[lwptoc]
Bishkek, formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is Kyrgyzstan’s capital and biggest city.
Bishkek is also the administrative center of Chuy Province, which surrounds the city, despite the fact that the city is not a province-level entity of Kyrgyzstan.
The name is assumed to stem from a Kyrgyz term for a churn used to manufacture fermented mare’s milk (kumis), the Kyrgyz national drink, although this is questionable.
Bishkek is located at an elevation of around 800 meters (2,600 feet), just off the northern edge of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too range, an extension of the Tian Shan mountain range, which reaches to 4,855 meters (15,928 feet) and offers a stunning background to the city.
Bishkek is a metropolis with vast boulevards and marble-faced public buildings, as well as several Soviet-style apartment towers encircling indoor courtyards and hundreds of smaller privately constructed dwellings, particularly outside the city center. It is organized in a grid form, with most streets bordered on both sides by thin irrigation ditches that nourish the many trees that give shade during the scorching summers.