Only a few days left...
I can't believe I only have two more days left here. It's strange because I feel like I just got here, and yet so much has happened in the last few weeks that I also feel like I've been here forever. Either way, this was a truly amazing trip. It's hard to describe in words (though they're what I'll mainly have to make due with), but this is nothing at all like what I expected... and it's even less like anything anyone who I talked to prior to the trip might have expected.
Having just spent a short while here, Bishkek already feels like a real city instead of a quaint, stereotypical third-world country city that's more of a village. It's definitely a real city, and while you may not find a Macy's or a McDonald's out here it has very similar local equivalents.
That's not to say that the city doesn't have some "features" that most Westerners would find strange or even frustrating. It's a real place, and it has real ups and downs. The supermarkets out here are pretty much like supermarkets everywhere else in the world with one exception. You never know what they will or won't have. Their inventories seem to completely change from day to day. They're always full of "stuff", but that stuff is hardly ever the same. Finding Diet Coke is an interesting exercise... if you can find it in one store, every store in the city will have it. Yet if you come back two days later, there might not be a single bottle of the stuff anywhere.
The city also has an extremely active expatriate population that seems to be almost a world within a world. Most of the expats here stay for a year or less typically even though some, like my brother, have been here considerably longer. But because of this rapidly shifting group of people, and because most of the newly arrived people miss having a reminder of Western culture, there are bars, restaurants and shops that seem to cater exclusively to Westerners. One of the bars that we've frequented since I've been out here, the Metro Pub, sports a nearly 100% English-speaking clientele. The TV's are all tuned to English channels, the staff all speak English, and very few of the customers speak much Russian. About the only locals I've seen in the place are usually there because they have lots of expat friends.
Finally, in a strangely fascinating twist, the number of locals in Biskhek that speak English is extremely low. (And the number of locals that speak English outside of Bishkek is probably around 0.) It's kind of disconcerting at first because almost every other place I've ever visited has a fair number of English speakers, but then you consider that Kyrgyzstan in general, and Bishkek in particular is not exactly a hot tourist destination; although given the amazing amount of natural beauty out here, I'm sure that's going to change at some point. But in the time that I've been here I've honestly only seen a handful (i.e. less than 10) tourists. So with so few Westerners coming here, it's not much of a shock that not many people speak English.
With all of that said, given how much I like this place, and how much I abhor tourism in general, I'm going to have to definitely spend more time here in the future. I'm definitely going to get my butt in gear once I get back home and start taking Russian lessons as I had intended to do BEFORE I actually came here, and then, money permitting, I hope to come back sometime this winter to see everyone again and do some skiing. But enough of my rambling for now... while I only have two days left, that also means that I STILL have two days left, so time to go and make use of that time.
Having just spent a short while here, Bishkek already feels like a real city instead of a quaint, stereotypical third-world country city that's more of a village. It's definitely a real city, and while you may not find a Macy's or a McDonald's out here it has very similar local equivalents.
That's not to say that the city doesn't have some "features" that most Westerners would find strange or even frustrating. It's a real place, and it has real ups and downs. The supermarkets out here are pretty much like supermarkets everywhere else in the world with one exception. You never know what they will or won't have. Their inventories seem to completely change from day to day. They're always full of "stuff", but that stuff is hardly ever the same. Finding Diet Coke is an interesting exercise... if you can find it in one store, every store in the city will have it. Yet if you come back two days later, there might not be a single bottle of the stuff anywhere.
The city also has an extremely active expatriate population that seems to be almost a world within a world. Most of the expats here stay for a year or less typically even though some, like my brother, have been here considerably longer. But because of this rapidly shifting group of people, and because most of the newly arrived people miss having a reminder of Western culture, there are bars, restaurants and shops that seem to cater exclusively to Westerners. One of the bars that we've frequented since I've been out here, the Metro Pub, sports a nearly 100% English-speaking clientele. The TV's are all tuned to English channels, the staff all speak English, and very few of the customers speak much Russian. About the only locals I've seen in the place are usually there because they have lots of expat friends.
Finally, in a strangely fascinating twist, the number of locals in Biskhek that speak English is extremely low. (And the number of locals that speak English outside of Bishkek is probably around 0.) It's kind of disconcerting at first because almost every other place I've ever visited has a fair number of English speakers, but then you consider that Kyrgyzstan in general, and Bishkek in particular is not exactly a hot tourist destination; although given the amazing amount of natural beauty out here, I'm sure that's going to change at some point. But in the time that I've been here I've honestly only seen a handful (i.e. less than 10) tourists. So with so few Westerners coming here, it's not much of a shock that not many people speak English.
With all of that said, given how much I like this place, and how much I abhor tourism in general, I'm going to have to definitely spend more time here in the future. I'm definitely going to get my butt in gear once I get back home and start taking Russian lessons as I had intended to do BEFORE I actually came here, and then, money permitting, I hope to come back sometime this winter to see everyone again and do some skiing. But enough of my rambling for now... while I only have two days left, that also means that I STILL have two days left, so time to go and make use of that time.