Postcards from Stanland
Page 35
The paradox is that some refuse to bow to pressure. For more than a decade, Respublika dodged and weaved but managed to keep publishing. Banned from printing in Almaty, it moved its operation to Bishkek and shipped copies across the border. In 2009, faced with a $400,000 fine for an opinion piece critical of the government-owned BTA bank, staff started publishing using office equipment. Banned from street newsstands, the newspaper was circulated privately. When the authorities filed legal papers against Respublika, it changed its name; when papers were filed against the new name, it was changed again. Today, it relies primarily on the Internet and social media, playing a cat-and-mouse game of proxy servers and domains as the authorities try to block it. The government uses a range of legal and extralegal weapons, including pressure on advertisers and bureaucratic regulations, to stifle opposition voices. As an Almaty radio station director put it to me, “The government has many gears.”
The government accuses media outlets of the vague crime of “inciting social discord.” Despite a constitution and media law that proclaim press freedom and lots of fine words about democracy and international best practices, Kazakhstan has less press freedom than at any time in its postindependence history, and most of the time its Western allies don’t seem to care.
#7: The Virtues of Slow Travel
I have two travel heroes. The first is the Muslim legal scholar Ibn Battuta who in 1325 set out from Tangier (on the north coast of present-day Morocco) for his once-in-a-lifetime haj to Mecca. Then he just kept on going. He traversed the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Persia; he spent twelve years in the Indian subcontinent and traveled to Southeast Asia and China before returning to North Africa. In 1351, he was back on the road, across the Sahara to Mali. Finally, he sat down in Fez with another Muslim scholar to record thirty years of travel experiences.
Battuta, who has been compared to the most famous medieval Christian traveler, Marco Polo, was an eagle-eyed observer of the world around him, making notes on landscape, people, religion, politics, trade, and many other topics. He was able to do so because, like all travelers of his age, he moved slowly. Most of the 75,000 miles he logged was by camel. Renting camels isn’t as easy as it once was, so it’s impossible to match the pace of Battuta’s travels. That’s a pity because as travelers we could learn much from Battuta’s patient observations.
My second travel hero is the cultural geographer Hubert Wilhelm, who traveled faster than Battuta but still pretty slowly. He was always frustrating family and friends by refusing to drive on the interstates, instead taking state highways, county and township roads, stopping as often as possible to inspect houses, barns, and farm buildings, and wandering through cemeteries with German gravestones. It took him hours to get anywhere, but he saw patterns in the landscape that are invisible from highways that flatten the landscape into a reassuring sameness and where the journey is marked only by exit numbers and rest areas.
You need to slow down to understand any place, and certainly Central Asia. The region often presents two contrasting images to the outside world. I’ll call them the new and old yurt images. The first is epitomized by Astana, the Dubai of the steppe, the modern, business-friendly city with five-star hotels, upscale malls, and sushi bars; there the yurt is that monument to conspicuous consumption and presidential excess, the Khan Shatyr. The second is an idyllic scene of traditional culture, a mountain valley dotted with spring wildflowers, horses, falcons, traditional crafts, and shashlyk roasting on the spit; tourists sit cross-legged on brightly colored shirdaks in a real yurt listening to a manaschi reciting lines from the Manas while young women in national dress serve herder fast food, tea, and kumys before performing a traditional dance.
Both these scenes exist, and are often presented in dramatic counterpoint in tourist brochures: “From mountain pastures and endless steppe to modern cities, from the ancient Silk Road to international airports, from traditional food to European and Asian cuisine, from horseback games to rock concerts, Central Asia brings together. . . .” And so on. However, everyday life for most citizens has little to do with either. Most people live in khrushchevkas and brezhnevkas, not in condos or yurts; they travel by train and bus, not by horse or in business class; for entertainment, they usually watch TV. These less exciting images are the Central Asia I know.
I feel privileged to have traveled in Central Asia before interstates are built. I have not had a Battuta experience, of course, but I’ve tried to follow Hubert’s advice and travel slowly. Most times when I hail down a car in Almaty, Astana, or Bishkek, the driver has something to tell me; in a train, long-distance bus or marshrutka, passengers share food, jokes, and rumors. Even with air travel, my trips in old Soviet puddle-jumpers—the Antonov-24 and the Yak-40—have been more revealing than faster, higher-altitude flights in Airbuses and Boeings. And, of course, I’ve walked in all sorts of weather—to the bazaar, to the university, to restaurants, to shiver at the bus stop, to get my shoes repaired, to get a haircut, to pay a $2.50 phone bill. For me, slow travel is the only way to grasp the paradoxes of places and people, and to start telling their stories. I’ll always be writing postcards.
