Bishkek

Bishkek Бишкек
Bishkek cityscape
Coat of arms
Bishkek Location in Kyrgyzstan
Coordinates:
Country	‎ Kyrgyzstan
Province
Founded	1878
Government
- Mayor	Nariman Tuleyev
Population (2007 est.)
- Total	1,250,000

Bishkek (Russian and Kyrgyz: Бишкек) is the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative center of Chuy Province which surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the province but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan.

Founded in 1878 as the Russian fortress of Pishpek (Пишпек), between 1926 and 1991 it was known as Frunze (Фрунзе), after the Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze. The name is thought to derive from a Kyrgyz word for a churn used to make fermented mare's milk (kumis), the Kyrgyz national drink.

Bishkek, at , is situated at about 800 m altitude just off the northern fringe of the Ala-Too range, an extension of the Tien Shan mountain range, 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.

Bishkek is a city of wide boulevards and marble-faced public buildings combined with numerous Soviet-style apartment blocks surrounding interior courtyards and, especially outside the city center, thousands of smaller 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.

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 Tsarist Russia 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.

The House of Government, Bishkek

The early 1990s were tumultuous. In June 1990, a state of emergency was declared following severe riots in southern Kyrgyzstan which threatened to spread to the capital. The city was renamed Bishkek in early 1991 and Kyrgyzstan achieved independence later that year during the breakup of the Soviet Union. Before independence, Bishkek was a "Russified" city, the majority of its population being ethnic Russians. In 2004, Russians made up approximately 20% of the city's population.^[1] Today, Bishkek is a rapidly modernizing city, with many restaurants and cafes and lots of second-hand European and Japanese cars and minibuses crowding its streets. At the same time Bishkek still preserves its former Soviet feel, with Soviet-period buildings and gardens prevailing over newer structures.

Bishkek is also the country's financial center, with all of the country's 21 commercial banks featuring offices in the city. 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. One of today's Bishkek's largest employment centers is Dordoy Bazaar, which is one the major entrepots for Chinese goods imported into CIS countries.

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. Russia subsequently (2003) established an air base of its own (Kant Air Base) near Kant some 20 km east of Bishkek. It is based at a facility that used to be home to a major Soviet military pilot training school; one of its students, Hosni Mubarak, later became president of Egypt.

Transportation

Public transit

A typical Bishkek passenger van passes by the East Bus Terminal

There is public transportation available, including buses, trolley buses, and public vans (known as marshrutkas). Streetcars (trams) also run along selected routes. Taxi cabs can be found at every intersection. There is no subway in Bishkek. The city is considering designing and building a light rail system (Бишкекское лёгкое метро).

Commuter and long-distance buses

There are two main bus stations in Bishkek. The smaller old Eastern Bus Station is primarily the terminal for minibuses to various destinations within or just beyond the eastern suburbs, such as Kant, Tokmok, Kemin, Issyk Ata, or the Korday border crossing.

Long-distance regular bus and minibus services to all parts of the country, as well as to Almaty (the largest city in neighboring Kazakhstan) and Kashgar, China, run mostly from the newer grand Western Bus Station; only a smaller minority of them runs from the Eastern Station.

The Dordoy Bazaar on the north-eastern outskirts of the city also contains makeshift terminals for frequent minibuses to suburban towns in all directions (from Sokuluk in the west to Tokmak in the east) and to some buses taking traders to Kazakhstan and Siberia.

Train

The electronic board in the main hall of Bishkek-2, the main train station, shows Bishkek and Moscow time

As of 2007, the Bishkek railway station sees only a few trains a day. It offers a popular three-day train service from Bishkek to Moscow.

There are also long-distance trains that leave for Siberia (Novosibirsk and Novokuznetsk), via Almaty, over the Turksib route, and to Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk) in the Urals, via Astana. These services are remarkably slow (over 48 hours to Yekaterinburg), due to long stops at the border and the indirect route (the trains first have to go west for more than a hundred kilometers before they enter the main Turksib line and can continue to the east or north). E.g., as of the fall of 2008, train No. 305 Bishkek-Yekaterinburg was scheduled to take 11 hours to reach the Shu junction - the distance of 269 km by rail, and less than half of that by road.^[2]

Air

The city is served by Manas International Airport located approximately 25 km (16 mi) northwest of the city centre.

