New Beginnings

2024 has begun, and life begins to change.

For New Year’s Eve, once again there was a concert in Ala-Too Square, though one that was a significant improvement on the Independence Day effort. For one, the artists got more than one song. Secondly, most of the artists were really singing, as opposed to lip-synching. Finally, they opened with what can only be described as a techno remix of Jingle Bells, featuring a Santa Claus doing the running man dance on stage.

The Kyrgyz government had decreed that there would be no fireworks when the clock struck midnight. There was a laser show on the front of the museum behind the statue of Manas, wishing everyone a happy 2024 … but no fireworks? On New Years?

This has happened to me once before, on New Year’s Eve in Shanghai, where the display was cancelled about five minutes before it was due to begin. The boats were in the bay, ready to launch their rockets. All the city lights in the towering skyscrapers went out. Then … nothing. No broadcast. No news. Only silence.

In Bishkek, the second midnight struck, the populace decided: “Nah … we’re going to go ahead and let them off anyway.”

So there we were, overlooking the square, ducking as fireworks exploded slightly too low to the ground, musing that telling a populace that has successfully overthrown half of the nation’s presidents what to do might not go the way you think.

While the weather remains chilly, and snow intermittently falls, I find more warmth in Bishkek than in almost anywhere else I’ve been. January is quite an eventful month in general, bookended by New Years and my birthday. This January has seen some new faces entering the arena of language teaching at the school, a slight increase in my workload coming from the need to build an almost entirely new advanced curriculum, and falling in love.

As I write this, it is the last day in January. I have just turned thirty four. The 2nd February would have been my last day at work. That is no longer the case.

In fact, I might end up being here for a while.

The thing about falling in love is that you tend to explore your environment in a different way. The pace is slower, the journeys longer (especially if your girlfriend likes walking), and you notice things like the grey and red squirrel with almost bunny-like ears below. Being in a city, they’re not as skittish around people as the ones I’ve seen in Britain, and they seem to more or less accept being hand fed by children.

Different views bring different shades of beauty, like the sight below that greeted me when we left the Kyrgyzstan History museum in Ala-Too Square.

The Korea Friendship Park has taken on a new significance, because it’s where we shared our first kiss. The café I would go to to write and eat Russian pancake wraps is now special, because it’s uniquely quiet, and somewhere we can be close and mostly undisturbed. I am seeing more, learning more Russian, connecting with someone in a way I’m not sure I ever have.

Bishkek has done something unexpected. It has truly drawn me in. Through the smog, and the traffic, and the occasional earthquake, it has provided beauty, creativity and connection.

It’s where I met her, and where my priorities have begun to change. How they change exactly will remain to be seen, but I’m excited to find out.