#224: Georgia-Russia

South Osetia = Kosovo!
Georgia = Serbia!
US = Russia!
Were they justified?

#213: Posner

Vladimir Posner was in Bishkek and I was able to attend two of his events using my alumni network at AUCA. He was invited by the president of AUCA (to the left of VP in the picture. Photo courtesy of murzakimov) as a guest lecturer.

I was interested in listening to a person who was born in France, grew up in the U.S., worked for the propaganda machine of the Soviet Union, and had lost faith in the Communist Part. He admires the U.S., loves Europe, and, it seems, still has hopes for Russia. This is a synopsis of what he said (not verbatim):

• The Soviet Union was an artificial formation and was doomed for failure.
• Yeltsin is a more pleasant person than Putin, although the latter has his own merits.
• Yeltsin did not appoint Putin in 1999. He was removed by the oligarchs, who then thought that Putin would a weak politician and could be manipulated. They were a bit wrong.
• Putin did tighten the screws in Russia. All the major media is controlled by the government, directly or indirectly.
• Putin did a major thing: he resigned although he had the tools (Duma, referendum, public approval) to stay for the third term.
  
• There will be some liberalization in Russia under Medvedev, who will stay for 2 full terms.
  
• Medvedev is different from Putin, not completely, but in some ways.
• When launching his program Vremena (Times) seven years ago he was politely asked not let 3 people on air for political reasons.
• There was big disagreement with Dariga Nazarbaeva over one issue and told her that he will never come to Kazakhstan.
• China is dangerous

#206: Re-writing History

There are individual attempts to rewrite history of Kyrgyzstan, but these attempts are mostly unsuccessful mainly because of Russia's growing influence and revival of its might (both Tsarist and Soviet), while the Kyrgyz government is afraid to contradict the Big Brother (also in Orwellian meaning). The recent debate on marking of the 1916 revolt was muted, largely because of Russia's opposition to it.

Now, how do you rewrite the Basmachi revolts of early 20th century? Russian (Soviet) history clearly depicts them bandits (terrorists, kidnappers, killers) and opponents of the Communist dream. Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz are re-questioning this and re-thinking the history again as the grandsons of Janybek Kazy (Jani Begh in Pakistan) are returning to Kyrgyzstan with investment.

Janybek Kazy (circa. 1861-1933), originally from Özgön (Uzgen), was a nobleman who revolted against the Soviet collectivization and raskulachivanie policies in 1928. Under Russian punishment he fled first to China, then settled in Gilgit, Pakistan after the Soviet sent an army to arrest him. Some of his children in 1950's then migrated to Turkey. Currently, he as grandchildren living in Pakistan, Germany, Turkey, and Japan.

He and his followers were called basmachi for 70 years and the Soviet government told us they wanted to create an Islamic caliphate or a Pan-Turkist state (the current Russian government has pretty much follows the Soviet interpretation of history). With so little information from the archives of NKVD and KGB, the Kyrgyz are trying to re-write their own history. And once again, these attempts might fail due to the fear that Russian government might decide to deport all the Kyrgyz migrant workers (some 300,000 - 500,000people), most of them are illegally working there.

#202: Posner

Vladimir Posner, the host of Vremena (Times), the only more or less independent talk show left on Russia's 1 kanal, is coming to Bishkek. He is apparently also meeting with students of AUCA, my alma mater, and I am hoping to make it to the meeting with my alumni card as he is a very interesting person to listen to.

#200: 1916

Parliament's recent decision to mark the 1916 revolt of the Kyrgyz against Russians as a memorial day in August sparked a small international row between Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on April 22 saying that his decision is "counterproductive to the current friendly relations between our country and people."

In 1916 ethnic Kyrgyz revolted against the Tsar's decision to draft the local population to provide rear service in the WWI. The Kyrgyz revolted killing thousands of Russian settlers. The Russian army responded accordingly. The Kyrgyz then fled the Russian army to China (most returned after the 1917 Communist Revolution). Estimates put the death toll at 150,000 Kyrgyz (roughly 30% of the population).

However, it is accepted that the draft was just a trigger to revolt against the oppression of the colonial Russia, who had been seizing the most fertile land from Kyrgyz (and Kazakh) and giving it to settlers from Russian during the previous 20 years. As a result by 1916, Russian settlers, who made 6% of the whole population of Semirechie (roughly Northern Kyrgyzstan and Southern Kazakhstan), owned 57.7% of all arable land, while the local population (94%) owned the remaining 42.3%. (Source)

The Russian government, subsequently the Russian people, including those in the former Soviet Union, are often nervous about admitting wrongdoings in its history, either by the Tsarist Russia or the Soviet Union.

