Back to Bishkek and Osh
I’ve been back to Kyrgyzstan six times since my Fulbright ended in 1997. After living in Bishkek for almost a year and a half, I know my way around. I joked that if my academic career didn’t work out, I could always make a living as a taxi driver. I knew most of the street names in the center, and could find my way to several of the microraions.
Like any city, Bishkek seemed both familiar and unfamiliar when I returned. Our apartment block on Pervomayskaya had been spruced up and the rents raised; it was now considered a “prestige district,” with apartments for government officials, bankers, and international contract staff. New restaurants and bars, including several expat hangouts, had opened. In 2001, the United States had concluded a lease agreement for the old Soviet air base at Manas Airport to serve as supply and refueling hub for forces in Afghanistan. For several years, military personnel were welcome in Bishkek, mostly because they were spending their dollars at shops, bars, and restaurants. The mood began to change after servicemen got into bar fights and were accused of harassing local women. There were alcohol-related crashes on the airport road. A serviceman who shot and killed a Russian driver at a truck checkpoint was whisked out of the country to stand trial in a US military court. The most bizarre case was that of US Air Force Major Jill Metzger, who mysteriously disappeared while shopping in the Tsum department store in September 2006. Back in the United States, yellow ribbons were tied to trees, prayers were uttered for her safety, and family members made the rounds of the TV talk shows. She turned up three days later at a farmhouse, within sight of the Russian air base at Kant, with her blonde hair dyed dark and a story about being kidnapped by terrorists who forced her into a car by claiming to have planted an explosive device in her pocket. She claimed she escaped after overpowering a guard and running barefoot, thirty miles, to freedom. Traces of dye on her hands indicated that she probably had more to do with her own disappearance than she was letting on, but an Air Force inquiry released six years later concluded that she had been kidnapped. After these incidents, few US personnel ventured outside the base (where they could enjoy fast food, watch movies and sports, and feel as if they never left the United States).
The familiar city streets served as the stage for two revolutions in five years. In March 2005, in the so-called Tulip Revolution, protesters broke into the White House, hurled stones at the parliament building, looted shops, and burned cars. Akayev and his family were forced to flee, seeking refuge in Russia. Although the revolution began in Bishkek, resentment was strongest in the south, which had long felt that a northern, Akayev clan–dominated government was doing little to alleviate poverty, improve infrastructure, and social services, or deal with energy shortages. The new administration, headed by a southerner, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, promised a new era of clean government accountable to the people.
Many citizens soon realized that things hadn’t changed: they had simply replaced the corrupt Akayev clan with the even more corrupt Bakiyev clan. The president centralized power, putting the Ministries of Interior and Defense and the National Security Service directly under his authority. His son Maksim headed the agency that controlled all foreign financial inflows, including aid and credits, and the national hydroelectric and gold companies. Economic and social conditions did not improve. When I visited Bishkek in July 2009, a week before the presidential election, colleagues who had supported the Tulip Revolution seemed disillusioned. “I was a leader in the student movement,” said one. “Our hopes, our dreams, were so high. I never thought I’d say this, but things are worse now than under Akayev. Bakiyev and his son are stealing our country.”
Although Bakiyev lacked support in the north and among the urban middle class, his populist positions still won votes in the south and rural areas. His campaign posted billboards on major streets in Bishkek, featuring the earnest (and sometimes smiling) faces of a demographic and ethnic mix of “ordinary people” with slogans such as “Bakiyev—Of Course,” “Bakiyev—A Real President” and (simply) “Bakiyev Is Good” (I’m sure the phrase resonates more in Kyrgyz than in English). In a country where literacy levels had actually declined since independence, simple sloganeering was the name of the political game. Bakiyev won handily, with around 78 percent of the vote; on election day, his nearest rival withdrew from the contest, claiming extensive fraud. Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agreed, documenting vote rigging and saying that media coverage had overwhelmingly favored Bakiyev. Voters had the option of casting a ballot “against all of the above.” More than 100,000 (4.66 percent) did so, indicating their disgust with all the country’s politicians.
One election issue was the future of the Manas air base. In February 2009, the parliament, dominated by Bakiyev’s Ak Zhol party, had voted to end the lease agreement, ostensibly to protect national sovereignty but more likely in response to Russian pressure. President Dmitry Medvedev had announced that Russia would invest $1.7 billion in infrastructure projects, provide $450 million to help balance the budget, and cancel a $180 million debt. A bidding war ensued. Kyrgyzstan tripled the rent (from $17.4 to $60 million a year) and the United States agreed to pay; in addition, the United States pledged more than $66 million for airport improvements, $20 million for economic development, $21 million for counternarcotics efforts, and $10 million for counterterrorism efforts—a total of $117 million in aid on top of the rent. Poor countries like Kyrgyzstan need to make money any way they can, and renting out airfields to superpowers is a good source of steady income. But that was soon over. With NATO’s pullout from Afghanistan, the United States withdrew from the base, and it was formally handed over to Kyrgyzstan’s military in June 2014.
Two months after the 2009 election, I was back in Bishkek for an OSCE-sponsored conference on Central Asia media. Reelection had done nothing to temper the authoritarian tendencies of the Bakiyev regime or its pressure on media. The deputy foreign minister formally opened the conference with a stiff speech on how his government was committed to press freedom, access to information, and political transparency. The delegates listened in stunned silence. The months that followed were marked by attacks on opposition figures, journalists, and NGO activists. The journalist Gennadiy Pavlyuk, who had exposed high-level corruption and was planning to establish an opposition newspaper, was lured to a sixth-floor apartment in Almaty and thrown from the balcony, his hands and feet bound with tape; he died six days later in hospital. Another journalist who reported on his murder was stabbed to death a week later. Investigators named three members of Kyrgyzstan’s National Security Service as the chief suspects in Pavlyuk’s murder, but no arrests were made.
Opposition to the Bakiyev regime intensified in the winter of 2009–10 as the economic situation deteriorated, utility costs rose, and media reported on official corruption and nepotism. Bakiyev’s decision to accept Russian aid but renew the US lease on the Manas airbase had angered the Russian government, which launched a media campaign against him. In April, Russia imposed duties on energy exports to Kyrgyzstan, resulting in an increase in fuel prices. On April 6 in the city of Talas, a demonstration called by opposition leaders to protest corruption and living costs turned violent when protesters stormed a government building and took officials hostage. The demonstrations spread to Bishkek. Riot police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and stun grenades in an attempt to disperse protesters. When they drove two trucks into the gates of the White House, the police opened fire with live ammunition. At least 86 were killed. Protesters stormed the parliament building and the headquarters of KRT. Meanwhile, rallies and protests took place in other cities and towns. By the evening on April 7, opposition leaders announced the formation of an interim government and issued warrants for the arrest of Bakiyev and his family and associates.
Under pressure from Russia, Kazakhstan, and the West, Bakiyev resigned, but a week later, from his safe haven in Belarus, he retracted the resignation and called on the international community to reject the
“bandits” who had illegitimately seized power. Pro-Bakiyev rallies were held throughout the south, with supporters seizing government offices. Clashes between government forces and Bakiyev supporters in Djalalabad on May 14 left at least eight dead and 65 injured.
The conflict escalated on June 9 when crowds of Kyrgyz and Uzbeks clashed in Osh. The violence spread to other towns as groups looted and set fire to homes and businesses in ethnic neighborhoods. Military units were deployed, and Uzbekistan moved troops to its border to stop the clashes spilling over. The scale and cruelty of the violence eclipsed the interethnic clashes of 1990. Some victims were raped and burned alive. In Djalalabad, crowds attacked the hospital where the wounded were being treated. Official figures put the death toll at more than 470, but these figures included only those whose deaths were recorded. In accordance with Islamic custom, many people buried their dead relatives immediately without registering them. Uzbek sources claim that more than 2,500 Uzbeks were killed. According to international organizations, more than 400,000 people were displaced, with 110,000 fleeing across the border to Uzbekistan.
The interim government had granted shoot-to-kill powers to its security forces, most of whom were ethnic Kyrgyz. Witnesses reported that security forces handed out weapons, uniforms, and vehicles to Kyrgyz mobs. Armored personnel carriers moved into the Uzbek mahallas (neighborhoods) to remove makeshift barricades, clearing the way for attacks by armed men and looters. Some observers believed the fighting was instigated by Bakiyev and his family to show that without a southerner in the White House, the south was ungovernable. The Central Asia scholar Madeleine Reeves argues that the conflict was deliberately “ethnicized.” Uzbeks, who held most of the visible wealth in the south, became the scapegoats for a deteriorating economic situation in which much of the rural Kyrgyz population “felt unable to make a viable livelihood in their own state.” It’s estimated that one-fifth of Kyrgyzstan’s working-age population is in Russia, mostly in low-paid jobs. Rather than blame a corrupt southern president for the mess, it was easier to target Uzbek shopkeepers and traders. Reeves says there were many instances when Kyrgyz and Uzbeks sheltered each other from marauding bands, or when neighbors defended their street or mosque from attack “not because they are of the same ethnicity, but because they live in the same neighborhood and want to have the chance of continuing to do so.”6 The freelance journalist Nic Tanner says the violence in Osh was systematically facilitated, an attempt to reclaim land and property that included the occupation of apartments and destruction of legal title records. “If you don’t have a document that states your house is your house, then it’s not your house anymore,” he said. Most of the violence was perpetrated by people brought into the city. “Most Kyrgyz and Uzbek people who were living next to each other weren’t fighting. They were neighbors.”
More than three-quarters of those who stood trial were Uzbeks, reinforcing the official narrative that Uzbeks were primarily to blame. Dozens of prominent Uzbek community and religious leaders were arrested and charged with inciting violence and ethnic hatred. Security forces conducted sweeps of Uzbek neighborhoods and villages, ostensibly searching for weapons and criminals. Human rights organizations reported that security forces planted evidence, destroyed documents, and looted houses. Officials harassed lawyers representing Uzbeks and prevented them from meeting with their clients. A report by a seven-member international commission of inquiry, issued in May 2011, criticized the “ineptitude and irresolution” of the government, and supported claims that security forces had handed over weapons and vehicles to Kyrgyz mobs who attacked Uzbek communities. The government angrily rejected the findings and declared the commission’s Finnish chair persona non grata.
Although many homes and businesses damaged or destroyed have been rebuilt, tensions in the south remain high. A radical Kyrgyz nationalist party, Ata-Zhurt, has gained support. Uzbek schools have been pressured to switch to Kyrgyz-language instruction. Uzbek-language signs have been removed from public places; a “peace bell” unveiled in summer 2012 to commemorate the more than four hundred lives lost in 2010 was engraved with “Peace all over the world” in Kyrgyz, Russian, and English, but not in Uzbek.7 Uzbek media have been closed or forced to sell out to Kyrgyz interests. For almost twenty years, Osh TV, the first private station established in Kyrgyzstan (in 1991), had resisted legal and extralegal attempts by the local authorities to shut it down. Broadcasting in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Russian, it was the most popular station in southern Kyrgyzstan. Its owner, Khalijan Khudaiberdiev, says that the mayor of Osh, Melisbek Myrzakmetov, ordered him to sell 51 percent of the company’s shares in return for security for his family. The company was valued at $1.5 million, but Myrzakmatov said that because of the difficult political situation, he assessed the company’s value at $400,000. Khudaiberdiev said the deal was made in the mayor’s office. “There were men armed with machine guns, and I had no choice but to agree.” Khudaiberdiev claims he was paid only $20,000 and fled the country with his family. Osh TV now broadcasts only Kyrgyz-language programming. Asked in March 2011 if he owned Osh TV, Myrzakmatov responded, “I don’t remember who owns what.”
Nationalist politicians, notes Reeves, “speak of the Kyrgyz as the ‘landlords’ in Kyrgyzstan and other ethnic groups as ‘tenants.’”8 A referendum in June 2010 overwhelmingly approved a new constitution, with parliament choosing the prime minister and setting a six-year, nonrenewable presidential term. In October, multiple parties competed in parliamentary elections, generally considered to be fair and free by international observers.
It took two revolutions to do it, but Kyrgyzstan has moved from a presidential to a parliamentary system of government. It will take more than two relatively free elections and the emergence of political parties, civil society organizations, and independent media to restore the “island of democracy” reputation, but progress has been made. The question is: at what price? Many still live in poverty, the gap between the rich and poor has widened, and prices, especially for fuel, gas, and electricity, are rising. The government has failed to improve education, medical, and social services. Ethnic tensions remain high in the south where Kyrgyz nationalists dominate the local and regional governments, and many Uzbeks feel they are unwelcome in a country where they have lived for generations. They look north to Kazakhstan, a more ethnically diverse country. Its economy has been growing steadily and it has not suffered interethnic violence. Since independence, it has been ruled by a savvy strongman, President Nazarbayev, who is widely credited with maintaining stability and growth.
One of the legacies of the Soviet era is the belief that a strong leader—Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, maybe even Brezhnev—can change a country’s destiny. There’s a lingering sentiment in Kyrgyzstan that if it had had a president like Nazarbayev, rather than Akayev or Bakiyev, things would have turned out better.
five
On and Off the Silk Road
Warm Lake
From Bishkek, most long-distance trips begin at the bus station, the avtovokzal. The busiest bus and marshrutka traffic is between Bishkek and Almaty, a four-hour journey, assuming that the weather is decent and the frontier guards are not in a foul mood. Buses and marshrutkas run east-west along the Chuy Valley to towns such as Kant and Kara Balta, south over the mountains to Toktogul, on the Bishkek-Osh road, and to Balykchy, Cholpon Ata, and Karakol on Issyk Kul, Kyrgyzstan’s premier tourist attraction.
The Kyrgyz are justifiably proud of the lake. At 106 miles long and 44 miles across, it’s the tenth largest in the world, the second-largest alpine lake (more than 5,250 feet above sea level) after Lake Titicaca in South America, and the second-largest saline inland body of water, after the Caspian Sea. More than a hundred rivers and streams, their volume swelled by springs and snowmelt, flow into the lake, yet Issyk Kul has no visible outlet. It’s surrounded by two mountain ranges—the Kungey Ala Too to the north and the Central Tien Shan to the south—and it is almost 2,300 feet deep at its deepest point. The combination of depth
, thermal activity, and salinity means that it never freezes; in Kyrgyz, Issyk Kul means “warm lake.”
In medieval times, the lake level was about 26 feet lower than today, and divers have found the remains of submerged settlements in shallow areas. In 2007, the Kyrgyz Academy of Sciences reported that archaeologists had discovered the site of a 2,500-year-old walled city, stretching over an area of several square kilometers. Excavations have also uncovered Scythian burial mounds, bronze battle-axes, arrowheads, knives, coins, and other artifacts. For centuries, the roads along the lakeshore were part of the Silk Road network. Historians retracing the route of a medieval map used by Venetian merchants discovered a fourteenth- century Armenian monastery on the northeastern shore. More ominously, archaeologists found evidence of a Nestorian Christian trading community ravaged by the bubonic plague in 1338–39. Some historians claim that this is where the Black Death, which swept through Europe and Asia in the fourteenth century, originated, with merchants carrying infested vermin in their cargoes. The region is prime habitat for marmots, known to carry a virulent form of the plague. It seems more likely, however, that traders from China brought diseased fleas with them to Issyk Kul. Whatever the case, the tiny settlement’s death rate shot up from a 150-year average of about four people per year, to more than one hundred dead in 1338–39.
In the late 1860s, as the Kyrgyz tribes retreated ahead of the advancing tsar’s armies, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian farmers settled at the east end of the lake. A Russian military garrison was established in 1864. Karakol was founded five years later, with streets laid out in a checkerboard pattern, and the garrison relocated to the town. Its early population included military officers, merchants, and explorers. Dungans and Uighurs began arriving in the 1870s and 1880s following the suppression of Muslim uprisings in China’s Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang provinces. The settlers farmed the fertile, well-watered soils of the northern and eastern shores, growing vegetables and fruits, including the apples and pears for which the region is famous; indeed, Karakol, which means “black hand” in Kyrgyz, may be a reference to the hands of farmers, blackened from tilling the dark soil.
Postcards from Stanland Page 12