Tian Shan Mountains, Kyrgyzstan

Sonya and Travis offered to send some postcards from their travels earlier this year, and well, I just couldn't resist. ...although I wasn't expecting to receive a postcard from Kyrgyzstan, so this was a really nice surprise in my mailbox! (Do check out Sonya and Travis' blog, it's excellent!)

The Tian Shan Mountains is a large system of mountain ranges located in Central Asia. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Victory Peak (Jengish Chokusu), 7,439 metres. Tian Shan lies to the north and west of the Taklamakan Desert and directly north of the Tarim Basin in the border region of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China. In the south it links up with the Pamir Mountains and to north and east it meets the Altai Mountains of Mongolia.

Kyrgyzstan is a nation located in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek.

Kyrgyzstan is officially a democratic parliamentary republic. A revolution in April 2010 overthrew the former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev and resulted in the adoption of a new constitution and the appointment of an interim government. Presidential elections were held in November 2011.

Kyrgyzstan is one of the active members of the Turkic Council and the TÜRKSOY community. The national language, Kyrgyz, is also closely related to the other Turkic languages, with which it shares strong cultural and historical ties.