Sometime in the seventh or eighth century -- the exact dates are obscure in the foggy confluence of history and myth -- a warrior named Manas united the Kyrgyz tribes in a rebellion against China.
Kyrgyzstan: Revolution, Take Two
It's been more than a month since the storming of the presidential palace in Bishkek. But the aftershocks of the uprising are still rattling Kyrgyzstan.
On April 7, some 85 people were killed during the storm of the presidential palace in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Many more got wounded.
Late at night on April 7, Erkin Bulekbayev walked out of prison and into one of the toughest jobs in Kyrgyzstan: looking for evidence of financial crimes allegedly committed by the ousted regime.
Of all the intrigues in the political life of Kyrgyzstan, few can rival the mystery of Gennady Pavlyuk, a local journalist with a sharp pen.
A few days ago outside of Bishkek, people flooded onto a field and started parceling out land for themselves according to a master list someone had drawn up. There was a problem: that land already had owners. But the land-grabbers, most of them destitute laborers, saw an opportunity in the political chaos of Kyrgyzstan. Their logic was simple. In the capital, a group of politicians seized power. So why can’t we seize land?
These days, I sleep while walking, so if I lose my train of thought, perhaps you could nudge me,” Roza Otunbayeva, the interim leader of Kyrgyzstan, said on Saturday. She was drinking strong tea to keep herself from nodding off at her desk.
Philip Shishkin, for the Pulitzer Center
Jalalabad, Kyrgyzstan
Grantee
Philip Shishkin spent ten years as a staff reporter of The Wall Street Journal, most of it as an award-winning foreign correspondent. He ran the newspaper’s Iraq and Turkey bureaus until late 2007,...