KYRGYZSTAN RIDING ADVENTURES – May 2026

Malika McCosh is a writer who grew up in Thailand, Somalia, New York and Ukraine because of her father’s job at the UN. After studying Russian and French at Oxford, she joined a Household Cavalry expedition of 25 soldiers as Russian interpreter (and only female and civilian) as they drove from London to Baku, through Turkey and Georgia, over three months. Shortly after, she met her future husband by chance in a London pub, and started a new chapter of living abroad, this time as a diplomat’s wife. Together they lived in Kathmandu, Damascus and Istanbul from where she wrote about travel, business and culture for The Times, Conde Nast Traveller, Monocle and Cornucopia (“Turkey for connoisseurs”). In Istanbul she started a social enterprise for Syrian refugee women called Knitstanbul which provides income for women through knitting and crochet. She is a bilingual French speaker, speaks good Russian and improving Turkish. She loves Kyrgyzstan for the kaymak (clotted cream), its unique blend of the Turkic and Soviet, two cultures she knows well and loves, for the opportunity to speak Russian without incurring tensions, and because ‘Malika’ seems to be such a popular Kyrgyz name that she sees it everywhere when there! She is an old friend of Alexandra’s and they share many interests. Malika was a paying client on Alexandra’s expedition in May 2023. She is a mother of three and divides her time between London and the Scottish Borders.