Solution: Landlocked land along the Silk Road - NYT Crossword

This former Soviet state is a puzzle debut, and although it’s known for some pretty wild ancient traditions, KYRGYZSTAN hasn’t been around, under this name, as long as Coach K. As an appropriate bookend to this post, the illustrious Deb Amlen points out that another illustrious Times journalist, John Branch, once reported on a rock climber’s kidnapping in the country of Kyrzbekistan, meaning Kyrgyzstan. I wish that Tajikistan or one of Kyrgyzstan’s other cousins wrote in to complain, but instead the imaginary nation sprang into sardonic cyberexistence. If anyone sends you a plaintive note for help from impoverished Kyrzbekistan, don’t buy it! They have cows in the trees there, they’re doing fine.