Travel Tips

There seemed to be many small shops along the street but there was only one ZUM Department store! The ZUM also seemed to be a collection of individual shops collected under one roof in one building but independently run. I had seen similar arrangments in St. Petersbyrg when I had traveled there.
There did not seem to be the "exclusiveity" here that I saw in St. Petersburg. Here there were several places that sold CD players, radios, vaccum cleaners, etc.

Sovieteskia street seemed to be the main street for shopping, ther were several banks, bakeries, restaurants and more along the street for perhaps a mile. I noticed this child play area and was thinking that it seemed similar to places in the US near "fast food" restaurants just done in a differnt style with the mosaics. Then I noticed the "Mac Burger" sign and wondered, "can it be".

My oh my, yes indeed, there it is, in Kyrgyzstan, MAC Burger, big as life!

Is this really the "best" we can add to the world?

I had seen hats in the hotel gift shop that claimed they were the "traditional" hat of native Kyrgyz. Here was the evidence they were right. After seeing this I went back to the gift shop and bought one for myself as my "been there, done that"souvenir of Kyrgyzstan
(Notice the Ambulance on the street in the background. I was totally amazed to realize that here in a country whose native language, Kyrgrz is written with a mofied version of cyrillic, whose "second language" is Russian, written in "standard" cyrillic, the information on the ambulance was written in the latin alphabet in English!! Plus Ambulance was spelled in reverse on the front so it could be read easily in the rearview mirror of a car. Oh yes, the "Emergency" number: 911

Street vendors were the "capialists" of soviet society. Home enterprise was the next version of "capitalists" in that era. Some tradidtions die harder than others. This little side ally was a weekend cake shop. These people were individual "bakers" who came together in pone place so shoppers knew where to find them and could then make their selection from the items offered.

This deligthful family was walking together (more or less for the girls!) along the central plaza the day before the independence day celebration. The girls were having fun first teasing each other and then their parents.
I had noted and wondered about the legend of Kyrgyzstan originating from the forty Maidens arising from the lake. Native American culture was a 'tribal" society as were the Kyrgyz people. Native American culture was also a matriarchical society. All inheritance was through the mother, for all that the men were the chiefs, the clan mothers were they ones who elected/selected the chief in most tribes! I noticed that it was not at all uncommon for the Kyrgyz women to be taller than the men. That left me wondering if in fact Kyrgyz cultrure had also been a matriarchal society at one time.

I had erroneously identifid this as Stalin based on the word of an employee of the hotel where I was staying. A VT member, Auther_bx of Biskek, has pointed out the quite regretable error, this statue honors the famous Russian writer Gorky.
(The facial features looked so similar I accepted one person's word with out verifying it, unfortunately I have at best a minimum knowledge of writen Russian, that was why I had to ask to begin with.)