Bishkek is my first experience of the former Soviet Union (USSR), words
drained of real meaning to a younger generation, but for any of us who
grew up and were politically aware before 1989 a major part of our
consciousness of the world – but now all that seemingly indestructible
grey concrete has turned to dust. I’m here for a botanical tour of
north-east Kyrgyzstan, the most mountainous and remote of the former
USSR’s ‘Soviet Socialist Republics’, up against China’s own remote
province of Xinjiang. Amazing to be in a country which was once almost
totally closed to outsiders, and about which we knew almost nothing. Now
it is developing for tourists, but it feels like virgin territory for
visitors.
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