On this page we share the progress of Toodo with you. During Nellis and Joels last vacation in Kyrgyzstan in July 2022, all three of us elaborated on the idea to start a tourism project in the Kyrgyz mountains. This grew to be Toodo.
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- Feb 2023 Conclusive meeting to get started with planning the necessary steps to call Toodo into life. We talked about our vision and design ideas and settled on what is to become Toodo. Bahram surveyed the site for our project. We started out on a empty field, without any infrastructure at all. Just rocks, bushes and grass.Following up on this, Bahram created a list with items necessary to build tents, a kitchen, etc. Since all three of us are doing something like this for the first time, it took several meetings to account for all that is needed. And we are constantly adding more stuff.
- March 2023 To get an idea about the costs of all the big and little stuff, Bahram went to the biggest bazar in Bishkek and the local bazar in Tokmak. He visited different vendors to find the right people to build our individualized setup. We already bought wood for the tent foundations.
- April 2023 Work started out on the foundation of the tents. Additionally, we set up this website and sketched out ideas on how to fill. Well, you are reading through one of these outcomes now!Our previously simple list of items to buy and stuff to do evolved into a more complex workbook and added a couple of useful tools like Trello to our daily flow. We also settled on meeting twice a week to forward our progress and discuss new ideas.
- May 2023 A big step towards hosting you has been undertaken with the arrival of the tents. Due to the unusually rainy season the progress on the foundations has been slower than expected. However, more and more items for Toodo found their way into our storage. Furthermore, the cleaning of the area is well on its way.A special thanks to Olga, Lea, Carlotta and Max for helping us with basic stuff for the website and beyond! We are still confident to host our first guests in the middle of June!
- June 2023 Progress has been steady but we had to delay the opening further. The places for the tents have been finalized and work on the foundations for the kitchen, the area for the cinema and seating is underway. Due to the rain the access to our area has been difficult for cars. Therefor we got the help of some of the local horse breeders and wood and other stuff made its way on horse back. When you are at Toodo, you will probably see a couple of horses and cows grazing nearby and even moving though our area. It’s nature baby! Furthermore we got connected to the electric network and poles have been set up near the tents to have no one stumble on their way to a comfy night.
- July 2023 The core areas have been finalized, all foundations are ready and one of the tents got errected as a test. A lot of stuff for the kitchen, plates, cutlery, glasses, ash trays, cutting boards, and so forth have been delivered. And the kitchen itself was finalized! At the end of the month, we were joined by our fist volunteer – Genís from Barcelona, who coincidently lives in Berlin at the moment, just as Nelli and Joel. Wheather has been kinder towards us and all the tents have been set up. Wooden tables and chairs to relax in front of them have been added. Bahram, Genís, the builders and everyone else have been working tirelessy and when August comes, we will be ready to host our first guest!
- August 2023 The time has finally come to open the doors, or better tents to our first guests! To celebrate the biggest milestone as of yet, we naturally threw a little party. Bahram invited many friends, some of which are local influencers and even 2 opera singers from Bishkek! It was a beautiful and exciting opening day and you can check out the highlights here: https://www.facebook.com/reel/801573471748494 . As the month progressed, we also saw the first guests, locals and tourists alike. We 100% feel like we got off on the right foot!
- September/October 2023 The two months following our opening saw us welcoming quite a few guests and their feedback helped us to smoothen processes and think bigger. Each booking was met with much excitment and we are super grateful that all guests left with a smile on their faces. We even pushed back the day off removing the tents for the winter due to more booking requests! However, in mid October the time had finally come to close our first, albeit short season. What a wonderful first year!
- February 2024 While Toodo was sleeping, we weren’t. Background work had to be done, we improved our decision making and workflow and did a lot of planning for our first full season. One thing to come out of all this were the first merch items! We chose hoodies with a minimalistic, self-sewed logo.
- March 2024 Nelli and Joel flew to Kyrgyzstan in early March to help preparing for the start of the new season. We went to the mountains with a couple of volunteers, ready to set up the tents, clean the area and add a couple of things to the area. However, the weather thought otherwise. The platforms were under more than 40cm of snow and ice and it took a long time to free them of it. This took a long time and we decided that letting the snow in the general area melt and wait for kinder temperatures was the right call. Still, we spent a nice two days at Toodo and are eager to open up in April. The first bookings have already been confirmed!
- Feb 2023 Conclusive meeting to get started with planning the necessary steps to call Toodo into life. We talked about our vision and design ideas and settled on what is to become Toodo. Bahram surveyed the site for our project. We started out on a empty field, without any infrastructure at all. Just rocks, bushes and grass.Following up on this, Bahram created a list with items necessary to build tents, a kitchen, etc. Since all three of us are doing something like this for the first time, it took several meetings to account for all that is needed. And we are constantly adding more stuff.