Day 9 (July 8, 2025): Kyrgyzstan!

Blog introduction and most captions will be added on Wednesday.

The hotel’s restaurant hostess was dressed in traditional dress at breakfast.

Scenes from Osh Bazaar:

“Grow watermelons, not nuclear bombs!” If anyone asked me, that would be my solution to nuclear proliferation.

Kyrgyzstan, like all central Asian countries we have visited, take their bread, designs, very seriously.

Honey, honey, and more, honey!

And likewise, spice, spice, and more spice! It’s like a Canadian Bulk Barn on steroids.

This is Kurt: hard, salty cheeseballs. And trust me when I tell you there were bags and bags, rows annd rows, and stalls and stalls of them. The Kyrgyzstan people love them. We tried one and were completely disgusted. I guess it’s an acquired taste.

One has to wonder who buys all these spices!

As mentioned in yesterday’s blog entry from Kazakhstan, the flowers in these parts are quite amazing and our packaged in the most decorative manner.

Need a hijab? Oh, they have them. In every colour and style, you can imagine.

Philharmonic Square:

There is no doubt about it, the Soviets built some pretty impressive buildings. Take, for example, the Geological Museum (left), Bishkek

City Hall (middle), and the International University of Kyrgyzstan (right). But when it came to public housing, they really scarred the USSR from one end to the other. And a lot of that housing stock still remains today, decades after it was first conceived and constructed. Bishkek is no exception. Unfortunately, many Soviet housing projects still remain - such as these examples;

Bishkek is hardly a city that you would write home about, expounding on its amazing architecture. However, there are a few interesting gems, such as this golf ball shaped apartment building.

In a city of a lot of decaying buildings, there are signs of a construction boom. Such as these two buildings being built.
















Parliament of Kyrgyzstan. 

Emblem of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.

Ala-Too Square:

The square contains the tallest flagpole in the country.

Two incredibly disciplined soldiers stand guard when the flag is raised. 

State History Museum:

Clay Buddha from the ninth century. Restored by the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. 

A traditional Kyrgyz yurt, outside and in. 

Traditional Kyrgyz winter dress 

Various types of Kyrgyz headdress.

As in Kazakhstan, horses have long played an important role in Kyrgyzstan. And saddlery has long been an art form in its own right.

Across the former Soviet Union, statues of Lenin have been destroyed, moved, and hidden since the fall of the USSR in 1991. Some countries, however, remain more empathetic to communist ideals. Bishkek decided to move its Lenin statue to the rear of the State History Museum instead of destroying it or storing it away.

The Sheraton Bishkek Hotel, where we stayed.

Manas International Airport in Bishkek.

Our nonstop flight to Astana in the north of Kazakhstan was via FlyArystan, the low-fare subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s national airline. Here is our airbus A320 arriving in Bishkek. 

Seven months ago when we booked our tickets, we booked chicken and mushroom crêpes. They were actually quite delicious.

If you look closely through the haze, you will see a huge mountain range to the east of Bishkek. China is on the other side.  

It was interesting to see that, on the Kyrgyzstan side of the border, agriculture has reclaimed the arid terrain. On the other side of the border, Kazakhstan hasn’t quite accomplished the same. 

Upon descent into Astana, we were shocked to see such a developed agricultural sector. The desert has been turned into green productive space. For example, these circles are irrigated by a system that radiates out from the centre of the circle.

Kazakhstan has also planted a lot of trees to create forest out of the desert.

Nur-Sultan International Airport in Astana has a very iconic domed air traffic control tower.


Outside the Astana Terminal upon arrival.