valerie
April 14, 2023 - Dmitry Kuklachev (Дмитрий Куклачев) advertisement seen in Bishkek. He (and his family) is famous for running a cat theater in Moscow
April 13, 2023 - bought kulich today, an Eastern European bread eaten around Easter. It was my first time trying it, but according to my friend, this one was mediocre
April 12, 2023 - Today is Cosmonautics Day, celebrated in Russia and some former USSR countries. Informational posters about astronauts in front of a Bishkek school including Gagarin (middle) and Salizhan Sharipov (right), an astronaut born in Özgön (Өзгөн in Kyrgyz), Kyrgyzstan during the USSR
April 11, 2023 - President’s Residence; Almaty, Kazakhstan. Current reconstruction after a lot of it was burned during the January 2022 protests
April 10, 2023 - Central State Museum; Almaty, Kazakhstan
(I’m back in Bishkek now though, my Almaty trip was very short!)
April 5, 2023 - bought a snack at the shop but the shopkeeper didn’t have enough change so she let me take a piece of gum
April 1, 2023 - just before the beginning of Ramadan I started seeing some papers in supermarkets that people could take with Bishkek’s fasting times on them. I don’t know how I missed this last year
March 31, 2023 - friend helped me rent a bike last weekend so I could practice riding
(I’m using the word ‘practice’ to fit the prompt, but really it was my first time learning how to ride! Never learned as a kid. And I felt like I made good progress in two hours! Except for turning 😂)
March 28, 2023 - an offhand comment to a friend about microwave popcorn prompted this purchase. Maybe it sounds dumb, but I honestly didn’t know you could buy microwave popcorn here. Blander than American popcorn of course, but still good and spices and such can be added
March 27, 2023 - close-up of support in the elevator. was curious to know if Braille here differs from English, but from what I found numbers are the same. also Braille numbers are preceded by a mirrored L shape (please feel free to chime in if you know about Braille, I’m not an expert by any means)
March 26, 2023 - instruments used for sumolok, a dessert made at Nowruz. One of my students invited me to her house to stir their huge pot of it. I was also told to make a wish while stirring! Then, a couple of days later, I received a HUGE jar of sumolok from her
March 24, 2023 - food court (kind of, типа) outside of Bishkek’s Hippodrome where I went to watch көк бөрү. It appeared to just be individual sellers, so was curious to know if there was any regulation to it or if anyone could set up shop freely
