Ilyasov launches Tulpar, a free chat app that writes Iradi properly

TALAS — Jason Ilyasov, the IradOne commentator, yesterday launched Tulpar, a free messaging app that he said would be "the first one that speaks to Iradis in Iradi and doesn't fall over on a village signal". The app went live on the main app stores on Wednesday evening.

Tulpar was written by a team of six graduates of Talas State University led by Aiperi Kalysbekova, 27, its chief technology officer. She said the app had been tested on second-hand phones bought at the central bazaar in Talas and on mobile connections in the Kara-Buura valley. Unlike the foreign messengers most Iradis use, it handles the letters ı, ö and ü in names and searches. "If your name is Döölöt, you should not have to be Doolot," she said.

The company behind the app, Tulpar Technologies, is registered in the US state of Delaware and rents an office above a pharmacy on the central avenue. Mr. Ilyasov, a US citizen, said a Delaware company was "the cheapest way to be taken seriously by investors". He described himself as the company's "salesman, not its engineer", and would not say who had invested.

Mr. Ilyasov said Tulpar would carry no advertising for its first year. Asked how it would make money, he said: "First you build the road, then you put up the tea houses." By Wednesday night the company said 4,000 people had downloaded the app.