Notes
Chapter 1: Travels in “Kyrzakhstan”
1. Lee Moran, “John Kerry Gaffe: In New Role as Secretary of State, He Mistakenly Creates a New Country—Kyrzakhstan—during Speech,” New York Daily News, February 26, 2013.
2. Jonathan Earle, “John Kerry Invents Country of Kyrzakhstan,” Telegraph, February 25, 2013.
3. Cheryl K. Chumley, “John Kerry Defends Americans’ ‘Right to Be Stupid’ a Day after Inventing Country Named Kyrzakhstan,” Washington Times, February 26, 2013; “John Kerry’s Dumb Talk,” http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/r7gapm/john-kerry-s-dumb-talk.
4. Karl E. Meyer, The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland (New York: Century Foundation, 2003), 31.
5. Colin Thubron, The Lost Heart of Asia (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), 1–2.
6. Maira Kalman and Rick Meyerowitz, “New Yorkistan” cover for the New Yorker, December 10, 2001.
7. Halford J. Mackinder, “The Geographical Pivot of History,” Geographical Journal 23, no. 4 (April 1904): 421–37.
Chapter 2: Sacred Mountain and Silly Borders
1. “All Monuments of Lenin to Be Removed from Russian Cities,” Russia Today, November 21, 2012.
2. Leila Saralaeva, “Lenin Toppled in Kyrgyzstan,” Institute for War and Peace Reporting, February 21, 2005.
3. Ibid.
4. John King, Central Asia: A Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit (Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1996), 417.
5. UNESCO World Heritage List, “Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain,” http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1230.
6. Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999), 121.
7. Alexander Morrison, “Writing the Russian Conquest of Central Asia,” https://www.academia.edu/1710833/Writing_the_Russian_Conquest_of_Central_Asia.
8. Madeleine Reeves, “A Weekend in Osh,” London Review of Books, July 8, 2010, 17.
9. Ahmed Rashid, “Why, and What, You Should Know About Central Asia,” New York Review of Books, August 15, 2013.
10. “Central Asia: Day of the Bully,” Economist, October 25, 2001.
Chapter 3: How Do You Say “Rump Roast”?
1. John King, Central Asia: A Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit (Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1996), 358.
Chapter 4: Kasha, Honor, Dignity, and Revolution
1. Martha C. Merrill, “Kasha and Quality in Kyrgyzstan: Donors, Diversity, and Dis-Integration in Higher Education,” European Education 43, no. 4 (Winter 2011–12): 5.
2. “Former Soviet Bloc Corruption Threatens Education,” Vanderbilt Magazine, July 2008, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/magazines/vanderbilt-magazine/2008/07/former_soviet_bloc_corruption_threatens_education/.
3. Jeremy Bransten,
“Kyrgyzstan: Democracy and a Free Press—Endangered Species?” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 14, 1997.
4. “Kyrgyzstan: Journalist Remains a Prisoner of Conscience after Inconclusive Trial Outcome,” Amnesty International Index, May 21, 1997; Committee to Protect Journalists, “Kyrgyz journalist sentenced for libel,” e-mail to President Askar Akayev, September 29, 1997.
5. “Kyrgyzstan: A Criminal Offense,” Transitions, June 1998, 86–87.
6. Madeleine Reeves, “Getting to the Roots of Resentment in Kyrgyzstan,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 4, 2010; Reeves, “The Ethnicisation of Violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan,” openDemocracy, June 21, 2010.
7. “Stubborn Facts on the Ground,” Economist, April 20, 2013, 46.
8. Madeleine Reeves, “A Weekend in Osh,” London Review of Books, July 8, 2010, 18.
Chapter 5: On and Off the Silk Road
1. Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1999), 230–31.
2. “Kyrgyzstan: Gold in the Hills,” The Economist, March 16, 2013.
3. John King, Central Asia: A Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit (Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1996), 251.
4. “A Seven-Star Hotel and a Seven-Dollar Breakfast” was originally published as “Seven-Star Service,” Christian Science Monitor, September 22, 2009.
Chapter 6: To Be a Kazakh Is to Be “Brave and Free”
1. “The Best and Worst Places for Women,” Daily Beast, September 20, 2011.
2. “Kazakhstan Announces Winners of International Journalism Competition,” Astana Times, July 4, 2014.
3. Jason Lewis, “Oil Rich Dictator of Kazakhstan Recruits Tony Blair to Help Win Nobel Peace Prize,” Telegraph, October 29, 2011; James Kilmer, “Tony Blair Stars in Kazakhstan Promotional Video,” Telegraph, April 23, 2012.
4. Mike Harris, “Why Is Tony Blair Lending Credibility to Kazakhstan’s Dictator?” Telegraph, February 24, 2012.
5. Deirdre Tynan, “Kazakhstan: Top-Notch PR Firms Help Brighten Astana’s Image,” EurasiaNet.org, January 18, 2012.
6. Ken Silverstein, “Dictators Rely on D.C. Front Men,” Salon.com, December 14, 2011.
7. “The Can’t-Win Candidate” was originally published under the same title in Transitions Online, March 28, 2011.
8. “Election Shenanigans” is adapted from “Independent, with an Asterisk,” Transitions Online, April 7, 2011.
9. Asqat Yerkimbay, interview with author, November 9, 2013. All following quotations of Yerkimbay are from this interview.
10. Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan: The ABCs of the Alphabet Debate,” EurasiaNet.org, April 3, 2013.
Chapter 7: Father of Apples
1. Andrew Osborn, “As if Things Weren’t Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.,” Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2008.
2. Interviews with Gennadiy Khonin, Aleksandr Dederer, and Viktor Kist originally published in “Between Deutschland and Karaganda,” Transitions Online, August 29, 2011.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
Chapter 8: The President’s Dream City
1. Rowan Moore, “Astana: Kazakhstan: The Space Station in the Steppes,” Observer, August 7, 2010.
2. Quoted in Natalie Koch, “Urban ‘Utopias’: The Disney Stigma and Discourses of ‘False Modernity,’” Environment and Planning 44, no. 10 (2012): 2446.
3. Quoted in Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan: Nazarbayev Eyes Legacy as Astana Reaches Adolescence,” EurasiaNet.org, July 8, 2013.
4. “Laying the Golden Egg,” Economist, July 13, 2013, 38.
5. Koch, “Urban ‘Utopias,’” 2446. See also Koch, “The City and the Steppe: Territory, Technologies of Government, and Kazakhstan’s New Capital” (PhD diss., University of Colorado, 2012).
6. Koch, “Urban ‘Utopias,’” 2446.
7. Ibid., 2451–52.
8. Quoted in Natalie Koch, “Why Not a World City? Astana, Ankara, and Geopolitical Scripts in Urban Networks,” Urban Geography 34, no. 1 (2013): 109.
9. “Aaarghmola,” Economist, July 24, 1997.
10. “A Glittering New Kazakh Capital, on the Face of It,” New York Times, November 9, 1997.
11. “Laying the Golden Egg,” 38.
12. Quoted in Michael Steen, “Kazakh President’s ‘Backyard’ Pyramid,” Sydney Morning Herald, October 16, 2006.
13. “Urban ‘Utopias,’” 2454.
14. Steen, “Kazakh President’s ‘Backyard’ Pyramid.”
15. “Urban ‘Utopias,’” 2455–56.
16. Ibid.
Chapter 9: Coal and Steel
1. John King, Central Asia: A Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit (Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1996), 245.
2. Lonely Planet, “Introducing Karaganda,” http://www.lonelyplanet.com/ kazakhstan/northern-kazakhstan/karaganda.
3. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, trans. Ralph Parker (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1963), 53.
4. Quoted in Maria Golovnina, “Forgotten Stalin Victims Despair in Kazakh Steppe,” Reuters, December 21, 2009.
5. Jonathan Aitken, Nazarbayev and the Making of Kazakhstan: From Communism to Capitalism (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009).
6. “Temirtau’s Businessmen Want President’s Monument Carved into a Mountain,” Interfax Kazakhstan, July 8, 2011.
Chapter 10: No Polygon, No Problem
1. Interviews with Magda Stawkowski, Robert Kopack, Naila Dusembayeva, Kaisha Atakhanova, Gulsum Kakimzhanova, and Dmitry Kalmykov originally published in “In Kazakhstan, the Grass Is Greener at the Nuclear Test Site,” Transitions Online, June 9, 2011, and “Warming to Life in the Hot Zone,” Times Higher Education, January 12, 2012.
2. Louise Gray, “New Life in an Atomic Wasteland,” Telegraph, August 30, 2011.
3. Quoted by Interfax Kazakhstan, July 29, 2010.
4. “A Nuclear Dustbin?” Economist, September 8, 2001, 46.
Chapter 11: Wheat and Oil
1. Interviews with Viktor Simanenko, Shaurab Zhempisov, and Almabek Nugmanov originally published in “Kazakhstan Needs Its Vegetables,” Transitions Online, May 4, 2011.
2. Nate Schenkkan, “Kazakhstan: Astana at a Turning Point,” EurasiaNet.org, March 26, 2012.
3. Interview with Seytkazy Matayev originally published in “Going Digital, Playing Politics,” Transitions Online, November 1, 2012.
4. “Is Kazakhstan’s Zhanaozen to Be Wiped Off the Map?” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 1, 2012.
Chapter 12: The Seven Lessons of Stanland
1. Karl E. Meyer, The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland (New York: Century Foundation, 2003), 207.
2. “Central Asia: Stopping the Rot,” Economist, May 4, 2002, 14.
3. Meyer, Dust of Empire, 198.
4. Ahmed Rashid, “Why, and What, You Should Know About Central Asia,” New York Review of Books, August 15, 2013.
5. Nursultan Nazarbayev, “Kazakhstan’s Steady Progress toward Democracy,” Washington Post, March 31, 2011.
6. Joshua Kucera, “Kazakhstan Rising,” Slate.com, August 4, 2011.
Glossary and Acronyms
Alash Orda: political party formed by Kazakh intellectuals. It set up a provisional government after the 1917 Russian Revolution but surrendered to the Red Army in 1919; its leaders were executed or sent to labor camps
Akim(a): mayor or governor
Akimat: municipal or provincial administration
ASSR: Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Babushka: grandmother
Banya: traditional Russian sauna
Basmachi: guerrillas who resisted Soviet occupation of Central Asia
Batyr: hero, knight or brave warrior, a title bestowed upon individuals for military service among Turkic and Mongol peoples
Bek: a Turkic word meaning noble or chief
Besh barmak (five fingers): traditional K
azakh and Kyrgyz dish of boiled mutton and noodles, so called because it is eaten with the fingers
Bi: sage or judge among Kazakhs
Brezhnevka: standard apartment built in Brezhnev era
Chaikhana: traditional Uzbek tea house
Dacha: a small house with a garden outside the city
Dombyra: traditional Kazakh fretless stringed instrument
Dezhurnaya: hotel floor lady
Dvor: courtyard (usually of an apartment complex)
Glavni corpus: main university building
Karlag: Karagandinskiy Ispravitel’no-trudovoy Lager’ (Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp).
Kasha: literally porridge, but in slang “a little bit of this and that” or a mishmash
Khan: Mongol and Central Asian name for king or military ruler
KMG: KazMunayGaz, Kazakhstan’s state oil and gas company
Kolkhoz: the contracted form of kollektivnoye khozyaystvo, meaning collective farm or economy
Kolpak: traditional Kyrgyz and Kazakh felt man’s hat
Komuz: traditional Kyrgyz fretless stringed instrument
Khrushchevka: standard apartment built from prefabricated concrete panels to meet the post–World War II housing shortage
Laghman: Uighur spicy noodle and vegetable soup
Lipioshki: flat bread, baked in tandoori oven
Mahalla: Uzbek neighborhood, with courtyard houses
Manas: Kyrgyz national epic poem
Manti: a Kyrgyz and Kazakh dish, dumplings stuffed with diced lamb and onion
Marshrutka: short for marshrutnoye taksi (routed taxi), which follows a route, picking up and dropping off passengers
Microraion: microregion, usually a suburban district of apartment blocks
Nooruz: traditional Turkic New Year celebration in March
Oblast: province
Oralmans: ethnic Kazakhs (from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Xinjiang, Mongolia, and Russia) who moved to Kazakhstan after independence, with government subsidies for housing and relocation