lovely comment expecting to get some comment love in return, well, sorry.
Basics:
Don’t know much about Kyrgyzstan? You’re not alone! I certainly didn’t know much about it, even when I made the decision to move here, so here’s a quick introduction: Kyrgyzstan is located in the region known as Central Asia, which also includes Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. In a more general sense, Kyrgyzstan is south of Russia, west of China, and north of Afghanistan. It was formerly part of the Soviet Union and a large portion of the country still speaks Russian to some degree. But, Kyrgyzstan is not Russia. The national language is Kyrgyz, a Turkic language, and the majority of the population identifies their religion as Islam, though the average citizen of Kyrgyzstan does not practice it strictly, as evidenced by the flowing tradition of vodka-drinking. Kyrgyzstan has two major cities, Bishkek (the capital, located in the north, where I live) and Osh (in the south). In America, Kyrgyzstan is likely to have appeared in the news for housing Transit Center Manas (usually incorrectly referred to as Manas Air Base), which supports U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, or for various uprisings/revolutions/unrest over the past few years. There was the Tulip Revolution in 2005 that forced out Askar Akayev, who had been in power since Kyrgyzstan’s independence in 1991, the April 2010 uprising (which left around 76 protesters dead) that forced out Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who had replaced Akayev, and the June 2010 ethnic unrest between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan. All of these events are enormously complicated and impossible to accurately describe in one sentence, but a simple Wikipedia search is a decent place to start.
