"Drive forward....come on."

I shiver, then shudder. Five metres to my left is a man in a gasmask waving a Kalashnikov. I shudder because I know he is going to fire that weapon. I shiver because I know he is here to kill.  Around him they brandish stones and the truncheons they ripped from the hands of the police. Two guards of honour are still standing perfectly still by the monument that commemorates independence from the Soviet empire. They will not be there for long.

"Down with the dictator."

The crowd roars like a hideous animal, shrieking with glee as the armoured trucks have reached the ornate, gold-painted grillage enclosing the White House. The men onboard are waving the national flag and beating their chests. With a sudden groan they hit the accelerators and smash through the grills into the compound. I am standing twenty metres away, my eyes on the phalanx of riot police standing to attention on the steps of the government headquarters. The trucks are racing towards them. The people are stunned with the elation, the suddenness of it all. The helmets of the riot police catch the shine of the light. Then the shooting starts. And so does the screaming .

Crackling gunshots are peppering the air, whistling into the crowds. Hundreds are running for their lives. I am one of them. When you run for your life you do so thoughtlessly. Nothing goes through your mind but running itself. The shooting is getting louder and closer. I hurl myself headfirst into the mud and a rosebush.

"Run..." 

"Forward....we shall not surrender."

 "Mummy....!"

Explosions. They are firing stun grenades into the crowds. Lights crack and bang in the air above the mob. They are firing tear-gas into the people. Hundreds are darting back. Hundreds are rushing forward, hurling stones, pieces of paving stones. My eyes are stinging. I am coughing uncontrollably. I have to get back. Those around me are pulling their shirts over their mouths, wiping their eyes with spit. Pulling myself together, forgetting my cuts, I get out of the rose bush and rush back. It sounds like thunder. It sounds like war. 

"We are not Islamists. We want a democracy like there is in Europe. We want no more corruption."

But the man who tells me this suddenly starts to run. The cracks, the bangs and the boom of exploding tear-gas canisters are getting louder. Like so many on the square, I try to calculate where to hide. A gust of running people dashes into the covered walkways out of range of the authorities. The crackling has cut out. The tear-gas has dispersed. A soft rain is coming down. The crowd has gone nowhere. 

"The Russians are supporting this, giving the opposition money, but I am opposition and nobody gave me any money."

The crowds are alive with rumours because Kyrgyzstan is a tinpot republic at the crossroads of empire, the only country in the world with both Russian and American military bases. Putin has been pushing for more of his men to be on the ground here and the US recently opened a counter-terrorism centre in the south, as militants are rumoured to have been crossing the mountains from Afghanistan. China is investing heavily, building roads towards the west through the mountains as migrants move from the People's Republic.