Bishkek

Bishkek began as Pishpek, a small fortress built by the Kokand khanate in 1825 on the caravan route through the Chui valley. Russian forces took it in the 1860s, and a garrison town grew up around it, laid out on a regular grid with wide streets lined with irrigation ditches and trees. In 1926 it was renamed Frunze, after the Red Army commander Mikhail Frunze who was born here, and it became the capital of Soviet Kyrgyzstan; the Kyrgyz name Bishkek was adopted in 1991. Today it is a relaxed, leafy city of around a million people, with the 4,000-metre peaks of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too range visible at the end of many avenues.

What to see

• Ala-Too Square: the main square, with a statue of Manas, the hero of the Kyrgyz national epic, and the changing of the guard at the flagpole.
• The State Historical Museum on the square, covering nomadic archaeology, the epic of Manas and the Soviet period.
• Erkindik Boulevard and Oak Park, shady promenades with open-air sculpture and chess players.
• The Philharmonic and its monument to Manas and the characters of the epic.
• Victory Square and its memorial shaped like a yurt's roof frame.
• Osh bazaar, the city's largest market, for felt, spices, dried fruit and everyday life.

Beyond the city

Bishkek is the base for Ala-Archa National Park, about 40 kilometres south, and for the Burana tower near Tokmok, about 80 kilometres east. On the way to Ala-Archa or in the foothills to the south, the Ata-Beyit memorial honours victims of the Stalinist repressions and is the burial place of the writer Chingiz Aitmatov. Bishkek is also the starting point for roads to Issyk-Kul and Song-Kul.

Getting there from Uzbekistan

Direct flights link Tashkent and Bishkek in about an hour and a quarter. By road the route runs through southern Kazakhstan via Shymkent and Taraz and takes most of a day, with two border crossings. Travellers coming from the Fergana valley often enter Kyrgyzstan at Osh and fly from Osh to Bishkek in under an hour.