Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast no relation Mikhail Frunze
Bishkek (Kyrgyz: Бишкек, IPA: [biʃˈkek]), formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chüy Region. The region surrounds the city, although the city itself is not part of the region but rather a region-level unit of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is situated near the Kazakhstan–Kyrgyzstan border. Its population was 1,074,075 in 2021.In 1825, the Khanate of Kokand established the fortress of Pishpek 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. In 1868, a Russian settlement was established on the site of the fortress under its original name, Pishpek. It lay within the General Governorship of Russian Turkestan and its Semirechye Oblast.
In 1925, the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was established 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. In 1936, Frunze became the capital of the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic, during the final stages of national delimitation in the Soviet Union. In 1991, the Kyrgyz parliament changed the capital's name to 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 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.Soviet era
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.Notable people
Talant Dujshebaev (born 1968), handball coach and former handball player (voted 2nd IHF World Player of the Century)
Mikhail Frunze (1885–1925), after whom the city was named from 1926 to 1991
Nasirdin Isanov (1943–1991), first prime minister of Kyrgyzstan
Denis Ivanov (born 1983), former Russian professional football player
Sergei B. Korolev (born 1962), First Deputy Director of the Federal Security Service
Alexander Mashkevitch (born 1954), Kazakh-Israeli billionaire businessman and investor
Orzubek Nazarov (born 1966), former WBA lightweight boxing champion
Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva (born 1950), third president of Kyrgyzstan
Vladimir Perlin (born 1942), cellist
Denis Petrashov (born 2000), swimmer, Youth Games and Maccabiah Games medalist
Salizhan Sharipov (born 1964), first cosmonaut of the independent Kyrgyz Republic
Antonina Shevchenko (born 1984), kickboxer
Valentina Shevchenko (born 1988), kickboxer and UFC champion
Tugelbay Sydykbekov (1912–1997), writer
Natalya Tsyganova (born 1971), 800m medallist at the World and European championships, representing Russia
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