Snow-white peaks scraping the sky. Alpine meadows abundant in flowers and steppes permeated with the smell of wormwood. Rough mountain rivers, winding between the slopes, and lakes that lie motionless amid the summits, like mirrors dropped by a playing beauty... All these are Kyrgyzstan, the country with ancient history and virginal nature. The country that can present you with the best travel in your life.

Kyrgyzstan is a small country, but it has become the peak of the Eurasian continent and separated the East and West: on the one side there lies Christian European Russia, on the other side Islamic Asia and Buddhistic China. This is one of the highest places on the planet: in its small territory there are three seven-thousanders. In order to experience the alternation of climatic zones of the Eurasian continent, it is just enough to climb the mountains. You can find coniferous forests here, as well as tundra, and even "the Arctic" plateaus with unearthly landscapes, troubled only by freezing winds.

Kyrgyzstan is a paradise for those who cannot live without mountains. The mountains make Kyrgyzstan a unique place for vigorous sports. Apart from tracking and mountaineering, it is certainly worth coming here for rafting: traveling down the rushing mountain rivers on inflatable rafts. It is quite justified that the rivers of Kirghizia along with intractable rapids of the Himalayas and Altai are considered to be one of the principal places in the world for this sport. Moreover, you can master mountain skiing or snowboarding. In the foothills you can have a go at mountain-biking and mountain-boarding popular kinds of extreme sports requiring remarkable courage. As for the most brave there are gliders, hang-gliders, and parachutes. All these sports are well-developed in the country and have a lot of fans. To those who like a quiet rest, contemplators seeking a shelter from the civilization, Kyrgyzstan is no less pleasant. There are nearly two thousand lakes here that are to be remembered for the whole life. Sometimes it is possible to meet here only yurtas of the nomad-shepherds who bring the horses and yaks to these banks in summer. Here, with the mysterious and primeval landscapes, you feel the first and the sole man on the planet, as if you were transferred through the time, and appeared at the starting point of the Earth history.

But the main treasure of the country is certainly the Issyk Kul, one of the largest mountain lakes, second only to the famous South American Titicaca, and one of the deepest on the globe. Because of its salt water the Issyk Kul is frequently called a sea. It captivates you with its beauty. The northern shore of the lake has been colonized by tourists since olden days: there are a set of good boarding houses, sanatoriums, and holiday centers. The principal resort of the country is Cholpon-Ata, and on arriving here, you can spend a couple of unforgettable weeks on the sand beach. Modern Kyrgyzstan lies in a very ancient land. Scientists say that here there was one of the centers of the human civilization origin. But the golden age of this land started, when the legendary Silk Road was established; it passed here, connecting China and the capital of the Roman Empire. And still, thousands of tourists come to Kyrgyzstan to travel by the Silk Road, the legendary way that bridged civilizations of East and West.

And when you want to return from the antiquity to the present, simply come to Bishkek, capital of the country, the cultural center, a young garden city surrounded by a ring of beautiful mountains. During the recent years, Bishkek has become one of the Central Asian centers of congress-tourism; and it has a lot to offer its well-to-do guests and business partners first of all, convenient conference halls and several modern hotels. And if you have arrived to Kyrgyzstan not only for settling business issues, you can take off your jacket and tie, put on tracking boots, and go to the mountains: to look, breathe, explore this ancient land, divine expanses of Kyrgyzstan.

With best regards, Tourism Destination Marketing Association of the Kyrgyz Republic