Postcard from Bishkek

In many ways, this week has been a quite week but also a strange week … it has provided to be a hiatus in lots of different ways.

Take the weather, for example.  We’ve been having a hot summer – not as hot as in Moscow, of course, but it has been relatively uncomfortable for most of the summer.  This week, however, saw two days of really cool weather, and it was almost uncomfortable in another sort of way.  Having shivered in short shirtsleeves on the first I donned a thicker, long sleeved shirt for the second, and was glad that I did.  The warm weather is back now – just in time for the holiday weekend.

Tuesday marks Independence Day, a Public Holiday to commemorate the occasion in August 1991 when Askar Akaev and the leadership of the Khirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic exercised their right under the Soviet Constitution to secede from the Union and declared the Republic an independent state.  Because it falls on a Tuesday, there is no chance of anyone getting any work done on the Monday, and so the government have decreed that this week will be a six day working week, with Saturday a normal working day and Monday will be a non-working day, making a four day weekend.  I have already been told that some of the staff are planning to take an “end of season” break up at the lake.  I hope the weather stays good for them and doesn’t take a turn for the worse.

Although life carries on as “normal” here in Bishkek – it is quieter.  I went out for dinner one evening and was surprised to find that there were no taxis standing on the corner where there are normally three or four.  When I did eventually find a taxi and sat in it, the driver couldn’t get the engine to start.  As he turned the ignition key the engine just spluttered and spurted.  Eventually, just as I thought I was going to have to get out again and search for another taxi in the deserted street, he got lucky and it burst into life.  As we pulled away from the kerb, he apologised and told me that he had been standing idle for over four hours, waiting for a potential client.  He was a good, safe driver, very pleasant, polite, communicative but not, (unlike so many tax drivers), garrulous and over talkative.  He also asked for just what is basically the minimum fare here in the city: 70som.  I was more than happy to pay him as I handed over a 100som note and got of the car.  Four hours of waiting … for a fare of just one pound, (a little over a Euro or one and half dollars).  It’s not so easy earning you living as a taxi driver.

I was not so happy at the end of the evening, however, when another taxi driver told me he wanted 200som for the identical return journey.  “You’ve got to be be kidding,” I said as I turned and started to walk away.  “Nu, skolko dash?”, he called after me … “How much will you give?”.  Fortunately there were other taxis around and the next one I approached quoted a fare of just 70som.  I gave another 100som note as he dropped me off outside my building.   Now, two hundred som isn’t a lot, although it was a short journey – only about six blocks and I felt he was “extracting the Michael” …

It’s been quiet elsewhere, as well.  Nothing dramatic seems to have happened in Kyrgyzstan during the week.  Djalal Abad is apparently quiet and calm, the big news from there seems to have been a lightning strike, but the city of Osh is still, apparently, fairly tense.

The Police Advisory Group from OSCE still hasn’t arrived and started work, although the head of the mission, (Marcus Mueller, a Swiss diplomat with long experience of work here in Kyrgyzstan – so he should have a good understanding of the underlying situation), is here and in the middle of various rounds of discussions.  Even so, Melis  Myrzakhmatov, the Mayor of Osh leapt into prominence in last week’s news taking everybody by surprise, (everyone outside Osh, at least), is just as opposed to their presence as he ever was … so Marcus Mueller is not going to have an easy time of it.

This isn’t the only controversy simmering away, for example controversy rumbles on over the reports in the foreign media, which are seen as having been one-sided; over accusations of the role in recent events of the police and army, which are predominantly Kyrgyz in composition and, of course, the effectiveness of the government in handling the sequence of events.   There was a report from the influential International Crisis Group, (ICG), which got a lot of coverage in the international media, but scant mention here – which is often the case.  As usual, it makes a lot of very good, telling points … and even if people find things in it with which to disagree, it raises many concerns and issues which need to be addressed.    Byelorussia have again refused to extradite Bakiev.  There is considerable concern that “terrorists”, may infiltrate across borders – especially from Tajikistan where there’s just been a dramatic prison break.  There’s been a large cache of drugs found near the Tajik border – raising yet further questions about the porous nature of the border.  I think we need to keep an eye on this issue … we are likely to hear more about border security in the future.

A hiatus, of course, marks a gap of some sort, a pause, break, interruption or lull.  That implies that I think something is bound to follow.

The big event we are waiting for, of course, is the election on October 10th.  Most of the political parties which registered to take part in the election still haven’t delivered their lists of candidates to the Election Commission.  Some electioneering is taking place, in the sense that parties are beginning to make statements and announcements, but it is still fairly quiet on that front.

On more mundane matters, but more immediately, there’s the start of the new school year immediately after the holiday.  We’ve been out buying exercise books, pens and pencils, etc., but the funniest thing for me was when Maxim, (one of the “baseball kids”), walked in having had his hair cut in preparation for school … instead of the flowing blond locks it was a classic, clean cut short back and sides, just like we used to have when I was a schoolboy.  It made him look completely different and, jokingly, I even stopped him at the door and asked who he was … as if I didn’t recognize him.

(Maxim is 16, which means that he can now get a passport.  He’s eager to get one because it means he can go off to Almaty to take part in competitions on his beloved BMX – that’s if his mother will let him go.  Before he could apply for one, however, it was necessary to get his Birth Certificate … I won’t go into all the details, (it’s a long and complicated story – and involved five birth certificates in all), but when I mislaid mine I was able to obtain a duplicate over the internet within minutes, (well, although it took minutes to order 0ne it took another ten days for it to arrive in the post), which was so “painless” in comparison to the procedure that they had to go through, collecting various “spravkas” and stamps … which took them almost a whole week.  Mind you, when they had collected everything together, the clerk said “Come back tomorrow at two o’clock and they will be ready”, and they were!   Now he has to go through a similar round in order to apply for the passport.)

