Bishkek, I Love You (Бишкек, я люблю тебя) is a 2011 Kyrgyz comedy/drama film. The film’s tagline was “The first film about your favorite city” (“Первый фильм про твой любимый город”), highlighting how its goal was not only to tell a good story but specifically to give Bishkek the film treatment it deserves. Ruslan Akun […]
Salaam, New York (Салам, Нью-Йорк) is a 2013 Kyrgyz film by director Ruslan Akun (Руслан Акун), who also directed and wrote 2011’s Bishkek, I Love You (Бишкек, я люблю тебя). Akun also wrote the film, along with Gulzhan Toktogulova (Гульжан Токтогулова). It was based on true events—Akun’s time studying at a visual arts school in […]
Jamilya (Джамилья) is a 1968 Kyrgyz drama and a classic of Kyrgyz and Russian cinema. Jamilya is based on the 1958 book of the same name by Chingiz Aitmatov (Чингиз Айтматов), who is probably Kyrgyzstan’s greatest cultural export and certainly its best-loved writer. (A statue of him stands right across from the main square in […]
A Father’s Will (Kyrgyz: Атанын керээзи; Russian: Завещание отца) is a 2016 Kyrgyz drama. It was Kyrgyzstan’s 2016 submission to the Oscars for consideration for its Best Foreign Language Film category. (Kyrgyzstan has submitted to the Oscars nine times, but has not yet made the shortlist—maybe this is their year!) The film was directed and […]
The Three Bogatyrs: The Princess of Shamakhi (Три богатыря и Шамаханская царица; also known as How Not to Rescue a Princess in English) is a Russian animated film from 2010, the fourth in the Bogatyr series from Melnitsa Studios. The film starts out with the princess of Shamakhi (a city in present-day Azerbaijan) trying to […]
Abdulaziz Karim (or, in Cyrillic, Абдулазиз Карим), also known as Asr, is an Uzbek pop singer and composer currently residing in Turkey. Karim, 42 years old, was extremely popular in Uzbekistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s and one of the early developers of the Uzbek, and Uzbek-language, pop scene. He got a Nikhol […]
Sevara Nazarxon (or Севара Назархан) is an extremely popular contemporary Uzbek singer and composer. She sings both pop and Uzbek folk music, in Uzbek, Russian, and English, and her usual style combines both pop and folk. She is one of the most, if not definitely the most, successful and popular singers in the history of […]
Nazgul Toktakunova (Назгуль Токтакунова) is a Kyrgyz pop singer. Some of her music—she sings in both Kyrgyz and Russian—is influenced by rap and hip-hop stylings, though most of her music is more generally pop-y. Toktakunova was born in 1987 in Bishkek. She always wanted to become a singer—and in 2015 she said she thought that […]
Gulzhigit Kalykov (Гулжигит Калыков) is a Kyrgyz pop singer and an occasional actor. Kalykov hails from Bishkek. He began singing while in school, taking a few standard music classes but actually focusing more on soccer. Yet when all the other students in his music class gradually dropped out, his teacher noticed his potential and helped […]
Anzhelika Bekbolieva (Анжелика Бекболиева), who goes by the name Anzhelika alone in her singing career, is a Kyrgyz pop singer (not to be confused with the Russian/Soviet singer Anzhelika). Anzhelika was born in Bishkek in 1989. She started singing young: her first performance took place when she was around age eight, at a variety theater. […]
Murakami (Мураками) is a Russian alternative rock band named after the iconic Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Since their first hit single in 2010, the band has achieved widespread popularity in Russia and the former Soviet Republics, frequently making their way onto Hit Parade and other music charts. Murakami originally formed in the fall of 2004 […]
Angel NeBes (Ангел НеБес) is one of the most popular Russian rock bands that has come out of Saint Petersburg. The band is known for their combination of psychedelic, philosophical, and experimental elements in their music. The group was founded in the city of Novomoskosvsk, in the Tula region, in 2006. Within the first two years […]
