Postcard from Bishkek

It all started quite quietly … who would have thought what it would lead to.

George Carmack had left his native California and headed North in the hope of cashing in on the reported Gold strikes in the Yukon.  He wasn’t having much luck, but heard from another prospector that there was gold to be found along Rabbit Creek – a tributary of the Klondike River … so he gathered up his belongings and with two Native American Indian friends, set off to see what fate might have in store for him.  Apparently, while they were fishing in the river for salmon, one of the prospectors saw something… What was it?  Could it be?, Could it possibly be? … Yes … yes … it was … it was indeed a nugget of gold.

The following day – Monday, 17th August 1896, the three of them calmly made their way down to the nearest police post in the town of Forty Mile on the Yukon River and registered the four plots that they had measured out for themselves so that they could search for more.  It’s not clear who actually discovered the nugget – it was almost certainly Skookum Jim, but it was decided that George should register the claim because they weren’t sure how the authorities would react to a claim made by a native Indian.

The story has it that within hours the small town at the foot of the Forty Mile River was all but deserted as almost the entire population headed off up to the creek to stake out claims for themselves.  The Gold Rush was on … but news didn’t really filter through to the outside world until much later, when winter approached, and so it wasn’t until the following year that the the bulk of the fifty to a hundred thousand prospectors arrived.

It is hard to imagine something like that happening today?

Rabbit Creek was renamed Bonanza and further upstream another tributary, later renamed as Eldorado, was found to have an even richer stream of gold.  Carmack managed to gather a million dollars worth of gold from his modest claim before he left the region.  Many other stakeholders sold their plots to mining companies which had the resources to work the mines, extract and process the ore.

How different from the gold prospecting and mining industry of today.

During the week, one commentator was bemoaning the fact that since Independence Kyrgyzstan has opened only one new Gold Deposit … although, looking at what’s happened to Kumtor and several other gold mines in the recent past, it doesn’t seem all that surprising that new projects are perhaps a little thin on the ground.

This was quickly followed by the news that another was due to come on stream in June 2014 … just as the Americans are about to leave.  Let’s hope it helps to make up some of the shortfall in the budget that will be created by the departure of the Transit Base.    Mind you, one commentator has thoughtfully provided a list of five different ways that the American’s might be able to stay, (although the headline actually said four)  … but I don’t think that is likely to happen given the stance taken by the president and the attitude of the Russians, (who seem to be prepared to pour in large investments in shoring up the economy, but – in the light of past experiences – may not be so keen if the Americans do find a way of emulating the couple in Paul Scott’s short story about an elderly couple who decide to remain in India after Independence and the end of the British Raj … and “Staying On” even when that means having outstayed their welcome.

Incidentally … the Vice Prime Minister has to be given top marks for “cheek” … when it seems that the Kyrgyz authorities are finally giving the Americans their marching orders … he held a meeting with representatives from the embassy and thanked them for all the support they had given to the Border Service … and then asked them to offer similar support for the Interior Troops.  Apparently the American representatives didn’t bat an eyelid and simply responded that the new request “will be considered and discussed with the leadership of the US Central Command.”

To be fair, he’s not the only one to have exhibited some “cheek” … at a meeting of the parliament on the day to commemorate the Urkun events of 1916, (when their was an uprising among the local population against their new Russian “masters” which resulted in a horrifying loss of life – on both sides – and many refugees fled across the border to China … or at least set off China – a large number died in the mountain passes), a resolution was passed calling on the Russians to pay compensation to the descendants of those who suffered/died during those events.  I am sure that you will understand that this wasn’t universally welcomed … a discussion started on one of the leading internet forums, but was quickly closed down by the moderators … but Director of the Institute of History at National Academy of Sciences pointed out that Russia (at least, that is, the Soviet Union) has already apologized – and paid some form of recompense back in the 1920′s …paying expenses for many who returned home following the October Revolution – 100 million roubles – and instituting land and water reforms, confiscating land from some of the Russian and Ukranian settlers handing it over to Kyrgyz.  Apparently, according to the historian, it seems that someone is exploiting what they think will be a populist theme in order to make a name for themselves.

But, returning to the theme of gold for a moment … an “expert” then announced that, in their view, it was necessary to eliminate the zero rat of VAT on the export of raw materials, which, to be fair, includes a lot more than just Gold.  The zero rate was originally introduced in a hope to boost exports but in fact turned out to basically favour just a few people.