As well as the kids getting ready for school, the authorities are also busy preparing for the new school year – but it is not all plain sailing.  It now turns out that some classes may well have to start the new school year in tents as not all the school renovations are ready.  Melis  Myrzakhmatov has said that he doesn’t think that classes should start unless the pupil’s safety and security can be ensured.   It’s suggested that there could be as many as 100,000 children not enrolled in schools – and if they were enrolled there wouldn’t be enough teachers to teach their classes, according to UNICEF there is a critical shortage of teachers (some schools a short by about a third of the required teaching force – although the official figure suggests the shortage nationally is only about 4%! – statistics! … I can’t see how they get these figures) and, according to UNICEF, something like 24000 of them are living below the poverty line.  (According to legislation, the starting salary for a teacher should not be lower than the “minimum subsistence level” which, apparently, is currently is 4100som but in fact it is just 1000som. Is it any wonder that “teachers do not want to work at schools due to low wages” – and that “some give up after just one month in the job”?)  Teachers here, it’s claimed, “take” 50 hours a week.  I’m not sure if that means actual “teaching time” – time in front of classes, but it suggests about 200 hours a month, (although, as I understand it, the labour legislation sets limits of just 160 hours a month!), and, allowing for holidays, makes something like 1500 hours a year.  UNICEF says, however, that in accordance with international standards, the teaching load should not exceed 22-24 hours a week.  I know that there are differences between the situation that I remember when I was teaching back in the UK and that here in Kyrgyzstan today … but, oh, how all this talk  brings back memories of the arguments over the Great Education Reform Act of 1966 with its limits of 1265 hours and 195 days!

Here in the office, things have been muddling along quietly.  Even Twitter and Facebook have been relatively quiet.

During the week I had lunch with a guy from Uzbekistan, the same guy I was having lunch with on April 7th – the day of the Revolution.  He suggested that we finish our meal that had been interrupted by the revolution four months ago and I was reminded of the story about the Oxford Don who was suddenly called up for Army service during the Second World War and who, on his return after being demobbed at the end of the war, returned to Oxford and climbed to podium to give a lecture – which he opened with the words: “Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted four years ago …”.  As it turned out, it was good meal and passed off without incident.  We were both relieved that we didn’t end up reliving the event.

Svetlana has returned from Kashgar where she represented the Celestial Mountains companies in an exhibition.  I may be a cynic, but I am not that keen on the exhibitions, their great value lies not in the displays, themselves, but in the surrounding events – making contacts and that sort of thing.  She was able to do quite a bit of exploring and I am jealous because she managed to get to one place that I have always wanted to visit but haven’t yet made it: Shipton’s Arch – or is it Shiptons’ Arch.

Instead of gallivanting off to Kashgar, I stayed behind and carried on with several other projects and two, in particular, are websites that are almost ready and should be live within the next couple of weeks. The first is about yurts, the traditional dwelling of the nomadic Kyrgyz, (www.yurts.kg), and the other is a “portal” to various websites about Kyrgyzstan, (www.links.kg).  We have a small “pilot version” ready for testing.

That last one has been fascinating, and has taken most of my time over the past week as we have been scouring websites, newspaper reports and blogs for items about Kyrgyzstan.  Bloggers write about their experiences and impressions, and even where we might disagree with them, or think they might have been unfair or unlucky, it’s their account and it’s interesting to compare what they say with other accounts and our own experiences, impressions, knowledge and understanding.

Last week I wrote about an “oral history” run by a journalism class in one of the local Universities.  I was quite pleased with some of the feedback on that – especially when one person said that they were purchasing the book.  I came across a similar project recently … but there are a number of marked differences.  It is similar in that it was a research project that involved interviewing about 30 people and then transcribing the interviews for publication.  Amongst the differences are the fact that it was performed by the staff and volunteers of a Public Association – a Non Governmental Organization (an NGO) – called Labrys and it is the experience of 30 Gay and Bisexual men growing up and living in Kyrgyzstan; Also, the printed version had a print-run of just 35 copies, (yes, that’s right – it’s not a typing error – thirty five copies, I don’t suppose that Amazon will be interested in featuring it, however, it is available for download in a pdf format!).  The transcripts are not presented as a whole, but excerpts are grouped together and cited in thematic “chapters” to illustrate a general point.   I found it a fascinating – if frustrating – document.  It’s not really possible to read it in “one go”, but that doesn’t matter because so many of the pages give one something to think about – provided we haven’t already put up the shutters and donned our blinkers.

Also to follow up on what I told you last week: I mentioned the success of young Kyrgyz athletes in the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore … well, there was one more medal when Bolot Toktogonov won a bronze in the Judo competition, which means that this team of eight athletes managed to match Kyrgyzstan previous medal tally since the country started competing in the games in Winter Games of 1994.

The “Camel Cheese” film crew from What Took You So Long? have had a busy time Mongolia are now in China … unlike other film crews that we’ve worked with, their schedule is a little flexible – which is just as well as they have had some delays already, and I think they might have some more if the stories I have heard about huge camel herds in Western Kazakhstan are true.

Posts on the website, (ianbek.kg) may be a little late this week due to the holiday … but they will include more information on Svetlana’s trip to Kashgar, our new websites, and the “oral history” project from Labrys.

Tags: Expat, Interesting_Times, Kyrgyzstan, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards