#102: GRE

For people who are also preparing for GRE, here are some useful links:
- GRE Vocabulary Flashcards
- Most Frequently Used Words in GRE (downloadable in Excell)

#101: Kegeti

Inspired by my fellow bloggers, I decided to post some pictures from Kegeti (60km east of Bishkek), where we went hiking in summer. Now looking forward to the time when whose hills and slopes will be covered by snow for snowboarding. Otherwise, my snowboard has been so lonely without the snow powder.

As we were climbing up, we came across a shepherd's tent. His wife and 4 little kids were around. The shepherd was herding his sheep up the hill.
We reached the top of the hill. You can see his herd and the shepherd somewhere there in the bottom left corner of the picture.

#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!

#99: Parasitic Dependence, Blind Servility, Genuflection, Primitive Boot-licking, and Double Standards

First, President Bakiev is expected to address the country in his speech in the Parliament on September 19, 2007. Let's see if he has radically new thing to say.

Second, more and more people are painting a gloomy picture of the way Kyrgyzstan is heading. In an interview to weekly Obschestvenniy Reiting, opposition MP Kubatbek Baibolov characterized our society, especially the ruling elite, as being dominated by "parasitic dependence, blind servility, genuflection, primitive boot-licking, and double standards." He says that if we don't root these vices out, Kyrgyzstan will not go anywhere.*

This reminded me of the time couple of weeks ago when a friend of mine and I were having plov in Jalalabad Cafe and a man in his early 50's asked if he could join us on the tapchan, a wooden platform to dine on, because only two of us were occupying it, which could accommodate at least three more people. We agreed. He joined us and silently devoured his lagman as we ate and chatted about Kyrgyz politics. He then joined our discussions and defended the current way of doing politics. He said the president is a khan and as such he should act accordingly and people should obey him accordingly. It turned out that he worked on legal issues for President's Administration, as he confessed. Unfortunately, people like that man dominate the government.

Third, the situation in Iraq is worrying a lot of people, except extremists. The Economist's cartoon below depicts it well.
I guess you see people of such description not only in Kyrgyzstan, but everywhere around the world. For those who speak Russian, I decided to give what Baibolov said: "...пока в обществе господствует идеология иждивенчества, слепого чинопочитания и коленопреклонения, примитивного лизоблюдства и двойной морали, каких-либо серьезных сдвигов ожидать трудно, да и бессмысленно."

On that note, I read that the Constitutional Court declared that the November and December (current) constitutions are illegitimate because of the way they were passed. Ironically, judges of the CC were elected by the Parliament according to the December constitution, which makes them and their decision illegitimate as well. Anyways, this is a vicious circle of legal chaos that started in 2005, or as some say in 2000.

#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! @#$%&!

#97: Мусор

In my previous post, I wrote how frustrated I was with public (and private) bathrooms in Kyrgyzstan. There is another problem, which is getting out of control: trash, garbage, rubbish. Bishkek's streets are so filthy that if you stand for 10 minutes on any intersection, you will observe rats jumping between holes and ditches trying to cross sidewalks. Ditches along roads are filled with cigarette packs, plastic bottles and cans, and plastic bags.

However, Bishkek is not the only place where it is a problem. Just drive to neighboring villages around Bishkek, or for that matter anywhere in Kyrgyzstan, you will see white and orange plastic bags and plastic bottles scattered around along roads and all over fields. Kyrgyzstan has to have a national campaign on. We have to learn to throw trash in bins. Even bigger problem are the waste dumps. The government should do something about taking the trash out as frequently as possible and do something with dumps (burying it in safe places?).

Every time I drive from Osh to Nookat (and further to Batken), I pass by a huge dump, where all the garbage from Osh is dumped. Poor people have build small shacks on it. They work and live there with their kids, who dig the dump looking for scrap metal, food, clothes, and anything that can be sold.

It is the same along the road to Issykul and on the beaches. We have to change our habits.

