Pen pal day

June 1st, 2013 Sections: Calendar, News, Weekly_Postcards

It's nice to get a letter

There’s always a sense of expectation when the postman calls, even in these days of mobile phones, texting, emails, blogs and social media.

I am grateful to those of my correspondents who write to me with comments about the weekly postcard; some with observations about what I have said and others with questions or suggestions for future topics.

Although I have met many of the recipients, that’s not true for everyone – and we are basically “pen pals” … and as a result, it seemed appropriate to commemorate in today’s postcard that it is apparently Pen pal Day.

The day does not have any officially status; it’s not a designated day recognized by the UN or any other international organization, but there is a saying that “every holiday has to start somewhere”.

Apparently it began when Rosie Tholl, an American who is an avid correspondent with a wide variety of pen pals, decided it was time to have a special day to tell them just how meaningful their friendship was.   She had already been instrumental in starting picnics, establishing newsletters for pen pals, and in the formation of Pen Pals United (which aims to create an inspiring community of people with diabetes from all across the globe).  So she picked a date with no close-by holiday, 1st June, and wrote about the idea in her own newsletter, encouraging her correspondents to include in their letters to their own pen pals about how special the friendship was.

These days it’s easier to keep in touch – assuming that you have an affinity with technology.  When I first came here nearly eighteen years ago, I had been warned that the postal service wasn’t exactly reliable and things might take an awful long time to arrive … if they ever did.  To be fair – I have only lost two items of post – a letter and a parcel, but several have been somewhat dilatory in making their way to or from Europe of America … even using an “express” service which claimed average delivery times of 3-5 days, (which seemed a little over optimistic to me), but in fact took three weeks.

I kept in touch with my mother with a weekly phone call but these days it’s down to the odd email, these postcards and keeping an eye what friends and relatives are up to on social media, (Facebook and Twitter).

 

These postcards are sent out on Saturdays – but I think I may have to reconsider this timetable.  For several weeks now, I have been sitting down late on Friday afternoon going over my notes and preparing a draft, there’s been stories breaking in the news – pushing all I had planned to include and comment upon into the shade.  This week has been no different.

The breaking news this week has all been about Kumtor … During the week there have been an ongoing protest in Issyk Kul where the road from the mine descends through the Barskoon valley and joins the road that skirts the Southern shore of the lake.

Basically the protesters are demanding: the denunciation of the 2009 agreement between the (Bakiev) government and the company, with the take over of the mine, resolving the environmental issues that they say arise from the operations of the mine and a “social package”.

Now, a protest is a protest and part of the normal democratic process.  So,in itself, that shouldn’t cause too many problems … at least, in theory.  Unfortunately, Kyrgyzstan has a history of protest meetings developing into something worse – and this one looks as if it might follow the trend.  There’s a tradition here, for example, of blocking the highway and not letting traffic pass as a way of bringing your complaints into the public eye.  It’s a tactic which opponents of Kumtor have used on several occasions in the past … it was becoming a regular habit.  Indeed, the practice was getting to be so commonplace and was having such a bad impact on the economy, (not to mention the image of the country as a whole), – and not just here, but all over the country – that a law was passed last year increasing the penalties for such actions.

Well, that doesn’t seem to have deterred the protesters here – who blocked the road with lorries with apparent impunity and called for the highest officials in the land to come and hear their complaints.  I suppose they can “demand” that President Atambaev come and see them – but demand is a strong word and he is on record about the damage that “mob rule” is doing to the country, so I suppose that it is no surprise that he wasn’t one of those important people who did turn up in order to try and defuse the situation.

By all accounts, the police were keeping a low profile – some commentators apparently not mincing their words and saying that the police were afraid to confront the protesters.  These low key tactics don’t seem to have worked – the numbers of those taking part seem have grown throughout the week and currently stand at something like a thousand.

The protesters decided to “up the odds” and on Thursday evening stormed a substation which provided the mine with power – cutting off the electricity supply.  The site has its own generators which can supply some power but its basically had to suspend a lot of its operations.  According to reports, the company have decide to “mothball” its operations at the mine and a mass evacuation of the staff is scheduled to take place today.

