Postcard from Bishkek

Today sees one of the great sporting events of the year … the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.

Maybe it was a bit nationalistic  for me to claim this is one of the “great” sporting events of the year – but it’s as grandiose a claim as that made by the Americans for the contest that forms the culmination of the Baseball season – which they call the World Series, (a series of up to seven matches played between the top teams of the two distinct Major League Baseball competitions – the American League and the National League).  There is a myth that the World Series was named after the newspaper, the New York World which is supposed to have sponsored the early competitions … I say, “myth” because, apparently it’s not true – it’s called the World Series because the victors are indeed considered to be the Champions … of the World!, even though it’s only teams from the United States that can compete and ignores many other major baseball playing countries around the world.

This year Manchester City and Wigan Athletic are competing for the silverware …  but neither side seems to be particularly happy that the Football Association have moved the game from it’s traditional kick off time of 3:00pm to 5:15pm.

It’s not just a case of breaking with tradition … a mid-afternoon start to the match  is not only traditional, it is also convenient … the fans are going to have trouble getting back to their homes in the two cities of Northern England … they might just make the last train from the center of London if the game doesn’t go into extra time and they don’t dawdle to celebrate or drown their sorrows.

I expect that a lot of them will decide to make a weekend of it.

Even if Manchester City win on the pitch this afternoon, and they seem to be odds on favourites, they are likely to remain somewhat in the shadow of the neighbours given the shock announcement of Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement.

Wigan fans, on the other hand, might well be drowning their sorrows even if they win today … because, although they’ve made it to this prestigious final, they are apparently struggling at the bottom of the Premiere League, in the relegation zone – three points away from safety and the prospect of Premiere League football next season.

Well, as they say, “You win some … you lose some”.

 

I am not sure who counts as winners and who counts as losers in this week’s news.

In the case of Maxim Bakiev, for example, having been forced into exile and seek asylum, been found guilty in absentia on corruption charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison,  (which makes him look like a loser), it seems that the Americans have decided to quietly drop their extradition request to Britain which was supposed to be presented in court on Monday (13th May),  so it’s unlikely he will have to answer the charges brought against him anytime soon, (which makes him look more like a winner).   It’s hard to see the decision going down well here in Kyrgyzstan with either officials or activists.  The Prosecutor’s Office were asked for a comment, but because of the holidays here – it being a long holiday weekend, (Thursday was Victory Day commemorating the end of the Second World War and Friday was declared a Holiday because Constitution Day fell on last Sunday), being

The investigation into the tanker crash shortly after take off from Manas airport continues.  Although the bodies of two of the pilots have been found, the search for the third continues.  It seems that some of the early speculation that the weather could have been a contributing factor to the accident is being looked at once more.  In the meantime, there was a protest march organized by a group of youth activists calling the base a danger to Kyrgyzstan and (once again) for it to be closed … and one analyst went so far as to suggest that the crash could be used as an justification for America to launch military action against Kyrgyzstan – but that doesn’t seem likely.  However, his speculations have added to the various conspiracy theories – involving terrorist, drugs, “confidential” weapons … and so forth.

The state of play in the Kumtor case is also not clear.  There’s been a fair amount of attention paid to the work on relocation of the dump on the Davydov glacier, which is apparently moving at three and a half meters a day.  A series of measures have been recommended to counter the risk of mudflows and potential landslides which currently threaten a number of facilities at the site.  Only two of the thirty four sites have been inspected so far, but it’s estimated that the corrective work will cost some sixty million dollars.  The situation is being described as a “man made industrial accident” which is due to the “irresponsible and incompetent operation of the mine” and papers are being sent to the courts.  Needless to say, Centerra, (who operate the mine), disagree with the claim.

Other waste dumps have also been in the news recently.  After some disturbing reports about the state of the dumps in Naryn, a new project was announced, (to be financed by the European Bank – part as a grant and part as a loan), to improve the system of garbage collection here in Bishkek.  As part of the project, about half of the money will be spent on the reclamation of the landfill sites.  The rest will be spent on providing new equipment for the facilities.  As well as getting a new improved service, it might well result in an increase in the tariffs charged for the service – in order to pay of the cost of the loan.

