Santa Claus is from Kyrgyzstan?!

Santa Clause (or "Ayaz Ata", as how we call him in Kyrgyz) is from Kyrgyzstan! Can you believe that?! Santa is my citizen :)

Well, according to Swedish consultancy firm Sweco, hehe, it is proven. You may read this news, laugh at it, and forget about it. But, hey, not our Tourism Agency! They see it as another opportunity to promote tourism in Kyrgyzstan now. Why not?! Kyrgyzstan's beautiful nature becomes even more gorgeous and fabulous in winter time, and tourists have all the rights not to bypass such a beautiful place!

Kyrgyzstan National Tourism Agency has already announced the competition "In which part of Kyrgyzstan does Santa Claus live?" to locate the symbolical residence place of Santa. What is more, it is planning to organize the Annual Santa Claus Assembly in Kyrgyzstan and invite Santa Clauses from other countries. And another interesting idea is that Santa Claus will make the ceremonial start from Kyrgyzstan. :) Agency is aware that they need to try hard in order to claim and promote it.

Shock revelation from Swedish consultancy firm: Santa Claus lives in Kyrgyzstan

(HELSINGIN SANOMAT) Santa Claus or Father Christmas lives in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, declares the Swedish engineering, environmental technology, and architecture consulting services firm Sweco. The claim was reported by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter in its Saturday issue under the headline: "Sorry, Finns".

Well, this is one news item that calls for delving into in greater depth. Anders Larsson of Sweco tells Helsingin Sanomat over the phone that the company has calculated, based on the earth’s topography and distribution of population, the location from which Santa Claus would have the easiest access to all the nice and deserving children in the world.

The end result did not surprise the Swedes. From the logistics point of view, the most beneficial location for Santa’s Grotto is in Kyrgyzstan, thousands of kilometres from Finnish Lapland.

Sweco presents an avalanche of facts to justify its shock discovery: Santa has to make it to 2.5 billion households in just one night.

For the delivery of gifts, Father Christmas can spare a massive 34 microseconds (millionths of a second) per home. And on the round-the-world delivery route Santa’s reindeer sleigh will travel at the modest speed of 5,800 kilometres per second.

Logistically speaking, all this would be easiest done from Kyrgyzstan. If Santa lived in Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland - a place traditionally branded as the location of Santa’s Grotto for Finnish children – the presented figures would be significantly higher.

Unravelling the location of Santa’s home was not too difficult, Larsson boasts. "It took us half a day to produce the calculations."