Postcard from Bishkek

I was coming home from a meeting in the Hyatt tonight and it was bitterly cold, (-6 degrees Celsius, but with a wind chill factor that made it feel like -10), and slippery underfoot, so I decided that even though it wasn’t far, I would take a precaution and get a taxi.

As we drove along the main street, Prospect Chui, I noticed a huge billboard – it was in Kyrgyz, so I couldn’t understand everything that was written on it, but I did understand two phrases: 100 Jill, (100 Years), and Ishkak Razzakov.

Now the postal address of the guesthouse in Naryn is Razzakova 42, and there is a street in central Bishkek also called Razzakov, so I knew who Ishkak Razzkov was – what I hadn’t realized was that it was his 100th anniversary.  I haven’t seen any comment about it in the local media, so this came as a surprise to me.

For the record:

Iskhak Razzakov was born in the village of Khursan, in the Batken region, in 1910, 100 years ago.  He was later to describe the village as shanty town comprising 30-40 hovels with clay walls.  There were no streets, the houses were located one above the other on the slopes of a small treeless gorge.  The nearest water supply was a spring – over 2km away – and the boys would fetch water in clay jugs which they hung on a donkey.

At the age of 8 years old, he was admitted to a children’s home where he received a basic education, learning to read and write – attracting the attention of his teachers with his eagerness to learn.  They sent him to a boarding school in Tashkent where he stayed until he was 15, before entering a pedagogical institute, graduating with distinction and starting a career as a teacher of social sciences.

When he was 21 he entered the State planning agency, serving in several posts he was rapidly promoted (for example to Chairman of the agency in Ferghana in 1938 and, one year later as Chairman of the Agency for the whole of Uzbekistan – Yes, Uzbekistan, not Kyrgyzstan, but at that time they were two constituent republics of a single country: the Soviet Union).  By the time he was just 35 he was Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars.

Then he became the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kyrgyz SSR and served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party from eleven years from 1950 to 1961.  He finally retired from public office in 1967 – due to ill health, and died in 1979.  He was buried in the Kuntsevskom Cemetery in Moscow, but in 2000 his remains were returned to his native Kyrgyzstan and interred in the Ala Archa cemetery in Bishkek.

During his career he was received many awards – including four Orders of Lenin, the Labour Red Banner – twice, the Red Star and several medals and certificates of honour.

There is a bust of Razzakov in the Alley of statesmen behind Friendship house in Bishkek, and streets are named in his honour in many towns throughout the country.

Tags: For_the_Record, Kyrgyzstan, People