The Kyrgyz documentary film “Long Distance love” was filmed by Swedish team Magnus Gerttenom and Ellen Jonsson. The film is based on real events and was filmed over two years. Film premiere was held at the “private show” Kyrgyz Cultural Center.
The film narrates about the fate of Alisher Sultanov, a resident of Osh city (in Southern Kyrgyzstan), forced to go to Russia to earn money to feed his young family.
The train to Moscow
Elnura Osmonalieva’s “Almaz” is the first full-length documentary filmed in Kyrgyzstan in the past fifteen years. Directed of “Almaz” by an alumnus of the American University of Central Asia, the film has already gained festival success and has been recognized for the depth and complexity of the topic.
Critics and sociologists believe this film is not just about one character, but about Kyrgyzstan as a whole. Cinema critic Gulbara Tolomusheva drew an interesting parallel between “Almaz” and our country: the same age, 19 years, the same background, and the same dramatic twists and turns. According to her, this film is a microcosm – a private story about the fate of an entire country.
Written by a group of journalism students from the University of Central Asia in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek Journal shows various faces of Kyrgystan’s capital city.
Chinara, one of the blog authors, said “I was really interested in writing stories about my city, so that other people could read them and want to visit Bishkek. Such kind of features represent the city in the other scope than travel agencies do. They show the real life, concerns of people and the uniqueness of Kyrgyz culture“.
Articles all have some kind of historical focus, for example artistic representations of Kyrgyz myths and the Manas village, built to celebrate the 1000 anniversary of the Manas epic.
Also interesting is the gap between Bishkek’s older generation, who have lived through hard times, and its young people, who have many of the interests of young people in other countries – clothes, entertainment and having fun.
Read more:
More blogs from Central Asia on Blogs of the World
Twelve reasons to love Kyrgyzstan
Urban style challenge: Bishkek vs Vancouver
A crowd patiently waits, snaking around the dark halls of a small office. Some pace nervously while children bounce in laps. One’s first guess of this being an underequipped doctor’s office isn’t so far off. The clients who fill this busy room, who quickly enter and exit a small examination room, waiting for some mysterious physician, are turning to the traditional Kyrgyz practice of healing that was once forgotten during Soviet times. Rapakan Aidarkulova, a 63-year-old woman from Karakol near Lake Issyk Kul is just one healer playing an active part in this countrywide resurgence of traditional knowledge within Kyrgyzstan.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union more Kyrgyz are rediscovering once rigidly controlled and often forbidden traditional practices, turning to ancestral knowledge as a key to the past. These practices include pilgrimages to sacred sites known as Mazaars, soothsaying, treatment from traditional healers, and the reciting of oral histories in the form of the world’s large epic – Manas.
During the Soviet times, traditional practices were heavily restricted and believed to be strong expressions of nationalism that threatened stability within the republics. Under Party control, healers, soothsayers, and other traditional practitioners were forced to hide their abilities, practicing behind closed doors away from prying eyes.
I have many foreign friends, and one of them wrote this letter to his friends from all over the world, describing why he loves Kyrgyzstan. I read it and understood that there are so many things that I don’t even notice, simply because it’s my country and many things are too obvious to me. So with his permission I am presenting you the following essay.
By Frieder Shlecht from Germany.
Many people ask: Why Kyrgyzstan? When I arrived, I had only three answers
• The love for the Russian language
• The love for mountains
• The love for Chingiz Aitmatov’s books
Now I could write thousands of pages about why I love this country and in particular its people. Here is an utterly incomplete document with some colorful aspects. I promise I didn’t exaggerate:
Translator Astana is the blog of Snezhana, who is a Russian, English and French translator in Astana, Kazakhstan. She mostly writes about her work assignments which include translations for business meetings, magazine interviews and training workshops. Recently she worked for Business Week magazine, in preparation for a report on Kazakhstan’s growing economy.
Snezhana’s assignments are not only business related though. Here she writes about accompanying a client on a sightseeing tour, a good way to understand the main points of interest in Astana.
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