Here I am, Kyrgyzstan.

Bishkek is a small city, but it is a capital city. That has more than one meaning for the people who choose to set up shop here for any period of time, be it a few days or an entire life. For the citizens of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek is a city of possibilities. They come from all around the country to work, to go to school, to visit family, to protest, to party, and to just live their lives. For expats, it holds a lot of the same meaning as it does for citizens. Students, contractors, miners, military, volunteers, NGO workers, tourists, and any number of different types of people come here from all around the world to make fortunes, to try and save lives, and to try and learn something about themselves.

I came here to learn Russian. A reason like that sounds pretty boring, and it kind of is. On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I sit in a classroom from 8:30 in the morning until around 14:30 (2:30pm) in the afternoon. I didn’t come here for humanitarian reasons, or to examine political and ethnic tensions, I didn’t come here to make big money. I came here with the hope that I’ll be able learn what I need to do those things in the future.

When class ends, my brain is usually pretty shot. I walk home down one of the main roads and pick up a samsi or two from my favorite roadside stand. Samsi are fantastic little meat pastries they sell everywhere here. I make it home, relax, and study whatever it is that I should probably already know about Russian.

The payoff of making scratch marks on paper for a few hours a day is really quite amazing. There are few things like being able to walk into a room and completely understand what everyone is saying to you in a foreign language, and then respond. I get asked a lot of questions about where I’m from, how I learned Russian, and what I’m doing in Bishkek.

Since winter will be setting in soon I figure it’s time to recap some of the things I’ve seen here. Life here is different from where I hang my hat in the states, quite different. The strangest thing I’ve found is that it feels like home here, even with the differences. Before I came, I saw nothing on the news about Kyrgyzstan other than pieces about death, war, destruction, and revolution.

Headlines read similar to: “Fledgling Central Asian Democracy Plunges into Bloody Revolution, with Ethnic Tensions Roiling into War in the South.”

The problem with that was not that the news wasn’t true. Quite a few stories probably accurately portrayed the pain and problems that came before and after April 7th. The real issue is that all of the media that only talked about war, death, and destruction, obscured the whole story of Kyrgyzstan.

So what is the true story behind Kyrgyzstan? It’s a long intricate story of many people with many interests. It’s one I am not qualified to tell. I can, however, talk about the people I’ve met and the stories I’ve been told. These are a few of my observations. Other people may have encountered different situations and opinions.

People here are identified much more clearly by their nationality than in the U.S. While all of them are citizens of Kyrgyzstan, they will call themselves Kyrgyz, Uzbek, or Russian. Many Kyrgyz people I have talked to have an intense sense of national identity. Many of them believe that because Kyrgyzstan has the word “Kyrgyz” in it, it belongs to them and them alone. Some will say that they want to kick all of the Uzbeks out because it is not their land. This statement ignores the fact that in some regions people of Uzbek descent have been living there for generations regardless of the name of the republic. There are also many Kyrgyz people who are simply horrified by the deaths that have occurred on either side of the ethnic divide.

When I travelled to the south, mind you it was only for a few days, I was able to chat with some Uzbeks. Many of these people seemed to simply want to keep their homes and land that their families had been living in for generations. In Osh many people are still looking for loved ones that most likely passed away and were buried in large graves.

Since I’ve been here I have been treated with the utmost hospitality by Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, and Russians. People here bend over backwards to take care of guests and friends. The Russians here seem to have less reliance on traditional values and are much more independent in many ways, than their Kyrgyz and Uzbek brethren. I’ve asked several of them if they feel a draw to Russia and most of them would like to visit but they have a strong sense of Kyrgyzstan as their “Rodina” or homeland.

In the three months I’ve been here, I’ve had an incredible amount of experiences. Some of those were good and some have been not so good. There is much more to Kyrgyzstan than meets the eye.