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A trip through Central Asia (October 2004)

Kazakhstan.

Traveling with the “Royal Society for Asian Affairs” from London we arrive at the efficient new Almaty airport with its hyper modern security equipment. Half an hour later we can enter the city. A presidential election is in progress, which the incumbent, Nazarbayev, will win with his usual 90% of the vote. Election irregularities raise no eyebrows here. After the traumatic economic downturn in the early nineties, Kazakhstan finds itself lifted by an economic boom and a 9% real GDP growth rate, of which the benefits however have not yet filtered down to the bottom. While the highest authorities pocket million dollar bribes, the salary of an educated Kazak (teachers, doctors) stagnates at 200 dollar per month. Industrialised cotton production is in disarray and ecological disasters from ill considered irrigation schemes abound. Nevertheless, we find Almathy ringed by expensive brandnew housing estates, at a million dollar plus per ostentatious modern villa for Russians and local elites of international oil.

The boom is based on oil and gas investments. Tenghiz oilfield is piping its rapidly rising production through the CPC (Caspian Oil Pipeline) to Russia. BP is engaged in building an alternative 3 billion dollar pipeline (heavily favored by the USA) to Turkey for its new oil. The Chinese are in the market to finance gasfields and the strategic pipeline which may one day connect the Caspian with China. With oil production rising more than 50% this year the vast unexplored steppes of Kazakhstan are at the centre of the world oil and gas play. Kazakhstan is resolutely free-market oriented. But internally, with the apparent approval of its 16 million population, 30% of which are Russian, it remains a tight police state, closely allied to Moscow, hunting down terrorists and muslim fundamentalists, while heroin transports from the East pass unhindered to Russia and Europe. Russian remains the official “inter-ethnic language”.

Kyrgistan.

A young nation (1924) of 5 million souls, whose fortunes nose-dived after the collapse of the Soviet Union, hurriedly tried to re-invent itself by replacing all Lenin statues by monuments for Liberty and its mythological hero Manas. However, serious troubles with Uzbeks, of Turcic origin, and Tajik minorities, whose language is Persian, darken the outlook. All these states, arbitrarily created by Stalin across ethnic boundaries and forcibly alienated from their Muslim roots, are now jealous guardians of their frontiers whilst re-creating their faith. We see many shiny new almost identical mosques being built, although not much activity within them. It is said they are built with help of Turkish or Saudi money. And in spite of the slaughter of the monks in the nineteen twenties during the muslim basmachi revolt against the Soviets, the Russian Orthodox churches seem to make a come-back.

From my Soviet hotel room in Bishkek, looking out over the asbestos covered roofs of the hovels below, I observe a nomad woman cooking breakfast at first light in a little open space, in all dignity, over a small efficient fire. Passers by greet her politely.Urban life is hard. Schooling is no longer free and parents pay teachers extra for their children to pass the exams. 50% of the population live below the poverty line and even the middle classes are poor. This exceedingly beautiful mountanous country has few agricultural resources; its mineral mining has fallen in dissarray and abandoned Soviet industries stand broken and rusted as testimony of a discarded past.

The hope for the future rests on tourism, the establishment of ski resorts and spa’s on the shores of warm mountain lakes like Issy Kul, once used by the Soviet Navy to test its torpedo’s away from prying eyes. But above all it rests on its enormous potential for creating hydro electricity, some of which it is already exporting. Despite all difficulties, sentiment seems upbeat, the economy is free and local markets are overflowing with fresh produce. (although older farmers still regret the disappearance of the kolchozes where they worked for a fixed salary).

Leaving, I counted 15 drab olive coloured Boeing 707’s of the USAF transport command on the Bishkek civilian airport, being serviced by uniformed Americans with an abundance of American materiel. Are they needed for the continuing Afghan military operations, or to impress Russia, Iran or China?

Uzbekistan.

Tajikistan being deemed too dangerous for innocent tourists, we bypass it and travel to the capital of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, by air and are lodged in the usual Soviet style hotel. In Uzbekistan Stalin still lives. His Kolchoz system of wasteful agriculture (cotton) with irresponsible irrigation disasters and overuse of insecticides (causing the drying-up and poisoning of the Aral sea) is still going strong. Private landownership does not exist. President Karimov rules his 24 million underlings with an iron hand through a ruthless police regime of prosecution of religious minorities, opponents and militants.

The Fergana valley with its capital Kokand seems out of bounds due to Islamic fundamentalism. But Samarkand is one of the wonders of the world. In spite of Ghengiz Khan’s attentions in the 13th century, the old Sogdian capital, once also Timurlane’s residence, is resplendent with monuments scrupulously rebuilt. No romantic ruins here, but painstaking tile by tile restoration of the old glory. As a result the Timurlane (Guri Amir) mausoleum with its powerful male beauty now rivals the feminine perfection of India’s Taj Mahal. The observatory of Ulughbek, with its 30 meter high astrolab and the madrassa’s are testimony of scientific top achievements at the time (1420). Shakhrisabz, Bukhara and Khiva, though less “restored” than Samarkand, all rival it by the splendour of madrassa’s, minarets and mausolea. On the other hand, we also pass on our way over mud hills, the rectangular shape of which indicates, referring to our books, that they once were flourishing centres of learning and commerce on the Silk Road, until Ghengiz Khan got the better of them.

