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THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC (Kyrgyzstan) is a gorgeous country that you've probably never heard of. The travel guides say that it's about the size of South Dakota, though it's so incredibly mountainous that it's hard to imagine how much land is actually packed into its ridges and folds.

It is a place where four-wheel drive doesn't always cut the mustard, and horses are still a necessary form of transport for herders and tourists alike in the massive Tien Shian range.

Kyrgyzstan is arguably the most progressive and inviting of the Soviet Union's Central Asian successor states. It shares borders with China, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The population is mostly a blend of ethnic Russian and Kyrgyz in the northern oblasts (states), with the addition of a sizable Uzbek contingent in the south.

The official languages are Kyrgyz (a distant cousin of Turkish and Mongolian) and Russian. Islam and the Russian Orthodox Church are the main religions, Islam being by far the more prevalent.

I came to Kyrgyzstan with 64 other Peace Corps trainees in September 2004. That December, after pre-service training near the capital city of Bishkek, I was sent to teach English at a secondary school in Kyzyl-Suu (Kyrgyz for "Red Water"), a sprawling town of 15,000 on the south shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in the north of the country.

My town has a small bazaar, four schools, a stadium, a cheese factory and a galaxy of cafes and stores. Sandwiched between the immense, jagged mountains and the lake, Kyzyl-Suu is lively and pretty. Giant poplars line the main road where horse-drawn carts clank along day and night. A rainbow of Soviet jalopies and German imports scuttle about at the main taxi stand, always reversing and making U-turns in various stages of loading or unloading people, sheep and sacks of potatoes.

Women in headscarves hawk folded paper cones of sunflower seeds scooped from bulging Chinese rice bags. Herds of sheep and cows routinely commandeer the streets on the way to and from the fields, and the ubiquitous tri-band radios belt out an endless stream of American, Russian and Kyrgyz disco hits.