Hanging Out in Bishkek

 My hosts in Bishkek are Artëm (pronounced Art-yom), his wife Olesia, his son of about 6, Vladimir and their Maine-coon cat, Chester. They live on the 9th floor of one of the high-rise Soviet block apartments that comprise the 12th micro-district of Bishkek. It’s on the far south side of the city, up against the hills near the edge of the city. 

View from my room

There are probably about 12-15 identical buildings, only some of which are numbered (and sometimes the numbers are plastered on a random spot on the building, but certainly not over any doors). The first time I arrived, I had to ask several people which building was “house-9” and even then, I had to ring at multiple entrances until I found the right one. Fortunately, I could fit my bike into the elevator!

Our first day together was Sunday. It was extremely hot and we didn’t really start until 11AM. Just as well, I was wrecked from my ride the day before and was happy to hang out in bed. I had my own room, most likely displacing Vladimir from his room, as evidenced by the cartoon animal sheets and scrawling on the walls. Olesia made blini - Russian pancakes - and we ate them with Nutella.

Artëm fixed himself a stiff cognac drink to start the day, pointing out that he is ethnically Russian, and it is the weekend after all. Although he drew a distinction in his attitude and demeanor from European Russians. He was born and raised in Bishkek and referred to himself and others as Asian Russians. At the moment, he works very long hours, sometimes 8am - 11pm, 6 days a week supplying and delivering syrups and sweeteners to bars and restaurants.

Olesia is native Kyrgiz. She is currently working two jobs - one as a licensed psychologist specializing in sexology, and the other at a print shop, printing signs, posters and billboards for local companies.

Out on the town with Olesia, Artëm and Vladimir

Russian Orthodox Church near their apartment

Because of the heat, we were not very active, it was a day to relax. We went to Artëm’s favorite bar - Rider’s bar. A relaxed spot at a newly developed artificial lake in the city called “Airport Lake.” It’s empty in the winter, but in the summer there are plenty of places to sit along the water, a beach for swimming, and comfy beanbag chairs located along large stone risers overlooking the water. 

View from Rider’s bar at sunset

The bar owner also installed a line-drawn wakeboard park in the water with various jumps and obstacles. For 80-som (about $0.90) a round, an operator will pull you along the course, out and back. Of course I went for a few rounds. Somehow, the wakeboard and life-jacket rental were free. It was nice to be in the water on such a hot day. Eventually it got quite overcast and cooled off a little bit.

Getting pulled along on the wakeboard line

The bar itself doesn’t have any food but there are some kiosks located nearby. There are no food trucks in Bishkek, but these are more or less the same thing. To my surprise, one of the kiosks was “Nathan’s famous hot dogs.” A brand I was surprised to see outside of the US. Another popular one I see everywhere is KFC. Funny enough, they do not translate a lot of the words, they simply write the English words in Cyrillic. Case in point, a hot-dog is simply “хот-дог”, fast food is “фаст-фуд” and even the KFC “friend’s-box” is literally just “френдс-бокс” (pronounced friends box). Anyways, I stuck with Chinese kimchi and fried rice.

Mountain View at sunset

It was after dark when we got home and we stayed up for a while talking about local music and they taught me some useful slang and gave me a program for the Monday, since they both had to work.

When we got back home, there was a hedgehog in the yard. When I studied duolingo, I was wondering why it kept drilling the word for hedgehog. I thought I would never use such a word, but I guess it came in handy.