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Bishkek cityscape
Bishkek landscape towards the southBishkek (Бишкек, بىشكهك) (population in 2005 approx. 900,000), founded in 1878 and from 1926a href="1991.html" title="1991">1991 known as Frunze (Фрунзе), after the Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze, is the capital of the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzstan). In Kyrgyz, a Bishkek is a churn used to make fermented mare's milk (kumis), the Kyrgyz national drink.
Bishkek is a city of wide boulevards and marble-faced public buildings combined with numerous Soviettyle apartment blocks surrounding interior courtyards and, especially outside the city center, thousands of smaller, often privately built houses. It is laid out on a grid pattern, with most streets flanked on both sides by narrow irrigation channels that water the innumerable trees which provide shade in the hot summers and give a generally beautifying effect to the city's otherwise rather drab appearance.
Bishkek, at 42°52′ N 74°34′ E, is situated at about 800 m altitude just off the northern fringe of the Ala-Too range, an extension of the Tien Shan, which rises up to 4,800 m and provides a spectacular backdrop to the city. North of the city, a fertile and gently undulating steppe extends far north into neighboring Kazakhstan. The Chui river drains most of the area. Bishkek is connected to the Turkestan-Siberia Railway by a spur.
History
Originally a caravan rest stop (possibly founded by the Sogdians) on one of the branches of the Silk Road through the Tien Shan range, the location was fortified in 1825 by the Uzbek khan of Kokhand with a mud fort. In 1862, the fort was conquered and razed when Tzarist Russia occupied and annexed the area. The site became a Russian garrison and was redeveloped and named Pishpek from 1877 onward by the Russian government, which encouraged the settlement of Russian peasants by giving them fertile black soil farms to develop. In 1926, the city became the capital of the newly established Kirghiz ASSR and was renamed Frunze after Mikhail Frunze, Lenin's close associate who was born in Bishkek and played key roles during 1905 and 1917 revolutions and during the Russian civil war of the early 1920s.
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan achieved independence in 1991, and the city was renamed Bishkek. Today, it is a vibrant, rapidly modernizing city, with many restaurants and cafes and lots of second-hand European and Japanese cars and minibuses crowding its streets. During the Soviet era the city was home to a large number of industrial plants, but most have been shut down or operate today on a much reduced scale. Bishkek was also home to a major Soviet military pilot training school; one of its students, Hosni Mubarak, later became president of Egypt.
In 2002, the United States obtained the right to use the nearby Manas International Airport as an air base for its military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, naming its base Ganci Airbase. Shortly after the Air Force had used the name Ganci, to honor Fire Department Chief Peter J. Ganci, Jr. who died in the WTC terrorist attack, it was found that an AFI (Air Force Instruction) dictated that foreign airbases could not bare the name of any heros from home. Since that time the air base has been officially called Manas airbase, yet the locals and media still more often then not use the name Ganci. Russia subsequently established an airbase of its own in nearby Kant.
Sights
A small, neglected square in Bishkek, near the main square- The Ala-Too mountain range, only 40 km away, provides a spectacular backdrop to the city; in it, the Ala Archa National Park is a site worth visiting
- State Historical Museum, located in the main city square
- State Museum of Applied Arts, containing examples of Kyrgyz traditional handicrafts
- Frunze House Museum
- Several statues of Vladimir Lenin remain, the largest being opposite the parliament building in a leafy park — having been moved there in 2003 from its original more conspicuous location on the main square of the city
- An equestrian statue of Mikhail Frunze still stands in a large park across from the train station
- The main government building, the White House, is a huge seven-story marble block and the former headquarters of the Communist Party of the Kirghiz SSR
External links
- A personal description of Bishkek
- A very detailed page from Turkestan Travel's website
- List of suggested hotels in Bishkek