KZBlog

Was going to reply to this comment by Lucky on Video from Bishkek, showing police running away from protesters but I thought this little anecdote might be interesting.

A few summers ago I was in Bishkek and a friend and I were walking around behind the White House where there is a nice park with shashlik stands and amusement park rides and so on. Suddenly a policeman (or at least a man dressed in the uniform) came out of the bushes and said, “Hey, give me some money for bread, huh?” I thought it was a sad commentary if the guards near the White House 1) were begging off of foreign tourists and 2) couldn’t even get it together to intimidate us, take our passports, threaten us with problems and then ask for a large sum of money.