It seems that they then decided to occupy the building of local authority – with the head of the localo authority being taken hostage … although he seems to have been released.  Then things started to get heated.  Kumtor is one of those issues which arouses emotional responses and one thing led to another … there were dramatic pictures of the protest including a bus set alight and black smoke rising into the blue sky.

The Prime Minister held special meetings with representatives of the company, the local authority and law enforcement agencies.  In the end, the President signed an order declaring a State of Emergency in the immediate region – although not across the whole of the oblast (province) and it has been announced that additional forces will be sent up there if it proves necessary.   Attempts were made to contain the protesters, some of them on horseback as is traditional here, and in the melee some people were hurt (including some police officers) and tear gas was used to help disperse the crowds.  Several arrests were made, (at one point it was said that about a hundred criminal cases had been opened against the protesters), but a lot of the protesters have been released.

Some of the people from the region held a press conference here in Bishkek and warned that if the the government “makes the wrong decision regarding the Kumtor project”, then “nothing would stop them”.   Not everyone, of course, agrees with the protesters; the villages where many of those employed are not too happy about the current furor and there is some concern about what might happen if the two groups were to clash.

Protests are protests and they happen all over the world.   Some get out of hand and erupt into violence – look at what has been happening in Sweden – and cast you mind back over the years to Paris … London … and so on.  There is, however, some argument about whether the protest is a real grass roots movement – and the general impression seems to be that it isn’t … “the protesters” are too well organized”.  There have been comments that it is really about generating another attempt to seize power.

The “knee jerk” reaction that the Bakiev’s are somehow behind it has been voiced but, so far, I haven’t seen anything other than speculation to support this … although the Prime Minister has promised that details will be revealed when the current investigations into what is going on are completed.  This seems to be reinforced by the fact that the protesters say that they are impatient for the question to be settled - one of the Ministers commented that they seem to want the matter to be settled “in one day” – and they have said that they don’t want to wait “until September” … plus the fact that another large rally in support of the protesters has “spontaneously” emerged in Djalal Abad – the homeland of Kurmanbek Bakiev – seizing the headquarters of the local authority.

One prominent politician – who is most definitely not one of the Bakiev “clan” of supporters – said that he wasn’t one of the organizers, but he had to support them in their aims.  Meanwhile, even though he is not a natural supporter of the President, another said that he had no choice but to support the declaration of a State of emergency.

There certainly seems to be an impression that there is more behind it all than just resolving the Kumtor issue.  The government seems to imply that discussions with the company were going well.  Perhaps that is the problem – someone doesn’t like that.

Anyway, the parliament is going to be holding an emergency session on Monday …  let’s hope that is not too late – or that, if it is, it will be because the situation has resolved itself.  This is, after all, Central Asia, where compromise is just as common as confrontation.  One news agency seems to be suggesting that what is really needed to defuse the situation is the “wisdom of the Aksakal“.

 

In the meantime, it’s understandable that some people seem to getting anxious.  For example, some tourists have already cancelled their plans to visit the region – even if they were planning to stay on the other side of the lake, far away from the scene of the Kumtor protests.   One spokesman of the tour industry has pointed out that, in addition to the losses from the disruption to the working of the mine, (said to be worth more than a million dollars a day), there is a real risk of the tourist season being ruined and huge losses being incurred there too.

It looks as this could be the second tourist season being ruined by the mine … the other being in 1998 when a lorry fell of a bridge spilling its cargo of cyanide into a river and scared away lots of tourists … many of the resorts on the lake were virtually empty all season and some simply didn’t open.

Not all tourists have been discouraged, however, and we’re still getting requests for information … including the odd request for next year.

 

It is not just the Kumtor mine that could be affected by all this … it was reported during the week that Goldfields are reexamining their project up in the Talas region.  It is hard to imagine how the government are going to be able attract bidders for the second round of the tender for the Jerooy license.

All this was underlined by a warning from the Representative of the World Bank who said that foreign investors are afraid of investing in Kyrgyzstan.  I am not exactly what he said – because the reports I saw seemed to concentrate on a lack of infrastructure and skills for handling technology and life in the twenty first century … and didn’t address the question of social and political uncertainty.

 

It’s also not the only rally to have taken place during the week … in addition to the one down in Djalal Abad there was one held up in Naryn protesting the reinstatement of a local Police Chief who had earlier been dismissed, and another down in Osh over the allocation of land.

The one in Osh, on the other hand, might raise concerns as this has been a thorny issue over the years.    The Naryn protest, on the other hand, is an example of what I have been saying about protests being a part of the democratic process – people are giving vent to their feelings and expressing strongly held opinions but it doesn’t have to been seen as a major threat to order and stability.

There was also another rally involving villages in the area where the American plane went down with calls for compensation for the damage caused.  There happened to be another plane crash during the week, a small private plane went down in the South of the country, killing all three people on board.

 

I have well and truly exceeded my planned word limit once again – so let me finish with a couple of light items of news that I saw during the week:

After last weeks news that the feasibility study for the CKU railway (China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan) had been rejected and sent back for further reworking, it was a little surprising that this week saw the announcement that initial work on the proposal for a new RKKT railway (Russia-Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan) was progressing well.  At the moment it is still a proposal but seems to be being given the green light and the seal of approval.

Even more surprising was a story purporting to announce the proposed layout for a Bishkek Metro … with several lines radiating out from the city center and others circling it connecting some of the suburbs.

 

Now, according to Rosie Tholl, I am supposed to take the opportunity today to say to all my correspondents (that is, you) how much I appreciate our correspondence.

Some of you seem to reed the postcards with avid interest and send me comments and question, others read them occasionally and sometimes come back to me.  Others admit that they skim through them some admit that they only occasionally read them.  Well, one of the reasons I value this correspondence, apart from the fact that I am a creature of habit and it has now become a familiar part of my routine,  is that they give me the opportunity to take a look at the week’s events and try to make sense of them, putting them into some sort of context.

Life here in Bishkek goes on more as less as usual – the newswires hot with stories “from the front line” of this this protest or that.  My Taxi driver on Thursday, however, was more concerned that the streets in the city center keep getting closed for this reason or that.  On day it was because there were a load of VIP’s here for a summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the next it was for celebrations for the Day of the Armed Services of Kyrgyzstan – with parade and military hardware recently received from Russia … then we got held up because the road was dug up for repairs to the pipework of the city’s heating system.

My neighbour is naturally concerned because her 78-year old husband has been hospitalized for a 10-day course of treatment for a lung problem.

One of my cats disappeared for two weeks – then one day, when I was taking the rubbish to the bins in the neighbouring yard I heard a mewing, turned and saw her following me back home.  She spent the day with us – eating her fill and sleeping it off before sitting at the door asking to be let out and going of on Walkabout once again.  I suppose it will be another two weeks before I see her again.

The kids have finally finished their exams for the year – and done quite well, too – much better than I had expected … well done!

It is not just in protest meeting that temperatures are rising; we’re beginning to experience some warm days with the sun shining brightly at long last.  I walked down to the hotel the other – about a ten walk – and when I got there my forehead felt as if I was sunburned.  People are beginning to walk around in light summer clothing and the city authorities have planted millions of plants in the squares and parks … not forgetting that the climbing roses at the hotel have finally come into bloom – although, to be honest, it will take some time for them to recover their full glory after being cut back a couple of years ago.

Finally, when I was looking for a theme for today’s postcard … I was somewhat embarrassed by choice.  Amongst other things, as well as being Pen pal Day, June 1st is:

  • International Children’s Day
  • The Global Day of Parents – recognized by the UN
  • The anniversary of the arrival of a delegation in Frunze, (now Bishkek), of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovakia headed by Julius Fuchik in 1930
  • The seventy fifth anniversary of the debut of Superman in Action Comics No.1 in 1938, (although it was datelined June 1938, according to  Mike’s Amazing World of Comics, it probably went on sale as early as 3rd May) … so, let me wish Kal El a Happy 75th Birthday!
  • the anniversary of the death of the poet Djoormat Bokonbaev in 1944
  • the anniversary of Kyrgyzstan assumes control of all military units on its territory in 1992 … and
  • the day on which we opened our first hotel, The Celestial Mountains Guesthouse in Naryn, in 1998

 

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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:

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 ).

 

 

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