Sights

Ala Too Square, Bishkek's main square

A small square in Bishkek, near the main square

Orientation

Though the city is relatively young, the surrounding area has sites of interest dating from prehistory, the Greco-Buddhist period, the period of Nestorian influence, the era of the Central Asian khanates, and the Soviet period.

The central part of the city is primarily built on a rectangular grid plan. The city's main street is the east-west Chui Avenue (Prospekt Chui), named after the region's main river. In the Soviet era, it was called Lenin Ave. Along it, or within a block or two from it, many of the most important government buildings, universities, the Academy of Sciences compound, etc., are to be found. The westernmost section of the avenue is known as Deng Xiaoping Ave.

The main north-south axis is Yusup Abdrakhmanov Street, still (2007) commonly referred to by its old name, Sovietskaya St. Its northern and southern sections are called, respectively, Yelebesov St and Baityk Batyr St. Several major shopping centers are located along it, and in the north it provides access to Dordoy Bazaar.

Erkindik ('freedom') Boulevard runs north-south, from the main railroad station (Bishkek II) south of Chui Ave to the museum quarter and sculpture park just north of chui Ave, and further north toward the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the past, it was called Dzerzhinsky Blvd. (named after Communist revolutionary, Felix Dzerzhinsky) and its northern continuation is still called Dzerzhinksy Street.

An important east-west street is Jibek Jolu ('Silk Road'). It runs parallel to Chui Ave. about a mile north of it, and is part of the main east-west road of Chui Province. Both the Eastern and Western bus terminals are located along Jibek Jolu.

City center

The National Historical Museum

• State Historical Museum, located in Ala-Too Square, the main city square
• State Museum of Applied Arts, containing examples of Kyrgyz traditional handicrafts
• Frunze House Museum
• Statue of Ivan Panfilov stands in the park near the White House.
• An equestrian statue of Mikhail Frunze still stands in a large park (Boulevard Erkindik) across from the train station.
• The train station itself was built in 1946 by German prisoners of war and has survived since then without further renovation or repairs; most of those who built it perished and were buried in unmarked pits near the 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
• At Ala-Too Square, there is an Independence monument where the changing of the guards may be watched.
• Osh bazaar, west of downtown, is a large, picturesque produce market

Outer neighborhoods

• The Dordoy Market, just inside the bypass highway on the north-eastern edge of the city, is one of Asia's great retail and wholesale markets.

Outside of the city

• The Ala-Too mountain range, 40 km away, provides a spectacular backdrop to the city; the Ala Archa National Park is only 30-45 min drive away

Sister cities

Sister cities of Bishkek include

• Colorado Springs, Colorado (since 1994)
• Meriden, Connecticut (since 2005)
• Ankara, Turkey
• Izmir, Turkey
• Toronto, Ontario (since 2008)

Government

Local government is administered by the Bishkek Mayor's Office. Askarbek Salymbekov was mayor until his resignation in August 2005, following which his deputy Arstanbek Nogoev took over the mayorship. Nogoev was in turn removed from his position in October 2007 through a decree of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and replaced by businessman and former first deputy prime minister Daniyar Usenov.^[3][4][5] In July 2008 former head of the Kyrgyz Railways Nariman Tuleev was appointed mayor.^[6]

References

External links

• Bishkek travel guide from Wikitravel

Districts (Raions) of Kyrgyzstan Capital: Bishkek (also a raion) Batken Province Batken · Kadamjay · Leilek Chuy Province Alamudun · Chuy · Jaiyl · Kemin · Moskovsky · Panfilov · Sokuluk · Ysyk-Ata · City of Tokmok Issyk Kul Province Ak-Suu · Jeti-Oguz · Tong · Tup · Issyk Kul Jalal-Abad Province Aksy · Ala-Buka · Bazar-Korgon  · Chatkal · Nooken · Suzak · Toguz-Toro · Toktogul Naryn Province Ak-Talaa · At-Bashi · Jumgal · Kochkor · Tyan'-Shan' Osh Province Alay · Aravan · Chong-Alay · Kara-Kulja  · Kara-Suu · Nookat · Uzgen Talas Province Bakay-Ata · Kara-Buura  · Manas · Talas