Postcard from Bishkek

If last week was a Three Day Week, this week has been a Four Day Week.

Friday marked the end of Ramadan, and is known here as Orozo Ait, (although elsewhere in the Muslim world it has different names – for example: “Eid al Fitr”), and is a public holiday.  Because it is based on the Muslim Calendar, which is governed by phases of the moon and is shorter than the 365-day calendar that we usually use, it is a “moveable feast” and the date of the festival varies from year.  Technically, the actual date depends on the sighting of the new moon and although it is possible to predict when this will be, many of the orthodox usually wait for the official pronouncement from Mecca.  This can make life a little awkward, however, and so many countries – especially “secular states” like Kyrgyzstan – predict the likely day and declare that the “official” holiday.  The result is that across Muslim world, holiday can celebrated on different days.  This year, the faithful in some countries celebrated on September 9th and others on the 10th.  Even so, the official order declaring Friday as a non-working day was only issued during the week, and caught me a bit by surprise.

To make matters worse, the day before the holiday is also a short day … ending one hour earlier than usual so that everyone can get home and prepare for the celebrations.

So we have had another short working week and have another “long weekend” for people to relax and enjoy themselves.

That may be good for Issyk Kul – Kyrgyzstan’s our tourist “Mecca”: our “Costa de la Sol”, our “Côte d’Azure”.  In a normal year the “Pearl of the Tien Shan” attracts many hundreds of thousands of tourists – mainly from Kazakhstan, but also with substantial numbers from Siberia and Uzbekistan.  There is usually a fair number of Kyrgyz citizens holidaying by the lake – but most only go for the short breaks, over the weekend – they have work to get on with and the prices are usually too high for most local people.  You will see a smattering of Western tourists, (from what is quaintly referred to here as “the far abroad”), but not that many – it’s too far to come for “Sun, Sand and Sea”, (well – Lake), as they have their own sun traps closer to home, cheaper with more facilities and, anyway, the main attractions of Kyrgyzstan for them are different: the mountains, the nomadic culture, the Silk Road, and so on.  This year, however, for obvious reasons, there haven’t been that many visitors to Kyrgyzstan.  Most tour companies are reporting that business is down to about a third of what is was last year, and that was already down on the level of 2009.  The authorities in Issyk Kul report that the number of visitors to the lake this year was half of what it was last year – just 170,000 compared to 381,500 last year, and 396,300 the year before.  The majority of those who went to the lake over the summer were locals, i.e. Kyrgyz citizens who took advantage of the lower prices but, once again they went mainly for the weekends.  I am told that during the week the resorts that line the Northern shore were relatively deserted.

I know that I keep going on about the unreliability of statistics, but I am amazed to see figures like 381,500 and 396,300 – as we often hear figures quoted in the region of a million when it comes to discussing how many visitors Kyrgyzstan entertains each year.

The fact that most of the visitors were locals means that Kyrgyzstan won’t have earned much in terms of foreign currency out of the season.  At least, however, the tourists who did go provided work for those employed in Issyk Kul, but it must have been a poor year for those who are normally able to earn enough over the short summer season to sustain themselves throughout the rest of the year.

It has also meant that the industry has woken up, at last, to the importance of developing a domestic tourism market – something that I have been arguing for some years.  It’s not a panacea and won’t solve all our problems in the industry, but a strong domestic market should help to cushion the blow when the international market “fails” for some reason.  It should, also, bring a number of other social benefits.

This is reflected in the new draft strategy for the development of tourism until 2015, and I am pleased to see this.  The document also proposes a whole host of new regulations, which aren’t so welcome but they are aimed at trying to improve the level of service so, provided they are introduced and implemented properly – transparently and fairly – I suppose they should help.  All in all, it is quite a good document, but one thing that worries me about it is that there is little in it about how to deal with the effects of two of the potential threats that I see to tourism in Kyrgyzstan … the effect of Global Warming and “Peak Oil”, (the effect on the global economy, and especially transportation), as the world’s available resources of oil are depleted and, in particular, as we reach the point where the extraction of oil starts to entire a decline).  There are nodding, passing, references to Global Warming but nothing about “Peak Oil”.

I am sorry for spending so much time on tourism, “contemplating my own navel” as it were, but it’s been a fairly important part of my week – occupying a fair amount of my time.  Well, I do run a tour company, after all.

The “big news” of the week is of course the preparations for the parliamentary elections.  Now there are a total of twenty nine parties, (out of the fifty seven who originally registered), that have submitted and had approved their lists of candidates.  The campaign was due to start on Friday – which was, of course, a holiday, so it got off to a slow start – although I could hear the loudspeakers vans as they drove along Prospect Chui this morning.  There’s a lot of concern about how the campaign will be conducted, safety and security.  So much so, the Roza Otunbaeva has said that in the event of civil disorders it may be cancelled/postponed.  I was surprised to see this announcement.  I am not surprised that the authorities are considering the possibility – that’s their job, and I don’t know what pressures led to the statement, but all the same I am surprised that they’ve gone public with the announcement.  It seems to me a clear signal to anyone who may “benefit” from maintaining the uncertainty in the country about how they can ensure this.

Anyway, preparations are well under way … and we are keeping our fingers crossed for a trouble free campaign and the holding of a successful election.

The situation in the South continues to be somewhat tense, which is hardly surprising considering what they went through.  I haven’t been there but have spoken to several people who have and I have to confess that whilst I am relatively optimistic in that there are signs of reconciliation, on the one hand, I am also a little anxious about how things could yet develop.  So much depends on “goodwill” being fostered in both communities – a fair and transparent investigation and a full, frank honest approach to reconciliation.  There is much that could be learned from South Africa, the Balkans and Northern Ireland, (even if there are some signs of backsliding there).  Even in Eritrea, ETA appears to making moves to bring about a peaceful conclusion to the dispute there that has cost so many lives.  Perhaps we could use a few “experts” or “advisers” from these areas as much as the OSCE Police Advisory Group which still hasn’t yet been deployed.

One interesting attempt at “reconciliation” has been announced by the government – an amnesty for those guilty of “financial crimes”.  The conditions are pretty stringent, mind you.  To take advantage of it, for example, one has to admit the wrong doing, recompense the budget for the losses incurred, and make apply before the end of the month.

There have been a few incidents recently that have been particular worrying.  About a week ago there was an act of vandalism in a Russian Orthodox cemetery, and a couple of fire attacks on churches.  Then, this week, an explosive device was thrown over the wall of the local synagogue.  Fortunately, no-one was hurt in the incidents, but there was also a robbery during the week at the office of an Adventist charity in which the security guard was killed.  It looks as if this last incident was nothing more sinister than a robbery, but all the same …

The school year has started but it’s not quite as simple as that.  In the south the start of the academic year has been delayed until October 18th which will mean almost seven weeks of work to catch up on, and even here in Bishkek some of the kids have been told to stay at home until Monday because of a shortage of teachers.  One piece of good news, however, is that it has been announced that pupils will be allowed an element of choice in their curriculum rather than following the traditional soviet-style menu of subjects.  The standard “national curriculum” will still occupy something like 75% of the timetable and it will take some time to set up the system, but it strikes me as good news.

Slightly older students, (farmers and civil servants), are also going to benefit from an educational initiative – the chance to take up internments abroad: the farmers in France and the civil servants in Japan.

On a slightly more personal note, I have had a busy week with several meetings … including one with the British Ambassador down from Astana, and the newly appointed consul who is based in Almaty, (who must be on a sharp learning curve as his last posting was in Peru.  (He said that, in some places, the mountains were very similar, he could imagine he was still there – but in most respects everything was totally different.)  On the other hand, not all the meetings have gone smoothly.  I have been trying to arrange a meeting, for example, for a tourist with a charity but it is very frustrating because they don’t seem to want to return my phone calls and I was supposed to meet one person during the week but he always seems to call to fix up a time and place when I am in another meeting and unable to answer the phone. C’est la vie.

We’ve had almost our last tourists for the year – just a few planned groups left before the end of the month.  One group I am looking forward to meeting are the “Camel Cheese” film crew, due to arrive over the weekend.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the trouble to look at our new website: www.links.kg.  I have had some feedback and we’ll be looking to see how we implement the suggestions to make it a more useful site.  I’m not sure that we’ll be able to do everything, but we’ll look at it.  Although we added about fifty sites this week, we’ve still got a lot of links to add and the current layout, format and structure is only temporary so that we can find out all the problems.

It’s hard to cope with everything even in a full working week … yet alone a four day week.  Thank goodness the next holiday isn’t for another six weeks.

Tags: Expat, Interesting_Times, Kyrgyzstan, Life_in_Kyrgyzstan, Weekly_Postcards