Author Archives: Björn

Bishkek to Toktogul

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We left Bishkek this morning for our 340km trip to our accommodation at the shore of Lake Toktogul.

Initially the road was fairly busy, but eventually we had left Bishkek and the surrounding towns (along with associated traffic) behind. Traffic was light, when we hit the Ala-Tau mountain range, snaking our way uphill towards the Töö Ashuu Pass and its tunnel with a length of about 3km at an elevation around 3150m.

Coming out of the tunnel on the other side, it was downhill again. We had a quick stop at one of the street vendors, to get a taste of two of the region’s specialties:

  • kumis: fermented mare’s (horse) milk … similar to strong buttermilk or kefir in taste, albeit with a bit of a kick from the slight amount of alcohol contained
  • cheese (balls) from mare’s milk … again stronger than what we are used to in cheese, a bit like concentrated feta cheese – barely edible on itself (just too strong), though I can imagine, it being a nice with some bread, slices of tomato and cucumber

We continued downhill into the Suusamyr Valley – still well above an elevation of 2000m. Lunch was had in a road-side chaikhana – the first noodle soup of many to come 😉

After lunch we continued along the valley – before eventually heading up again towards the Alabel Pass (3184m above sea level), passing into the Suusamyr-Too mountain range and facing the first and only (left-over) snow of the trip.

It was now downhill again towards Lake Toktogul, a reservoir feeding into a hydroelectric power plant and irrigation systems. We made a trip around half the lake, to reach our hotel.

Paris … at Night

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Quick impressions from a short business visit to Paris – with a bit of ‘sightseeing’ on the last night …

 

… and back to Dudutki

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Today a treat was waiting for us; we were heading to Dudutki with the full team for a team event. Dudutki markets itself as a museum complex of ancient crafts and technologies – which basically summarizes it nicely.

The individual crafts are represented by the corresponding workshop – often with an actual craftsperson giving a demonstration and our guide providing the explanation. We started in the old windmill – to then cover a bakery, the workshop of a carpenter, a vodka distillery, an apiary, a farm, a pottery and a blacksmith’s shop – before making it to the museum’s restaurant, where a wide selection of Belorussian specialties was waiting for us.

Back to Minsk …

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From the summer in Buenos Aires it was now on into the winter in Minsk, Belarus.

Another workshop was scheduled to happen here for two weeks following the week of my trip to Buenos Aires. This workshop in Minsk was basically the continuation of the workshop in Tokyo back in October.

Days were spent with technical discussions, while we had some good team dinners and activities in the evening. Below some photos of Minsk at night.

A week in Buenos Aires

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Another business trip did bring me back into Buenos Aires this week. I had last been here in 2013, so – even with the focus on business now – this was a great opportunity to come back, retrace some of my steps from previous stays and to see, what had changed since then.

And clearly things are changing in Argentina … the new president and government are going a different route as in previous days under the Kirchner family. Most obvious is the ongoing investment into infrastructure; the public transport infrastructure has clearly been improved (from bus lanes downtown to upgrades at the airport), the traffic in the microcentro is more relaxed – and based on the construction everywhere, the city is finally again drawing in investment money – – seems Argentina is on the move (again); I guess, it helps to have a president with an engineering background.
My colleagues also confirmed that in discussion, they are really happy about the country moving forward and away from the old ‘corruption-based’ model. They however also mentioned, that all that good is not coming from nowhere … it seems taxes are on the rise – and that these are really turning to a point, where it starts to hurt the population. So Argentina is certainly a country to stay tuned on.