Kyrgyz Republic

After a long flight and a jetlag of eleven hours, time to arrive in Bishkek, the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic, where I was welcomed by the snow... The city boasts many "Soviet-style" buildings and monuments, as well as wide boulevards, but at least is surrounded by a high mountain range. It felt nice to wake up and see white mountains in the background.

This trip was primarily for work purposes. Many meetings with the main economic actors in the country. It was so interesting to see how the country authorities work, their policies, their challenges. One of the more attractive building is the Parliament, which was previously the seat of the government.

And the authorities were very welcoming, with many good dinners, where I had to quickly become an expert at vodka toasting! At this farewell dinner, we were also entertained by musician. One was playing accordion (is traditional music the same throughout the world...) and another one was singing in Kyrgyz, which sounds very Turkish.The welcoming extended to a private visit to the secret golden chamber of the National Museum to admire the pieces of golden Kyrgyz art. Gold remains the main export of the country.This tradition of being a good host even extended to organise excursions both on a public holiday and on the week-end. The first one took us to the Orlovka ski resort, owned and operated by a Swiss, what a surprise! Swiss flags dotted the whole resort, while the support staff was wearing jackets with the "Graubunden" logo. We had much fun on the slopes. Especially me, since they were not the steepest in the world.
The second excursion was to the big Issyk-Kul lake. The combination lake-mountain cannot be unfamiliar to a Swiss visitor. Even more so, when we passed by the huge and protected residence of the Kazakh president - are we on the shores of Lake Geneva?

Istanbul

Ok, to treat Istanbul as a stopover between America and Asia might be a little bit harsh, but in this case, it is exactly what it was. Still, you can try to make the best of a stopover. The obvious choices are to eat a shawarma on Taksim square, to walk along the Bosphorus, to count the number of stray cats, and to resist buying a carpet... Compared to my first visit around 15 years ago, the city is even bigger, but seemingly less chaotic. Difficult to say whether it has become more conservative.The two most famous landmarks are the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. The first one was built in the 17th century in the classical Ottoman style.
Next to it, Hagia Sophia was first an orthodox church built in the 6th century, and during a thousand year the biggest church in the world (before the Spanish built a bigger one in Sevilla). It was converted to a mosque in the 15th century, once the town had been conquered by the Ottomans. Many Christian characteristics were then removed and replaced with Islamic features. To this day, it is still a very impressive building!