FREEFORUM

Since we can't post photos: describe what you can see from where you're sitting. No faces, no addresses, nothing that tells anyone which building.

Mine: a Bishkek courtyard, two poplars, and a man repairing a Lada that hasn't moved since 2016.

Kitchen window. Washing line, three shirts and a tablecloth. Behind them, Altyn Tower with its red lights. The tower looks expensive. The tablecloth looks clean. One of them is honest.

Balcony. The refinery flare, a dog asleep on a car roof, and the stadium floodlights switched off because we lost at home. In that order of importance.

A parking lot and, if I stand on a chair, a grey piece of Lake Michigan. In Alatau Heights I could see the mountains from the kitchen sink. My wife says I'm not allowed to stand on chairs any more, so mostly it's the parking lot.

Morning on the zhayloo. Mist sitting in the valley like milk in a bowl. The tündük open above me, smoke going straight up, so no wind today. The horses on the slope, eleven of them, I counted twice. My son is on the hill with the phone held up looking for signal. That's how this post gets to you.

My grandfather saw this same view. I hope my grandson does. That is all my politics.

A horse's ears. Between them, the road to the pass. The only view worth describing.

The wall of a cinema with a poster for a film from 2017. The cinema is closed on Mondays. It turns out it is also closed on Tuesdays.

Iyık Janyl, a bench under the cathedral hill. The first pilgrims for the feast are coming in early, some on horseback. A boy is selling arsha bundles and charging the foreigners double. Bells in ten minutes.

Navbahor. From my window: the pond, empty, the ducks gone. A man walking two dogs who each want to go a different way. He looks like the Mejlis. Kisses.

Babushka, that's the best political analysis anyone's posted on here in nine years.

Guesthouse terrace, Arslanbob. Walnut forest so thick you can't see where it stops. Waterfall noise. Two tourists arguing over a map, which is funny because the map doesn't have us on it either.

Surgut, hostel window. Snow, a pipe, more snow, a second pipe. A guy from Nurzhan is making plov on a hot plate down the corridor and the whole floor smells like home. Eleven days to go.

dorm window. the cafeteria roof. someone painted WE WERE HERE on it in white and nobody has cleaned it off. three weeks now. i check every morning

Ohio: a cornfield with nothing in it yet and a water tower with our town's name on it (not saying which). Flat for thirty miles. Every one of you has a mountain in your post. I'm jealous.

Flat is good for a horse. You are not as poor as you think.

6am Toronto. A snowplough. My son's hockey bag by the door. The parish hall calendar with the saints' days on it. Tomorrow is Epiphany so I need to find a clean jar for the water.

my first own flat in talas (renting, sharing with 2 guys). view: the neighbour's satellite dish, a pigeon on it, and if you lean out the window, a tiny corner of the hippodrome stands. i'm counting it as a hippodrome view

A Hippodrome view is a Hippodrome view. Welcome to the neighbourhood, foal.

Last one before the relaunch. Kitchen in Nurzhan. The flare, same as Ruslan's in 2019. Laptop open on the test version of the new forum, which is ugly in exactly the way we wanted. A tea that's gone cold because you're all funny.