A grower's view of the potato order
Re: Before banning potato imports, publish the storage survey
Your editorial of 24 October asks the ministry to publish its storage survey before it bars imports. As someone who grows potatoes on four hectares outside Kyzyl-Adyr, I can tell you what my store looks like without any survey: full, and the price at the Talas bazaar is lower than my diesel bill can stand.
Every autumn the Kazakh lorries come over at Chu Gate just when our crop goes into the cellars, and every autumn we sell at a loss in October and the city buys imported potatoes in February. If the order means my potatoes are still worth something after New Year, I am for it. If the ministry has the figures, by all means let it print them, but please do not argue the order away while the cellars are full.
Bakyt Jumagulov
Kyzyl-Adyr, Kara-Buura District
Coal by the sack, not by the tonne
Re: Kyrgyzstan caps coal for 90 days; Irad's buyers rely on merchants' own prices
Your report on coal (26 October) quotes a price per tonne. Nobody in Jogorku buys a tonne. We buy by the sack from the man with the truck who comes up our street on Saturdays, and he has put the sack up twice since September, from 28 som to 35.
My mother is 81 and keeps the stove going from the first frost to Easter. I do not expect the government to set the price of coal. I would like somebody to say who checks the weight of a sack.
Gulnara Abdyrakhmanova
Jogorku, Iyık Janyl
The editor replies: Our districts correspondent will be in Iyık Janyl next week and will buy a sack.
The leopards will not ask the clans
Re: Snow leopard station opens at Uuk-Bulak; releases on tribal land need clan consent
I am glad the university has opened its station at Uuk-Bulak (27 October). My grandfather lost eleven sheep to an ilbirs in one night in 1998 and still spoke of the animal with respect until he died.
But your report is right that nothing is written down. When a cat is let go above our summer pasture, it will not know which clan's jayloo it is on, and it will not wait for the elders to agree. Before the first release I would like the university to come up and sit down with the families who graze there, and to say who pays when a flock is hit. A promise from Talas is good. A paper with a stamp is better.
Nurlan Sadyk uulu
Chatkal District
Four hundred gigabits, and my bill?
Re: Attelkom's China fibre link opens at 400 Gbps; price of the capacity not disclosed
So Attelkom has a new cable to China carrying 400 gigabits a second (22 October). I have no idea how much that is. What I know is that my home connection in the 7th microdistrict costs the same as it did in 2023 and stops working every evening at nine when the whole block comes home.
If Attelkom is now so rich in gigabits, perhaps it could send a few of them to Nurzhan. And perhaps your business editor could ask them the one question every reader has: will it cost us less?
Viktor Shevchenko
7th Microdistrict, Nurzhan
The editor replies: We asked. Attelkom said its home tariffs are "under review" and gave no date.
Thank you to the driver of the No. 12
On Friday morning I left my handbag, with my pension book in it, on the No. 12 marshrutka between the Central Post Office and Azatlık Prospect. By the evening the driver had found my telephone number from a receipt in the bag and brought it to my door himself, and he would not take a som for it.
He told me only that his name is Ulan. I hope he reads the Herald. Ulan, my grandchildren and I thank you.
Raisa Ermekova
Old City, Talas
