Anniversary of the revolution

Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of the Kyrgyz revolution. My housecleaner will not be cleaning any houses.

“I’m staying home all day. I’m scared to go on the streets,” she said.

Zhenya and her two salesgirls are sleeping in her store all night tonight and tomorrow. She says a lot of store owners are doing the same thing.

“Do you have any weapons?” I asked.

“No.”

“Don’t you want at least a club or something?”

“No, what would I do with it? If people come, we’ll just tell them we work there and please move on to another place.”

And the government is considering it a national holiday. Not a lot of residents, at least in Bishkek, seem to consider it a reason for celebration.

“I can’t call it a revolution,” Zhenya said. “It is more like an evolution.”

I’d like to see what kind of festivities the government puts on in the central square, and how well it is received. But I also want to take advantage of the 3-day weekend. So this evening I’m going to travel to the north of Issyk-Kul. I have the goal of riding around the entire lake by bike. I can’t manage it all in one weekend, but three days will give me a good start. I look forward to the adventure, towards working towards accomplishing a goal, towards seeing the land from such a close-up, slow-moving angle, to being far away from the thought of revolutions or evolutions.