In many ways, the state shops were a Potemkin Village—impressive facades, with empty shelves inside. And so the Soviets quietly allowed business in the informal economy to keep running, especially at the bazaars. In Osh, the massive Jayma bazaar which sprawls along the western bank of the Ak-Burra River, winding up dozens of side streets and alleys, had been one of the great markets on the Silk Road since medieval times. Today, it is open seven days a week, and thronged on Friday and Sunday, the traditional market days. It is still primarily an agricultural market, with slaughterhouses and warehouses. One section is piled high with bales of hay; in another, live chickens are sold; in another, raw cotton and wool; nearby, blacksmiths forge horseshoes, nails, stovepipes, cooking pots, and traditional Uzbek ornamental knives. In the summer, the market bulges with fresh produce—peaches, apricots, oranges, cherries, grapes, melons, and vegetables. Even in winter, apples, pears, figs, pomegranates, potatoes, onions, and carrots are abundant, and dried apricots, raisins, pistachios, almonds, and walnuts are sold year round. Uzgen rice—the main ingredient of the Uzbek national dish plov, a lamb pilaf with carrots, onions, and hot peppers—is sold from open bags. Lipioshki (flatbread) is baked in tandoori ovens. Butter comes by the slab, sugar in huge yellow crystalline lumps. Shashlyk (marinated mutton or beef kebabs, served with vinegary onions), laghman (a Uighur spicy noodle and vegetable soup), manti (dumplings stuffed with diced lamb and onion), and samsa (pastry filled with spicy meat or vegetables) are sold from stalls.
Even for a seasoned traveler, the sights, sounds, and crush of people can be overwhelming. Ear-splitting commercials for local businesses blast out over the tinny speakers of the public address system, forcing the bootleg music vendors to crank up the volume on their boom boxes, playing the latest Turkish and Chinese pop hits. In the auto section, there’s a brisk trade in used alternators, batteries, worn belts and tires; engine oil, sold in mason jars, looks as if it’s already serviced a fleet of diesel buses. Although traditional silk, wool, and cotton fabrics are sold, the garment district has largely been taken over by vendors hawking cheap imports from India, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey with fake (and often misspelled) designer labels. The unofficial money exchanges do brisk business. For the brave investor, there was even a financial services sector, of sorts—a group of burly men with shaven heads dressed in trainers hawking share certificates for newly privatized companies.
Leaving Kyrgyzstan
Three days before Christmas in 1995, I took the flight north from Osh to Bishkek to report in to USIS, and then fly back to the United States. After three weeks, I left the city with mixed feelings. I looked forward to spending the holidays with Stephanie, but worried about the future of the Osh Media Resource Center. And I felt a bond with the people with whom I had worked, who had helped me begin to understand their country and culture and the challenges they faced. I had no idea of whether I would ever see Kyrgyzstan again. Little did I know that, less than a year later, I would be returning to Osh. This time it was not on a Yak-40, but in a beat-up Lada with a case of vodka in the trunk.
three
How Do You Say “Rump Roast”?
The Twelve Suitcases
In June 1996, the news I had been waiting for finally came. I would be going back to Kyrgyzstan in September for a one-year Fulbright Fellowship to teach journalism and mass communication at the state university in Bishkek, guest-lecture at other universities, and work with journalists and the new commercial TV stations that were starting up. Stephanie gamely agreed to join me for the year.
Fulbright scholar awards are typically made in the spring. That leaves enough time to apply for an academic leave, find a renter and pet-sitter, sort out the bills and bank accounts, and figure out what to pack. Unfortunately in 1996, politics intervened. I really can’t blame House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the Republican Congress, or President Bill Clinton. They were fighting over the federal budget and funding for Medicare, education, and the environment. Sending me to Kyrgyzstan did not require raising the federal debt limit. Nevertheless, the two government shutdowns (six days in November 1995 and twenty-two days in December 1995–January 1996) had a knock-on effect as spending bills and appropriations were delayed. Among the casualties was the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), which administers the Fulbright Program. My Fulbright had been approved, the program officer assured me, but CIES did not yet have the money. I should certainly not do anything foolish, such as rent the house or buy an air ticket, until funding was confirmed.
When it was, CIES hurriedly arranged an orientation session in Washington, DC, for scholars and student awardees heading for Asia. It was standing-room only for India and China but less than a dozen gathered for the Central Asia briefing. It had taken a couple of years for the Fulbright program to get going in Central Asia, so few scholars and students had been there. An anthropologist who had done research in Kyrgyzstan presented a slide show of ancient sites and talked about nomadic culture and oral traditions. A nursing professor who had been in Uzbekistan talked about her attempts to educate her students about bad cholesterol. Her teaching included public health movies; the students’ favorite was called Killer Fat. No one discussed the higher education system, told us what to pack, or what we could buy at the bazaar in January.
In the mid-1990s, there were few resources for Westerners who were going to live in Central Asia for an extended period. For historical background, I could read about the Great Game with evocative descriptions of mountains and steppe by British and Russian explorers and military envoys. However, I was planning to arrive in Bishkek by plane, not on horseback from Delhi with wagons, porters, and formal greetings from the viceroy to the local khan. There were books on the Soviet era, but in the early 1990s, before the blossoming of Central Asia scholarship, there were few studies of the region in the post-Soviet era. Today, it seems that every Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in a Kyrgyz village blogs about the experience, but there were no such tales in 1996. Thankfully, the first edition of the Lonely Planet Guide came out in summer 1996, just in time to help us plan the trip.
Because new luggage is a target for thieves, we decided to travel with beat-up, yet sturdy, suitcases. We added to our collection of well-worn travel pieces with some thrift store $2 specials. Then we worked on packing lists. We simply didn’t know what to expect, so it all went in—winter and summer clothes, books and papers, aspirins and antibiotics, Ziploc bags, duct tape, a pressure cooker, cookbooks, and the contents of the kitchen spice rack. Someone had told Stephanie there was no basil in Kyrgyzstan; instead, it was one of the first things she saw at the bazaar. The Fulbright grant included a generous excess baggage allowance. It is almost embarrassing to admit, but we exceeded it. When everything was assembled, we had twelve suitcases—a total of 490 pounds.
Our flight from Washington to Frankfurt was delayed, and the Delta agent said we would not make the connection in Istanbul for the Turkish Airlines flight to Bishkek; we would have to wait two days for the next flight. The only option was to fly via Moscow to Almaty in Kazakhstan, and make the last part of the trip by road. The agent booked us on Transaero, a new Russian private airline.
We staggered up to the Transaero check-in in Frankfurt, our bodies sagging from the five heavy carry-on bags. “That looks like more than five kilos,” said the agent. “Oh, they’re not heavy, I’m just weak,” said Stephanie in her excellent German, trying to disguise her panting. A dispute was averted by the news that we had been bumped up to business class where there was no carry-on limit. We settled down for a glass of champagne, and wondered how we’d make the transfer to the Almaty flight in Moscow.
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo is, in my experience, one of the least welcoming airports in the world (unless you’re Edward Snowden, and you have to hole up in the transit area) with overpriced (even by airport standards) shops and restaurants, and few seats for transit passengers. In 1996, the arrivals hall was a soulless room with faded Soviet-era decor. Because we were taking another Transaero flight, we expected our luggage to be transferred. Our hearts sank when the first of our twelve bags emerged on the carousel. As we heaved them off the belt, other passengers stepped