This unwillingness to accept past mistakes has been counterproductive to the Kyrgyz-Russian relations.

#178: Medvedev in the Making

If you have seen the Soviet movie "Kavkazskaya Plennitsa" you will appreciate the excellent parody to this move. The original conversation from the movie is about a bride-kidnapping tradition in one of the countries in the Caucasus. However, a team of stand-up comedians in a competition (KVN) remade it into a conversation where Dmitriy Medvedev is being convinced to participate in an ancient tradition of "presidential election." I hope you enjoy it!


Viewers from Kyrgyzstan can watch the movie here.

#177: To Ladies...

Actually, very few people would call it election. Russians are being given a chance to "approve"Putin's choice. After all, we are all democratic.

Back in 2000, when Boris Yeltsin resigned, the western press wrote "Putin Was Put In" as a word play. During the following eight years newspaper headlines in Russia read "Doubling GPD" or "GDP Growth" where GDP in Russian is VVP (ВВП) - Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Starting from this year, the Russians will give toasts to ladies ("to ladies" in Russian is "za DAM" - Dmitriy Anatolievich Medvedev). By the way, the 8th of March Women's Day is coming up.
Photo courtesy of Gruzilki Journal.

#172: Neo-Nazism in Russia

Many people in Kyrgyzstan are learning more about neo-Nazism in Russian because of increasing number of cases of murder and violent attacks againsts Kyrgyz immigrant workers in Russia. Yesterday the Kyrgyz State TV had a story about a young Kyrgyz construction worker, whose brother's dead body was found just outside St. Petersburg. Last week several diaspora groups in Russia issued a statement expressing growing concerns for security of ethnic Kyrgyz working and living in Russia, who are being attacked by neo-Nazi groups. Many of Kyrgyz workers are Russian citizens by now (up to 1 million Kyrgyz citizens are in Russia right now).

Last year my cousin went to St. Petersburg looking for a job. After three months of working at a construction site, he escaped. He came back to Bishkek with strong anti-Russian sentiments because of all the hardships and humiliation he encountered there. He said he avoided walking on the street because of fear of the Russian police, who usually extort money, or the skinheads who could attack even in the metro.

The usual Kyrgyz response, which is mostly a Soviet response, is never talk about. Deny that the problem of neo-Nazism exists. Instead, explain these attacks as petty crime or hooliganism. I observed this on a popular Kyrgyz Internet forum. All of the responders outright denied that this problem existed. In less than 30 minutes, the whole topic was closed by the moderators who said that it was provoking an inter-ethnic (Kyrgyz vs. Russian) conflict by trying to discuss this issue. Then today I read an article about a Tajik worker who defended a Tuvan student (Russian citizen) from a skinheads attack in Moscow metro. There too most of the comments denied that the problem existed.

#167: Political Idols

I am really hooked on reading newly-elected MPs' portfolios, published by most of the Kyrgyz newspapers. Because the way the last parliamentary elections went in Kyrgyzstan, I am only now learning about our new MPs. They are asked standard questions from place of birth to past experience to sport interests. And one of the questions is about their political idol. A sizable majority of them name Vladimir Putin as their idol. Of course, Kurmanbek Bakiev is also mentioned, but less frequently than Putin. Popularity of Russian TV in Kyrgyzstan and the fact the Putin is always portrayed as the savior of Russia (Tsar?) is the only explanation here.

#152: Watching Russia

Despite the peak of pre-election campaigning and the voting day in 5 days, Kyrgyzstan is closely watching the breaking news from Russia. Putin's backing of Dmitri Medvedev as his heir put an end to various speculations. Today's news also ends the debate on how Putin stays in power after March 2008. Medvedev, as a return of favor, also asked Putin to be the Prime Minister, with extended powers to control the entire security forces.

As for Medvedev's background, I amazed to learned that he is a big fan of Black Sabbath (remember Ozzy Osborn?). He is seen as a liberal politician without confrontational intentions towards the West, although he already made a Putinesque statement regarding the rise of Russia. Putin's protégé was involved in several big economic deals. After all he is not as white and fuzzy as we have known him so far.

This news is important to Kyrgyzstan because mainly Putin is very popular in Kyrgyzstan and many wish that we had a president like Putin, as a result President Bakiev tends to imitate his Russian counterpart. For example, since coming to power in March 2005 Bakiev has been cultivating the image of a boxer similar to Putin's image of a judo master, although Putin can parade sports credientials of owning a black belt.

