Feeding the Beast

I point you to this blog by a friend of mine, who spent a day at Manas Airbase in Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrygz authorities have given the Americans 6 months to vacate. The US is now considering its options as Manas is the key logistical hub for operations in Afghanistan, and the only American base in Central Asia.
There are some who think there's still time for the US to bargain with the Kyrgyz over the lease, or at least try to work out an agreement with Russia. Most observers think the Russians are behind the decision. They don't want the Americans in their former backyard, although they back the transit of non-lethal goods through the region. It's a kind of payback for the proxy conflict America orchestrated against the Soviet Union during its own Afghan war in the 1980s.

Tashkent

Little time to say much about my first trip to Uzbekistan. But I will tell you what I saw. Chorsu Bazaar. Mutual curiosity as locals viewed a stranger and he watched them back. Warm fresh bread, spices, lemons, pomegranates and a great many policemen. One dragged a frightened young boy away. Tension as a crowd gathered, and voices were raised, market women flapping about like flustered crows powerless to stop the abduction. "It's illegal for children to work in the market," one onlooker said. That's one way to deal with the problem.

Activity monitored. It's the same at Khast Imom, the state-sanctioned religious centre. At the base of a magnificent minaret a police hut. But Tashkent is a pleasant city, wide streets and calm. A little subdued perhaps. And while it's my temptation to write about the negatives, I did meet good people, creative people. Those who are determined to make a difference.

Welcome to Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan's consular office is on a side-street near Almaty's main park. The embassy is a large yellow house set back from the road behind a high brick wall. The consulate is it's smaller annexe. Before you can enter, you must stand under a roofed terrace that juts across the pavement. Moody security men emerge from a guardroom from time to time to direct the luckiest individuals to a side-gate, through which they enter the compound down a breeze-block walled pathway.

At 2pm one Friday afternoon, around forty people were gathered outside waiting to have their visas processed, Uzbeks who needed 'exit visas' renewed, Tajiks and Afghans looking for transit visas that would enable them to cross Uzbekistan on their travels home. I wanted a tourist visa.

By 6pm the temperature had fallen to -6 and there was still a sizeable, increasingly angry crowd. A lucky few of us were upgraded to a bench inside the heated guardroom.

It was a plain room with yellowing walls. Next to the bench were two tatty chairs, their broken backs repaired with sellotape and wire. The guards sat at two mismatched desks pushed together. On one of the desks was a computer and monitor displaying high-resolution close-circuit tv.

The computer was locked inside a metal box.

Quite how we managed to be the last people admitted had something to do with my guardian's unwavering determination, and her inexhaustible supply of contacts in the right places. But after waiting for six hours, we were taken inside. Every other dejected applicant had been told to come back the following Monday.

This room was different. It was partitioned in the middle from floor to ceiling by a counter with blacked out windows. Yellow walls and a table with scissors and glue for fixing your passport photos. How thoughtful of them.

I got my visa in the end. I am grateful to the nervous young civil servant with a paunch. He'd just started his job apparently, so things were taking longer than usual to process.

And I wondered: Can you tell what kind of people run a country by the lamentable condition of their consular services? Or by their transparent disregard for citizens and foreigners alike before they have even arrived?

On a warmer note:
Did you know? Uzbek lemons are orange, and they're wonderful.

Winter in Tajikistan

In my previous post I promised to write about the miserable conditions afflicting ordinary people in Tajikistan.

I filmed a report in November that looked at the possibility of another winter in which frequent powercuts would cripple the country. The authorities promised 'no cuts' for residents in Dushanbe. But earlier this week, power rationing in the Tajik capital was sure enough imposed - just eleven hours of electricity per day. And if you think that's bad some regions of the country have no power at all. Much of the reason behind the cuts are to do with poor infrastructure and a reliance on giant hydro-electric projects which the Tajiks can't afford, and which won't solve all their problems.

A mountainous country, Tajikistan benefits from having hydro-electric power resources. But they have been forced to over-rely due to bad relations with their neighbours. Uzbekistan stopped transporting Turkmen electricity to Tajikistan in December over a pay dispute. And the end result? Tajiks shiver.

Further down the line, Uzbek farmers will suffer because they won't have any water to grow their crops this summer. Why? Becuase the Tajiks are draining their reservoirs, vital sources of regional water supplies, in their efforts to keep warm.

Retro FM

Driving along Almaty's avenues (yes I'm one of those road hogs now) it gives me great pleasure to tune in to Retro FM 91.7, where all the old Russian classics get played. I love the Jingle 'RetroFM!!!' and strangely I feel nostalgia for all these old pop songs I never heard before. It's clearly hard-wired. and my favourite hit is by a woman called Natasha Korolyeva. It's called Malinkaya Strana which means little country.

Natasha bears a passing comparison to Paula Abdul and she married a strip-dancer called Tarzan. The whole experience oozes kitsch, and well, I owe her for helping me learn a little extra Russian. Thank you Natasha, you little minx.

Malink-aya Strana, Malink-aya Strana, Kto minye razkachat Kto pakajat, Gde Ana Gde Ana, Tam Gde Sigda Visna. Little country little country, who can tell me, who can show me where she is where she is? There where always it is spring.

I promise to write about Tajikistan next time. It's a little country, but it's certainly not spring there.

Krishna Conscience

On a pleasant few acres of farmland outside Almaty, Hare Krishna devotees are counting down their final few weeks. When their temple is destroyed they will have nothing left. They still graze their sacred cows and bulls, and a few vegetables still grow in the allotments they have cultivated, but garbage once more litters the banks of a lake they shared with the villagers because no one bothers to collect it anymore. Very soon they will abandon their farm altogether.

The Kazakh Religious Organisation Society for Krishna Consciousness lost their rights of ownership following legal battles with the local government that lasted for five years. Over that period, the diggers came and destroyed many of the private homes in the village owned by Krishnaites (once without warning, in mid-winter), and they will come a final time to raze the makeshift farmhouse temple.

The Krishnas cannot prove it but allege that someone with great power and influence is forcing the local authorities to bring questionable lawsuit after questionable lawsuit at great expense, as the real estate is prime location. Their plight has received plenty of coverage by local and international media, but the airtime and column inches haven't saved the farm.

I learned that other minority religions in Kazakhstan are also finding themselves in trouble with the authorities. Meanwhile a new draft law will force all religious organisations to undergo a complex system of registration before they can practice. The penalties for not doing so will be high. Human rights observers think this is all to do with a paranoid government seeking to prevent religious groups entering politics, or keeping unconventional faiths that don't fit in with the ideal Kazakhstan image at heel (ie. anyone that isn't Russian Orthodox or Moderate Islamic).

So this is either a case of discrimination laced with corruption or a local government's legitimate pursuit against an organisation that has flouted the law of the land. But since the end of Communism, quite a few years ago now, the law surrounding private property remains fuzzy and full of loopholes. One can't help asking why the local authorities won't give the Hare Krishnas the benefit of the doubt.

Up in Astana, the extraordinary Foster-designed pyramid, the Palace of Peace and Harmony, is supposed to be a place of worship for all religions. President Nazarbeyev wants Kazakhstan to be a host for peace and dialogue between faiths, and his country will rightly or wrongly be chairing the rights and security watchdog the OSCE in 2010.

They may be vegetarians and look funny but surely it wouldn't do any harm for the Kazakh government to start by being nice to the Hare Krishnas if it's really serious about being a crucible of interfaith dialogue?

Side note:
The Krishna bulls have a last laugh with a nosy journalist:

Auto-theft Fuckup

I have to mention the break-in of BBC's Toyota 4wd the other day. One rainy evening leaving the office we approached the car. I took out the key and went to open the driver's door only to discover someone had smashed the rear side window. Oh dear we've had our shopping nicked (we'd left bags in the back). But no. I opened the front door and discovered a body slumped across the steering wheel. The criminal-looking skinhead meekly roused himself from a boozed slumber only after the police arrived. His defence: "It was cold and wet so I took shelter. The car had already been broken into". Curiously enough, documents had been taken from the glove compartment but alleged miscreant wasn't carrying them. The police ordered a statement to be made back at the station. I wasn't there, but I understand they weren't very nice. They extort bribes in the form of meaningless fines and rarely do their job properly. But that is another story.