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capital city of Kyrgyzstan
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Bishkek, formerly known as Pishpek (until 1926), and then Frunze (1926–1991), is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan, and the capital of the Chüy Region. It is situated near the border with Kazakhstan and has a population of around 1,200,000 people as of 2024.
The Khanate of Kokand established the fortress of Pishpek in 1825 to control local caravan routes and to collect tribute from Kyrgyz tribes. On 4 September 1860, with the approval of the Kyrgyz, Russian forces led by Colonel Apollon Zimmermann destroyed the fortress. In the present day, the fortress ruins can be found just north of Jibek Jolu Street, near the new main mosque. A Russian settlement was established in 1868 on the site of the fortress under its original name, Pishpek. It lay within the General Governorship of Russian Turkestan and its Semirechye Oblast.
The Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was established in 1925 in Russian Turkestan, promoting Pishpek to its capital. In 1926, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union renamed the city Frunze, after Bolshevik military leader Mikhail Frunze (1885–1925), who was born there. Frunze became the capital of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic in 1936, during the final stages of national delimitation in the Soviet Union. In 1991, the Kyrgyz parliament changed the capital's name to a modified original name of Pishpek as Bishkek.
Bishkek is situated at an altitude of about 800 metres (2,600 ft), just off the northern fringe of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too Range, an extension of the Tian Shan mountain range. These mountains rise to a height of 4,895 metres (16,060 ft). North of the city, a fertile and gently undulating steppe extends far north into neighbouring Kazakhstan. The river Chüy drains most of the area. Bishkek is connected to the Turkestan–Siberia Railway by a spur line.
Bishkek is a very large city of wide boulevards and marble-faced public buildings combined with numerous Soviet-style apartment blocks surrounding interior courtyards. There are also thousands of smaller, privately built houses, mostly outside the city centre. Streets follow a grid pattern, with most flanked on both sides by narrow irrigation channels, which provide water to trees which provide shade during the hot summers.
Bishkek is supposedly named after the paddle used to churn fermenting milk.
The official website of Bishkek's city hall provides the following etymological justification for the name of the city: the pregnant wife of a hero lost a paddle used to churn kumis. While looking for it, she suddenly gave birth to a boy, who she named Bishkek. Bishkek would grow up to be a noble figure and after his death, was buried on a mound near the banks of the Alamüdün. There, a tombstone was erected. The building was seen and described by travelers of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Under Soviet rule, from 1926 to 1991, the city was named Frunze in honour of Bolshevik Mikhail Frunze.
Based on DNA evidence, the area near Bishkek is considered one of the possible origins of the Black Death between AD 1346 and 1353.
Originally a caravan rest stop, possibly founded by the Sogdians, on one of the branches of the Silk Road through the Tian Shan range, the location was fortified in 1825 by the khan of Kokand with a mud fort. In the last years of Kokhand rule, the Pishpek fortress was led by Atabek, the Datka. In 1844, the forces of Ormon Khan, the leader of the Kara-Kyrgyz Khanate, briefly captured the fortress.
In 1860, Imperial Russia annexed the area, and the military forces of Colonel Apollon Zimmerman took and razed the fort. Colonel Zimmermann rebuilt the town over the destroyed fort and appointed field-Poruchik Titov as head of a new Russian garrison. The Imperial Russian government redeveloped the site from 1877 onward, encouraging the settlement of Russian peasants by giving them fertile land to develop.
In 1926, the city became the capital of the newly established Kirghiz ASSR and was renamed Frunze after Mikhail Frunze, Lenin's close associate who was born in Bishkek and played key roles during the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and during the Russian Civil War of the early 1920s.
The early 1990s were a tumultuous time for Bishkek. In June 1990, a state of emergency was declared following severe ethnic riots in southern Kyrgyzstan that threatened to spread to the capital. The city was renamed Bishkek on 5 February 1991, and Kyrgyzstan achieved independence later that year during the breakup of the Soviet Union. Before independence, the majority of Bishkek's population were ethnic Russians. In 2004, Russians made up approximately 20% of the city's population, and about 7–8% in 2011.
Bishkek is Kyrgyzstan's financial centre, with all of the country's 21 commercial banks headquartered there. During the Soviet era, the city was home to many industrial plants, but most have been shut down since 1991 or now operate on a much-reduced scale. One of Bishkek's largest employment centres today is the Dordoy Bazaar open market, where many of the Chinese goods imported to CIS countries are sold.
Although Bishkek itself is relatively young, its surrounding area has some sites of interest dating to prehistoric times. There are also sites from the Greco-Buddhist period, the period of Nestorian influence, the era of the Central Asian khanates, and the Soviet period.
The central part of the city is laid out on a rectangular grid plan. The city's main street is the east-west Chüy Avenue (Chüy Prospekti), named after the region's main river. In the Soviet era, it was called Lenin Avenue. Along or near it are many important government buildings and universities. These include the Academy of Sciences compound. The westernmost section of the avenue is known as Deng Xiaoping Avenue.
Sovietskaya Street forms the primary north–south corridor through Bishkek. Officially, Sovietskaya Street has been renamed Yusup Abdrakhmanov Street, but it is still commonly referred to by its original name. Its northern and southern sections are called, respectively, Yelebesov and Baityk Batyr Streets. Several major shopping centres are located along with it, and in the north, it provides access to Dordoy Bazaar.