#96: Kymyz And More

This post was inspired by a brilliant and witty piece about kymyz in the Modern Drunkard Magazine. Last week on the way to Osh, as always, we stopped in Suusamyr Valley to drink kymyz and buy couple of liters home. We stopped at a yurt with the best kymyz I've ever had.

This is what Jake Fleming wrote about kymyz: "Without question the world’s finest alcoholic dairy product, kymyz is a toothsome brew of fermented mare’s milk, and the intrepid inebriate who finds himself in these far reaches would be a fool not to embark on a kymyz-tasting tour."

As you drive due south through the tunnel in Töö-Ashuu Pass, the high altitude Suusamyr Valley opens up with flocks of sheep and goats, and horses grazing in hundreds here and here. (yaks are up higher in the mountains). As the fresh mountain air clears your head, you get the desire to absorb a part of it and take it with you. Kymyz is a sedative for me. I usually drink 2 bowls (1 liter) of kymyz to help me take the 10-hour drives easier and snooze off listening to music or chatter of co-travelers.

Like many Kyrgyz, I acquired the taste for kymyz while spending summers as a kid at my grandparents house in Iyrisuu, Özgön. My grandmother and aunts would milk couple of mares, smoke the goatskin duffel sack with mint, St. John's wort and other herbs, and ferment the milk in the sack to give a smoked and herbal taste to kymyz. After taking care of horses, cows, sheep, and turkeys, at noon we would run home to drink kymyz. Most of the time we would add talkan, cooked corn-flour, to it. It would become sort of a power drink, after which we would run back to to do more chores.

Unfortunately, my grandmother does not prepare kymyz any more as she is 78 now, and none of her daughters or daughter-in-law inherited the skill. Mostly because keeping horses became an expensive thing. The horse culture is slowly fazing out from Kyrgyz people's lives. Here is a picture of me showing off some horsemanship. Not that I am a great good rider, but at least trying to keep the nomad spirit alive in me. :)

Fleming finishes off his article with this: "So fill your flask, pack your bags, and book your ticket for Kyrgyzstan to sample this powerful testimony to humanity’s urge to intoxication." On that note, today we are getting together at Steinbrau to "mourn M's last days as bachelor."

#95: Inflation

Despite the optimism, Bakiev's impromptu dance last week did not help the country to feel more secure. Inflation is running high, hitting the worse off the hardest. A loaf of bread, for instance, went up from 5 to 7 soms (a 40% increase!). September is expected to be the worst month in terms of inflation. A ride in a marshrutka, an imitation of public transportation caused by government negligence, will probably rise too from 5 to 7 soms. So much to Bakiev's increases of salary and pensions!

However, it is not something that is happening today or this month. The salary that I earned a few years ago does not worth as much today. Two years ago rent fee for a single-room (studio) apartment was $50, today it is $150. Construction material (brick, cement, slate, etc.) costs twice as much. A kilo of beef went up from 130-150 to 180-200 soms. (38soms=1USD).

It is a nightmare for people who are paying loans (home, business, whatever have you). I have a big loan on my apartment. It makes harder for me to plan my expenses in the long term. Daily expenses are eating up a bigger slice of my salary, leaving less and less to pay the bank. Property costs twice as much now. All in all, Bishkek is becoming a very expensive city to live in.

More ammunition to the opposition, as well as another excuse to beat prime minister Atamabaev and his team, if he has one, by Bakiev's people. More protests?

#94: Headache

Headache. I've been having this recurring headache, an unusual headache with increasing pain in the back of my head. I took half of the day off yesterday and went home to get some sleep. The source of the headache might be stress and as I tried to explain BP yesterday the feeling of uncertainty of the path we have chosen, sort of feeling being lost in time and space (routine?)

Finished Murakami's Kafka On The Shore. The hero of the book, a 15-year-old boy with identity problems of a typical adolescent, runs away from home, which becomes the rite of passage into adulthood. Simultaneously, a "not-so-bright" 50-something obliviously follows Kafka on his mission to "make the things as they should be." They never meet, though they fulfill their missions.

"Time weighs down on you like an old, ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won't be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there - to the edge of the world. There's something you can't do unless you get there"

Update on weddings: here is a picture of K carrying M at the wedding in Osh.

M&E's actual wedding is this Saturday. Should have pictures from there.

#93: More Weddings

The past 3-day weekend (August 31 is the Independence Day) was packed with important events. I was in Osh at K&M's wedding, while also joining MT for kyz uzatuu, a feast given by the bride's family to relatives, friends, and neighbors.

Early morning on Friday we hit the road to Osh (my hometown). I, as the best man, joined MT and his family on a 10-hour road trip from Bishkek to Osh to get his fiancée ET from her parents' home. Because MT is from the north and ET is from the south, his parents were worried about differences - it becomes even more sensitive because they are subtle - in traditions and rituals of approaching bride's parents and relatives and take her from the house she was brought up in to a house where she will spend the rest of her life. Despite all the worrying, none of that mattered because both families took everything much easier than expected.

As for the K&M's wedding, it was the biggest wedding that I've ever seen, not that I've seen many. It was pretty impressive. A lot of food and drinks. But I could enjoy none of that because of my diarrhea. All I needed was water to keep me going, but even that was a problem. The day we arrived in Osh, a major accident occurred leaving half of the town, including the part where we lived and had the wedding, without water for 3 days.

This reminds of one important thing that Kyrgyz people need to think about - toilets. Kyrgyzstan will never improve, if we don't learn to build nice toilets with water and to keep them clean and odorless. And it is not only public restrooms in cafes or parks, but also private ones. I have seen enormous houses that some families have build, but their their toilets are outside. Put extra money, please!

As for the Independence Day celebrations, whole Kyrgyzstan watched Bakiev's dancing on the central square in Bishkek. Lots of pictures here.

Update: This is K&M's wedding motorcade.

#92: Grad Schools

I have made up my mind: I will apply to Public Administration/Policy programs (with emphasis on public management and finance, development and economic policy) at the following universities:
Kennedy School of Government (Harvard)
School of Public Policy (University of Maryland)
School of International and Public Affairs (Columbia)
Maxwell School (Syracuse) - a joint MPA/MA IR with SAIS
Lee Kwan Yew Schoool of Public Policy (Singapore)
London School of Economics

MPA/MPP programs offer broad, but practical, knowledge in economics, management, development, political science, and international relations. MBA is too competitive (and expensive), and there is less scholarship money for international students, while MPA/MPP give the opportunity to take additional courses on finance, management, and other business-related courses.

If you have other suggestions for good programs, please leave a comment.

#91: Kafka On The Shore

... is the book that I started reading as I rested in Issykul two days ago. The lake was unusually empty for this time of the swimming season, or maybe that's because I was there on Monday and Tuesday. People making living by renting apartments and running cafes not far from Cholponata and Bosteri complained that this year they were not able to make as much money as last year. Prices in Cholponata are like those in Almaty: eating out in Issykul is twice as expensive as in Bishkek.

A friend of mine sent this great picture. The red sign on the roof carcass says "Bakiev's Headquarters #153" and the other one on the fence says "Zoo: Works Daily." The picture might have been taken during the presidential elections in 2005. It sheds light to the inner workings of Bakiev's team. At least, now we know where he finds his advisers.
Pictures from Issykul will follow soon.

#90: First Anniversary

Today a year ago I decided to start this blog. During the year, I posted 94 reports on topics ranging from personal interests to Kyrgyzstan to world politics - a lot happened in all these areas.

I hope you keep reading me and look forward to reading your comments and suggestions.

Azamat

#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.

#88: Kyrgyz Art

This picture belongs to a talented photographer, Dinara, whose artistic works are very impressive. Last year she produced a calendar with models wearing Kyrgyz hats and jewelry. This year she is experimenting even more.