Russia is also important because of Kyrgyz immigrant workers numbering from 300 000 on a conservative count to 1 millions on a liberal count. These are mainly voting age people. They left their children with relatives, mainly grandparents, in Kyrgyzstan. Despite this, the Central Elections Commission is sending only 29,000 ballot papers to Russia. Moreover, the CEC is installing voting booths in bazaars as if they expect difficulties of using all the ballot papers.

The World Bank also issued a report claiming that immigrants in 2007 send approximately $1billiob, which is around 27.4% of our GDP. By contract, the 2004 figure was around 8% of GDP.

#143: Euro 2008

As I have said in the past, Kyrgyzstan is a Russia-oriented country (two Russia-based TV stations get the most viewership in the country, ahead of the Kyrgyz National TV, and Putin is probably the most popular politician in Kyrgyzstan, ahead of you know who), we tend to follow the European football closely. We cheer when Russia wins a game. We use the word nashi (Russian for 'our') for the Russian team. With England's defeat to Croatia, Russia got a chance to play in the European Championship in 2008.

Commenting on the Russia-Israel game, Russia's Channel1 news reader said that it would be an interesting game because Israel's coach is a Russian citizen (Russia's is a Dutch) and wondered how loyal he would be to Mother Russia. Plus, the news reader mentioned all the Israeli football fans who had emigrated from Russia. Which team they would root for? Regardless, the Russian team lost to Israel. Shame on the English team though.

#126: Kymyz or Vodka or Coke?

As a continuation on one of my favorite topics, I present you posters depicting the eternal human dilemma: Kymyz or Vodka or Coke?
These are parodies to the Soviet anti-vodka posters.

#115: The Turkestan Album

The Library of Congress scanned and posted on their website all the images from Turkestanskii Al'bom, which "provides a visual survey of Central Asia from the perspective of the Russian imperial government that took control of the area in the 1850s and 1860s. About 1,200 photographs, with some architectural plans, watercolor drawings, and maps, are arranged in four parts."

The collection includes pictures of historical sites, faces of Central Asian people living at that time, their clothes, traditions, holidays and celebrations, trades, maps (even the siege of Tashkent), and just everyday life. Since it presents things from Tsarist Russia's perspective, viewers should pay attention to the way pictures are taken (after all Russia was a colonizing power in a "backward region") and captions to them.

Another note. The Kazakhs in the pictures are described as "Kirgiz-Kazakhs," while the Kyrgyz are "Karakirgiz." Russians called the Kazakhs as Kyrgyz not to mistaken them for Cossacks, because words "Kazakh" and "Cossack" are pronounced very similarly in Russian, and the Kyrgyz became Karakirgiz, which means "Black Kyrgyz."

Here are some pictures of the Kyrgyz people from 1850s.

Jolbors (Yul Bars)
Dresses of Kyrgyz women

The Library of Congress did a truly great job. These pictures could help the Central Asians to learn more their history (and present). The Kyrgyz government could borrow, copy, or even bring this collection and organize a big exhibition.

Update: Russian version of the post is here.

#100: Mikhail Zadornov

Yesterday I watched Russian stand-up comedian Mikhail Zadornov, who is known for his anti-Americanism (his famous line is "Американцы - тупые!" - Americans are dumb!) and self-flagellation of Russia and Russians. However, that is not the point in his show which is aired by RenTV. For the first time he criticized, or more accurately, ridiculed the Russian government, including President Putin.

Zadornov compared United Russia, pro-Putin party, to the bear in Russian fable Teremok. It is an Aesopian tale about a house shared peacefully by all animal, until a bear, United Russia's symbol, decides that it wants to live in the house and destroys it by his clumsiness and sheer size. He told all this in whisper, while regularly crying out "United Russia is a great party!" I could not believe my eyes. He also turned to the issue of Putin's heir in 2008. He concluded all by saying that if Putin decides to step down in 2008, he will head a new holding RossGosEnergoTVRadioSvyazNeftGazProm, a company which would control gas, oil, electricity, TV and radio, and communications, basically everything in Russia.

I found the video on YouTube. Enjoy!

#98: 9/11 and Ramadan

Today is the 6th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. With Afghanistan ignored and left to the mercy of warlords and Iraq on the brink of a fiasco, the world is no safer place than six year ago. Russia's 1Kanal showed a documentary (not sure if it was Spielberg's movie) commemorating the tragedy.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan, Orozo in Kyrgyz. Today families will gather for arapa dinner to mark the beginning of the fast. I fasted the whole month last year, but I am thinking about it this year. Last week I signed up to a gym, but with fasting I don't think I will be able to do any of the weight-lifting exercises. Kyrgyz in general are very relaxed about religion. Fasting the first and the last three days of the month counts as well. Ramadan Mubarak! Orozonor kabyl bolsun!