Incidentally, as she was talking of increasing tax in this particular case, a government official was talking about the possibility of reducing taxes – thus reducing the “black market” (although I think he probably meant the grey economy) and, ironically, as strange as it may sound, actually increasing the tax revenue for the budget.

The Kumtor story rolls on and the politicians have promised that the talks between the country and the company are entering their final stages and the results are timetable to be presented to Parliament on September 10th.   Apparently they have already agreed about creating a joint venture, merging the two companies that currently exist, … and some Kyrgyz members of the board have already been named/appointed.

I was interested to see that the Prime Minister, no less, went on record as saying that some of the statements of people who are opposed to the mine are scare mongers and that they were over exaggerating the threats – especially in terms of the complaints over the environmental damage supposedly being caused.  He actually went further and said something like, that they were doing it for other, political reasons, the undermine the stability of the country and the development of the industry …

I had to smile when I saw one headline that declared that Kyrgyzstan had “lost” some two billion soms … how careless, I thought to myself … due to the volatility of the price  of gold.   In fact, it’s even stranger because they never had that money in the first place … in their budget plans they had based their calculations on an “expected” price of USD1750 per ounce – but the price is currently more like USD1330 per ounce … so although they are receiving less than they had hoped for, they haven’t actually lost any money.

There was another story which also made me smile because of a non sequeter … it opened with the sentence “Kyrgyz citizens in the autumn-winter period will save electricity” but I think it should have read “Kyrgyz citizens in the autumn-winter period will have to save electricity”.  The rest of the story was about why they needed to save electricity because the predictions are that there will be less water in the Toktogul Reservoir – just like there was in 2009 when we experienced rolling power cuts.

 

Schools have been in the news a lot this week … well the long Summer holidays, (three months here), are finally coming to an end and kids (and their parents – especially the parents) are busy getting ready for school.

There have been reports, for example, of new schools being built up and down the country.  There was a story about how you couldn’t get a child accepted into some schools without paying a “golden hello” of something like 15000 som.  That’s just over USD300, which may not sound a lot but when you remember that the average salary here in the capital is just 10000 som – that will give you some idea of how difficult some families can find it trying to ensure that their children get an education.

Of course, the more traditional expenses – clothes stationary and other “Back to school” essentials, have also come under scrutiny with a survey of prices at various bazaars and shopping outlets.  The surprising thing was that the main city center Osh Bazaar basically outperforms the the others – including the massive Dordoi market on the edge of town – especially if you factor in the transport costs and the time taken.  On price alone the largest market in Central Asia was about 50% more expensive than buying the same things in the city center.  Another Bazaar, still more expensive, was still favoured by some people because of its convenient location.  The more expensive specialist shops, although they proved to be more than as expensive were also favoured by some people because it was felt that the quality of the goods on sale was better.  I suppose that it boils down to a case of “you pays your money … and you takes your choice”, finding a balance between the supply of readily available cash compared to the convenience of shopping and the quality of the goods.

Incidentally, Dordoi has been in the news for other reasons this week – because although its Central Asia’s largest bazaar with an estimated turnover of three billion dollars, the traders turned over just 360 million soms in taxes last year.  That’s just one percent of the turnover.  I wish we only had to pay 1%.

Although there is an obvious suspicion that people are hiding their income, one of the reasons for this low payment is the system of patents or assumptive tax … buy a patent and pay a one off fee which takes care of all your tax obligations and you don’t even have to keep proper accounts.   Of course it is a popular system, among the traders that it … if not with the officials.  This week there was a call to cancel the system which brought out a whole host of entrepreneurs rushing to its defence.

When the children do finally get to school, there’s a good chance that they won’t get all the attention that they deserve … as it seems that there is a shortfall of about 1500 teachers, leaving the classroom in the hands of ever increasingly older force of teachers.

School normally starts on 1st September, but as that happens to fall on a  Sunday this year, it was announced that the authorities were going to open schools for the “First Bell” on on Monday – the 2nd.  Unfortunately, however, their colleagues in another department of government forget to mention that, as the Independence Day holiday (31st August) falls on a Saturday –  the Monday is going to be a “non working Day so that the workers of the world – well, of Kyrgyzstan – don’t miss out on having their full quota of rest days,  That includes government employees, which means, of course, most teachers … so they won’t be at school to welcome the kids back for the new school year.

