Bishtek

After checking in at our hotel, we leave for a 5pm city tour, the heat of the day now diminishing. We start at victory square and see the eternal flame for fallen soldiers. Many of the memorials use women figures, here a woman holding a cup representing a mother servicing the nation's sons. We walk a few minutes to TsUMs, the famed Soviet national department store. We rode the escalator 5 flights to the souvenir level. It's hot, with a bunch of stalls selling Soviet kitsch, felt products, t shirts, slippers, and other underwhelming choices. I head out to the plaza in front for a lovely street scene of fountains and people enjoying the afternoon. I'm shocked to see several of the Soviet era drink machines, with plastic cups, still in use, dispensing drinks. We walk through many more monuments, past the Kryg Queen who made the original pact letting in the Soviets in the mid 19th century, past the women's liberation monument dedicated to when women freed themselves from wearing the head scarves in 1917, past Lenin, relegated to the back of the State historical Musuem which is under renovation, past the monument to the student uprising of 2010, past stately buildings and wide boulevards, eventually stopping for dinner at a beautiful restaurant with very slow service.Read more