what happens in spring
By loading the map, you agree to Google's privacy policy.
Learn more
Sunlight, finally.
So I did a little bit of walking around downtown:
Bishkek hadn’t changed:
It was still a place of many monuments:
But since it wasn’t raining and the sky was blue, there was a lot more going on outside on the streets than before:
The city had turned from a grey area into a colorful place:
A place of miniature trains:
A place where the evening light set softly on neon garb…
…and on dudes on horseback:
There was a monument for the victims of the revolution in 2010:
And there was the White House of Bishkek, the presidential office building:
People said that it was from sniper positions on top of this building that many of the 2010 protestors had been shot.
But today, Bishkek was calm.
I walked around until it got dark:
And while I was doing that, I thought of something that a Kyrgyz journalist had said to me the last time I was here:
“Revolutions don’t happen in summer or in fall”, he had told me, “because it’s warm then and the people have too many things to do.”
A sigh.
“Revolutions happen in spring, right after the worst days of winter, when the heating has been off a few times and the people have had some time to think and get angry.”
…
Well, here’s to the people of Kyrgyzstan, who are bravely trying democracy while everybody else around them is under some sort of dictatorship.
I wish them the best of luck.