On 31 October 2026, exactly three years will have passed since Aibek Dzhunushaliev was reappointed mayor of Bishkek.
Judging by discussions on social media, one might conclude that the current mayor is among the most criticised in the city's history. Virtually every major decision is accompanied by a wave of comments, often unusually harsh.
But I increasingly ask myself: is the current mayor really criticised more than his predecessors, or are we simply living in an entirely different information age?
And, more importantly, how objectively do we assess the changes taking place in Bishkek?
When every resident became a blogger
Over the past 15 or 20 years, more than the city itself has changed. Society and the way public opinion is expressed have changed as well.
Previously, an ordinary resident had little opportunity to air grievances about city officials before an audience of thousands. Today all it takes is a smartphone and an internet connection.
In a sense, every resident has become a journalist, blogger and civic watchdog.
A pothole, a broken pavement, a felled tree or a contested municipal decision can immediately become a topic of public debate.
This is undoubtedly a positive development. Government must be subject to civic oversight, and residents must be free to speak openly about problems in their city.
But easy access to a public platform has another side.
Negative posts often attract more emotion and engagement than information about the daily work of municipal services. The result can be an impression of constant and universal dissatisfaction.
Yet the number of negative comments is not, by itself, an objective measure of how residents view city leadership.
It is interesting to imagine how earlier mayors would have been perceived if today's social networks had existed during their terms in office.
I suspect they, too, would have faced considerable criticism.
Much of the discontent once remained in kitchens, courtyards and private conversations. Today it is public.
At the same time, it would be wrong to attribute all criticism to the internet. Many posts reflect genuine problems that need solutions.
Social networks are therefore an important indicator of public sentiment, but far from the only way to evaluate government performance.
Three years: a long or short time?
There is another point worth considering.
We have grown so accustomed to frequent changes at the top of Bishkek's administration that three years in office now feels almost like political longevity.
But the city's history suggests otherwise.
Medetbek Kerimkulov led Bishkek for almost six years, from 1999 to 2005. Isa Omurkulov held the post for about three years and eight months.
Personnel changes became markedly more frequent after 2013, particularly between 2020 and 2023, when the city leadership changed repeatedly.
Against that background, the present three-year term does seem unusually long.
But is three years enough to resolve problems that have accumulated over decades?
Municipal services are a complex system. Roads, utility networks, transport, public enterprises, schools and kindergartens require funding as well as continuity of decisions.
Having worked in municipal administration myself, I know how complicated the delivery of even a single infrastructure project can be. Behind a visible result are approvals, financing, the work of municipal enterprises and contractors, and numerous decisions that rarely receive public attention.
Of course, the length of a mayor's tenure does not guarantee results.
The more meaningful question is what has actually changed in the city during those years.
Roads, transport and new public facilities
Let us begin with roads, one of the most frequently debated areas.
Published road-work figures indicate that Bishkek built or rehabilitated around 28 kilometres in 2022 and 26.5 kilometres in 2023. The volume rose to around 61 kilometres in 2024 and approximately 92 kilometres in 2025.
By late September 2026, reports indicated that work on a further 80-plus kilometres had already been completed.
The difference is substantial.
Importantly, these figures refer largely to rehabilitation and reconstruction of existing streets, not exclusively to the construction of entirely new roads.
The geographical spread of the work is equally important.
Where public attention once focused mainly on major central avenues, the road programme now increasingly includes peripheral districts and residential areas whose streets have awaited proper surfacing for years.
Archa-Beshik, Ak-Bosogo and other neighbourhoods are gradually seeing improvements in road infrastructure.
For residents of these areas, a paved street, a pavement or an accessible route home matters no less than the reconstruction of a central boulevard.
Bridges are being rebuilt, new transport connections are being developed, and road-interchange projects are under way.
Naturally, construction on this scale brings temporary disruption: road closures, changes to familiar routes and more traffic on neighbouring streets.
Rehabilitated kilometres do not automatically solve congestion. That requires integrated transport planning, better public transit and more effective traffic management.
Nevertheless, it would be unfair to deny the substantial expansion in road works.
Public transport has also changed.
In recent years Bishkek has received hundreds of new buses, including through national-budget funding and international projects. The renewal of the fleet has visibly changed the city's public-transport system.
Questions remain about routes, service frequency, driver training and passenger service. But the replacement of a significant part of the fleet is a development that also deserves recognition.
Social infrastructure continues to expand, with educational and sports facilities being built and renovated.
I would draw particular attention to two projects.
Arzu and Trudovye Rezervy: when expectations differed from reality
I remember the public reaction when the well-known Arzu and Time Out establishments near the Dolon Omurzakov stadium were demolished in early 2024.
Social media quickly filled with suspicions that the land was being cleared for another luxury apartment block or business centre.
Similar concerns, as I recall, accompanied plans to redevelop the former Trudovye Rezervy sports complex.
Such reactions are understandable. Bishkek has had its share of controversial construction, shrinking public spaces and questions about the use of urban land.