At night, driving North through the Kyzilkum desert, the horizon is lit up by the flames of oil production. The country produces just enough for its own needs, some 145000 barrels per day. For gas exports, a pipeline is being built to Russia, its only possible market and ally of necessity. Further South, near Qarshi lies the major American army and airforce base through which the war in Afghanistan was conducted and which is still in full use.

President Bush welcomes president Karimov in the Oval Office as an essential ally in the war on terror and is giving bilateral aid without too much questioning the human rights abuses. Accusations fly that the CIA benefits from torture of prisoners using Uzbeki personnel in Uzbeki territory.

When we first come face to face with the expanse of the Oxus river (Amu Darya), one of us, to celebrate the occasion, reads aloud some relevant passages out of the love poem “Sohrab and Rostum” of Matthew Arnolds.

Later, at the British embassy in Tashkent, we learn that ambassador Craig Murray is in London to denounce the systematic use of torture by Uzbek officials in hundreds of cases known to him, to obtain (flawed) information for US and British intelligence. Uzbek authorities have a vital interest in exagerating prisoners links with Al Qaeda. “We are selling our souls for dross” he claims. According to CIA estimates there are some 6500 political prisoners in country. Although the embassador has since been sacked over his candid revelations, which are not denied, NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer (a failed but pliable Dutch politician) visits Karimov, at US instigation, to strenghten cooperative ties between NATO and the regime. This may be a short sighted policy, but a fact is that Uzbekistan has so far escaped civil war and that it does form a solid barrier against fundamentalist contagion from Afghanistan. The US and to a lesser extent Russia with its strong military presence in the region are trying to keep it that way.

Turkmenistan.

From the evil to the tragi-comic. The 4 hour border crossing in the mid day sun from Uzbekistan to Turkmenistan is the most horrendous I have witnessed in a life-long of crossings between underdeveloped countries. Formalities were arbitrary, faulty and slow, while groups of people were beaten back by soldiers with guns. There was a half hour tug of war between soldiers and a phalanx of women about a bale of contraband. Relais of children swam the river with contraband only to be beaten with canes by the soldiers on the other shore. A woman headbutted a soldier so hard that he fell back on one of ours. President-for-life, Niyazov maintains absolute control of legislative and executive branches of government. As self-syled “Turkmen bashi” (ruler of Turks) he does not tolerate opposition amongst the 5 million people in his large desertlike country. Human settlements cling to the valleys around rivers and canals.

Konje Urgench in the North is less impressive than Bokhara, but it was once the centre of the muslim Seljuk empire, before Jenghiz Khan utterly destroyed it, is . One needs a vivid imagination however in the desolate landscape, punctuated by half restored mausolea, dusty caravanserais and isolated minarets, when walking over sandhills possibly containing the walls of ancient cities.

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We fly to Merv, its 7000 year history the epitome of Central Asian history. A vast landscape of half buried remains of no less than five successive important cities, each destroyed by conquerors (beginning with Alexander the Great), then resettled nextdoor only to be destroyed again. The Sultan Kala mausoleum was the only building surviving Ghengis Khan, because its walls were 3 meter thick and its foundations 6 meter deep. Why is Central Asian history so often expressed in those megalomaniac mausolea, rather than in any other structures ? Even the modern rich erect very impressive mausolea for themselves.

Nisa, the capital of the Pathian empire, which at one time rivalled Rome itself is now a great deserted elevated plateau containing palaces and Zoroastrian temples in the beginning stage of excavation by Russian and Italian archeologists. Its art discoveries, now in the national museum, are stunning examples of 2000 year old ornamental craftmanship.

Ashgabat, the current capital, is getting a multi billion dollar face-lift. We admire the revolving gold statue of Turkmenbashi on the highest monument on the hill, surrounded by goose-stepping guards. HIS images are of course everywhere. French contractor Bouygues is building the most prestigious and generally empty ministries and even a luxurious mosgue along the monumental empty boulevards. Meanwhile, Turkey, with its democratic face eagerly turned towards European Union membership, displays its other less atractive fundamentalist and imperial face towards Turkmenistan. It has just completed a hundred million dollar Mosque as a gift to the nation and is financing other activities.

Also, together with Arab Muslim nations, it finances the building of cheap “prefab mosques” in the countryside.

With Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and the World’s Superpower actively taking sides in local armed conflicts, there is all likelihood that these will continue in the region, if not escalate. On the face of it, Russia, as harshly as it has acted in the past, now seems a moderating influence through its economic policies and through the minority Slav presence in the local populations of each state.

Flying home, Westward from Tashkent over the vast desert landscape with ribs of windblown sand and circular craters, we see human cultivation clinging precariously to the few rivers and mountain sides. Then the sad remains of the Aral sea in the North, no longer fed by the once mighty Oxus river. Then the Kaspian Sea and the snowy Caucasus mountain range and finally the Black Sea, where Asia truly ends and “normal” European cultivation begins.

L. Wesseling, 3rd October, 2003.