banya
The Saturday institution: steam, birch, cold water, and the honesty of a room where nobody wears a title. The year the banyas closed was the year I understood what they actually hold up. Half the thinking in the winter posts was done on the top bench.
10 entries, newest first.
2026
Six years of this
· Six years of the blog: what the habit turned out to be for, and a small, wordless tug toward whatever is next.
When the Manuscript Outruns the Room
· A short note from the nearly finished stretch: when the book feels more solid than the chair, the cup, and the afternoon around it.
Notebook on the Long Train
· Writing in transit across a long rail stretch: the texture of research notes taken half on purpose, half because standing still had become impossible.
Secret Dawn Among the Stars Is Out
· Launch day. Holding the printed book for the first time, thinking about what a 1985 sealed hull asked of the work, and saying thank you.
2025
Almost nothing to report
· A quiet stretch of thin royalties and thinner pages six weeks before the first book exists, and the discipline of not performing panic for an audience.
Still here, still writing
· High summer in Bishkek: heat, market fruit, the cezve, and the faint circling of something not yet named.
2024
2021
The day the drain won
· A Saturday spent on a clogged drain, heavy bazaar bags, damp laundry, and a hallway bulb that chose the worst moment to die.
The First Time We Sat in a Room Again
· Nearly a year on: tea with Aigerim and Dinara, masks half-managed, gratitude braided with a wariness that will not simply switch off.