Incidentally, another gold firm, Kentor from Australia, has decided that it has had enough and to leave Kyrgyzstan – selling it’s stake in the Andash Mine to another firm for about fifteen million dollars.  That might be a bit strong … they have decided to concentrate on projects that they have in Northern Australia and are only selling 80% of their share, (retaining the other 20%), to another Australian company – but the effect is the same.  They’ve been operating in Kyrgyzstan since 1997 and have already invested about 150 million dollars in exploratory work.  They were preparing to spend another one hundred million in getting the mine up and running, but have been somewhat stymied by opposition from the local community – mainly on ecological grounds.  Anyway, apparently, it’s not exactly a done deal … yet.  Due diligence procedures and approvals required under Australian rules and legislation, but it is thought that the transaction will be completed by the end of June.

Also, as the deadline of the tender for operating the Jeeroy deposit draws near, apparently there was no sign of any bidders … which doesn’t sound too hopeful.

Gold, of course, makes up one of our most important exports …  but according to the Natiuonal Statistics Committee, there was a reduction in the level of exports (mainly due to less gold being sold … and also textiles, another important local industry) during the first four months of the year, to just over three hundred million dollars.  At the same time, however, the value of imports rose – to almost one point two billion dollars.

Other important areas for exports are confectionery and tourism.  I was surprised about confectionery but it appears that we export something like seven million dollars worth and that puts in second place, behind Kazakhstan, in Central Asia.

We’ve often heard phrases about the importance of Tourism, (or, at least, the potential of Tourism), for the country.  Well, it seems that in the first three months of the year there were some 670,000 visitors to Kyrgyzstan.  Although that seems impressive, it was interesting to note that they didn’t tell us how many there were in the same period last year … just that in total there were something like 3.4 million visitors in 2012. Usually the High Season when the vast majority of tourists arrive, doesn’t start until July – the start of the third quarter.  The same press conference, however, also released the news that there were some 14 new flights to Kyrgyzstan started last year.

The head of the Tour Operators Association of the Urals, in Russia, came to an exhibition and trade fair on Issyk Kul last weekend and gave a very interesting observations.  On the positive side, he said the the fact that Russian visitors didn’t need a visa was an attraction, (I hope that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others who opposed the introduction of the visa free regime noted that particular comment!), and the fact that the population spoke Russian (and I hope that service providers will note that comment and draw the obvious conclusion about the need to learn other languages).  He also noted the “good condition” of the roads … and the importance of cultural identity and devotion to tradition in the country.  On the negative side, however, he made three very telling comments: one about pollution, (which is important because the landscape, wildlife and pristine environment are as important to the brand that we try to promote as nomadic identity and traditions), the lack of ATM machines, (people don’t know how much money to bring with them and no-one wants to carry large amounts of  ”cash” with them), and the most important deficiency in his eyes was the lack of internet access, (“Nowadays one cannot afford oneself to disappear out of information space for several days” – there’s a lot to be learned from that one comment).

Talking of the internet … it seems that the website of the news agency Ferghana.ru has now been unblocked here in Kyrgyzstan.  The site ran into problems for some of its reports about the incidents Southern Kyrgyzstan in the summer of 2010, which were critical of the authorities handling of the incidents.  Apparently there are questions about the decision to block the site and in the end it was lifted … but there are also questions about the parliamentary resolution which has not been rescinded – which means that the site could still regarded as “illegal”.

There was more positive in the news that the agreement with Russia on the construction of hydroelectric power stations on the Naryn River has passed another hurdle – being ratified by the Russian Duma and signed by President Putin.   It seems that when Vladimir Putin comes to Kyrgyzstan, he and President Atambaev will head off up to Naryn for the commissioning ceremony.  Construction is expected to take about four to five years provided work is carried out on all the different sites in parallel and the payback period for the project is estimated at fifteen years.

