ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Kyrgyzstan's populist president heads off to Russia on Monday as problems mount on the home front, following the seizure of a gold mine run by the country's biggest private investor and deadly clashes along the disputed border with Tajikistan.
President Sadyr Japarov will fly into Sochi on Russia's Black Sea coast for his second meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in three months. What, if anything, he will extract from the trip remains unclear.