The Long Hitch Home

by Jamie Maslin

  As my parched lips touched the first of the evening’s beers, served in huge Stein glass mugs, Danilo told me of a downright insane experience he’d had on his way here.

  Having been unable to get a bus from Kashgar to Osh, he’d resorted to hitchhiking with a young Japanese guy he’d met after I left. They’d made it there okay and booked in together at a cheap boarding house, where all had seemed fine, until, that is, Danilo found himself being shaken awake in the middle of the night by his roommate.

  “Men come in here with flashlights and machine guns for you. They point guns at your head and discuss whether to shoot you, and if you are terrorist,” whimpered his Japanese friend in the dark.

  “Don’t worry. You’ve just had a bad dream,” Danilo reassured him.

  “No. It real,” he protested. “They talk of killing you!”

  “It’s just a nightmare, everything is okay, I promise. Now go back to sleep,” Danilo replied, closing his eyes and drifting off again.

  In the morning when he had all but forgotten about his rude awakening, and while the Japanese guy was still asleep, he spotted that the door to their room was ajar. Having been convinced he’d locked it the night before, Danilo made his way out into the hallway to find the boarding house’s owner. She spotted him first, and immediately came over.

  “I’m so sorry about the soldiers last night,” she said, “They were looking for a terrorist and I had to let them in.”

  Danilo looked at me now with a wry smile that belied the gravity of the situation.

  “Bloody hell! Thank God you didn’t wake up and panic, you could have been shot in the head.”

  Danilo gave me a knowing nod, then took a deep drag on his cigarette.

  * * *

  It was time, I decided, to ponder some of Kyrgyzstan’s recent history. And so, in the morning I made my way to the State Historical Museum in the main square, where a superb exhibition-cum-shrine to Lenin was located. There were next to no English translations but it hardly mattered, not when the exhibits comprised towering, larger-than-life metallic sculptures of Lenin preaching to the masses, or heroic revolutionaries fighting the tsar’s armies. On the ceilings murals depicted more of the same: workers breaking free from their chains of bondage; women, children, priests, and the disabled facing the charge of the tsar’s sword wielding cavalry; proud Soviet couples holding the hammer and sickle triumphantly aloft.

  When the Tsarist Russians arrived in what would later become Kyrgyzstan, they found its inhabitants splintered into multiple clans, with no concept of a collective nation state. Theirs was a country of family and kin, where identity was derived from oral histories passed down through the ages. Following treaties between Russia and China, Kyrgyzstan was ceded to Russia, and in 1876 officially became incorporated into their Empire. With more and more of their land handed over to Russian settlers, the Kyrgyz staged a major revolt in 1916, with disastrous consequences: 120,000 Kyrgyz were massacred by the Tsarist Russians out of a total population of only 768,000. Another 120,000 fled to China. Following the tsar’s ousting by Lenin’s Bolshevik Revolution, Kyrgyz lands became a part of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) in 1918, and then a separate province seven years later, the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous Oblast (oblast meaning province).

  Following Lenin’s death in 1924, a reconfiguring began to occur, with Russia now deciding that Kazaks and Kyrgyz were not only separate peoples but nationalities. Up until this time they had referred to Kazaks as “Kyrgyz” (to avoid confusion with “Cossacks”), and called the people who are now known as Kyrgyz, the “Kara-Kyrgyz” (Black Kyrgyz). Stalin drew Central Asia’s new territorial boundaries, codified the people’s languages and initiated a savage policy of “forced collectivization,” whose primary aims were to eliminate the ownership of private property and bring an end to the wandering habits of the region’s people: to catapult them from nomadic feudalism into a settler life of communism. Its consequences were catastrophic. Rather than give up their herds to the authorities, people simply slaughtered what animals they had and ate their fill. Subsequent famines set in, followed by rampant disease, their combined effects killing millions throughout Central Asia. Anyone who dissented was imprisoned or executed—as were those whom Stalin considered potential dissenters. Thousands upon thousands of Central Asians were “purged” this way, dragged from their homes in the middle of the night and murdered outright or locked up without charge. For the few who were charged, accusations of a hopelessly vague nature faced them: “having bourgeois-nationalist or Pan-Turkic attitudes.” A sickening wave of mass executions and burials swept through the region, with entire sitting governments “cleansed” this way.

  Despite the many horrendous aspects of Russian control on Kyrgyzstan and the wider region, it is not uncommon to hear people hark back to the good-old-days as part of a stable Soviet Union, something I experienced from a couple of people who gave me lifts on my way to Bishkek; their general reflections being that during Soviet times everybody had a job though no one was very rich, whereas now a few were rich and lots of people poor.

  Through free health care and huge new construction and infrastructure projects, the Soviet era was responsible for substantially raising living standards across Central Asia, which saw farms, ranches, mines, factories, and other industries employing millions of people. Education made a huge impact and extended to all levels of society; literacy became practically universal, and in Kyrgyzstan the language was given an alphabet for the very first time. The sciences were encouraged, as was artistic expression—so long as it fell within the ideological parameters of communism—and distinctive national identities began to take shape.

  After the fall of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan and the other Central Asian republics suffered massively from the economic armageddon wrought upon Russia by “shock therapy”—the radical vision of U.S. economic advisers and political theorists which saw Russia become a laboratory for an extreme and catastrophic form of capitalism. In 1992 the U.S. government passed the Freedom Support Act, which, along with aid, saw a group of U.S. economic advisors arrive in Russia with the claimed aim of helping the country reconstruct itself. Led by Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs, the advisers’ economic prescriptions would wreak untold poverty on millions, see life expectancy nosedive and bring the country to its knees,158 ushering in a unipolar world with the U.S. as the only superpower.

  Having aligned themselves with fellow free-market disciples close to then Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, the U.S. economists drew up their proposals. The central tenet of their prescribed shock therapy was the instantaneous removal of all control by the Russian state over the economy, through the removal of price subsidies and the privatization of all state owned industries. The results were cataclysmic. As subsidies were done away with on day one of the plan, the cost of all goods sky-rocketed, to the extent that millions of ordinary people could no longer afford the most basic and essential items for their survival.159 In desperation, and with no meaningful social safety net, millions took to the streets with their meager possessions, to sell whatever they could, and at any price, just so they could eat.160 The currency became practically worthless, and instead of money, factory workers found themselves paid in the very products they produced, which they then had to hawk on the street. As privatization took effect, the state issued vouchers to all citizens so they could purchase stock in the former national assets. But being in such a perilous financial predicament, most people simply offloaded their shares to a few monied business men, for pennies on the dollar. And so rose up a new super rich elite, the oligarchs, in whose hands was concentrated the immense wealth of Russian industry, and the tremendous power that came with it. Further consolidation continued. In exchange for loans, President Yeltsin did the bidding of the oligarchs, handing over the remains of Russia’s industry to them, at times for as little as two percent of its genuine worth.161 Protesting deputies of the Russian parliament described shock therapy as “economic genocide.
” Violence erupted inside parliament with the protesting deputies occupying the building. Retribution was brutal; Yeltsin ordered the army to shell parliament, killing scores of people. The opposition was banned by Yeltsin, who announced that he would rule by decree.162

  Interestingly, despite shock therapy having led to the collapse of infrastructure, plunging production, dire shortages, and extreme poverty on an almost unimaginable scale in Russia and beyond, the godfather of the plan, Jeffrey Sachs, now lauds himself as an expert on, wait for it . . . poverty reduction. Quite the canny rebranding exercise; and a rather successful one too, with useful idiot celebrities such as Bono and Angelina Jolie now singing Sachs’ praises as, in Jolie’s case, “The world’s leading expert on extreme poverty;” but then, I guess if you’ve played a part in causing so much of it, you should be.

  After gaining independence in the turbulent wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Kyrgyzstan experienced bloody revolutions in 2005 and 2010, the latest erupted following the government’s decision to raise communal charges for water and electricity. With huge swathes of the population struggling with crippling poverty and mass unemployment, this proved the spark that ignited the popular revolt. As one demonstrator put it: “I’m unemployed. There is no work and no factories. [President] Bakiyev stole everything. All that was left was the air we breathe.”163

  Trouble flared first in provincial cities where government buildings were torched, and quickly spread to the capital, escalating into an outright national uprising. As protesters attempted to storm the parliament building, snipers and police began shooting. Bodies and burnt-out cars littered the streets; shops were looted, state-run TV stations stormed; government buildings occupied, set alight or looted of everything from their drainpipes to ornamental shrubbery.164 As thick black smoke poured from the carcasses of burning buildings in downtown Bishkek, President Bakiyev boarded his presidential plane and made a hasty exit. Inter-ethnic violence followed the revolution, particularly in the Osh provinces, where some four hundred thousand people were displaced.165 With Bakiyev’s departure, a transitional president was announced.

  Bakiyev had himself swept to power in the “Tulip revolution” of 2005, but after failing to tackle the problems of widespread corruption, organized crime and the black market, and with the economy in dire straits, his support soon withered, and in 2009 he resorted to extensive vote fraud to retain power.166 Having previously cozied up with the United States, and sanctioned, in the face of Russian opposition, the continuation of a U.S. military base near Bishkek—established in 2001 under the cover of “the war on terror”—Bakiyev dramatically increased tensions in the region between Russia, the U.S., and China. As a result Kyrgyzstan is now something of a geopolitical chess piece in a strategic game between the three, with the U.S. base at Manas being the main bone of contention. Just one of approximately nine hundred acknowledged U.S. military facilities worldwide, which constitute a ridiculous 95 percent of all the world’s military bases maintained by any nation on foreign soil,167 the base at Manas is used as a supply post for the U.S. military’s occupation of nearby Afghanistan, and serves as a handy launch pad for future U.S. military “interventions” across the region—“full spectrum dominance” in U.S. military parlance. Despite the interim government having promised, when in opposition, to send the U.S. packing, the Manas base remains open, and at the time of writing it is unclear which way the wind will eventually blow.

  A long stint at the museum complete, and I headed off to explore Oak Park, a charming, century-old parkland in the heart of Bishkek. Next to the park was somewhere Marcin recommended I stop for a bite to eat: The Old Edgar, a little restaurant that was apparently superb, and, like Anton’s Place, located in a basement, this time underneath the Russian Dramatic Theater. Shortly after it got dark I met up outside The Old Edgar with Danilo.

  Making our way through an exposed brick entrance porch and down a small staircase, we entered a charming wooden-clad restaurant-cum-nautical shrine. From the restaurant’s walls and ceiling hung model sailing boats, wooden helm wheels, bulging fishing nets and life-rings. Added to this seafaring theme were some strange, although not unwelcome, additions: antiquated typewriters and tape recorders, and, in one corner, a framed picture of none other than Stalin. It was certainly different.

  We took a seat near “Old Joe” and surveyed the menu.

  “Do you think this will have meat in it?” asked Danilo, pointing optimistically at some unknown meal description.

  “If your eight years of concerted Russian study can’t decipher it, then what hope have I?”

  He decided to risk it. Minutes later a stern-looking waitress who could have doubled for a henchwoman in a Bond film, plonked in front of him a plate of spaghetti with a thick meaty sauce slopped in the middle. I received a tasty fish. As I tucked into my food in earnest, Danilo picked around the edges of his spaghetti with a look of stoic resignation. Finally, with a palpable sigh, he pushed the remains over to me, then made the best of things by filling up on beer instead.

  While finishing the last of the food, we chatted about our next destinations. Mine was Kazakhstan (for which I had just obtained a visa), Danilo’s, Uzbekistan.

  And then something rather odd happened.

  An attractive blonde woman sitting at a table nearby with an equally enticing brunette with long sparkly blue nails, got up and walked towards us, and then, without making any eye contact whatsoever, placed a paper napkin on our table, discreetly pushing it towards me. Turning around, she then walked off again.

  Danilo and I shared a look of confusion.

  I turned over the napkin, revealing a little note written in Biro pen:

  We are pressmen from Russia. Would like to know your opinion about KG after revolution 07.04.10. What do you know about this? Dont worry it is just a privet conversation. Sorry for our bad English. Would you like to talk?

  Glancing their way, we received a discreet acknowledging nod from the blonde who’d proffered the note. It was all very “cloak and dagger.”

  “What do you think, Jamie?” asked Danilo.

  “Sure, why not?”

  We lifted our beers from the table and ambled over to join them.

  After rather formal introductions, the blonde one got straight to the point.

  “We hear rumors of another revolution, what is it that you know of this?”

  It was news to us, and so we said as much; but why, I wondered, would they think two random Europeans would know anything about this? And so from the outset Danilo and I were both rather guarded, especially after Danilo’s experiences in Osh.

  Prying questions followed from the Russians—who were apparently in Kyrgyzstan on assignment from their Moscow newspaper—receiving coy or just plain untruthful answers from us in response, with me claiming to be a salesman not a writer when asked my profession, and Danilo stating he was going to China not Uzbekistan when asked where he was heading next. It was difficult to categorize, but there was just something about our inquisitors that didn’t add up. Their napkin approach had been downright weird, as if they’d seen it on a bad spy show or something, and their subsequent questions weren’t far off either. I began to question their motives and wondered if they were something other than journalists. When they asked us what our opinions were of the leaders of Kyrgyzstan’s recent revolution, I decided to test my theory, at least partially, by turning the question around.

  “Tell me first,” I said, “What do you think of your own leader, do you like Putin?”

  “Yes, of course,” replied the blonde enthusiastically.

  “But Putin is no friend of Russian journalists, when Litvinenko criticized him, Putin had him murdered.”

  (Russian exile Alexander Litvinenko had been assassinated in my home town, London, in a manner straight out of a Cold War spy thriller—by having his tea spiked with a rare radioactive isotope, Polonium 210. It took him three weeks to die, and from his deathbed he accused Putin of the plot, hatched in retaliat
ion for Litvinenko’s exposé of the Russian Secret Services’ role in blowing up multiple Russian civilian apartment blocks in order to blame the atrocities on the Chechens, and so provide a pretext for a second Chechen war—classic “false flag” tactics of the Hegelian Dialectic: Problem-Reaction-Solution.)

  “Oh, we are not interested in politics,” said the blonde dismissively.

  “But you are writing about politics,” challenged Danilo.

  An awkward silence lingered for a couple of seconds, broken by the brunette, whom until now had spent most of her time smoking long thin cigarettes, while silently regarding us.

  “I have been to your country,” she stated, staring a hole through me.

  “Err, where have you been?”

  “Buckingham Palace and Stonehenge.”

  “Did you like Britain?”

  “No,” she replied without warmth.

  Danilo and I laughed at her marked absence of diplomacy. I didn’t mind that she wasn’t enamored by the place. Hell, I slagged it off enough myself. But was curious to discover why.

  “Any reason?”

  “The weather is terrible!”

  It was a fair point, or at least it seemed one, until that is, we discovered, later in the conversation, which part of Russia she was from—northern Siberia no less!

  “Listen love,” I said on hearing this. “Our summers may be a bit drab, I grant you, but I don’t think someone from Siberia, of all places, is in a position to criticize anywhere for want of its climate.”

  Despite there being zero chemistry at the table, with no shortage of awkward questions and uncomfortable silences, the women were insistent on meeting up with us the following night at the same time and location.

  “We will see you here tomorrow, yes?” insisted the blonde as Danilo and I got up to leave.