Public distrust did not emerge without reason.
Yet it is worth looking at how these two particular stories ended.
In June 2025, after extensive renovation, the former Trudovye Rezervy reopened as the modern Alga sports complex, with a 3,000-seat stadium, training grounds and other sports facilities.
In November of the same year, the 5,000-seat multipurpose Zhashtyk Arena opened on the site of the smaller arena at the Dolon Omurzakov stadium.
Instead of the residential developments some people feared, the sites became two sports facilities.
What interests me is not only the projects themselves, but how far initial public expectations can diverge from the eventual outcome.
This certainly does not mean that every question about municipal decisions was unfounded. Legal procedures, transparency and efficient use of municipal land must always remain subject to scrutiny.
But perhaps we should revisit major projects once they are completed, compare our initial expectations with actual outcomes and, when necessary, revise our own judgments.
The waste-to-energy plant: a project discussed for decades
Another example is even larger in scale.
The Bishkek landfill problem has been debated for decades. Mayors changed, alternatives were considered and investors were consulted, yet the question remained unresolved.
In December 2025, a waste treatment plant that also generates electricity was officially opened.
The project involved about US$95 million in investment. Its first phase is designed to process up to 1,000 tonnes of waste a day.
This is a major infrastructure facility and an important stage in developing the city's waste-management system.
Of course, opening the plant does not mean the waste problem has been solved completely.
Questions remain about environmental safety, emissions monitoring, actual operating efficiency and the future of waste accumulated at the old landfill.
Yet the transition from decades of discussion to an operating facility is a tangible result.
Projects of this kind do not emerge through the efforts of one official alone. They involve national agencies, investors, experts and contractors.
Still, the role of city leadership in coordinating and advancing such initiatives should not be discounted.
Bishkek has become a much larger city
One more factor often gets lost in public debate.
The administrative-territorial reform of 2024 expanded Bishkek's area by more than 25,000 hectares, to roughly 41,000 hectares.
Territories with more than 130,000 residents were added to the capital.
With them came additional responsibilities for water supply, roads, lighting, sewerage, schools, kindergartens and other municipal services.
Many of these newly incorporated areas already had serious infrastructure deficits.
The municipality is therefore managing a considerably larger and more complex urban system than it did only a few years ago.
That does not relieve its leadership of responsibility for unresolved problems. On the contrary, it calls for better planning and more rational allocation of resources.
But it would also be unfair to evaluate the administration without acknowledging how much the scale of the city has changed. I have discussed the wider development challenge in my analysis of Bishkek's master plan to 2050.
What should count as a mayor's achievement?
This, I think, brings us to the central question.
We get used to positive changes quickly and begin to take them for granted.
A new bus arrives? That is how things should be.
A road is repaired? It is the municipality's job.
A sports facility or kindergarten opens? Officials are paid to do that work.
All true.
But our evaluation of leadership should then be consistent.
If we rightly demand accountability for mistakes, why should we not also count completed projects and real results?
What matters is not simply the number of new facilities, but whether they improve residents' lives, whether public money has been used effectively and what problems still need to be addressed.
And Bishkek certainly still has plenty of them.
Congestion, smog, disorganised construction, ageing utilities, shrinking green spaces and accessibility all require serious attention.
Criticism of government on these matters is entirely legitimate.
But acknowledging shortcomings does not rule out recognising progress.
Likewise, achievements do not mean that mistakes should be overlooked.
To me, that is what an objective approach requires.
A final thought
Every leader has achievements, mistakes and unresolved tasks. A fair assessment, in my view, should consider all of them together, rather than depend solely on the emotional climate of social media.
This is especially true in a complex city like Bishkek, where many problems have built up over decades and the consequences of decisions may take time to become visible.
There is another consideration.
Perhaps we should become accustomed to allowing city leaders enough time not only to take decisions and launch projects, but also to be accountable for their consequences.
Of course, tenure alone is no indicator of efficiency. Results, transparency and responsiveness to residents matter. Yet frequent changes in leadership do not guarantee improvement either.
Bishkek needs long-term planning, continuity and consistent delivery of urban projects, whoever happens to be mayor.
And one final observation.
I am fully aware that this article may attract criticism, perhaps even outright hostility.
That does not particularly concern me.
I support informed criticism of government, difficult questions, public scrutiny and demands for concrete results. A city cannot develop properly without them.
Social media is undoubtedly an important indicator of public sentiment. It reveals problems that officials sometimes fail to notice or would prefer not to notice. Ignoring those signals would be a mistake.
But social media primarily reflects the voices of people who choose to speak out. It does not necessarily give us a complete picture.
Perhaps the current mayor is not the most criticised in Bishkek's history.
He simply serves at a time when every dissatisfied resident has a microphone, with potentially thousands of listeners.
Mayors used to be discussed around kitchen tables. Today they are discussed in comment sections.
I would like us to look beyond the volume of those discussions: to recognise mistakes, acknowledge real results and evaluate city leadership on facts rather than emotion alone.