Postcards from Stanland

by David H. Mould

  Godfather Rector

  The rector of KSNU looked as if he had stepped off the set of one of The Godfather movies. At over three hundred pounds, with a ruddy face and the build of a professional wrestler, he could have passed for one of the thugs with a New Jersey accent who hung out in the shadows waiting for a quiet order from Don Corleone to make a rival crime boss disappear to the bottom of the East River. The only difference was that at KSNU the rector was the godfather. Everyone bowed to his will, and did their best to please him. Like a mafia boss, he had a reputation for good-naturedly slapping you on the back to congratulate you one day and stabbing you in the back the next.

  His name was Sovietbek Toktomushev, and he was a former apparatchik, who, as an ethnic Kyrgyz, had seen his career take off after independence. Like many born in the Soviet era, his parents had given him an appropriately socialist first name with a Kyrgyz bek (a Turkic word meaning noble or chief). There was also Soyuzbek (Union), Stalinbek, and even Melisbek (the acronym MELIS is for “Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin”). For those who worked on collective farms, Traktorbek was a favorite. In Russian, soviet literally means advice or counsel, but Toktomushev was not into participatory management or communication. The Soviet Union may have ended, but he was doing his best to preserve top-down administration.

  I tried to stay out of his way, which wasn’t too difficult because he was rarely seen in the corridors of the glavni corpus. Indeed, he was often gone for days. In what would be a clear conflict of interest in some societies, but was accepted as perfectly normal in Kyrgyzstan, he was also a member of parliament, presumably voting on education policy and budgets.

  Toktomushev’s administrative style was ruthless but efficient. His main weapon was the schedule, because the only appointments he kept were the ones he made. Every day, deans and administrators showed up at his office, hoping for a few minutes of his time. His secretary would ask them to wait. And so they did, often for hours, neglecting their own duties. Then the secretary would appear to announce that Toktomushev had been unexpectedly called to the parliament for a meeting and would not be returning to the office that day. Those waiting were invited to return tomorrow and try their luck. By the time deans and administrators finally got in to see Toktomushev, they were exhausted, dispirited, and ready to agree to whatever he wanted. Hundreds of hours were wasted sitting around waiting for an audience with the Godfather, and most who kissed the ring left his office empty-handed. But no one complained, because they all served at his pleasure.

  Anisa, riding high on the credit from the successful Akayev visit, kept trying to keep Toktomushev happy. A couple of times a week, she brought visitors to the showpiece radio studio, usually in the middle of my class. I’d see them coming down the corridor through the studio glass window and groan, “Here comes another international delegation.” But such visits were the coin of the realm, and Anisa was playing the game successfully. Then it all went badly wrong.

  Anisa’s Fall

  The day after Nooruz, the Islamic New Year celebrated on March 21, students from all over Bishkek staged a demonstration outside the presidential residence, the White House. They were protesting a proposal by the city’s mayor to raise revenue by dropping the subsidy for student bus passes; instead of paying 11 som a month, a student would have to pay over 90 som ($5). Students were already feeling the pinch. In the Soviet era, higher education was free of charge; by 1997, about half the students in Bishkek were paying modest tuition fees. The average family income in Kyrgyzstan was $600 a year, and students received a monthly living stipend of only 50 som (just over $3) a month. Certainly, the cost of living was low—a loaf of bread cost 3 som and a filling if carbohydrate- heavy meal in the student cafeteria 7 or 8 som. But raising the price of a bus pass to almost twice the monthly stipend was too much, particularly since police, soldiers, and, incredibly, parliamentary deputies (including Toktomushev) could travel for free. The demonstration was effective, and the city administration backed down, opting for more modest fare increases (the single trip fare was raised from 1.50 to 2 som).

  During the demonstration, a KSNU journalism student buttonholed the prime minister and gave a less-than-flattering assessment of Toktomushev, citing his lack of concern for students, classroom facilities, and higher education in general. Word got back to Toktomushev, who fired Anisa on the spot. The dean of foreign languages and literature who, unlike other toe-the-line deans, had not instructed her students to stay away from the demonstration, was also canned.

  I stopped by Anisa’s office to express my sympathies. I asked why she had accepted the rector’s decision without protest. Surely a dean cannot be held responsible for something a student, rightly or wrongly, has said? Anisa told me that perhaps she had “not brought up my students well enough.” “Are you meant to be their mother?” I asked. The question did not seem rhetorical to her. She had failed to control her students and had paid the penalty. I was shocked by Toktomushev’s actions, but was even more surprised by Anisa’s contrition. At a time when we were encouraging students to think independently in a country that claimed to be the most democratic in Central Asia, Soviet-era attitudes persisted.

  Word of the firings spread quickly. Most journalism students boycotted classes for a day. On the foreign languages and literature faculty, students collected signatures on a petition calling for the dean’s reinstatement. The leaders were threatened with expulsion and forced to circulate another petition apologizing for their insubordination. Anisa kept quiet, hoping the storm would blow over, and that she would get her job back. Within a week, a new dean, Bolot Mamatsariev, was appointed. Within a few days, he showed his colors by firing the efficient and well-liked departmental secretary, hiring two of his associates to teach, and sending everyone else scurrying for cover. Like Toktomushev and the old-style politicians, Mamatsariev was trying to protect his own position by hiring people who would owe their jobs only to him, and firing anyone whose loyalty might be questionable. If he had experience in journalism or media, perhaps his appointment could have been justified, but his academic background (like Anisa’s) was in Russian literature. At a meeting with visiting journalism students from Norway, he looked frankly bemused when the discussion turned to news coverage.

  All Deals Are Off

  Academic politics can be nasty, but this was brutal. And innocent people were suffering, including my interpreter. Under the agreement with the embassy, the university was to provide my interpreter. I was not thrilled when Anisa appointed her sister, Gulkhan, but she turned out to be an excellent choice; diligent and efficient, she quickly grasped concepts and related well to the students. The problem was that she had not been paid since she started work. Anisa was always promising to see Toktomushev about it, but nothing was worked out. Now Anisa was out of a job and, according to Mamatsariev, all deals were off. However, the embassy had a letter stating that the university would provide me with an interpreter (it also promised an office, telephone, and fax machine, none of which materialized.) It emerged that a deputy rector had agreed to this, only to be fired himself a week later.

  Kelly Keiderling, the public affairs officer, and I decided to insist on institutional responsibility, and gave Toktomushev an ultimatum: give Gulkhan her back pay and a contract through June, or I would walk out. We knew appearances were important: even if Toktomushev did not value my teaching, the university would not want to suffer the embarrassment of losing a Fulbrighter. For a few days, the university played the bureaucratic game. They could not find the letter Kelly had sent. They had composed a response but Toktomushev was busy at the parliament and had not had time to review it. A public holiday was coming up, and the university offices were closed. Eventually, a letter arrived apologizing for the “minor misunderstanding” and saying that Gulkhan would be paid. When she went to collect her $250 in back pay, the cashier said that the office would not have any money until the next month. This was actually not unusual; teachers sometimes had to wait for months because government f
unds had not been transferred.

  Although Gulkhan was eventually paid, the damage had been done. Under Godfather Toktomushev, the rule seemed to be that if you fired an administrator, anything she or he had agreed to no longer applied. The issue was not so much about the money as about trust, about the university meeting its obligations. The saddest thing was that I was the only one with the luxury of standing on principle, because I did not depend on KSNU for my job and income. The other teachers were scared of losing their jobs and could say nothing. Meanwhile, the international delegations kept coming, and Toktomushev kept boasting of his fine institution and hitting them up for money.

  A few months later, the government rewarded Toktomushev for his academic leadership by naming him Minister of Education. He immediately fired almost every other university rector, and appointed his cronies. It was little consolation that Toktomushev later lost his job; like all political appointees, his shelf life was only as long as that of the prime minister who appointed him. Since the mid-1990s, the average tenure of a minister of education has been under two years, making it almost impossible for the country to pursue a consistent policy. Higher education in Kyrgyzstan seemed to be drifting away from the island of democracy into a sea of kasha.

  Transmission Problems

  At independence, Krygyzstan inherited the Soviet-built infrastructure on its territory—the roads, bridges, tunnels, factories, mines, hydroelectric stations, and central heating plants. And all the equipment—from city buses to farm tractors and threshing machines. The new flag of the republic was raised, and the name “Kyrgyz Republic” replaced “USSR” on signs at public facilities. Maintaining the infrastructure and equipment proved a more daunting challenge.

  The government knew that communication was essential to nation-building—to creating a sense of unity, history, and common purpose among the population. Under the communist system, media had specific functions—to inform citizens of policies and programs, celebrate the achievements of the state, denounce opponents and detractors, and build a society that embodied Marxist-Leninist ideology and placed the collective above the individual. To achieve these goals, the Soviets invested heavily in media, publishing newspapers, magazines, and books and building an extensive network of radio and television transmitters. Because it was essential to reach every citizen, there was no cost-benefit analysis: the state subsidized minority-language newspapers with tiny circulations and built radio and TV towers in remote, thinly populated areas. In principle, a yurt-dwelling Kyrgyz herder should have the same media access as a Moscow apartment-dweller.

  In the economic crisis that followed independence, the government slashed the budget for the rebranded national broadcasting system, the Kyrgyz State Radio and Television Company (KRT). Transmitters broke down, and radio and TV reception became patchy in some rural areas. Back at KRT headquarters in Bishkek, most TV studio equipment was vintage 1970s—massive video switchers and clunky studio cameras with aging tubes that often made studio guests look green around the edges. There was no money for new studio lights or even to replace the bulbs in the old ones. The wooden studio sets were chipped and faded, and the presenters sitting behind them didn’t look much brighter—some had not been paid for months. Over in the radio studios, engineers were salvaging parts from discarded audio consoles and analog tape machines to try to keep others running. Fortunately, much of the Soviet-era equipment was standard issue, so if you didn’t have a part, you called a colleague in Tashkent or Tbilisi. “Yuri, it’s Ullukbek, in Bishkek. I really need four tape guides and VU meters for the Hungarian recorders. How about I send you a pair of studio speakers in exchange? OK, I’ll throw in a couple of relays too.”

  Fixing transmitters and equipment was one thing; fixing the programming was another. In the island of democracy, the Akayev regime still regarded KRT as the voice of government. Its purpose, as in the Soviet era, was not to respond to the interests of viewers and listeners, but to serve the state, building support for the regime and its policies. Although censorship was halted, KRT was under the supervision of the Ministry of Information, which monitored content and made the key managerial appointments. Radio and TV newscasts focused on official news, the comings and goings of President Akayev and his ministers, economic reforms and privatization programs, Kyrgyzstan’s relations with other Central Asian republics, Russia, and the West. Government journalists were accustomed to taking orders on what to cover and how to cover it: the only difference now was that the orders came from the White House in Bishkek, not from Moscow.

  The government regarded TV as a medium to revive Kyrgyz language and culture, so the order came down to produce more Kyrgyz-language programs. Unfortunately, it did not come with a production budget, so the only way KRT could increase Kyrgyz-language programming was to do it on the cheap, producing in-studio talk shows with artists, writers, musicians and academics. More popular, but more expensive, were multicamera, live-audience spectaculars with tuxedoed hosts, traditional musicians soulfully playing the komuz and singing verses from the national epic, the Manas, and boy bands in matching white suits belting out Kyrgyz pop hits as dancers in national costumes performed synchronized routines.

  Bad News from Central Asia

  Despite its efforts to promote Kyrgyz language and culture, the government was smart enough not to turn off Russian TV. The main state channels, ORT and RTR, were broadcast on government transmitters. And new commercial TV stations in Bishkek and Osh were relaying programs from nongovernment channels and program syndicators. Russian TV offered classic and new movies, live sports, action-adventure, drama, sitcoms, American, Mexican, and Brazilian soaps, late-night talk shows, and (at least for a few years) relatively independent news coverage. The programs were visually appealing and fast-paced. Even the commercials looked better than most of what KRT was showing. The Russian channels paid the government for the rights to rebroadcast. In turn, the government had leverage it could use if it didn’t like the programming; it could raise the rates, limit the number of daily broadcast hours, or cut off the broadcasts altogether.

  Entertainment shows were rarely an issue, despite a few clerics complaining that partial nudity undermined Islamic values. The fuss was always over the news. Central Asian governments claimed that Russian media painted a distorted picture of the region, focusing on civil disorder, ethnic conflict, poverty, economic chaos, and official corruption. It’s a common postcolonial complaint; in similar fashion, the governments of former European colonies in Africa claim that the Western media depict their countries as strife-torn, corrupt, and beset with disease and famine. Whether in Africa or Central Asia, the perceived subtext in the images of coups, refugees, and emaciated children is the same: maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to kick us out because you’ve made a real mess of your country.

  Negative coverage of economic, social, or political problems was often deemed as an affront to national pride or, worse, as subversive or destabilizing. In 1997, Russian television caused an uproar with a story about a children’s home near Bishkek. The footage, aired on the three main networks, ORT, RTR, and NTV, showed naked, emaciated, and sickly children living in filthy conditions, with minimal adult supervision. For the government of Kyrgyzstan, the broadcast was highly embarrassing, straining Kyrgyz-Russian relations and coming on the eve of a high-profile visit by American First Lady Hillary Clinton. Officials claimed that conditions at this home were no worse than those at others in other former Soviet republics. Why then did the networks not use footage from a Russian children’s home? Clearly, Russia was deliberately tarnishing Kyrgyzstan’s international reputation. President Akayev called it a “planned” political action, and his deputy prime minister denounced the reports as a “prefabricated sensation.”

  A Meeting Was Held Today . . .

  A few weeks after I arrived in Bishkek, Turat Makanbayev, the media assistant at USIS, introduced me to Andrey Tsvetkov, the news director at Piramida TV. The commercial station was the first to open in Bishkek
, although it wasn’t the first in the country; that honor went to the (now closed) Uzbek-language Osh TV. But Bishkek was a larger market than Osh with more advertisers, and Piramida, founded by a couple of ex-KRT managers, had been doing well.

  Andrey, who had visited local TV stations in Russia, knew it could be doing better, especially on its newscasts. He had hired young, enthusiastic reporters, photographers, and producers, but most were doing TV news for the first time and had no formal training. There were no senior TV journalists to serve as role models. Could I help them improve their professional standards? I agreed, and over the next nine months visited the station almost every week to conduct informal training sessions, go out with reporters on stories and discuss news values and legal and ethical issues with the staff.

  The main challenge was an overreliance on official news. As we left a dull press conference one morning, I asked the reporter why Piramida was covering it. “We have to,” he said. “This is a small city. Not much happens here. We have to do the meetings and press conferences.” I disagreed. Bishkek, with a population of almost three-quarters of a million, was the nation’s capital and the commercial and transportation center of the Chuy Valley. In the United States, cities half this size had three or four TV stations, each running at least ninety minutes of news each evening. The issue here was the definition of news, and whether the station was simply reactive—taking what government, business, or other institutions offered—or proactive, producing news of concern and interest to its audience.