By Arslan Koicheiv, producer, Kyrgyz Service, 10 May 2005

Having seen on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, how many people fail easy geography questions, I thought it would be good to suggest a £1m question to Chris Tarrant: 'Is Kyrgyzstan in A) Africa, B) Asia or C) Australasia...?

After Georgia and Ukraine, everyone was speculating about which former Soviet republic would be next for a velvet revolution.

Some experts said Kyrgyzstan. But few people at Bush House took this seriously. Only Malcolm Haslett, the BBC's Eurasian analyst, continued tirelessly to monitor events there.

We, the Kyrgyz team of the Central Asian service in BBC World Service, were sure that the prediction of power change was going to be right.

So, from early March I started trying to persuade Hamid Ismailov, our head of service, to send me back to Bishkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan. He agreed.

On arrival, I discovered that the stringers in the BBC office were also divided over whether there would be a revolution or not. On March 24 2005 it happened.

Clash

Within hours, protesters were waving flags from the president's office. President Akaev himself fled to Russia. Shocked by a surprise victory, the Kyrgyz opposition realised their chance to grab power.

The whole Bishkek team of stringers (Sultan, Kubat, Tolkun and Ayzatbek) were present when the first clashes took place between protesters and the police.

Our natural instinct told us to stay with the crowd because they were speaking on behalf of the people - and we were right.

If we had remained close to the police we could have become entangled between them and a very angry crowd.

We Kyrgyz people like to see the nomadic spirit as part of our identity. For example, traces of the nomadic past still exist in our food culture.

Some businessmen even dream of exporting fermented mare's milk to Europe and thus pay homage to the will of Mongolian Ghenghis Khan. The Kyrgyz people are not aware that in Europe Ghenghis Khan's name is synonymous with mass murder.

Nomadic spirit

Symbols of nomadic life are everywhere - in our national flag, on the front of our passports and in our national dress.

When people rose up against the president it seemed to many that the nomadic spirit had been re-awakened.

There were happy smiles on Kyrgyz faces when some oppositional groups in Mongolia took to the streets to show solidarity with the Kyrgyz revolution.

'How many listeners does BBC World Service have?' asked one of my colleagues. 'Around 150 million,' I replied.

'Since its independence, Kyrgyzstan has been struggling to advertise its existence. Now, at least 150m BBC listeners know about it,' said my colleague.

I realised that I was probably too late to suggest a question to Mr Tarrant.

On returning to London, the taxi driver who took me home asked where I was from. 'Kyrgyzstan,' I said. 'Where is that?' he asked.

'Did you not hear the news about the revolution in Kyrgyzstan?' I said.

He nodded: 'Oh, yes, I know Kurgissss… whatever you call it - it's the place where the president was poisoned and his face was disfigured, isn't it? Not to complicate matters further, I simply said: 'Yes.'

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