Uranium Fever (Patreon)

So, here it finally is, part 2 of my Kyrgystan journey! 

In this part of the journey, we decided to leave the tracks behind, they weren’t getting us anywhere anyway, and take to the roads instead. Kyrgyzstan is an incredible country, with something to discover around almost every corner, so taking matters into our own hands seemed like the best option. We didn’t really have a plan, only an endpoint: Engilchek. An abandoned village high in the mountains, near the Chinese border. Along the way, there were countless abandoned locations, obscure and unusual towns, and above all, some absolutely stunning landscapes.  

Once we were on the road and had visited a few locations, I started to notice a pattern. “Abandoned places” in Kyrgyzstan aren’t actually all that abandoned. There always seemed to be someone living, and almost every empty building had been cleaned up and repurposed as a stable, storage space, or even a home. Ofcourse it’s a beautiful thing: people giving old buildings a second life instead of simply letting them fall apart. The downside, at least from our perspective, was that there often wasn’t much left to see of the buildings’ former lives. 

Nevertheless, we discovered plenty of interesting places along the way. And if you’re into Soviet history, I think you’re really going to enjoy this journey. This video also proves to me, once again, that it really is about the journey rather than the destination.  

I hope you will enjoy the incredible landscapes, mixed with fascinating places sitting at unusual crossroads of history. The remarkably well-preserved remnants of Soviet culture, but also the warmth and friendliness of the Kyrgyz people. 

Unfortunately, it took me quite a while to really put this video together. A series of problems made it difficult to create an edit I was actually happy with. I kept working on it, but every time I got somewhere, I ended up starting over because I simply didn’t think it was any good. After a while, that started to take a toll on my motivation as well. On top of that, I’ve had quite a few problems with Vimeo. The platform was quietly taken over, by some unethical Italian company and they ended their partnership with Patreon. Because of that, I can no longer benefit from the discounted rate I used to have, which was, I don’t even remember exactly, a few hundred euros per year. Now they’re asking me, brace yourselves: $12,000. 

The price is so high because a lot of bandwidth gets used. My videos are long and high quality and that costs money to stream. But the new management are also just a bunch of profit-hungry, turbo-capitalist assholes.  

So I’ve been desperately looking for alternatives, but so far I haven’t found anything truly comparable. Since they were threatening to suspend my account, I eventually had no choice but to pay. Otherwise, you would have lost access to all the videos, and obviously I couldn’t let that happen. That was a pretty painful financial hit. Thankfully, I’m able to pay it in installments. If anyone knows of a good alternative platform that supports long-form 4K content without costing me an arm and a leg, please let me know in the comments below. 

Thank you all for your patience and support. I hope you enjoy the video!

All the best!