 

As usual, a number of statistics caught my attention during the week.

For example, there was the news that corruption costs the country something like seven hundred million dollars – or 40% of the total tax revenues received by the government.  Kyrgyzstan has a bad reputation when it comes to corruption – being ranked 154th out of 174 in the Transparency International corruption perceptions index. Whenever I see such statistics, it raises lots of questions in my mind.  It wasn’t clear to me, for example, how they arrived at this figure – or what they counted as “corruption”.

I presume “tax evasion” isn’t included in the definition, but a raid by the tax authorities on the massive Dordoi market identified almost 800 tax violations worth 4.4 million soms of unpaid taxes – that’s just a little less than a million dollars.

It was reported that the population of Kyrgyzstan now stands at 5,687,800 – which represented a rise of almost 110,000 when compared to last year.  There was an increase of almost 25000 in the first three months of the year … and 7600 in March alone.

The number of young people in the population, (that is defined as being between 14 and 28 years old), is 1.6 million – or 30% of the total.  The unemployment rate, it was announced during the week, is as much as 43.5% – although only 68,000 applied to the employment service’s offices around the country in 2012 – some 6600 applying to employment agencies and about half of them finding jobs.

 

A report that there were something like 20000 right hand drive vehicles imported into the country last year caught my attention.  The reason it attracted my attention was that the wording of the report wasn’t that clear, I couldn’t make out if it was referring to imports “last year”, or up “until last year”.  What was clear, however, is that the number has been increasing year on year: about 8,000 in 2009, 10,300 in 2010, 22,200 in 2011.

It’s actually quite difficult to find the relevant statistics – I was once told that the number of vehicles in the country was a “state secret”.  The World Bank appears to have no data, and I can’t find them in the data published by the Statistics Committee, (but that could be because I don’t have the right publications.  According to the figures I can find, (based on data from 2007), suggest that these figures are indeed annual and there could be something in excess of 350,000 vehicles in the country.

This example of the unclear use of statistics is important because there is a move to ban the use of such vehicles – a law banning their use in carrying passengers has been passed by the parliament and is now with the President waiting for signature.

At a press conference it was reported that right hand drive vehicles have been involved in more than 700 accidents in which about 180 people have died in both 2011 and 2012.  ”And”, we were assured, “in 2013, the number of such accidents is increasing.” Apparently, according to the Deputy Chief of Traffic and Inspection service at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Right Hand drive cars account for 10 percent of the total number of vehicles in Kyrgyzstan, but are involved in 20 percent of the accidents.  

 

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Postcard from Bishkek: the weekly postcard that I send out as an email also gets posted on the website ianbek.kg each week – and there are other postcards which don’t get sent out.  This week, for example, there has been the following postcards:

• Nightlife and entertainment - There’s plenty of opportunities for going “out on the town” here in Bishkek – 05/05/13
• Tuu Ashu - Although we don’t have anything on the scale of the Channel Tunnel, we do have the Tuu Ashu Tunnel,  - 06/05/13
• Wild greeby - A number of cases of mycetism prompted me to look at mushrooms in Kyrgyzstan - 07/05/13
• I’ve been away a long time … - A look at a form of DIY advertising which has long been common here and now seems to be making an impact in Britain (… well, it was featured in an advert for the Archers) – 08/05/13
• War Memorials - To commemorate Victory Day, (marking the end of the Second World War), I took a look at some of the War Memorials around the country –  09/05/13
• Is it the real thing? - after twenty years as the national currency, special security measures are necessary to protect the Som from forgeries  - 10/05/13

It is possible to follow me on Facebook, (where I have specific pages for Celestial Mountains and ianbek … and also links.kg, Kyrgyz Diary and Kyrgyzstan Visitki), and also on twitter, (@Bishkekpostcard and @celestialMTC ).

Tags: Expat, In_the_News, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards