preparations for departure

Friday was men’s day, a national holiday, giving us a three-day weekend. I knew I’d be busy packing, but hoped I would get out for one last excursion to the mountains today. It didn’t happen. I’m completely wrapped up in sorting, packing, organizing, tying up lose ends and saying goodbyes.

On Thursday I had my goodbye gathering with about 50 colleagues. I scheduled it for lunch to keep it short and sweet. It was nice and the several bouquets of flowers I received brighten up my apartment in the midst of the chaos caused by packing.

Last night Zhenya came by and asked me if I’d take $350 in ten dollar bills, given to her by her Chinese tenants in exchange for larger money. I didn’t know if I had enough larger money that the banks would accept (they are very picky – it must be 100s, clean, not old no marks on it). I also questioned the orange color of many of the ten dollars bills, not having seen that before. She suggested we go around to banks and have them checked and didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t have time.

A little while later Sveta stopped by. She came with her married lover, Vladimir, so I could only suppose they were back together. They brought a small cake for us to share as well as some traditional earrings. However, tension flitted between them like daggers piercing the air. They interrupted each other and constantly argued over little points like an old couple. I don’t know how long they will last. They insisted I put in the earrings, which, while pretty, were extremely heavy. So I walked around in pain as the metal pulled down my ears, trying to pretend I liked them while I served them tea and listened to them bicker.

Another friend wanted to meet up the previous night and others have called for a final talk. This is the hardest period, when it’s clear that the goodbyes are final this time and when I don’t even have time to enjoy the place and the people anymore, but am just focused on what is coming next and what I have to do to get there.

The State of Bishkek

This morning, on the way to work, my head was drawn to the sight of an entire pig’s head laid out on the hood of a car, on top of a cloth. It was there together with assorted other parts and organs, apparently for sale. This was right in the center of town and led to the thought – This is one of those things I’m not going to see again after next week.

A couple of days ago I saw the equally surreal sight of a giant, old Soviet piece of farm machinery driving through central Bishkek.

It snowed for the first time in probably about a month today. There was a bit of snow when I returned from my visit to the States. Actually a good amount one weekend. But by the time I got over my jetlag and was ready to hit the slopes, it disappeared and stayed away. I have only one weekend left in which to do any skiing. I’m crossing my fingers a little more snow will fall in the next few days.

Today our lawyer was reading out loud the new laws recently passed out. “The state is going to provide members of parliament with personal rifles that can be used in case of self-defense,” he said, almost laughing. The state doesn’t have money to provide decent educations, but it has money to buy guns for all of its wealthy members.

I haven’t written much about the political maneuverings, but three short months from when it looked like Bakiyev could be removed from power, he’s now firmly in place. He managed to get the Parliament back into his pocket and to completely replace the cabinet, including the Prime Minister, with his own people.


The photo above is from an internet café near my house and also near the mosque. It reads, regarding long-distance calls via internet lines:

SUPER DISCOUNTS


Afghanistan 16 (som)

Iraq 14

(Bagdad) 7

Syria 16

Valentine's Day and Goodbye

Unlike in the U.S., here there were no large reminders or ads hung conspicuously, reminding people to buy Valentine’s gifts for their loved ones. But despite this, everyone seemed to remember it and celebrate it with more vigor and enthusiasm that even in the States.

On the day before Valentine’s day, the receptionist at my health club was handing out red glitter Styrofoam hearts on plastic sticks. She seemed disappointed when I thanked her but didn’t take one, reluctant to add any more objects to the piles of stuff I have to prepare to move.

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, a coworker left a miniature card on my desk. The woman who cleans my apartment brought me a card and a red carnation. Once I realized that people took this holiday seriously, I decided to join in and buy a heart-shaped cake and some chocolates for the office. The cake store was packed, as were the flower shops and the cafes in the evenings.

“It started to get popular three or four years ago,” Olga, my housecleaner told me. People told me that young people saw it in movies and on TV, and started to adopt it themselves.

My feeling here is that the holiday is a little less couple oriented. Those who are single didn’t seem to feel depressed about lacking a lover on this holiday. Instead, people shared their signs of love and affection to a larger group – to friends, coworkers and family, as well as lovers. Even my eastern dance teacher, who does have a boyfriend, didn’t go out to dinner with him alone. They were joined by her boyfriend’s brother and his wife.

Zhenya and Svetlana had asked me to go to the disco with them that evening. They were going to take advantage of the holiday to look for love. “We want to find husbands,” Zhenya told me.

Even though it was a Wednesday night, I was prepared to go. In all my time in Bishkek, I have never gone to a disco. I’m not too motivated to stay out late dancing with foreigners, nor with co-workers. But I thought it could be fun to join my local friends in a husband search. I even offered to help.

But at the last minute, Svetlana’s son got sick and they decided not to go. They didn’t even call to tell me they’d changed their plans. So, I ended up sitting home on Valentine’s Day evening after all.


Last night I had my going away party with my friends. We gathered at what is now my favorite café, U Bolshovo Mazaya. It’s located at the edge of town, where the city meets the view of the mountains.

On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, from 6 to 8, they offer half price cocktails. And with over 200 cocktails, they have one of the most extensive selections in town. They are especially proud of their layered cocktails – drinks in which the different layers of juice or alcohol don’t mind with each other, looking like a glass full of colorful striped sand.

As well, they have a very talented bartender, who told me he was trained in Moscow. He performed an entire show, during which the patrons stood up, watched, rapt, and clapped. He juggled, threw the bottle of open alcohol behind his back, threw the ice and caught it, and played up to the audience attention. At the end, they auctioned off the drink he made – a blue drink served in a martini glass and garnished with a banana.

Of course, they timed it well, after people had already drunk many half-priced cocktails. One man bid over $30 to give it to his date.

What I especially liked was the atmosphere. It was a wooden building, like a little cottage, with animal furs on the walls. It seemed warm and homey, like a cabin in the woods.

“This is done in the Russian style,” Gulnara’s husband Shakir said. “But the workers are Kyrgyz.”

The workers are very attentive, offering unusually good service for Bishkek. And the clientele was refreshingly varied – Kyrgyz and Russian, young and old, families and couples – they filled every table in the place and all seemed to be having fun.

I also had a very nice time. And seated with my friends, I felt grateful to be surrounded by such unique, smart, and good people. Each of them shaped my experience in Kyrgyzstan and I was very glad for that.

My local friends especially seem to be very sad that I’m leaving. I tell them I hope I’ll be back as a tourist at some point. And I really hope I will. But I know the chance of my spending an extended time here in the future is not very high.

It’s always hard to leave a place that has become like home. Especially knowing how hard it will be to maintain the ties formed here. But what makes leaving here quite a bit easier than leaving other places is knowing that there are exciting changes ahead. By focusing on the upcoming wedding and the job change, I can think a little less about what I’m leaving behind.

A Traditional Osh Chaikhana

I’m in this difficult period, just over two weeks before leaving, when I still have a lot to do, but I’m realizing that each sight and each experience could be the last of its kind. Yesterday was probably the last time that I’ll see an airplane passenger with bottles of koumiss (fermented mare’s milk) under her seat, the brown globs of fat shaking in flight. This morning might be the last time I hear the call of fresh milk from a door-to-door vendor on a Saturday morning. It’s likely the last time I’ll see a well-dressed woman put two fingers to her nose, bend over the gutter, and let snot fly.

I just got back from what will likely be my last trip to Osh. There is this urge I feel upon moving from somewhere where I’ve spent a lot of time, and am unlikely to do so again, to try to see and do everything one last time, to pack in as many sights, smells, sounds, and memories as possible. But that pressure just adds to the stress.

During the evening in Osh, my colleagues and my family gathered at a traditional chaikhana or teahouse. I’d never been to one before because Shavkat told me only men were allowed there. He promised to get me permission some time to attend, but never did. It turns out he was wrong. That while the majority of clients were men, women were definitely there as well.

The building is an open square, built around a courtyard in the traditional Uzbek style. You have to call ahead to reserve a room and say how many kilograms of plov (fried red rice with lamb’s fat, lamb, carrots and spices) you want, and make a deposit. Each group eats in a private room, cut off from the others. And the chaikhana serves nothing but plov and tea. If you want anything else – juice, water, beer, salads, fruit – you have to bring it yourself.

Nevertheless, they do a very good business. This particular chaikhana had recently taken a $20,000 loan to expand their building. When I walked around and peeped into the windows of the other rooms, I saw groups of men, a group of soldiers, a group of several, middle-aged couples. Most of them sat on the floor, on cushions and pillows cupping round bowls of tea and eating the fatty plov from communal dishes. Our room, the largest, had a long table with chairs. I wandered into the preparation room, where an old man in an Uzbek cap chopped meat, heavyset men managed the plov in giant iron bowls, and red-cheeked women carried the plates of steaming plov to the customers.

“They say that only men are able to successfully make this plov,” Nigora said. “When a woman makes it, it just doesn’t turn out.”

I told her that I liked her plov better.

“My plov is a baby version,” she said. “Since most of our foreign guests don’t
like a lot of fat, we’ve adapted it. But this is the real thing.”

“I’ll be gathering my friends here soon,” Shavkat said. “I have to treat them because I’ve found a job.”

He was recently offered a job to run a tourist camp in the mountains. It’s the perfect job for him, given his love of the mountains, and it seems to have pulled him out of his depression and apathy he’d been in while unemployed. He has already recruited his sons to be his assistants during the summer.

“What about the market stall?” I asked. The two older boys mostly manage the stall, where they sell Chinese and Uzbek dishes.

“This work is much more important,” Nigora said. “The boys should help their father. And I will take care of the stall.”

Rabbit and an Eye in the Sky

Last week I met my friend Natasha, a cancer doctor, for dinner. I hadn’t seen her in five months. In that time, she’d finished her Ph.D., a 10 year task. While she’s done with the work, she won’t officially be a Ph.D. until she gets the signed documents back from Moscow.

“That could take a year,” she said.

She shared with me the secret places where she spends time with her lover, Vladimir. Every weeknight after work, they walk on a tree-lined sidewalk on the edge of the city. It runs along a major road. Across the street rise tall apartment buildings in a dense residential area. On the other side, is a narrow strip of cafes, hotels, casinos and a church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with red neon glittering signs. Behind them, the white peaks of the mountain range rose up in a beautiful skyline.

While the upper-floor residents of the apartment buildings probably enjoyed a wonderful view of the mountains, I asked why there weren’t tall buildings, or residences on the side of the street closer to the mountains.

“It’s a park on that side, so building is not permitted,” she said.

As we walked, the sky colored and then darkened around the white mountains, a beautiful site. When it became dark, she took me to her and Vladimir’s favorite café. It looked like a standard wooden, a-frame building, with some twinkling lights out front. But inside, it was surprising warm and pleasant, with a stone fireplace, animal skins on the walls, and male waiters in black uniforms with folded white towels.

Rabbit was the house specialty and Natasha always orders grilled lamb ribs. They also had a menu of almost 200 cocktails. We sat across from the bar and I found it fascinating to watch the bartender make layered drinks – drinks in which each element remained separate from the others – looking like layers of colored sand. I asked him how he did it and he said it was a secret. After I took pictures and asked several questions, he made Natasha and I each a layered, non-alcoholic cocktail as a gift.

The waiter instructed us how to drink. We had to put the glass to our lips, and drink it slowly, but without pause.

“Over a period of 45 seconds they told us.”

By doing so, we tasted the first layer of juice, which slowly flowed into the second flavor, then the third and the fourth.

When we walked out into the darkened sky, I noticed the full moon rising over the mountains. Natasha pointed out the bulleye, the natural wonder in which the moon was surrounded by a perfect circle of black sky, then a circle of clouds.

Natasha had teared up at the thought of me leaving. “So many people are going,” she said. “And I have fewer and fewer people to talk to.” She said that only eight people out of her high school class of 24 remained in the country. As we walked down the street to meet Vladimir, where they frequently rendez-vous in secret, the eye looking down at us from the sky seemed to tell us that everything would be alright.

Wait for Me

On the rare occasions on which I watch TV, I’m happiest if I happen to come across the Russian program Zhdi Menya (Wait for Me). This was a program I also liked watching years ago in Siberia. Then, when my Russian skills were less developed, it was one of the only programs I could halfway understand – that and Posledni Geroi (the Last Hero), the Russian version of Survivor.

People from across the former Soviet Union, and sometimes even Germany, the U.S., Africa, and other places where people had connections with those in Russia come to find people they lost. Unlike U.S. talk shows that often feature people from the outliers of society, the people on Wait for Me span the range of society – with children in orphanages, grandmothers, and everything in between looking for lost parents, children, relatives, friends, first loves. The host has been the same calm, avuncular, middle-aged man for the past several years, who inspires trust and hope in the viewers.

Over the years, they seem to have built quite a database. And sometimes they are able to pair people up just by receiving letters from both of them. But more often, they either get tips from viewers after showing the stories, or they go to quite a bit of work to locate the lost person, then reunite them on the show.

Tonight, three adult children came on the show looking for their lost father. Almost ten years ago, he went to Moscow to look for work. He sent a letter saying he loved and missed them, then they never heard anything again. The daughter especially seemed heartbroken at having lost her father.

“He misses you too,” the host said, as the daughter took a sharp inhale at the sign that contact had been made with him.

Wait for Me showed a video-clip of her father. They found him in a small village, eking by on doing odd jobs. He barely had any teeth left. He said that his daughter had needed $1000 to go to Israel to work. So he’d taken a loan at 10% (monthly?) interest. The sum owed kept building up, so he went to Moscow to look for work to pay it off. He was cheated and deceived there. Feeling unable to return without the money, he lived I this village, pained with loneliness at living almost ten years without family.

“We paid back the debt a long time ago,” the daughter said through tears, after seeing the video. “You don’t owe anything. You should have just come home.”

Then they brought her father out live to greet his three children, all but one son in tears.

“Will you go home now?” the host asked the father.

“Absolutely.”

And they handed him a free ticket to Moldova. The father and daughter thanked him profusely.

An elderly woman in the audience with carefully coiffed hair stoically told the story of how she was arrested, interrogated and sentenced to hard labor for anti-Stalin school activities. She was not even 16 years old. She spent six years in the taiga, working in the cold, enduring “unimaginable things.” She recalled how they jumped with joy and danced around a cedar tree upon hearing of Stalin’s death. And waited for a long time with hope for an eventual release.

She wanted to find the three other young girls she’d been incarcerated with. Wait for me found them and showed two videos, one from Poland and one from somewhere else. Then they brought out an elderly woman who they’d invited from Lithuania. She had also been one of the group. This was the first time they’d seen each other in fifty years.

The woman looking for her friends crossed herself, then went onstage, taking herself out of her daughter’s grip.

“Oh, what a beautiful girl you were,” she cried upon embracing her former friend. “We were just girls. And now we’re old.” She talked constantly as the Lithuanian cried. “Don’t cry,” she continued. “We lived. That’s the important thing.”

She was right. They lived through the horrors in which millions upon millions died, no less than 2.7 million, according to The Gulag by Anne Applebaum, most likely a multiple of that. Even the host, immune to these kind of reunions, wiped a tear from his eye. Here were reminders of the horrible past, the past so many Russian participated in, yet prefer to deny, to forgot. Here, amongst the comparative wealth, prosperity and development, were reminders of the horror and the madness.

Amidst all the stories of pain and loss, there are enough reunions and redemptions to give people hope, to make them feel good. And that’s why I like the show. I like learning about other’s lives. And I like seeing them cry true tears of joy.

A sleepover

It’s not often I get to have sleepovers these days, as well as the late night heart-to-heart among girls that usually accompanies them.

When I stay at Nigora’s house, I sleep in the guest bedroom and she sleeps with her family in a separate part of the house. But here, she slept on the fold-out in my living room. We were enclosed in a small space, with plenty of time to talk.

As she reclined on the sofa, she told me again how she hadn’t wanted to marry.

“My father didn’t pressure me to marry,” she said. “He said as long as I married by 30, it was fine by him. But when I was 25, he said he and my mother would probably die soon. It was his duty to marry me. But if I didn’t marry soon, he probably wouldn’t be there for the wedding.”

Because of that, she married. And sure enough, her parents died within the year.

She’d told me that she didn’t want to marry, and both she and Shavkat said that she didn’t want to marry him. Shavkat said her rejection spurred him on, made him more determined that he would marry her. The way they tell it now, they make it sound like a joke. But listening to Nigora tell it as she lay on the couch, she truly didn’t want to be with him.

“I didn’t like him,” she said. “And honestly, at the beginning, I really wanted to run away.”

When I asked why, she said it was uncomfortable to be with someone she hardly knew. And, she added, his family lived more poorly than hers did.

“They never had food or money for the next day. They didn’t plan ahead. And that’s how my life has become.”

Six months later, Shavkat’s mother had appendicitis. While the doctors were
sewing her up after the operation, they sewed a large vein to the appendix. Later, when she coughed or sneezed, it ruptured and she died. She left several children who still needed to be married off, a responsibility and an expense that Shavkat assumed.

Her death made Nigora feel sorry for Shavkat and convinced her to stay. “Over time we got used to each other,” she said. “And we even learned to love each other.”

She said it as though it might be the case, even his love for her comes through clearly in his speech and actions.

“Now there is no running away from this man,” she said. “I have three sons with him.”

She was pleased to see that Shavkat is genuinely supportive of her going to America. She feared he might be jealous or upset. But instead he is happy for her and proud of her, announcing it to all the neighborhood before it was even certain.

“For him to be truly happy for me, that makes me feel good,” she said. “He passed a big test.” And she drew a plus sign in the air, his good grade.

Things worked out in the end. She and Shavkat built a life together, a life that is better than average in Osh. They’ve raised educated, polite, promising sons. While they don’t live luxuriously, neither do they lack for any essentials.

“I’ve never experienced true love,” Nigora ruminated out loud, “the kind that makes you want to drop anything for that person.” She seemed a little regretful, as though that magical moment so often portrayed in books and in media had passed her by, thereby making her life a little less full.

Nigora is coming to America!

Nigora has spent the past few days at my apartment in her quest for a tourist visa to America. And on Friday she received it. It’s a nice-looking visa with her photo on it, as well as commentary that she plans to attend a wedding and stay for two weeks.

“Do they only write that on my visa?” she asked, “or on everyone’s?”

“I suppose it’s in case the police pick you up shoplifting in California,” I said. “When they take you to the station, then they’d ask why you are in California instead of Minnesota and what happened to the wedding you said you were attending.”

She laughed in her high-pitched, girlish voice.

“I’m probably going to be the only American (person with an American visa) shuttling dishes across the Uzbek/Kyrgyz border,” she said.

“Do you think you’ll have problems?” I asked.

“Well, U.S. relations with Uzbekistan aren’t very good right now,” she said. “Maybe they will think I’m a spy or something.”

But it’s a risk she’s willing to take. “I can always try to get across the border without a passport,” she said. She did just that last week, after receiving her shiny, new Kyrgyz international passport, that cost her $150. She wanted to keep it looking new, to not mess it up with stamps.

“When you cross the border, they don’t even look at what kind of passport you have,” she said. “They just stick a stamp in there.” So instead of letting them soil her newest acquisition, she just snuck across the border.

On her way back to Kyrgyzstan, a border agent caught her and called her over.

“He figured I was smuggling gold across the border and he wanted to catch me,” she said. “So he asked to see my bags.” She didn’t even realize that he thought she was transporting gold. And she had nothing in her bags but snacks for the road.

“He asked how I could be crossing the border and have nothing with me. I didn’t tell him I’d given my dishes to someone else to take across the border. I could see the person who had taken my goods had already gotten through and they were waiting for me. I told him I was in a hurry and he finally let me go.”

She laughed. “Then he saw me cross over and retrieve my dishes.”

“You didn’t get in trouble?” I asked.

“No, I was already across, so I was safe. Plus, transporting small quantities like
I do isn’t a problem.”

“Won’t he remember you next time?” I asked.

“No, they rotate all the time.”



I accompanied Nigora to the U.S. embassy for her 9 a.m. appointment. She’d bought a new dress for the occasion, a navy blue velvet that left its gold sparkles all over my apartment floor and even in the corner of Nigora’s eyes, making it look like she was alternately twinkling or tearing up.

Several other people had 9 a.m. appointments. One was an attractive young couple. The male, from Tashkent, was a Master’s student at Northern Illinois University. He met his new wife, a Kyrgyz from Osh, online. Now he wanted her to get a visa in order to join him.

“I’ve been in the U.S. since I was 18 and have already grown used to life there,” he told me in perfect English.

His pretty new wife looked nervous. “She’s afraid they won’t give her a visa,” he said. I was impressed at the state of the world’s communications when an Uzbek in Illinois can meet a Kyrgyz in Osh over the internet and later marry. They seemed like the type of hardworking, well-meaning people that could be a valuable addition to the U.S. population. I hoped her application would be approved.

Everyone waiting out in the snow outside the well-fortified compound looked nervous. After showing one’s passport to a security guard in an enclosed booth, people were let through the first metal gate one by one. They had to go alone. And no bags were allowed. But there is no place to leave the bags, other than with relatives willing to stand out in the snow, or in a car.

Even in her new attire, and leaving off the scarf she usually wears, Nigora looked less modern and worldly than the other people in line. According to my Kyrgyz boss, Maria, that is probably why she was easily approved.

Nigora later told me about going through the second security checkpoint.

“They told me I had to turn off my cell phone,” she said. “And I tried to, but it wouldn’t turn off. I told them I didn’t know how.” She laughed. “Then the woman who checked me told me that I had to push the door handle to the left to get through the next door. They must have figured that if I didn’t even know how to turn off a cell phone, I couldn’t manage to open a door. However, I was grateful. Because it was my first time and I really didn’t know how to open the door.”

I had written a letter in support of Nigora, and she’d come prepared with a complete folder of applications – showing she was leaving behind her children, her husband, her home and her work – enough social and material capital to ensure that she’d be back. They must have believed her, because she was only asked a few quick questions, then approved.


“When he told me to come back the next day at 3, I didn’t understand that meant I’d been approved,” she said. “I should have realized that he took my passport in order to put the visa in it. But I asked him, ‘Have you made a decision yet?”

The Kyrgyz girl had been sent away due to a problem with one of her documents. She’d have to come back. And a Russian woman in line with Nigora was approved. She’d come to the U.S. once before – to visit family or friends there. But she worked as a nanny during her visit, earning $400 a week. Now she wants to come work for another spell, then plans to return to Kyrgyzstan. I doubt she told the officer that she plans to work. However, she seemed to be another example of a hardworking, well-meaning person.

Plenty of people are envious of Nigora’s success.

“I’ve heard it’s very hard to get a U.S. visa,” our well-off office manager said. My friend Zhenya, whose mother lives in New York, said outright that she was very envious. Zhenya has been turned down for a visa herself. She said I was Mother Theresa to give Nigora such an opportunity. And I could see the wheels click in her head, thinking that maybe if I wrote a letter in support of her, she’d increase her chances. And several people on Nigora’s street also unsuccessfully applied.

Nigora was shocked to hear that the interview cost $100. “So those who are rejected still have to pay the $100?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s probably a way of limiting the people who come to those who are most serious.”

“My poor neighbors,” she said.

While plenty of well-meaning people are unfortunately rejected, and thus add to the image of the U.S. as an unwelcoming place, both Zhenya and Nigora’s Uzbek neighbors had intentions of staying for the long term. Zhenya will probably get there eventually. Her mother recently got a green card. And once she gets citizenship she’ll begin the process of trying to bring over her daughter and grandson. But in hopes of speeding up the process, Vika applied this year for the green card lottery.

She’s certain she’s going to win it this year because I helped her fill out the forms.

“That doesn’t make a difference,” I told her.

“I know. But I feel like you touched it and your involvement is going to make it happen.” I’d hate for her to be let down because of me.

Zhenya’s mother’s risk paid off in the end, but at the cost of having almost no interaction with her only grandson and almost completely missing his childhood.

So Nigora is set. At age 48, she’ll cross the ocean for the first time. She’ll see the ocean for the first time. And I hope she’ll collect memories that will last her a lifetime. I hope that I can open my country and my home to her in a way that approximates the hospitality she offered me in Osh.

A new Krygyz film

Yesterday evening I attended a screening of Birds of Paradise, a new Kyrgyz film about border issues, drug trade and life near Jalalabat. It’s only the third film I’ve seen where Kyrgyzstan has been the setting.

The first was Beshkempir, a Soviet film that made Kyrgyzstan seem primitive and dirty, where kids rolled around in mud and played with animals. Then recently, there was Sunduk Predkov, a Kyrgyz/French effort about a Kyrgyz man living in Paris who brings his French fiancée home to meet his family. That film played the distinctive elements of Kyrgyz life a little over the top. However, the scenery was beautiful. And it offered at least a partially accurate representation of the life and culture, especially the emphasis on marrying within the ethnicity.

This film, about a young, female journalism student who goes to the border to document the issues there and falls in with a comic gang of smugglers, was not as good as Sunduk Predkov. It felt roughly strung together. The acting was sometimes weak. And the character development was not very deep. But it did feature the famous ostrich farm, located just outside Bishkek. These birds, that sell for $5,000 (and the eggs for $50-100 each) were the Birds of Paradise. And truly, for that kind of money, the potential income is a type of paradise. And the farmer who thought about raising ostriches in Kyrgyzstan definitely a unique and creative person.

Best of all, almost the entire cast was there are the packed screening. Before the performance I saw all the faces lined up across the stage that I’d later see on screen – including an Ethiopian with perfect Russian who has made Kyrgyzstan his home. And while seeing them on screen, I knew they were with me in the small auditorium of the Dom Kino (Movie House).

The female lead said she searches on the internet obsessively, in English and Russian, for news of the film’s success. That hope, that effort, and that pride in their work was what I liked best about the film.

death of the pilgrims

Yesterday I flew to Osh for a short visit. Upon landing at the Osh airport, I waited outside, as usual, for my luggage. And I saw many people, adult men, women, elderly, crying.

“What’s going on?” I asked Malan.

“Did you hear about the bus crush in Saudi Arabia?” he asked. I had read that 22 Krygyz died in a bus accident while returning from Hajj, the trip to Mecca.

“Yes.”

“Well, they were all from Osh and the surrounding regions. An empty plane flew out this morning to collect the injured and it will return this evening. These people are waiting for their family members to return.”

“I thought they’d banned buses traveling to Mecca this year,” I said. That was what he’d told me last time, when we walked through the airport crowded with people seeing off their relatives.

“They did. They flew to Dubai, then took a bus to Mecca from there,” he said.

He told me the bus was traveling from Mecca to Dubai at high speed. It hit another bus, also traveling at high speed head on. And then another vehicle hit the bus from the back.

“The bus in the middle was the one with the Kyrgyz pilgrims,” he said. That would mean that those seated in the front of the bus would be crushed in the first crash, and those at the back in the second, leaving only hope for passengers seated in the middle.

He told me that Saudi Arabia has a law that requires people who die there to be buried in Saudi Arabia.

“The Kyrgyz officials got the names of those who died and are injured. Then they quickly went around to visit the families in person to tell them the news and to get their written permission to allow their relatives to be buried in Saudi Arabia. They didn’t want the public to panic.”

The relatives requested that their lost ones be buried as close as possible to Mecca.

“Does this make anyone question their religion?” I asked. “They were in the process of a holy pilgrimage and so many died? Does it make them wonder why God would let that happen?”

“No,” he said. “People die going to Mecca every year. Last year several elderly people died because they couldn’t handle the long bus trip through the cold of Russia. Then people die due to being pressed by the crowds. It can even be considered a source of pride to die so close to Mecca.”

“These people don’t look very proud,” I said, as I watched a man in a baseball cap hug an older woman as fat tears dropped from his eyes.

“That woman in the hat..” Malan said. “She is saying, ‘Whenever I came before, she was always the one to greet and welcome me. Now there will be nobody to greet me.’ She lost her mother. And it seems she’s come back from Russia.”

Malan said they showed the list of the dead on TV. “Most of them were older, born in the 1940s and 50s. But I saw a woman born in 1972 and her husband.” He looked sober.

“This is going to stay with their relatives forever. Many young people who’ve managed to do well send their parents to Hajj. Some do it as a gift. Others do it as a way to achieve social standing. Even if their parents don’t really want to go, it’s hard for them to reject it. And know they must think to themselves that they sent their relatives to their deaths. If only they’d given them $2,000 cash instead and told them to do whatever they liked with it, they would have lived well. But in an effort to do something good, they instead killed their mothers and fathers. They will never be able to forget this.”

I could only start to imagine the profound regret they must feel, the if onlys, the what ifs, the blame - unfair but present nonetheless.

I was there at the Osh airport when people were departing for Mecca. It was festive – more people than I’d ever seen before at that little airport. Vendors had set up shashlik grills with little plastic tables and chairs. The smoke curled upwards and through the crowds of festive people dressed in black, encircling their relative about to make the biggest trip of his or her lifetime. They’d come back with sins forgiven, ready for heaven, ready to assume a place of respect in the local hierarchy. They couldn’t fathom that they might not return at all.

A weekend getaway

After two weeks of hectic wedding planning and family reunions, Mark and I finally escaped for a weekend. And what a wonderful place to escape. We found this cabin (Craig’s cabin) in the Pennsylvania woods, an isolated log cabin on 42 acres. We had stuffed deer and wild turkey on the walls, a screened in patio overlooking a mountain pond, and a fireplace. Twice a day, we went out to feed the trout and watched the circles made by their splashing expand and then disappear. Fantastic.

A weekend getaway

After two weeks of hectic wedding planning and family reunions, Mark and I finally escaped for a weekend. And what a wonderful place to escape. We found this cabin (Craig’s cabin) in the Pennsylvania woods, an isolated log cabin on 42 acres. We had stuffed deer and wild turkey on the walls, a screened in patio overlooking a mountain pond, and a fireplace. Twice a day, we went out to feed the trout and watched the circles made by their splashing expand and then disappear. Fantastic.

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon

Art from Scrap Metal Shop Near Wellsboro, Pennsylvania

House in rural Pennsylvania with outdoor snow globe

A Trip to Illinois

During the holidays I took a short trip to Illinois. There I became acquainted with a new service – mobile notaries. We needed to have a document notarized and as always, were on the run. Instead of canceling our planned museum visit to go find a notary, we were able to call up a mobile notary, who would come to the museum on his bicycle to meet us. The service, including his signature, cost $5. And he showed up right on time. Very cool.

In Illinois, I took a Greyhound bus from Chicago to a rural town 1.5 hours away. I’ve taken enough Greyhounds in my life to know that the bus stations tend to be a collection point for the down and out in society. But it really disturbed me to see that on both the buses I took, a good 80 to 90 percent of the passengers were African American. That is in far disproportion to their actual representation in the population there and is a sign of their disproportionate overcrowding into the marginal segments of society.

Many people were overweight and unhealthy. At one 11:30 a.m. stop at a convenience store, the woman next to me ate Reeses Peanut Butter cups with a soda, the overweight woman across the aisle had a whole bag of junk, washing down Ritz Bitz with chocolate, and the man behind me crunched on Fritos while sipping a large soda.

While downtown Chicago is beautiful, the inner city areas where many of the passengers disembarked were run-down and depressing. They looked much worse than many areas of Kyrgyzstan.

It’s scary how in America, it’s possible for middle and upper class people to live with virtually no contact with these types of neighborhoods, with this type of life. It’s possible to almost forget that people live this way. And most people probably prefer to forget, because to admit such inequalities would be shameful.

Snow-free Christmas

It seems Kyrgyzstan is one of the only places in the world with a real winter, however mild. In Minnesota, the second coldest state after Alaska, there was no snow at all this Christmas. Luckily, the local ski slopes manufactured some snow themselves, so we were still able to pretend it was winter enough to go snowtubing.

Chocolate for Men

This is a new product, Chocolate for Men, by Nestle that appeared on the Bishkek shelves shortly before the holiday. Just to be rebellious, I bought one for my fiancé, then ate it. On the inside, it has little stamped pictures of women crossed out, like a no smoking sign on each square. It costs 30% more than the same amount of gender-neutral chocolate. I’d be very interested in hearing how and why Nestle came up with this idea.

Interesting developments in Central Asia

It doesn’t seem right to be writing at 5:20 a.m., especially when I’ve been up for most of the night. I’m at the airport, on my way home for the holidays. If anything below doesn’t make sense, you’ll know why.

This afternoon I heard a squeal come from my Maria’s, my boss’s office. She soon came out. “The President of Turkmenistan has died!” she said, with a smile. She is Kyrgyz. A former Turkmen colleague of hers SMSed her the news.

“What do you expect will happen?” I asked.

“Hopefully some positive changes.”

A Turkmen friend of mine recently got married in a hurry to a Georgian, for fear that her government was soon going to pass a law banning marriages to foreigners. From what I’ve read about Turkmenistan, Turkmenbashi’s portrait was everywhere. I wonder how they are going to dispose of, or memorialize, his face.


In Kyrgyzstan, the entire cabinet has resigned. The government is without an executive branch, except for the President. Even Kulov, Bakiyev’s duo, has put in his resignation.

What I told Maria I didn’t understand what is going on, she said they are playing. “According to the new Constitution, the Parliament has the responsibility to form a government. But the rules are very complicated. The President and the Executive want to show that the parliament isn’t capable of forming a government. If they fail two times, then the President can dissolve Parliament.”

“And Bakiyev will remain alone in the government?”

“Yes.”

“He is hitri,” I said, a Russian word that means clever, somehow weasel-like. It doesn’t have a good direct translation.

“Yes, he’s not very smart, but he’s very hitri.”

The Kyrgyz government just goes from one crisis to the next. It’s only just over a month since the almost November revolution. Clearly, the President is still bitter over the threat to his rule. And he’s determined to discredit Parliament wherever possible.


In other news, the irresponsibility of Americans is getting play in Parliament. An American employee of the Manas military base shot and killed a Kyrgyz truck driver at 3 p.m. one afternoon. He claimed the man was behaving aggressively. At 3 a.m. I’d understand. But at 3 p.m., it’s harder to argue. The government claims the shooter had just been transferred from Iraq two weeks earlier and was still in a state of excitement. General opinion seems to be there was no evident reason to shoot this man.

And at the same time, the case of an American who hit and killed a Kyrgyz with a car in July, but was protected by immunity, is being brought up by parliamentaries. They want to remove immunity from employees of the military base and hold people responsible for their actions.

The three-day disappearance of Jill Metzger, also an employee of the U.S. military base, still remains a mystery. A parliamentarian says she just went for a walk. The situation is fishy – a video surveillance camera shows her leaving the Tsum department store by herself and she apparently had hair dye stains on her hands when she was found. But she claims she was held by force and beaten. No one knows for sure what happened except her, and both she and the U.S. government are being strangely silent. If there was a risk to U.S. citizens, one would think they’d tell those of us living here what happened. This is only conjecture, but one theory I came across on the web is that she was kidnapped by someone from the nearby Russian military base (which is located in the town where she reappeared). The diplomatic discomfort that would cause could explain the silence.


Though Kyrgyzstan has a well-developed network of radio-called taxis, as well as plenty of on-street competition, it can still be hard to reliably order a taxi.

Recently, I called a company at 7 and asked for a taxi to pick me up at 8:30.

“Call a bit later,” I was told.

“Why?”

“There are no cars available now.”

“I don’t need one now. I need one at 8:30. And I’m going to be on the phone until then. I’d like the taxi to be here when I get off.”

I could hear the dispatcher talking to her manager. “We can’t do that,” she said.

I said I’d call another company. Which I did. They took my order OK, but at 8:30, there was no taxi. I called again and they sent one out after the second call.

This evening I called at 10:15 and asked for a taxi at 10:45. At 10:45 there was no taxi. I called again.

“It’s already left,” the dispatcher told me. “It will be there in five minutes.”

So much for timeliness.


I’m very happy to be on my way home for the holidays. It’s too bad that I’ll miss my work holiday party, as well as the holiday celebrations I’m sure I could have experienced with my local friends. But it’s been too long since I’ve seen my loved ones and I’m really looking forward to the time with family and friends.

It should also be a productive trip. After two months of cross-oceanic wedding planning, we’re finally going to visit potential reception sites ourselves. Within a few days, we should have a definite date and location.

Spelling and passports

My friend Zhenya just called to ask me a word that rhymes with beak.

“Peak,” I said.

“How about silk?”

“Milk.”

She said it was her son’s homework. That he’d done as much he could and she was helping him. But she didn’t know how to find these rhythms.

“What about look?” she asked.

At that point, I realized her son was being lazy.

“That’s easy,” I said. “Ask Algubek to try.”

I heard him make a halfhearted effort. But at 10:30 p.m., it was probably easier just to get his mom to do his homework. Rather than finish his homework for him, I gave her a suggestion.

“Have him write out the entire alphabet. Then go through it one letter at a time, replacing the first letter. Start with A. Aook. Nope. Then B. Book. There it is.”

She seemed to like that idea.

I must admit that getting calls asking me to find rhyming words for beak and silk is one of the things I like about living overseas. It’s unusual, unexpected, a little glimpse into what non-native English speakers spend their evenings doing.


Today Nigora turned in her application for an international Kyrgyz passport. The Kyrgyz have two passports – one for internal use, and a separate one for those who want to travel outside of the country. They weren’t accepting applications at all for the last two weeks. And the entire first week of January is going to be an official government holiday. So Nigora paid $150 for 8-day service, a huge amount of money for an average person in Osh.

But she needs the international passport in order to apply for a U.S. visa. And if she doesn’t get it, she can’t come to America. This is her once in a lifetime chance to see the West (she only saw Bishkek for the first time seven months ago).

In the period when the passport office wasn’t taking applications, she spent her days running around collecting any and all papers and documents that might be needed. In the evenings, she went over her checklist to make sure she’d done everything she could.

“At this point, nothing depends on me,” she said, after she’d collected everything she could. “It only depends on whether or not they’ll accept my application.”

We both feared that they might not. Or that they might angle for some kind of a bribe. I asked if she thought they were doing so.

“I don’t think so because everyone there is ready to offer money in order to get the passport they need. But they say they aren’t accepting applications, that they don’t have any passports available now.”

So we were both relieved when they took her application today and promised it back by the end of the month. I was more worried about her getting a Kyrgyz passport than I am about her getting a U.S. visa.

Given all the kind people who have shown me so much hospitality overseas in the past years, I’m very excited to finally be able to reciprocate and bring someone to my country who wouldn’t otherwise have the chance to visit. I wanted to invite my Siberian friend Ayuna as well, but unfortunately she’s expecting to deliver a child in the same month I invited her to come.

Kazakhstan in daylight

I regularly fly in and out of Almaty, but since the flights always leave and arrive at the crack of dawn, until yesterday, I’d never seen Kazakhstan in daylight.

The scenery between the border and Almaty was pretty similar to what I could see in the lifting blackness – snow dusted golden steppes and plains, snowy peaks in the distance, scattered small towns.

It was dark by the time we got to Almaty, but cars filled the streets in an endless traffic jam and people walked and waited for buses home from work. We drove around for a long time looking for our destination. In that time, I noticed a lot of upscale cafes and restaurants, especially Asian, and very impressive New Year’s decorations and lighting. Trees glimmered with fine lights, blue and gold bulbs resembled sheets of illumination cascading from buildings and storefronts.

“You can really feel New Year’s here, can’t you,” my colleague Aizhana remarked.

“You can tell this is a big city, not a little town like Bishkek,” Maria said.

From Almaty we transferred into SUVs and headed up a mountain to the Chum Bulak resort. The roads were remarkably smooth and the driver seemed to enjoy swerving back and forth along the curves. Then we started to head uphill. At times, it seemed almost vertical. But the road remained smooth and well-maintained. Ahead of us stretched a yellow ribbon of the lighted path leading up the mountain. A sign indicated we had 3400 meters to climb, then others indicated the progress we’d made.

At the bottom of the mountain is a famous skating rink, called Medeo. Chum Bulak is supposed to be the best place in Kazakhstan for skiing. I brought my skis here to try it out, but it seems unlikely that there will be enough snow. From our lodge at the end of the road, a five hour path leads to a glacier. It would be possible to hike from here to Lake Issyk-Kul, over the mountains that separate the two countries.

I compare this place with the Kyrgyz resort, Kashka-Suu, where we held a seminar two winters ago. There, it was cold and basic. There was no skiing available at that time, no skating, and we weren’t allowed to go up the chairlift for a view. People shivered and several returned sick.

Here, I lucked out and ended up with my own room with a private bath, reliable electricity and hot water. The room is so warm that I have to open the window. Yes, I woke up last night to find a bat in my room. But besides that, it’s really nice and comfortable. And the food is fantastic – chicken breast with melted cheese and mushrooms, stir-fried vegetables, dried fruit platters, fish baked in tinfoil. I feel like a country hick marveling at life in the big city – except we are up in the mountains!

We’ve had little contact with the people, other than the drivers and resort service staff, but they seem quieter and more reserved than the Kyrgyz – few smiles, little small talk.

It’s been a busy month, between Osh, Kazakhstan, and soon, America. But I’m glad to have the chance to at glimpse at our large and rapidly developing neighboring country.

Departure from Osh

I spent the majority of the day trying to get out of Osh. My flight was delayed for hours due to the fog, which is a common occurrence in the winter.

The airport was busier than I’d ever seen it before. Cars packed the parking lot, the road that went nearest the entrance was blocked off, and crowds of people milled around. Near the front doors, people had set up tables and chairs outside and were grilling shashlik over coals, their breath mingling with the smoke from the grill.

“People are going to Hajj,” Malan said.

“They must have become more wealthy in the past year or two for so many to be flying.”

“Buses aren’t allowed this year. People can only go by air.”

He told me it had cost $700 to travel by bus, almost $1500 by plane.

“Who can ban buses from going? And why?”

“The head mullah in Kyrgyzstan banned them. The trip is too long and too difficult. Especially going through Russia, where they have a lot of problems at the border and the temperature is cold. Last year several old people died enroute due to the difficulties. So this year, they decided not to allow buses.”

I thought that made it harder for people to afford the trip. But he thought it was OK. He said that the rich Arabs used to feel sorry for the poor people who traveled such a long distance and in such discomfort by bus.

“They’d give them $10,000 or $20,000 as a source of assistance. But they’d hand it to the driver and he’d put it in his pocket. I’ve heard such stories,” Malan said in his singsong voice, that seems to take pride in the amount and breadth of his knowledge.


Malan is a great guy. I would have suspected him of being a spy sometime in his past life if I wasn’t convinced of how important it is for him to lead a life with a clean heart, without guilt or regret for what he engages in.

He doesn’t sit idly in his free time, but is always talking to people and finding things out, from modern farming techniques to what the current political intrigues are.

We passed a group of people gathered in the city. I asked what was going on and he didn’t know. A while later, the group had grown substantially larger.

“Malan, you know everything,” I said. “How can you not know what’s going on?”

“You know, that’s the prosecutor’s building,” he said. “I heard that there is a fight between two deputies. First they stripped one of his mandate and put the other one in. Now they are stripping the second. And those are probably people there to complain.”

He paused. “You know, if someone asked me to stand out in the cold to support a deputy, I wouldn’t do it because I have a full-time job. Those are people who don’t have enough to do. And right now it’s very easy to gather such people for a protest. But if we develop to the point at which people have enough work and they are well paid, they won’t be able to find people to stand around for them.”

He showed me the café where a deputy was recently shot, a popular traditional café on a central street.

According to Malan, the deputy was sitting with some people in a separate, private room that had a window looking out onto the back of the lot. Apparently he was sitting in front of the window. And the assassin shot him through the window.

“It was so clean that there was just a single, little hole in the window. And nobody even heard anything. Even the deputy didn’t realize he’d been shot in the back of the head. They say his last words were, ‘What, did somebody turn on the heat in here or something?’ then his head fell forward onto the table.”

“Was the killer caught?”

“No, and he never will be.”


The second week of December seems to be the start date for beginning New Year’s preparations in Bishkek. I hadn’t seen any signs of the holiday when I left one week ago. But today I returned to sights of people decorating trees, to happy new year’s banners hanging across shops, and kiosks selling small plastic trees and brightly colored tinsel.

I have a very short time here. Only enough to unpack, do a quick load of laundry, and repack for a departure tomorrow to Almaty. I’ll be spending three nights in Kazakhstan at a seminar. While I’m a bit homesick for my apartment, I’ve never actually spent a night in Kazakhstan and I’m looking forward to a little exploration of my neighboring country. And I’m especially looking forward to skiing on Sunday at Kazakhstan’s premier ski resort. I’ll have to see whether it’s able to compare with Karakol.

Kara-Suu traders

Today I made a trip to Kara-Suu, the most important southern bazaar, on the border with Uzbekistan. It’s a place of contrasts. While it is an incredible generator of wealth and many average people have made their fortunes there, it’s also a very drab and depressing place.

When heading in that direction, the air becomes dusty, the fog clouds the sky and covers the land. A woman in a black headscarf and a long black coat crossed the road, in between snow-dusted fields. The fog, the emptiness, the long woman in black created a lonely sight.

Today was wholesale day, and car after car passed us loaded beyond imagination with boxes, panes of glass, rolls of blankets or fabric, tied bundles of clothing. The tires looked like they’d collapse under the weight, not to mention the roofs of the old Soviet cars.

“The fog and the bad weather don’t bother them,” our driver, Malan, said. “Business continues.”

He told me they were Uzbek traders who come to Kyrgyzstan to buy Chinese goods. They are cheaper here because of the high tariffs Uzbekistan puts on imports.

“And there are women inside those cars too. Imagine how they can fit!” He said that woman dominated the trade business because they can fight with border guards more effectively than men.

“It’s all illegal, but they find a way to get it in. They’ve been sitting there since 3 a.m. this morning. And then they have to sell it secretly in Uzbekistan. I talk to them sometimes and they tell me it’s not like here where people can sell openly.”

“Good thing you ended up on this side of the border,” I said.

“If I ended up there, I’d leave. I couldn’t live like that. People in Uzbekistan used to live better than us. But not now.”

He told me most of these traders used what’s called a black entrance – a house that is located right on the border. “The front door can be in Kyrgyzstan and the back gate opens into Uzbekistan. The owner of the house pays the border guards a certain amount so they look the other way. They act like they don’t see anything. Then the owner offers traders to allow them to transport their goods through his property for 200 som ($5).”


In the past few months, now that more promising banks are working in Kyrgyzstan, I’ve been encouraging my local friends and colleagues to think about their futures and save, even if a little. This goes very much against the mentality generated by the bank failure and the devalued currency of the 1990s – spend all you have or at least buy some of value.

Investments, especially in real estate and cattle, are a common and good way of saving money here. But plenty of people don’t have enough to buy real estate, and don’t have the time or space to raise cattle. For them, it’s a shame to have money sitting under the mattress when banks are offering 10 to 11 percent annual interest on deposits.

Also, with the very low levels of pensions offered, which are virtually impossible to live on, young people need to start thinking of their futures in a way their predecessors didn’t have to.

Today I brought some brochures about savings products to the office. Malan, our driver, Baktigul, our office manager, and Valentina, the guard and cleaner, looked at them with interest. Then they began a spirited discussion amongst themselves about what was the best way to save. The previous day, after we’d discussed savings over our chicken dinner, Baktigul calculated how much she’d have if she saved with interest over 20 days.

“It was quite a large sum,” she said, raising her hand to her neck to indicate it would be more than enough to meet her needs.

Malan put 70,000 som he’d saved into a piece of land where he hopes to eventually build a home for his retirement. “Within a few months of buying it, it wouldn’t go for less than 100,000 som. That was my good investment!”

Baktigul wondered if she’d do better than a deposit if she were to buy a calf on credit and have her parents raise it into a cow, then sell it at a profit.

I listened from a distance and thought it was great to hear three people, of three different nationalities, and three different decades, talking openly about how to best invest and prepare for the future. They all have dreams and I hope they are able to reach them.


Tonight is my seventh night in Osh. It’s been wonderful to catch up with the family, with staff, to see the city again, to feel its vibrant current. But in these kind of accommodations, it’s much tougher in the winter than the summer. I’ve actually been longing for my apartment, wishing I could have the Osh city and company with my Bishkek living standards.

I’m tired of going to sleep worried that I’m drugging myself with carbon monoxide, with timing my activities based on the availability of heating, electricity, or an indoor toilet, of sleeping till the very last minute because it’s just too cold to get up and do anything in the morning. I’m looking forward to a hot shower, to my washing machine, to the temperature-controlled climate, to the indoor toilet.

A Surprise Chicken Dinner

On Friday morning, Baktigul, our office manager, asked if I wanted her kill a chicken for dinner.

“We still have 12 and the feed isn’t worth the cost of keeping them,” she said. “We could kill one and have a soup in the office tonight.”

“Fine,” I said. I didn’t care too much either way.

When I returned to the office after the meeting, she opened the door holding a goosebumped, defeathered chicken corpse in her hand. The neighbor, Valentina, a middle-aged woman who works part-time as the cleaner and security guard, was helping her.

“The problem is that the electricity is still out and it takes a lot of gas to boil water with the generator,” Baktigul said. “So we’re waiting for the electricity to come back on, though it means dinner might be late.”

“OK, whatever,” I said, feeling this was definitely not an area for me to intervene.

When I took Malan to a meeting, Baktigul made arrangements with him to pick up some vegetables on the way back. A while later she called me.

“Do you want to invite your family to the office to eat?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, continuing to go along with the plan. If she thought there would be enough for an extra five people, fine.

When I returned in the evening, I brought some salads, fruit and pastries I’d picked up on the way. I found a large table set with a white lace tablecloth. A warm aroma of boiling broth filled the air. Malan diced dill and cilantro while Valentina and Baktigul completed the finishing touches, setting out the boxes of juice and round, yeasty lepushkas Malan brought.

By the time the family filed in the door, it looked as nice as a restaurant banquet. Baktigul set a plate of boiled potatoes and carrots in the center. Another plate held the chicken, cut into small pieces. We each received a steaming bowl of broth, into which we could put whatever we wanted. There was grated carrot salad, a red bean and onion salad, a cabbage salad, and a salad with grated beets, walnuts and mayonnaise. We had a chocolate-covered wafer cake, a selection of chocolate cookies, and bow-shaped pastries filled with cottage cheese and apples.

After all that work, the chicken turned out a little rubbery. But everything else was delicious. And best of all was the conversation. Me, Malan, Baktigul, Valentina, Nigora, Shavkat, Lutfulo, Habib and Faruh sat at the table for three hours laughing and chatting.

Valentina, who appears Russian, has a son, daughter-in-law and grandson in Moscow. She and her husband would like to move to Moscow, but can’t sell their house for enough money to buy a flat in Russia. Her son’s wife is Kyrgyz and the girl’s parents had been against the marriage because they wanted her to marry a Kyrgyz.

Baktigul, a Kyrgyz, is facing the same problem. She has a Tatar boyfriend whom she hopes to marry next year. But her parents are against it because of his ethnicity.

In the U.S., attention is usually focused on racism, overt or subconscious, among Caucasians. But I don’t hear much about racism coming from other ethnic groups, though it can be just as common and virulent.

“The Kyrgyz don’t think of it as racism,” Baktigul told me, “but tradition.”

Valentina agreed. “Whatever ethnic group a woman marries into, that becomes her group and she’s expected to adopt their customs and traditions, losing her own.”

She said it got so bad with her son that the girl’s relatives beat him up. I don’t know how they eventually went through with the wedding.

“Maybe our children will be free to choose their own spouses and for their ethnicity not to matter,” Baktigul said. “But today, it’s still the parents who make the decision.” I couldn’t help crossing my fingers that she’d find a way to marry the person she loved, and not give him up because of the group he was born in to.

“The Uzbeks are even worse than the Kyrgyz in trying to keep their children within their ethnic group,” Nigora, an Uzbek, said. “But all of us, if we look far enough back, are all mixed to a certain extent. My family is mixed with the Uighurs.”

“And I’m Arab!” Malan, an Uzbek, said, pointing to his chest with pride.

We talked about the people we knew, the news we’d heard, about the development and future of the city. We gossiped, debated and laughed until 9:30, which tends to feel like midnight in winter Osh.

I returned home with the family in their little white Tico, which feels like riding in a tiny plastic model car. They gave me the front seat. Nigora and the three boys somehow squeezed into the back, which comfortably seats two. We puttered along the bumpy, dark streets to home. Laying in bed, near the warmth of my coal fire, I looked forward to a calm, quiet, weekend.

Coming Back to Osh

It’s both good and hard to be home. The company can’t be beat and the evening conversations around the dinner table are enlightening and missed. In the past two nights, we’ve had plov, boiled duck, homemade raspberry jam, home-baked round loaves of bread, and fried apple pastries. We’ve talked about tourism, about the political situation, about the educational system, about Uzbekistan, about Kyrgyz/Uzbek relations. They are all kind, energetic, thoughtful and insightful.

But I’ve definitely gotten unused to the simple living conditions. Last night I ate dinner, indoors, with a blanket over my shoulders and another over my head. It was so cold walking out, across the icy pathway, to the bathroom, that it’s easy to skip on teeth-brushing or other evening rituals, with the goal of just getting back inside where it’s warm. Knowing that the bathroom was available to me until morning made it seem that much more desirable.

My paper-hoarding habits returned, with my seeing any possible piece of unneeded paper as a potential source of heat.

The stove and heavy blankets kept me warm at night, but by morning the fire had already died. And I needed to go back out in the cold to take a shower. Hot water poured from the spigot, but the tiles below, on which I went barefoot, were frigid.

I stayed under the spray for a long time, dreading the thought of having to drip in the unheated bathhouse, then walk back outside across the courtyard to my now unheated room.

As soon as I got back to my room, I crawled under the covers, finding bed the warmest place. Nigora came in to bring me tea and soon after carried in the small space heater. I felt bad causing her to worry.

For the first time I went into the regional administration building today, the hulking white square structure across from the Lenin statue. A long strip of cloth, which looked like a rag, ran down the front steps. A similarly ragged cloth lay across the four flights of steps leading upstairs. I suppose it was to protect the carpets from wet feet. But it looked tacky.

The building itself was nice, with high ceilings, red carpets under the rags, and large golden nameplates on the doors. But it smelled like a stolovaya, with the scent of cabbage and lamb fat wafting through the halls.

I saw many of our staff. And it was especially rewarding to see the people I’d hired myself in the past 1-2 years, as well as other inexperienced staff I’d worked with and trained, now in positions of responsibility.

“The results increased by three times since I’ve been in charge,” one man in his mid-20s said with evident pride.

Another young woman from a rural area, who looked quiet and modest in a headscarf, I know is actually extremely intelligent. She got a scholarship to a high-quality Turkish university in Bishkek, speaks fluent English, and is now in charge of a team of one.

“I’ve selected another person who is now in training and we’ll soon get one more employee,” she said, her eyes glowing at her team’s growth.

I could see their confidence, their leadership, and their professional development in their appearance and demeanor, not to mention their dialogue. Best of all, a market for such people, with experience, knowledge and skills, is starting to develop. While before, only connections mattered. Now, some employers are clearly willing to pay for the people who can do the job, whether they have connections or not. This trend ensures a promising future, professionally and financially, for our staff and I’m happy to see them gain such opportunities.

It’s cold in Osh now and there is not much to enjoy in terms of the scenery. Like usual, it’s the people who really make Osh the welcoming and colorful place it is.

The Ski Season Opens

December 3, 2006

For some reason, I haven’t had much motivation to write lately. Maybe it’s a lack of time, maybe a lack of exciting events, maybe I’m losing the eye for detail that happens with prolonged time in one place. But I’m feeling like I don’t have much to say.

Today I welcomed in the ski season with a trip to Tuguz Bulak, a ski base about an hour outside Bishkek.

“Is there enough snow?” I asked Boris, the trip organizer.

“Of course, there is lots!” he said.

He was lying. While the chairlift was running, the lower slopes were brown with the earth showing through the snow. I went down once - to inaugurate my brand new skis, to make sure I remembered how to ski (I made it down with no poles and no falls!), and to not make it a completely wasted day.

I spent the rest of the day in the chalet, reading The Great Game, one of the best historical books I’ve ever come across and a very insightful look at the great power intrigues played across Central Asia.

The ski business is clearly developing in Kyrgyzstan. Work on two new cottages was underway, the parking lot was full and customers packed the chalet. But customer service has lagged far behind the progress in chairlifts and buildings. The waiter yelled at me and others in turn for bringing our skis inside, saying they’d be fine outside but refusing to take any responsibility for them. They won’t allow people to leave their belongings indoors, forcing most people to base themselves either out of their cars or outdoor picnic tables. And this same waiter made me feel guilty for taking up space (one seat on a bench for 4 or 5), despite the fact that I welcomed any customers who wanted to sit at my table.

He made me move in order to make room for a party of eight. So I ended up in a corner, where another party of 8 or so soon came. He saved this table for them, refusing to allow others to sit there, even though these people brought their own food and bought only drinks and a few bowls of soup from the café. Somehow they’d been deemed important though.

Though I tried to focus on my book, as my table-mates drank more and more, I ended up getting pulled into conversation with them. While I love the nature and the sport of skiing in Kyrgyzstan, it’s a strange experience for me to suddenly be surrounded by so many privileged people – people I generally have little interaction with and don’t always feel comfortable around.

The guy next to me, let’s call him Rysbek, was focused on flirting with me. But in between pick-up lines, he told me he’s finishing his Ph.D. at the end of this month and is the Chairman of the Board of a rural credit union, with $50,000 in personal capital. He couldn’t have been more than 30 years old, making me wonder where he got so much money. This credit union charges 30% interest per year, paid on the original amount borrowed.

I found his friend, Nurbek, more interesting. He was an assistant to Akaev and works as a procurement consultant for several international organizations. In his spare time he breeds rare dogs and horses at his country home. He seemed cultured and intelligent and wants to get together and talk sometime, saying he felt I had an analytical mind.

He told the group how he had an American girlfriend, Carrie, when he was a student in Moscow. “We lived together, and we almost married,” he said. “She was such a strong feminist. Sometimes I’d do something like offer my hand when she was getting out of the car and she’d say no, she could do it herself. But she was something else, very capable and self-reliant.”

“Why didn’t you marry her?” I asked.

“Because of my mother,” he said. “She was strongly against it. She said that as the oldest son, I had the duty to come back and live in Kyrgyzstan. I needed to have a Kyrgyz wife and Kyrgyz children. She wouldn’t even consider it.”

I marveled that he’d listen to his mother and succumb to her pressure from the distance he had in Moscow. And I found it tragic that he threw away his love and his opportunity for an international life because of the pressures of tradition.

“It sounds like the movie, Sunduk Predkov,” I said, referring to a locally popular recent movie about a Kyrgyz man and a French woman in love. “But he was able to convince his family.”

I asked if he found himself a Kyrgyz woman.

“Seven years later I did,” he said.

“And did Carrie marry?”

“Yes. But we still keep in touch sometimes, and write each other letters.”

He said that he’s spent about two months in Washington, D.C. on trainings and what surprised him most was the strict rules regarding interactions between men and women.

“It can take a month to get to the point of where you can ask someone out,” he said. “The sexual revolution and the quick relationships that characterized it have past. This made a positive impression on me.”

It was good to hear something positive about the U.S. Because earlier this week, I attended a classical music concert with one of our employees, Natalia, an intelligent and motivated 24-year-old. I handed her a summary of the news I’d picked up in English, thinking she’d like the practice. Iraq and Afghanistan led the headlines.

“Do you want to live in America?” she asked me.

I didn’t know how to answer her. I told her that my friends and family are there and they provide the main draw. And there are some good things. But the political situation is disheartening and I get bored there when I stay too long.

“I used to want to live in America,” she said. “But not anymore.”

I asked why.

“I’d rather go to Europe, because I think the societies there have values closer to ours. I’d still like to travel to America, but just not live there.”

To me, America falling from the place of Natalia’s dreams was more serious than any military or political loss. It means that a bright, motivated, talented young person no longer sees the U.S. as a place to fulfill her dreams. Instead, Europe shines brighter.


In Bishkek, the maniac seems to have disappeared from the scene. I don’t hear much about him, other than someone occasionally dissuading another from walking at night. My co-worker, Aizhana, said he was caught.

“The police spoke on the TV and said they’d got him.”

“Did they show a picture of him?”

“No.”

“Did they say his name? Anything about him? Where he’s from? What might have motivated him?”

“No, just that he was crazy.”

“Did they ever name the victims? Did any of their relatives talk on TV?”

“No.”

I didn’t think I’d heard any of those details, but I wanted to check. Based on her answers to my questions, I think I have to join my friend’s theory that there never was a maniac, that it was a scare conveniently thought up by those in power to keep people off the streets and to make Bishkek residents afraid of young Kyrgyz-speaking men from the south.

Given that it gets dark early now, I take taxis more frequently than I used to. But I’m starting to regain my comfort level.