I tried to suggest a three-sentence structure. Number one: What’s the problem/impact? “The glaciers of the Tian Shan are retreating, depleting Kazakhstan’s water resources and increasing the danger of floods and mudslides.” Two: Why is it happening? “Global climate changes and local carbon emissions are causing earlier and more rapid snowmelts.” Three: What is your organization doing about it? I’ve found that this formula works for almost every climate change story. The scientists’ tendency, however, was to back into the issue. Example: “Within the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and in accordance with pertinent national legislation relating to the protection of the future of the environment on the territory of Kazakhstan, the Information section of the Ministry of Environment, acting under the authority of the legislature of the Republic of Kazakhstan and His Excellency President Nursultan Nazarbayev, is engaged in the distribution of information—in newspapers, magazines, broadcasting, and other media—that will educate the population. . . .” And so on. On the second day, I asked one participant to read the first two paragraphs of his draft press release and asked my interpreter to translate them one at a time. I had enough time to walk over to the snack table, pour myself a cup of coffee, and come back before he had finished the first one.
Although progress was slow, by the end of the workshop the scientists had grasped the importance of tailoring messages to different audiences—for popular or specialized media, funding agencies, politicians, university administrators—even if they still struggled to write them. I encouraged them to communicate by telling stories rather than presenting data. And they had good stories to tell. One scientist spent every summer in the mountains, monitoring the glaciers. He had survived five avalanches (with broken bones) and been chased by bears. The region is popular with trekkers, and he often encountered groups decked out with the latest outfitters’ gear. He says the trekkers were amazed when they were overtaken by his unfashionably dressed but physically fit scientific party, striding up the slopes carrying heavy monitoring equipment.
The problem goes both ways. Media in Central Asia do not have a good record for reporting on pollution, the depletion of water resources, deforestation, soil erosion, and other environmental issues. Compared with politics, celebrity sex scandals, crime, and other contact sports, the environment seems dull. It’s a challenge to have journalists conduct research on complex topics that involve statistics, scientific data, and sometimes conflicting evidence. They are overly reverent toward scientists and experts. I ask them: You don’t trust politicians, right? Their heads nod. Well, why should you trust scientists and environmental experts any more than politicians? They agree, at least in principle, but faced with bulky reports and tables of data, it’s easier to package than to probe.
The challenge is to take large, difficult-to-grasp issues—greenhouse gas emissions, ecosystems, biodiversity—and turn them into stories readers and viewers understand, stories that may lead to individual and collective action. Public opinion polls in Central Asia reveal a widely held attitude that goes something like this: there’s nothing I can personally do about these problems, so I’ll just leave them to the government and international organizations to fix. And why should the media report on them if people can’t do anything? To improve media coverage, you have to start with an issue that directly concerns many people. Almost everyone in Central Asia eats meat. That’s why, on a bright November morning in 2010, I headed west out of Almaty with a group of journalists to grazing lands in the foothills of the Zailiysky Ala Too.
In the Hills
If you travel across the steppe of Kazakhstan, it’s easy to think that the whole country is one large pasture. That’s an exaggeration. Although the country has the largest steppe area in the world, grasslands occupy just over one-third of the total land area; another third, mostly in the west and southwest, is either desert or too barren to support any vegetation. In the north, where Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands program was launched, large tracts were plowed up to grow wheat and other grains, although the arid climate makes yields unpredictable, and some are now being turned back into pasture. The chief livestock products are meat, dairy products, wool, and leather. Despite the fact that more than two-thirds of the land area is devoted to crops and livestock, agriculture accounts for less than 10 percent of the country’s GDP. There’s more money to be made mining and drilling under the land than using it to produce food.
Since the 1970s, overgrazing has reduced the amount of pasture land. Overgrazing causes native perennial grasses to be consumed and trampled and destroys native lichen and algae, which are important for fixing nitrogen and holding water. Their loss further depletes the land, reducing its ability to replenish itself and remain stable. Soil erosion, caused by the harsh winds that blow across the steppe in all seasons, follows.
With the breakup of the kolkhozes, most pasture areas were turned over to individual farmers, leading to a decline in livestock numbers. In contrast to Kyrgyzstan, where many herders maintained the nomadic system, moving livestock from villages to mountain pastures in the summer, herders on the Kazakh steppe started to keep their herds close to villages, leaving more distant pastures unused. The government and development agencies realized that herders needed to rotate pastures, or more land would be lost or become barely sustainable. Pilot projects were launched to allocate and regulate grazing areas. In a reversal of the usual top-down administrative system, herders came together in pasture committees to make decisions about who could graze where, and for how many seasons. Farmers whose work had once simply consisted of moving their herds, protecting them from wolves and other predators, birthing lambs and calves, and slaughtering and selling livestock, now found themselves collecting data on herds, breeds, and forage resources, and working on pasture and management plans. On that November morning, we were on our way to a herding community that was participating in a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project to restore lands for livestock through pasture rotation and the planting of new, hardy grasses.
As we drove into the countryside, the Russian-language signs became rarer. Outside Almaty, the rural population is largely Kazakh speaking. We eventually turned off the main road onto a dirt track to a village. It was a treeless landscape, with small hills and dried-up streams, which reminded me of the Sand Hills of Western Nebraska or other areas east of the Rockies. Our inquiries began at the home of the chairman of the pastures committee, who was responsible for working with his neighbors to implement the grazing plan. We were welcomed with traditional hospitality—a table laden with breads, cakes, and the sweetest homemade butter I’ve ever tasted. Then we left to meet one of the herders.
It was a roller-coaster ride up and down the hillocks and across streams to the farmstead, which sat in a small gully. In winter, the only way to reach this place is on horseback, so such farms need to be self-sufficient. There was a stack of dried animal manure for heating (wood is scarce and expensive), farm animals, supplies, and a kitchen full of canned fruits and vegetables. The only power source was a single solar panel—enough, we were told, for a couple of lights and to recharge the mobile phone. We were told that almost every herding family had a mobile. It was not a technological luxury but a necessity in a region where the roads are poor and the nearest doctor or vet may be miles away. We talked to the herder’s wife, then set out to look for the herder. Every half mile or so, we stopped the van and our guide would run up a small hill, scan the horizon, shake his head and run back. Eventually, we spotted small white dots in the distance. Sheep! If they were there, the herder would not be far away. We heard him before we saw him, shouting to the sheep. Then he galloped up, leaped off the horse and welcomed us. It was a desolate yet magical place. A cloudless sky, a light breeze, the sheep moving slowly across the grassland, the snow-covered mountains to the south. After the smog of Almaty, we almost drank the fresh, clean air.
Who Locked the Room Yesterday?
Visits to rural Kazakhstan provided a welcome respite from the city, w
here smog was not just in the air, but often seemed to pervade my daily work. Bureaucratic smog can also be dangerous to your health.
According to my colleague (and sometime interpreter) Irina Velska, any foreign teacher should learn three Russian phrases before entering a university classroom in Kazakhstan. The first is “Gde kliuch?” (“Where’s the key?”). The response is usually another question: “U kovo kliuch?” (“Who has the key?”). Which is generally followed by a third question: “Kto zakril auditoriyu vchera?” (“Who locked the room yesterday?”). Only after the keeper of the keys is found can class begin.
Teaching in Central Asia requires patience, flexibility, and knowledge of a labyrinthine university bureaucracy where responsibilities—for keys, copying, repairs, and other services—are ill-defined. Transactions such as checking out the key require at least a signature, if not a picture ID. Higher-level tasks, such as memos, schedule changes, and expense reimbursements, require multiple forms and signatures and often an official and difficult-to-obtain departmental stamp. That’s assuming you can find the person authorized to use the stamp. The same mind-set permeates government and the commercial and NGO sectors. A business manager told me how she received a letter from the European Union (EU) authorizing the transfer of funds for a media legal reform project. She took the letter to the bank, but it was not accepted because the signature did not contain a stamp. The EU project officer explained that the EU does not use stamps. The bank was not satisfied. It demanded a letter from the EU stating that it does not use official stamps, and said the letter should be signed by a responsible official and contain (I am not joking) an official stamp. Despite all the billboards and promotional campaigns proclaiming that Kazakhstan is open for business, Soviet-era traditions die hard.
I was at Kazakh National University (KazNU) to conduct a curriculum development workshop for teachers and working journalists. The seminar room was set up in conference style with chairs and tables that could be moved. Its main limitation was the single electrical outlet. We ran several extension cords to laptops but eventually our power demands overwhelmed the fragile system and the outlet failed. After several phone calls, a maintenance crew arrived. They said they could fix the outlet, but were reluctant to start work. “What’s the problem?” Irina asked. They said they were assigned to another building on campus. They could do the repair, but we would have to pay them for their work. We refused and threatened to report them to the dean. By the next morning, they had repaired the outlet, although they did not clean up the plaster dust on the floor. That’s must be someone else’s responsibility.
The sign on the door stating that a workshop was in session did not deter casual visitors. Every ten minutes or so, the door would open, and a teacher or student would look around the room, nod in my direction and then close the door. Occasionally, people would walk in, sit in the outside circle of chairs and leave after twenty to thirty minutes without explanation. By midweek, I noticed a pattern—the traffic was heavier just before coffee breaks with the visitors grabbing tea, coffee, and snacks on their way out. A couple even signed the daily attendance sheet.
Such distractions did not seem to bother the participants. And the journalism faculty dean, Galiya Ibrayeva, smiled when I quietly remonstrated about keys, power outlets, and interruptions. She’s a veteran academic administrator, with progressive ideas, but she knows that change comes slowly. We talked on a Sunday lunchtime outing to a resort in the mountains south of Almaty. It was an upscale development, with a hotel, spa, and (sadly) a few mountain animals (a fox, some deer, and falcons) in cages to divert the visitors on their after-lunch strolls. We ate shashlyk and khachiapury (cheese bread) at what I thought was a Georgian restaurant, although Galiya said it was actually Abkhazian. The resort was a kind of gastronomic theme park, with national/ethnic restaurants—Russian, Kazakh, Turkish, Chinese, and Japanese—set in gardens and walkways. Each had an appropriate statue of a national hero, although the Kazakh batyrs were the dominant species. It also boasts a historical anomaly—a new statue of Lenin in his most famous pose, right arm raised, gazing upward toward some Communist utopia. However, in this setting, Lenin was pointing the way to the Russian restaurant. It’s really the same as the Che Guevara T-shirts. Revolutionary icons recycled to raise profit margins.
FIGURE 7.1 Lenin’s commercial arm: “This way to the Russian restaurant.” With KazNU journalism dean Galiya Ibrayeva and her daughter at a mountain resort near Almaty.
Core Values at Kimep
Over the years, I’ve grown to know what to expect from state universities in Central Asia. They have good people, but in a top-down bureaucratic system where curriculum is mandated by the government and rectors control resources, they are not free to make many changes. These universities, despite their glitzy brochures and websites and lists of centers, institutes, and international partners, are still trying to claw their way out of a Soviet-era time warp. Most teaching is lecture-based, with students required to attend many hours of classes; they have little opportunity to critically examine content through research or assignments. At most universities, teachers are paid according to the number of hours they spend in the classroom, not by the credit hour or course level. Asked to describe higher education in Tajikistan, my colleague Jovid Mukhim had a succinct, if discouraging, reply: “Long hours in cold classrooms.” He was talking about both students and teachers.
Overall, the higher education picture in Kazakhstan is better than in the other Central Asian republics, where universities face serious budget pressures. In 2001, Kazakhstan launched a multiyear program (now extended to 2020) to improve education. Many universities are stronger and healthier than in the 1990s, with higher salaries and state funding for research and development. Standards have been improved with the introduction of the Unified National Test, roughly equivalent to the SAT, the standardized test used for most college admissions in the United States. After signing on to the European Commission’s Bologna Process in 2010, Kazakhstan introduced degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral levels and adopted the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) to improve student mobility. Between 2004 and 2008, the Ministry of Education and Science closed about forty underperforming universities and branch campuses. Nationwide, about 620,000 students are enrolled, most at state institutions; about 285,000 (46 percent) are part-time or distance education students, completing their requirements by examination. About one-fifth of students are supported by merit-based state scholarships (which do not cover living expenses); the rest pay tuition.
In the 1990s, entrepreneurs started opening private universities to attract upper- and middle-class students dissatisfied with state institutions. Some were little more than diploma mills, storefront colleges with letterhead, a website, and a handful of teachers whose own diplomas probably would not pass muster. In 1999 Shymkent, the leading city in the south with a population of over 400,000, reportedly boasted over twenty faculties of law. Law, like business and diplomacy, was a fashionable undergraduate major, both for students and their parents. Even in an increasingly litigious society, there was a limit to the number of lawyers Kazakhstan needed. It was the same with diplomacy. Kazakhstan has expanded its diplomatic corps, but again the supply of freshly minted diplomacy graduates expecting to be posted to London, Paris, or Washington far exceeds demand. At least business degrees were more marketable. By 2010, about a quarter of the hundred-plus private institutions had either failed because of financial problems or been closed because they did not meet minimal standards.
One higher education entrepreneur was Dr. Chan Young Bang, a Korean-born economist from the University of San Francisco who came to Kazakhstan in 1990 to serve as Nazarbayev’s principal economic adviser. In 1992, he founded the Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Entrepreneurship and Strategic Research (KIMEP). Nazarbayev and Bang believed the country needed an elite institution, following Western standards, to train a new generation of business and political leaders for the global economy. Nazarbaye
v backed the scheme with money and prime real estate in Almaty’s business district. KIMEP adopted a Western education model, with most teaching in English, and high admission standards. In the boom years, KIMEP prospered, attracting excellent students and faculty, many from overseas. It broadened its academic offerings to public administration, journalism, and other areas. It was the most expensive institution in the country, but some students were funded by scholarships from the government, foundations, and international agencies.
Like the banks and financial companies, KIMEP probably expanded too fast. For at least a year after the global financial crisis of 2008, high oil prices cushioned the impact on the economy. When the price dropped to below $50 per barrel, the downturn hit every sector—construction, housing prices, government tax revenues, and education. In just one week in 2009, the tenge lost 20 percent of its value against the dollar. Middle-class families found it difficult to pay for private education. KIMEP’s enrollment of about 4,000 declined precipitously.
The administration’s response makes for a good case study of how not to handle a crisis, because it succeeded in alienating almost everyone—faculty, staff, students, and parents. Bang’s advisers, meeting behind closed doors, arbitrarily slashed faculty and staff. By late 2010, it was apparent that KIMEP’s problems were not all attributable to risky mortgages in the West. Most of the finance department staff was fired for fraud or incompetency. The university came under criminal investigation for the embezzlement of about $1 million. The administration instituted checks and balances that improved accountability but increased frustration. Simple transactions took months to complete and required extensive documentation. One proposal (happily shelved) would have required department chairs to produce pencil stubs before they could requisition new pencils. There were sex scandals, and an attempt to withdraw KIMEP’s license to issue degrees, later overturned by a court order.
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