Erkindik ("Freedom") Boulevard runs from north to south, from the main railroad station (Bishkek II) south of Chüy Avenue to the museum quarter and sculpture park just north of Chüy Avenue, and further north toward the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the past, it was called Dzerzhinsky Boulevard, named after a Communist revolutionary, Felix Dzerzhinsky, and its northern continuation is still called Dzerzhinsky Street.
An important east–west street is Jibek Jolu ('Silk Road'). It runs parallel to Chüy Avenue about 2 km (1.2 mi) north of it and is part of the main east–west road of Chüy Region. Both the eastern and western bus terminals are located along Jibek Jolu.
There is a Roman Catholic church located at ul. Vasiljeva 197 (near Rynok Bayat). It is the only Catholic cathedral in Kyrgyzstan.
A stadium named in honour of Dolon Omurzakov is located near the centre of Bishkek. This is the largest stadium in the Kyrgyz Republic.
The Dordoy Bazaar, just inside the bypass highway on the north-eastern edge of the city, is a major retail and wholesale market.
The Kyrgyz Ala-Too mountain range, some 40 kilometres (25 mi) away, provides a spectacular backdrop to the city; the Ala Archa National Park is only a 30- to 45-minute drive away.
Bishkek is about 300 km away directly from the country's second largest city Osh. However, its nearest large city is Almaty of Kazakhstan, which is 190 km to the east. Furthermore, it is 470 km from Tashkent (Uzbekistan), 680 km from Dushanbe (Tajikistan), and about 1,000 km each from Astana (Kazakhstan), Ürümqi (China), Islamabad (Pakistan), and Kabul (Afghanistan).
Bishkek has a Mediterranean-influenced humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dsa), as the average mean temperature in the winter is below 0 °C (32.0 °F). Average precipitation is around 440 millimetres (17 in) per year. Average daily high temperatures range from 3 °C (37.4 °F) in January to about 31 °C (87.8 °F) during July. The summer months are dominated by dry periods, punctuated by the occasional thunderstorm, which produces strong gusty winds and rare dust storms. The mountains to the south provide a natural boundary and protection from damaging weather, as does the smaller mountain chain that runs north-west to south-east. In the winter months, sparse snow storms and frequent heavy fog are the dominating features. There are sometimes temperature inversions, during which the fog can last for days at a time.
Bishkek is the most populated city in Kyrgyzstan. Its population, estimated in 2021, was 1,074,075. From the foundation of the city to the mid-1990s, ethnic Russians and other peoples of European descent (Ukrainians, Germans) comprised the majority of the city's population. According to the 1970 census, the ethnic Kyrgyz were only 12.3%, while Russians comprised more than 80% of the Frunze population. According to the 2022 census, Bishkek is a predominantly Kyrgyz city, with 85% of its residents Kyrgyz, while population of Russian descent make up around 10% of the population.
Emissions of air pollutants in Bishkek amounted to 14,400 tons in 2010. Among all cities in Kyrgyzstan, the level of air pollution in Bishkek is the highest, occasionally exceeding maximum allowable concentrations by several times, especially in the city centre. For example, concentrations of formaldehyde occasionally exceed maximum allowable limits by a factor of four. The hydrogeologist Zheenbek Kulbekov identifies coal-heating mainly in informal settlements (samozakhvat), the exhaust from private vehicles and the lack of air circulation as the three main factors for the grave air pollution in Kyrgyzstan's capital. The latter is mainly due to the haphazard construction of private multi-story buildings - in contradiction to former city plans developed up until the end of the USSR - which prompted discussion on a moratorium on the further construction of high-rise buildings.
Responsibility for ambient air quality monitoring in Bishkek lies with the Kyrgyz State Agency of Hydrometeorology. There are seven air-quality monitoring stations in Bishkek, measuring levels of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, and ammonia.
Bishkek uses the Kyrgyzstan currency, the som. The som's value fluctuates regularly but averaged around 86 som per U.S. dollar as of November 2024. The economy in Bishkek is primarily agricultural, and agricultural products are sometimes bartered in the outlying regions. The streets of Bishkek are regularly lined with produce vendors in a market-style venue. In most of the downtown area there is a more urban cityscape with banks, stores, markets, and malls. Sought-after goods include hand-crafted artisan pieces, such as statues, carvings, paintings, and many nature-based sculptures.
All sectors of industrial production are represented in the city. The main ones include: mechanical engineering and metalworking, light industry and food processing, and the energy sector. Major industrial enterprises in Bishkek include: the Bishkek Thermal Power Plant, the "Dastan" Corporation, "Coca-Cola Bishkek Bottlers," "Bishkek-Dan-Azyk"; joint-stock companies: "Bishkeksut" dairy plant, the Bishkek Machine-Building Plant, "Kyrgyzavtomash," the "Bishkek" Reinforced Concrete Plant, and the "Zhyldyz," and "Baypak" industrial associations, among others. Industrial enterprises are located in the west and east of Bishkek. Among them are: the "Akun" flour mill, JSC "Kyrgyzmebel" furniture company, the "Shoro" national beverage producer, OJSC "Severelektro," and the Bishkek Thermal Power Plant. An incineration plant has been operating in the north of the city since 2025.
As with many cities in post-Soviet states, housing in Bishkek has undergone extensive changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While housing was formerly distributed to citizens in the Soviet era, housing in Bishkek has since become privatised.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Bishkek”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.