The $2.50 Phone Bill
Even for those with good language skills, getting things done in Kyrgyzstan in the mid-1990s was a challenge. A seemingly straightforward task, such as banking or paying a utility bill, often turned out to be a complex, time-consuming activity that required visiting several offices, filling out forms and slips of paper, and obtaining signatures and stamps. Sometimes, it involved waiting around for the only person authorized to conduct the transaction to return from lunch. A case in point was our phone bill.
Living in the central district, our phone number began with the number 26. We were told we were fortunate to have that number. Bishkek’s Soviet-era telephone system was more reliable than most, but some exchanges in the city were notorious for dropped calls and crackly lines; by contrast, the 26 exchange usually worked. It’s all relative, because there was always noise on the line, occasionally interrupted by mysterious clicking sounds; it could have been the secret police checking on our dinner plans, but more likely it was simply the creaking and groaning of the arthritic switching system.
Although claiming we had a working phone seemed a stretch, we still had to pay for it. The phone had already been cut off once because the bill hadn’t been paid, but the landlord took care of it. We had just received a recorded phone message and figured it was a reminder to pay the phone bill, so we brushed up on bill-paying phrases and headed off to the main post office. To pay the bill, you first need to know how much you owe, and that’s recorded on a printout on a table. We scanned through it but could not find our number; apparently, another customer had removed that page rather than make a note of the bill. The post office staff said they did not have another printout; they just took money and gave receipts, but had no records. We were directed to the building next door where the records were kept, but the office was closed for lunch. We came back later, went up to the window for our station (number 26), and had the clerk enter the amount. Then we went back to the post office to pay and get a receipt and the obligatory official stamps. We had spent almost two hours to pay a 41 som ($2.50) bill.
Where Does All the Money Go?
Perhaps we could have shortened the wait time at the post office by offering a clerk a few som to look up our bill. In Central Asia in the mid-1990s, the line between tipping and low-level bribery to have people do what they were paid to do was a fine one. Of course, most of those who took small bribes—police, officials in government offices, university and school teachers, judges, lawyers, doctors, journalists—did so not because they were innately corrupt but out of sheer economic necessity. Many people working in the public sector earned less than $100 a month; even with a couple of part-time jobs, it was a struggle to put food on the table, and the occasional bribe to avoid a traffic ticket or to buy a grade made a difference.
The problem was that corruption occurred at all levels of society. The most corrupt were among the wealthiest and most powerful people in politics and business who didn’t need the money to feed their families. The government launched periodic anticorruption campaigns, partly to impress foreign donors. In a sweep in late 1996, President Akayev’s new anticorruption task force took action against officials accused of shady deals, plundering tax revenues and foreign grants, and soliciting bribes; one minister, two provincial governors, several members of the parliament, and several low-level officials lost their jobs, although only a couple ended up in prison. The more interesting question was whether the clampdown was partly political, with the government going after crooked political opponents and ignoring corruption in its own party and the president’s staff.
What concerned me was the hypocrisy of international organizations and foreign governments that publicly denounced corruption but privately connived in perpetuating it. In the early 1990s, Kyrgyzstan, more than any other republic in Central Asia, had embraced the economic and political reforms favored by the West. The donors responded by pouring in aid. Some was well spent on development projects, and some was simply wasted or stolen. Unfortunately, some donors, including UN agencies, regarded corruption as the cost of doing business, and found ways to conceal payoffs in the “Administrative Services” or “Logistical Support” line items in their budgets. I was told that the markup for graft ranged from 10 to 25 percent, depending on the project and which ministry or agency was the implementing partner. Fortunately, some donors—including, as far as I could tell, US government agencies and USAID—worked hard to monitor where the money went, even if they drove their grantees crazy with excessive reporting requirements.
Despite official denials, everyone knew that corruption went on. However, diplomatic niceties had to be observed. The United States had dubbed Kyrgyzstan an “island of democracy” in Central Asia, and no one in the US embassy was going to undermine the image by asking President Akayev where he got the money to buy his villa in Switzerland. Instead, Ambassador Eileen Malloy, a competent diplomat who understood Kyrgyz society and politics better than most of her successors, talked about “slippage.” In a speech to a conference held to mark five years of Kyrgyz-US cooperation, she said: “I cannot sit here and tell you that every cent of every dollar or every grain of wheat contributed by the United States has gone where it should. Inevitably, there is slippage.” She was brave to say as much, but the word glossed over the extent of corruption. So the university rector spent part of his US travel grant on a new wardrobe? Not to worry—it’s only slippage. So the agriculture minister who supervised the USAID-funded privatization campaign is driving a new BMW? It’s only slippage. Too many slippages turn into a slippery slope.
FIGURE 3.6 Chess game in park, Bishkek
Life in the Dvor
Most Soviet-era apartment blocks were built around a dvor (courtyard). This patch of land—dusty in summer, snow-covered in winter, muddy in spring—is a public space, a commons for apartment dwellers. In most complexes, apartment entrances are on the dvor, not the street side; you enter the dvor through a tunnel or driveway from the street. When you give directions, especially to a large block, it’s not enough to provide the dom (house) and kvartira (apartment) number, because there may be half a dozen separate entrances (podyezd), each with a staircase and, if you’re lucky, a working elevator. Unless you know the block, you’ll try a couple of entrances before figuring out which one leads to the apartment.
The layout of apartment complexes means that all traffic—people, vehicles, stray animals—passes through the dvor. There are swings and slides for the children, and benches under the trees where, on warm days, neighbors sit and chat. Car owners park on the roadway outside their podyezd, unless they’re fortunate enough to have a small garage at the back of the dvor. Residents cross the dvor to take garbage to the communal dumpsters. Although there’s sometimes litter, many residents take pride in keeping the dvor clean, sweeping the area outside their podyezd. Often, there’s a small grocery or convenience store, and sometimes a hairdresser or shoe repair shop. In our dvor, we knew it was time to get out of bed when we heard the call of the dairyman who sold milk, cream, and eggs from the trunk of his Lada; we went down with our banki (large glass jars), joining the short line of neighbors and children. In the depths of winter, it was a relief to put your coat on over your pajamas and spend a few minutes in the cold, rather than hiking through the snow to the market or store.
Like everyone else, Stephanie and I used the balcony on the dvor side to hang out our washing. The climate of the region is continental, with no rain most days in summer, fall, and early winter; clothes hung out in the evening are dry by the next