Russian TV Channel, Rossiya, reported about the neo-Nazi gang arrested in Israel, but hid the fact that the arrestees were of Russian descent. Russia's FOX News. Fair and Balanced! @#$%&!

#89: Lazy

I've become extremely lazy. I've been in this state of being for quite some time now. Not doing much lately. Procrastinating on everything. Have to pull myself together. Get motivated.

Read The Economist's take on understanding Putin's Russia. Kyrgyzstan tends to worship Russia (especially Tsar Putin) and subsequently imitate his policies and behavior.

#87: Scramble For The Arctic

Another piece of untamed territory at the mercy of great powers.
The Economist this week wrote that "the boom in energy and commodity prices has changed the economics of difficult searches for oil, gas and minerals. The steady shrinkage of polar ice-caps, as a result of global warming, is making previously inaccessible deposits much easier to get at—and helping to open some formerly icebound shipping lanes."

Hillarious: "Still more eye-catching—even if some of the footage shown on Moscow television really came from the film “Titanic”—was a Kremlin-backed voyage, which led to the planting, by a minisub, of a titanium Russian tricolour on the seabed." Read the rest of the article.

More humor off the topic: Reverent Humor

#85: Kazakh or Mongol?

I am in Temirtau, Kazakhstan, on an election monitoring mission. Temirtau, Nursultan Nazarbaev's hometown, 30 km north of Karaganda, is a dilapidated mining town of 150 000 people. Half of its working-age population is employed by Mittal Steel, world's biggest steel company. As you approach the town, you can see black, white, orange, brown, and green smoke coming out a dozen of chimneys of Temirtau's steel plants and melting in the air above the Kazakh steppes.

Today we roamed around to locate polling stations in smoke-filled town, where we will observe the voting process tomorrow. As we were looking for one in Aktau, Temirtau's satellite, we stopped and asked an ethnic Russian lady where schools #32 was. She the pointed in the direction of the school and said: "The Mongol-language school is right around the corner down the road." An ethnic Kazakh woman was passing by and with frustration corrected her: "Not Mongol, Kazakh!" to which the first lady responded: "What is the difference!" I guess foreigners would confuse Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and Mongols, but you would not expect Russians born and living in Central Asia make such a slip up! Sad! Very sad! And it applies both to Russians and Kyrgyz. See my older post.

#83: On Afghanistan

Last night I went to sleep at around 5 am reading The Kite Runner, which I had for since last August, but never had the determination to start reading. I went to bed at around 11pm, but for some reason, despite my exhaustion, I could not fall asleep, so I took the book from shelve and started reading. Today, sleepy and tired at work, I realized that Afghanistan is of the main topics in the list of books, both fiction and non-fiction, that I've been reading lately. It all started with the The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia about a year ago.

No country in the world has experienced such a violent history with extreme changes as Afghanistan. Its people have suffered from British, Russian, and now U.S. interferences causing its government change from monarchy to communist rule to fanatic Taleban to the current tribal warlord rule.

These books below are fascinating sociologically and historically. The Soviet rule in 5 Central Asian republics cut off ties with Afghanistan and erased many cultural similarities between us. Some customs and believes, for example the hole concept of dignity, are still shared by many rural Kyrgyz (or other Central Asian people) and Afghans. Over the last 100 years we have drifted away: ex-Soviet Central Central towards Russia, while Afghanistan towards Pakistan, Iran, India. Once it was one cultural, religious, historical, political region.

1. Karl Meyer. Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Asia
2. Peter Hopkirk. The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
3. Asne Seierstad. The Bookseller of Kabul,
4. Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner
Any other suggestions?

#82: SCO Summit

The Kyrgyz government is obsessed with the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. It will be hosted Kyrgyzstan in mid-August. AKIpress posted a number of pictures on new and refurbished old buildings that are being prepared to welcome presidents of China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Turkmenistan, the last two being only observers.

The Mayor of Bishkek, as the main implementer, has done "incredible" things: whitewashing trees and facades of buildings on the road from the Manas Airport to Bishkek and the main streets in Bishkek. As with buildings' being painted only on frontal sides, so are the trees, as you can see from the morrire's picture below. If only these changes were regular and less superficial, we would be living in another country.