Destinations

A grave above Issyk-Kul, a town renamed for a century, and a lake named after a man who never reached his mountain.…

Cold carbonated springs saltier than seawater, a kymyz cure, a fugitive's cave, and a park whose own area is given as either…

A UNESCO World Heritage forest routinely misreported at home as intangible heritage. Semenov's fir, 238 ibex, a pilgrimage stone and a court…

A hunting concession turned snow leopard sanctuary in 2015, and a gold funerary mask found here that two museums in two countries…

Naryn's national park went on the privatisation list in 2003 and survived four auctions that drew no bidders. Spruce, gorges, and a…

A bypass road at Cholpon-Ata ran into a 2,700-year-old cemetery. Twenty-one Saka kurgans, one stone enclosure, and how to spot them yourself.

Roofless sheds, rusting machinery yards and grand empty culture houses. Collective farms fell from 518 to 22 in six years, and livestock…

A Russian naval weapons range has operated on Issyk-Kul since 1943 and is leased to 2032. What is there, why the lake…

Around fifty informal settlements ring the capital, holding up to 200,000 people. Where they came from, why the propiska mattered, and what…

Trading since 1983, split across 88 landholdings, and due to move out of the city. The scale, the fires, the relocation plan…

Clusters of domes and minarets on hillsides above every village, often grander than the houses below. What a gumbez is and why…

High altitude, dry continental air and almost no artificial light. Where to go, when the Milky Way is up, and why the…