AApparently, back in Britain, there is a change in the education system which will effectovely raise the scool leaving age from 16 to 17,  and according to one report I have seen, it has crept up on people and caught them totally unawares,  I find that hard to imagine remembering the arguments when RoSLA, (Riaing of the the school leaving age – from 15 to 16) was intruced almost forty years ago … when, incidentally, I was sixteen.  As a teacher, we often had “reluctant learners” in the class – or at least in the school … no matter how effective the  education system or the system of support, there will always be children who slip through the net …  Well, things are the same the world over.  There was a meeting this week, for example, in the Talas oblast to consider what to do about the children who don’t attend school … a surprising high number – over 1600 of them in this basically rural area … so we are not simply talking about Street Children.

 

September 1st is also Uzbekistan’s Independence Day, and they usually close the border as part of the commemorations … Kyrgyzstan’s Independence Day is the day before … but we don’t close the borders – on the contrary, I think we are quite happy for people to come and visit.  Well, the reason for this year they decided to “jump the gun” a little in that they have already closed the border  - at least for locals (Kyrgyz and Uzbek passport householders …).  Some people seem to think that this might have something to do with the incident where two Uzbek border guards were shot by the Kyrgyz colleagues – one dying on the spot and the other dying later from his wounds … on the other hand, I am not certain … they nearly always close the border for the day itself.

It seems that Kyrgyzstan, (or st least the State Border Service), has decided to make a stand and issued a protest to their colleagues in Uzbekistan about the preemptory and unilateral way in which the border closer was put into effect with virtually no advance warning, when an international agreement calls for them to inform their opposite numbers two weeks beforehand.

 

Following our recent scare over Maxim’s illness, when we thought it was possible that he had somehow contracted tuberculosis, (TB), but fortunately it turned out to be water on the lungs – easier to deal with even if it was uncomfortable and slightly restricts some of his more adventurous activities, I was intrigued to see a report that the beginning of the year showed a high level of mortality from the disease – including six teenagers and four children, in the Chui region alone – apparently the first time that such young people have died.  That gave the incident a whole new significance.

 

I almost wanted to cheer when I saw a report about some comments made by the governor of the Issyk Kul province when he criticized the opaqueness of many of the statistics about the number of tourists that visit the region.    At least, I thought to myself, we have an official who understands that the number of tourists, (actual people),  and the number of guest nights are different things and claiming that we need greater clarity in.

 

I had a nasty shock on Thursday evening … I was about to pack up and head off home when my computer started making beeping noises … then the screen went blank before a strange message appeared, claiming to come from the Department of Homeland Security.  It accused me of having all sorts of nasties on my computer – including pirated software and copyright material downloaded through Torrent and such programs.  The message said that my computer had been “blocked” and I could avoid prosecution by popping down to my local Supermarket and pay a “fine” by buying an envelope, (a sort of money wire system that I had never heard of before but is apparently quite widely used in the states), for USD300 and then typing in the reference number after which my computer would be unlocked remotely.  I had forty eight to comply or else they would send the “heavies” round, (oh, yes, they did say the police without any direct reference to obesity), and confiscate the computer.

Yeah … sure.  Although it was generously littered with logos of different (US)  government agencies and various software manufacturers … it certainly didn’t seem real …  The 48 hours was also a bit of a giveaway … “do it … and do it NOW!”, don’t stop and think about it or else you might just realize that it’s not what it purports to be:   I can’t imagine, for example, Homeland Security offering to let “criminals” (their word – not mine) off the hook for a measly USD300 when the text also referred to lengthy prison sentences.  Oh, yes, and the text … it was very strangely worded; hardly good English, or American for that matter.

A quick internet search, (on another computer – because mine was “blocked, after all), and I discovered a whole host of references to this “hostageware” – now that does sound American.   How it got past the Virus checker, Malware and anti-Spyware software on the computer I can’t say but, although it took a little while, we found a way round the inconvenience of having the computer hijacked and I am back in business again.  It may not have been “a dark and stormy night …” but it was certainly long and hot … and my temper was getting pretty tested by five o’clock in the morning when I eventually dozed off for half an hour.

One good thing, however, came out of the experience … in that if forced me into taking a back up of all my data files – and in the process discovered lots of Bad Sectors on my hard drive, which I am now in the process of converting into checkdisk (CHKDSK) files …

It made me wonder, however, if anyone ever fell for such tricks … like the so-called “Nigerian scams” or requests to book plane tickets for strange routings, or extended hotel stays, using credit card details for payment – usually stolen credit card details.   I suppose they must or people wouldn’t keep trying them …

Mind you, if I had been around in 1896 I probably would have been equally suspicious of reports about a Gold Rush up on the Klondike.

 

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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:

Tags: Expat, In_the_News, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards