One of the most beautiful places of Kyrgyzstan.

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[inspic=100,left,fullscreen,thumb]Kyrgyz people are known for their strong cultural attachment for holding feasts, celebrations, weddings, anniversaries and so on. Usually hundreds of people are invited to this kind of celebrations and these massive gatherings have become a part of cultural tradition of Kyrgyz people.

An interesting study called “Cost of Traditions” has been conducted by the Institute of Economic Policy “Bishkek Consensus”. The study was conducted on costs of the people of Kyrgyzstan related to holding celebrations, feasts, anniversaries, organization of funerals and funeral feasts, informs AKIpress.

According to this study, the costs of the above mentioned traditions exceed one third of the country’s GDP or its public external debt. This amount exceeded gross domestic investments almost twice.

This way, costs for traditional rituals have become the main factor of economic growth through excessive growth of consumption. On another hand, a low level of the population’s savings and insufficient amount of gross domestic investments have become another consequence of this phenomenon. These resulting effects disrupt the potential of Kyrgyzstan’s sustainable economic growth in future.

The Economic Policy Institute-Bishkek Consensus (EPI), Kyrgyzstan, was created in December of 2003 as a non-profit, non-partisan, independent institute with developed partnerships and cooperative relationships with government, business, international community, civil society, and the news media. EPI’s mission is to promote economic, social, and governance reforms in Kyrgyzstan, involving institutions of civil society to elaborate and execute the reforms, developing local potential and using best international experience. Its strategic position is to be an independent and highly objective source of information and research on public-policy issues, as well as an unbiased forum for collaboration of diverse interest groups in the reform of public policy.

Picture is taken from flickr.com

Kyrgyz bloggers have been actively elaborating on the Kyrgyz government’s initiative to make March 24 – the day of popular uprising in 2005 – a national holiday. The amendment was made to the Kyrgyz Labor Code, according to which from now on March 24 will be officially celebrated as a Day of People’s Revolution. The reaction of Kyrgyz blogosphere was mainly negative:

Altaidan writes a witty comment, alluding to disorders that had been accompanying the revolution three years ago [ru]:

So, when are we going to celebrate the Day of Marauding? I suggest that the president makes a new law so that we could celebrate this holiday too.

Read the full story »

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Some of you know the five-star hotel Hyatt Regency Hotel located on the main central street of Bishkek. During Soviet times, it used to be hotel “Kyrgyzstan”, one of the biggest and best hotels of that time. The first bar of Kyrgyzstan was opened at “Kyrgyzstan”.

Photo is taken from diesel.elcat.kg

There was a lot of talking about Kyrgyzstan entering the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) program, and finally, USA and Kyrgyzstan signed the agreement on Millennium Challenge Threshold Program. The document was signed between at the White House in Bishkek, informs the official website of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. This program with $16 million budget is intended to improve the judicial and police (militia) systems of Kyrgyzstan, the government capability of investigating and prosecuting corruption cases, and educating mass-media in publishing on these issues. Participation in this program bounds Kyrgyzstan to implement substantial reforms in this area and the US government will be helping with it. Says the MCC CEO Ambassador John Danilovich:

“In addition to implementing the reforms outlined within this program, significant reforms must continue to be made outside the program in order for the Kyrgyz Republic to improve its scores on the MCC selection criteria. This includes the areas of media freedom, improvements in the election process, decentralization and democratization. The success of this threshold program depends on the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic’s commitment to the ongoing process of democratization. The U.S. government has expressed concerns about the conduct of this past December’s parliamentary elections in the Kyrgyz Republic and has expressed its hopes that the reforms under the threshold program will lead to greater transparency, a vital step in establishing a more open and democratic nation.”

It is an interesting fact that the decision on accepting Kyrgyzstan to this program was made right before the start of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, which was held last year in Bishkek. Probably, it is just a mere coincidence. Hopefully, this program will bring the real help to Kyrgyzstan and the government officials will not create obstacles for it.

Galina Kulikova, the Vice Chief of the parliamentary committee for education, science, culture and information policy intends to initiate the draft law according to which alcohol and tobacco advertising on television, radio and billboards will be banned, informs AKIpress.

She believes that it is crucial to ban alcohol and tobacco advertising. Teachers and parents are also worried about the consequences of such advertising:

Whenever one turns on television, alcohol and tobacco are advertised there.

Kulikova notes that those wishing to buy vodka and cigarettes will do it without any advertisement. She hopes that other memebers of the Parliament will support her idea during the session of Parliament. She shares her thoughts:

Of course, there will be people who are very interested in tobacco and alcohol advertising, but there will be people who will be against this, since the bulk of MPs, especially women – mothers and wives – will support this initiative.

Well, assuming that some deputies have business connected with selling alcohol and tobacco, it is hard to imagine that the idea will actually be supported. Back in 2005, the administration bill “About advertising” to restrict the advertising of alcoholic and tobacco production on TV and radio from 9:00 AM to 21:00 PM was introduced. The Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Felix Kulov signed the appropriate governmental decree on October 1. I cannot say that it came into full force.

Since Taiwan plans to hold referendum on entering the United Nations Organization, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyz Republic informs that it does not recognize Taiwan as independent country, only as a part of China, informs KABAR. It seems that the MFA of Kyrgyzstan is too quick and clumsy in showing its support of China and its politics. Frankly, Taiwan would not care very much now about the opinion of Kyrgyzstan. Perhaps Kyrgyzstan should not have reacted to any news regarding Taiwan.

Recently, Kyrgyzstan also announced its position about the independence of Kosovo. Kyrgyzstan stated that it wouldn’t recognize the independence of Kosovo before it was accepted by the Security Council of United Nations. I doubt that many people in Kosovo ever heard about Kyrgyzstan, and Kyrgyzstan does not have tight political or economic relations with Serbia. So why Kyrgyzstan is very active in showing its position which perhaps was told by Russia?

Being a small country does not imply to agree and support everything which big countries want, especially for Kyrgyzstan, since besides Russia and China, it has partners who might have quite opposite opinions, like US, Japan, Germany, Turkey and some Arabian countries.

A new collection from Dilbar, which was recognized as the most elegant on Kazakhstan Fashion Week (Photos by Akipress).

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SPORT.KG informs that Manchester Futsal Club is interested in transferring a young player from Kyrgyzstan. His name is Azat Sakebaev, former player of “Abdysh-Ata” and son of the owner of this club. Azat played several seasons in Kyrgyzstan and now studies in UK. However, according to Wikipedia article on Manchester Futsal Club, he is already included in squad of this team.

According to fresh news from SPORT.KG, Azat already started playing for Manchester Club and even succeeded to score two goals to “Futsal Club Grimsbey”. But it was not enough and his team lost this game.

During the last two weeks, the Kyrgyz blogosphere has come up with a bunch of interesting articles, funny and witty comments along with bright photos of Santa Claus First Winter Festival in Kyrgyzstan. The Festival was held from 23 to 25 February and spurred lots of criticism on one side – and light humor on the other – among Kyrgyz bloggers.

For instance, bretelka wonders (ru):

Have they all gone crazy? I can’t believe that it is possible to save gifts for two billion children in Kyrgyzstan. They will be all stolen!

Fancher seriously mulls over the idea (ru):

Guys, don’t you see the potential of this idea? First of all, everyone knows that Santa Claus does not exist. Santa Claus is a famous global brand. If this idea becomes very popular, then it will be a very important step towards tourism development in Kyrgyzstan (by attracting more tourists). I think that this idea is a good and realistic.

Another witty comment by Ataman Rakin (eng):

Iiiiikkk!!! Long beards.
They are certainly Wahhabis.

From such a funny start we can now move on to more real and serious issues that captured attention of bloggers. Anna Yalovkina reports on Kloop.kg that Bishkek city mayor Daniyar Usenov has announced the start of two-month “subbotnik” among school pupils and students. The word “subbotnik” derives from the Russian word “subbota” (Saturday) and means community work during which people clean streets, parks, and surroundings of schools and other public institutions. Read the full story »