Warmth

After a few days of really wintery weather, it's been unseasonably warm the past 2 days. Today I wore my jean jacket instead of my winter coat, and I even had to take it off while we were walking around town. We tried to go to a Japanese Drumming Festival this afternoon, but when we got there all the seats in the theater were full and we didn't want to stand in the lobby watching the performance on a television screen. Instead, we went to TSUM, the biggest department store in Bishkek and wandered around. Ben is going back to England at the beginning of January, so he is starting his souvenier purchases. I bought a packet of 15 Soviet Bishkek postcards for 50 som, back from when it was called Frunze instead of Bishkek. Mike got Dark Knight in English on DVD, so he can finally join the rest of the world in having seen it. I also got a great pocket sized map of Bishkek for those days when we aren't where we think we are in Bishkek and need to get elsewhere.

My friend Derek, here on an NSEP scholarship from Arizona State, has decided to not return to Bishkek after spending Xmas break in the States. He has been stopped by the police a lot, and a few weeks ago had a gun drawn on him by some drunk policemen. The incident with Evan's mugging did nothing to make him want to stay more, and the murder of a Polish university professor here last week during a mugging (read about it here: http://www.polskieradio.pl/thenews/news/?id=96149) made him decide to transfer to Vladivostock to do the rest of his scholarship year. It will be sad to not have him back, he's a lot of fun to hang out with. He cooks for us 2 nights a week too, and his food is wonderful. Last night I hosted dinner in my apartment, and it was so cozy having 9 friends sitting around and eating champagne chicken and drinking.

Next weekend or the weekend after, we're planning a trip to Kochkor, which is a town a few hours from Bishkek. They make cheap and great shyrdaks there (traditional Kyrgyz rugs) and Ben wants to buy some before he leaves. I guess there isn't much to do there, but it's just fun to hang out together, eat, and wander around Kyrgyzstan.

We had lunch at a wonderful Japanese restaurant today, and are branching out and trying new restaurants rather than our regular hangouts. New York Pizza, a semi-expensive pizza place, has the best pizza by far that I've had in Bishkek, and it even might beat some pizza I've had in the States. There's also a Georgian place, some Dungan places, and an Armenian place we want to try soon, as well as some other Kyrgyz restaurants.

Andy, Nicola, and I saw James Bond in Russian earlier this week. We went out planning on seeing a Kyrgyz folk music festival, but we couldn't find the building where the festival was being held. Instead, we decided on Bond, in Russian of course. I understood more of the dialogue than I thought I would, and I had read the synopsis before we went, so I basically understood the plotline. Casino Royale was better, but you can't really go wrong with Daniel Craig. We also found a bookstore with some cheap used books, and I bought a Kyrgyz language learning book, in Russian. So I can learn Russian through Kyrgyz. On Monday the new month of teaching starts, and I have 4 Russian lessons per week, as well as one hour of Kyrgyz! Mike, Nicola, and I are studying Kyrgyz together, and it will be great fun :)

Here's more about the Polish man who was killed:

Polish teacher killed in Kyrgyzstan
A Polish language teacher, Maciej Chowaniok, 28, from the Silesian University in Katowice, was murdered last night in Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. Silesian University spokesmen told PAP on Tuesday that the circumstances of the incident are yet unknown. According to a local web portal Chowaniok was brought to a clinic in Bishkek with heavy wounds by a knife in his neck. The man died of blood loss caused by one of the wounds, which had severed an artery. (http://www.visegradgroup.eu/main.php?folderID=912)

All the articles that seem to have more information are visible only with an online subscription.

Supposedly the power will start being shut off again. We had three weeks of no power outages, but apparently the government will punish Bishkek and turn the lights off to get back at us for not conserving energy as much as we should have. We'll see if it really happens. I was getting so spoiled by constant lights that it will be really unfortunate to go back to headlamp and candles. Also, one of Ben's students said that Kyrgyz meteorologists are saying that this will be the coldest winter in history in Kyrgyzstan.

If you're ever interested in reading news about Kyrgyzstan, here's what I would say is the best website to do so:

http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/kyrgyzstan/articles/index.shtml