business-y things

a busy week at the office

October 27, 2012

My business in Bishkek essentially works based on contracts. It’s hard to sum up what we do in terms that are general enough to encompass everything, while also being specific enough to give a satisfying response, because it really does vary from month to month, project to project. On the one hand, this is great [...]

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the uncertain future

August 10, 2012

People always ask me when I’ll leave Kyrgyzstan. It’s inevitable, I won’t argue that. Nobody assumes that expats will stick around here forever. But it’s a tough question to answer. I’m coming up on two years since I moved to Bishkek and there’s still no clear plan for how long we’ll stay, what we’ll do [...]

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Circling Issyk-Kul

August 1, 2012

A few photos from a business trip to Issyk Kul in July. (You can read more about the purpose of the trip on the Oxus website.) Unfortunately, there was no frolicking in the lake during this trip. Most of my time was spent in a car, driving the entire circumference of the lake, or quietly [...]

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How to start a business in Kyrgyzstan

May 30, 2012

My first piece for the Glimpse Correspondent’s Program is up on Matador, called “How to move to Kyrgyzstan and start a business.” I will let you know now that there is not a speck of useful advice for doing either one of those two things. This was a tough piece to write. Firstly, because I’m [...]

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Hey Kirstin, what do you actually do?

April 8, 2012

My family thinks I’m in Russia. My friends think I’m a journalist. A lot of people I meet in Bishkek call me a spy (and I think they’re jerks). The House Hunters episode said my husband, Farrell, and I moved to Bishkek to start a media analysis company and cut out my brilliant explanation of [...]

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lately

November 3, 2011

Lately I’ve been tirelessly trudging through all the (mostly incoherent) words the internet has to offer on telecommunications in Central Asia. The project is in the final stretch and I’m looking forward to not reading about how unregulated Tajikistan seems and how hopelessly isolated Turkmenistan is. They have five TV channels there. FIVE. Imagine that [...]

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hello, new readers!

September 28, 2011

Our big television debut on House Hunters International is tomorrow night, and the amount of press we’re getting for it is just really overwhelming! So I thought I’d write a bit of an introduction to my multitude of new fans! (just kidding) If you happen to have made it to this page after reading about [...]

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