#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

#86: Kazakhstan

My week-long journey to Kazakhstan was full of mixed impressions. It started with the traffic jams in Almaty, where four lines of cars crammed on two-lane roads; we stood for two hours on a hot day with an old Kamaz near us puffing out smoke right into our van. (If you decide to fly to Astana, do so from Taraz. Don't go near Almaty!) Because of the traffic jams, we missed our lunch and barely made to the flight. To my surprise, Air Astana had a full course meal on a 1.5-hour-flight to Astana, which saved me from starvation.

Astana is... well, is a BRAND NEW city. Bishkek's construction "boom" is nothing compared to that of Astana. Bayterek (tower with a ball on top in the picture above) presents a view over a futuristic city - though tawdry in many places - in the middle of the Kazakh steppes. I can imagine a Kazakh standing on top of Bayterek and being proud of seeing surreal buildings springing up on a barren land. Billions of petrodollars is being poured into it. And it is only half ready.

Prices in Astana are a bit steep for a Kyrgyz guy like me. Everything is expensive. But some things never change. Our hotel, Abay, an old Soviet hotel Intourist, still had Soviet smell in the halls and bathrooms, a system of turning keys to an administrator, whose only job is to manage keys on the floor, and a horrible cafeteria with pale scrampled eggs and kompot for breakfast. And they charged $80 per night. However, if you had $350 you could stay at other better hotels.

Water, rather the smell of sulfur in the water as in Teplie Klyuchi, is the only thing that I remember from Karaganda. While trying to brush my teeth with the water at the hotel, I realized how much I miss Bishkek.

On the election, I have nothing else to add to what has already been written.
P.S. Photo courtesy of Kondor Tour. I did not have my camera.

#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.

#84: Prohibition

All alcohol (from beer to vodka) was banned from stores and public places in downtown Bishkek. Yesterday I went into Narodniy store on Manas/Chu to check if they had any alcohol, all the fridges and shelves were empty. Our government is going hard-core as it prepare to host the SCO summit.

Thanks God, I will be out of Bishkek during the summit. Will be traveling to Astana for the Parliamentary elections in Kazakhstan to observe how Nur Otan, Nazarbaev's party, easily wins in the race. I am hoping that I will be deployed in eastern or western Kazakhstan, where I have never been.

Update: Just had lunch at an Italian restaurant on Chui street. They were told not to sell alcohol for the whole week. All the cafes and restaurants, stores and kiosk, pubs and discos along the Chui and Manas streets were ordered not to serve alcohol. Absurdistan!

#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.

#81: Korean Missionaries

The news of Koren hostages, mostly missionaries, in Afghanistan in the headlines of the international press brought my attention to the role of Korean missionaries in Kyrgyzstan. If they are willing to go to war-torn Afghanistan, they seem to be die hard followers of Christ. According to The Economist, "Korea is second only to America when it comes to spreading the gospel." American missionary groups are complimented by Korean missionaries in the spreading "god's words" in Kyrgyzstan. However, Kyrgyzstan is a favorite place not only for Christian missionaries, but also for Muslim missionaries (dawah) due to liberal legislature on registering missionary organizations.

#80: No Vacation This Summer

As summer is coming to an end, vacation seems such a distant dream. Unexpected sale of the bungalow changed my plans, including those of other people. My grandma will will be disappointed; she really liked it. However, my procrastination at work is the real cause of my missing out this year on summer vacation. I've been extremely lazy lately and putting off work, accumulating everything for August. I have to bring myself together at my new job as the 6-month probation is due in September. Taking Mondays and/or Fridays off might be only option for rest. At least, I will have fun in the mountains coming winter.

#79: My Political Views

My political compass (red dot in the first image is where I stand)
Economic Left/Right: -0.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.67
Take the test here

#78: Iraq For Sale

Watch this Robert Greenwald documentary about the war in Iraq and the role of the corporations such as Halliburton, Blackwater, and others in the war.


Update: In addition to this, look what ex-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did to the soldier, who turned in the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison. What an @#$%&! Never liked that old creep!