We arrive in Kyrgyzstan!

Kyrgyzstan is an education. Some things you’ll never learn anywhere else include the following pearls:

1. The rear tail light from a Russian Lada you converts into a vodka shot glass
2. Russian Air Force staff check their aircraft’s break fluid very regularly as it is made from alcohol and the engineers tend to drink it
3. Kyrgyz men have a worrying belief in kangaroos being carnivorous.

The Kyrgyz have a long and tumultuous history – as you would only expect living in a landlocked country on the main trading route from West to East. They probably have similar hang ups to Poland. Their history dates back to around 201 BC with the ancestors of the modern inhabitants, who have Turkic origin. These original people lived in the north east part of modern Mongolia. They migrated to the region that is currently southern Siberia and settled along the Yenisei River remaining there from the 6th to 8th centuries. Becoming restless, they then spread across what is now the Tuva region of Russia, remaining there until the rise of the Mongol Empire in the 13th C, when they began migrating south. In the 12th C, Islam became the predominant local religion, leading to the situation today that most Kyrgyz are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi school.

These ancestors reached the area currently known as Kyrgyzstan during the 15th/16th centuries with the southern part of the region coming under the control of the Khan of Kokhand in the early 19th century, before it was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1876. The Kyrgyz did not take kindly to Russian rule and rose up against Tsarist authority numerous times – with many of them choosing to move away into the Pamir mountains or over to Afghanistan. Many remaining Kyrgyz also fled to China following the ruthless suppression of the 1916 rebellion which imposed the military draft on Central Asian peoples. This is a history of constant movement, pretty alien to the British, cosseted on an island with nicely defined borders, and explains a great deal about the fiercely guarded national identify of nomadism.

The capital of Kyrgyzstan is Bishkek - which happens to be a churn used to make fermented mare's milk [kumis], the Kyrgyz national drink. Originally a caravan rest stop on one of the branches of the Silk Road, Bishkek 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, who 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. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan finally achieved independence in 1991, and the city was renamed Bishkek. I’m sure any correlation between eventual liberation (and subsequent celebration) and Bishkek being named for a form of local alcoholic beverage is purely coincidental.

Kyrgyzstan is landlocked and mountainous with a population similar in number to Scotland. It borders China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan giving it plenty of scope for being truly weird. Following independence it underwent a surprising revolution in March 2005. The revolution seems to have been remarkably civilized for a country so unused to democracy. According to one woman we met, there was a bit of shooting in the streets – but more people legged it to the one international 5 star hotel in the city and took refuge there – always worth considering that option in a revolution. Wait for the president to be overthrown whilst enjoying a stiffening G&T at the bar – bravo.

The uprising sought the end of rule by Askar Akayev, his family and associates, who in popular opinion had become increasingly corrupt and authoritarian. Following his overthrow, Akayev fled the country. He signed his resignation statement in the presence of a Kyrgyz parliamentary delegation in his country's embassy in Moscow, and on April 11th 2005 the Kyrgyz Parliament ratified it.

As a country that hadn’t done this before, Kyrgyzstan was a bit out of practice when it came to revolutionary PR. The media variously referred to the unrest as the "Pink," "Lemon", "Silk", "Daffodil", or "Sandpaper" Revolution. But it was the "Tulip Revolution," a term that Akayev himself used in a speech, which stuck in the end; much catchier – and a good opportunity to annoy the Dutch. (One now has to wonder what the Dutch would call any revolution of their own – “Tulip” revolution certainly has a better ring to it than “Clog” or “Edam” Revolution…..)

Akayev had been fortuitously warning that no such 'Colour' Revolution should happen in Kyrgyzstan, as such terms evoked similarities with the non-violent Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine in 2004, whose names owe a debt to the Czech-Slovak Velvet Revolution.

But it wasn’t all an amateur attempt, in a very modern approach they brought in a consultant, Givi Targamadze, a former member of Liberty Institute and the chair of the Georgian Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Security. He consulted Ukrainian opposition leaders on the technique of nonviolent struggle, and later advised leaders of Kyrgyz opposition during the Tulip Revolution. I wonder if he did this with the aid of PowerPoint and Bubble Charts?

The Tulip Revolution did see some violence in its initial days, most notably in the southern city of Jalal-Abad, where the first major signs of violence were noted, and at least three people died during widespread looting in the capital during the 24 hours after the fall of the Kyrgyz government, but on the whole was deemed a pretty good success by the people.

Despite this liberation from the grasp of Akayev, the current Government has a degree of authority over the people that would come as a surprise to us in the west. For example, the city of Bishkek supplies heat to its people; the heating is turned on in November and off in March. And that’s that. Hot water is also turned off for March for maintenance; it must be a slightly smelly month on the buses.