Friday, April 28, 2006

 

The Proletariat & the Nature

There is a rally planned to take place tomorrow here in Bishkek. It's been speculated that it will bring in anywhere from 10 to 20 thousand people from all over the country, all of them either angry with the lack of change since last year's revolution or, at least, willing to be influenced, paid, or transported about by those who are. The event's organizers initially stated that the protests would continue on in the central square until some change has been made, which is a disturbing bit of rhetoric in my opinion. Thankfully, that was later changed to three days. Maybe four. Essentially, the ralliers are looking to exert themselves onto the government in such a way as to force President Bakiyev to come out to speak with them, negotiate something, and, preferably, get that something into writing. Their demands are many, but they include lessening of state control on mass media, constitutional amendments to lessen the power of the executive, and some sort of pledge to at least begin moving corruption and criminality from a spot among the normal activities of elected officials to something of an anomaly. We'll let you know next week how all of that goes.

In the meantime, we're loading up on reading material and movies in the off chance this thing boils over and we're forced to hole away behind our apartment door for a few days. It's doubtful that situation's a real possibility, but people are angry, it's been hot, and 20,000 hot, angry people standing in one place for a few days listening to other hot, angry people speaking to them may stumble upon some new ideas. Thankfully, bootleg DVDs are both cheap and hold a near-ubiquitous place in the Bishkek marketplace. (I do, however, know what booth in Tsum I'm staying away from while shopping for new movies.) And we've both got some writing and reading to get done, so we should be fine. Besides, there are less hateful things than being locked in your apartment for a few days. Like, for instance, being locked in someone else's apartment for a few days.

Tonight we'll be heading over to Janika and Elham's apartment for a big ol' dinner party being thrown in celebration of Janika's cousin Katerina being here for a visit over her spring break. Yeah, you read that right: her cousin traveled from Frankfurt to Bishkek for spring break. She's putting you people to shame!

Tomorrow a group of us will (hopefully) rent a marschutka for the day and head out of the city to Ala-Archa, the beautiful park in the mountains south of town. There will be picnicking, hiking, and, I'm sure, enjoyment of "the nature," a phrase I still giggle at every time it's uttered in my vicinity.

The weekend, we can only hope, will be wonderful. And entirely free of anything a journalist might be moved to report as "looting and rioting."



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Say Cheese!

For about two blocks between the White House just west of Ala-Too square in the center of Bishkek east down Prospect Chui to Tsum, from early in the morning until well after dark every day of the week, the north side of the street is littered with photo booths. These aren't the sort of photo booths you might find in a mall or movie theatre with a ratty curtain pulled shut on a teenaged couple canoodling before a mechanized camera. These photo booths are more like public art installations designed by a tourism ministry with a miniscule budget and a fabulous eye for camp.

The thing is though, these booths aren't just for tourists (you're just as likely to see a Kyrgyz family posing as you are tourists, which there aren't too many of in the first place) and they're definitely not governmentally controlled. The booths are run by men (they all seem to be run by men, unlike virtually every other sort of service industry in Bishkek excepting taxis--bazaars, kiosks, restaurants: all women), men with old cameras and an eye for kitsch that could rival John Waters. If only they knew what they were doing was kitschy. There's a certain sincerity to the collections of toy cars, stuffed animals, fake trees, mannequins dressed as Father New Year or a snow leopard, trellises rung with plastic ivy and garland and proclaiming in hand-painted Cyrillic letters "Bishkek 2006" or "Happy New Year" or "Happy Nooruz." There are a number of such set-ups visible in the background in some of the pictures from Nooruz and the winter holidays among our pictures on Flickr (here and here, for instance).

E and I have long wanted a photo booth picture, but have been holding out either for something truly wonderful or for the right mood to strike. On Tuesday we found both. We were walking west on Chui heading from the direction of Tsum back toward the square. We had just come back up from the underground bazaar at the Chui/Moscovskaya intersection and were about halfway to the next corner when I tapped Erin on the shoulder and pointed off to our right.

"That," I said. "We need to do that."

Erin turned her head and gasped. Then, when her faculties were back up to full capacity, she nodded. We moved over to the guy lounging under the umbrella attached to his little stand and asked him how much. The picture ran twenty-five som, which is about sixty cents American, give or take.

Erin nodded and said, "Okay, excellent. We want that." She raised her arm and pointed to the plastic patio furniture sitting in the sun twenty feet away, two chairs flanking a table topped with a tower of plastic flowers and fronted with a couple of seemingly Bedazzled hearts. All of this sat in front of a sign that stood maybe six feet tall bookended by two braying horses, their front hooves at either side of a circular emblem reading "Bishkek 2006" in Russian above a picture of a mountain range, rays of sun, and, due to some brilliant stroke of Dadaist inspiration on the part of its creator, a smiling pink cartoon puppy. Because nothing says Bishkek like a smiling pink cartoon puppy.

"There?" the man asked.

"Most definitely," we replied.

Posin' in the streets
You'll have to excuse the quality of the photo: as our resources are a bit slim here, rather than scan the photo I simply took a picture of it. Glare and a bit of fuzziness ensued. My apologies.


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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

 

There's Always Time for a Cartoon

I just stumbled upon this over at Salon (well, maybe stumbled is the wrong word; I purposefully went to read This Modern World and just kept going...) and it made me giggle such that one of the other people currently in the AUCA computer lab, someone I don't know at all, pushed back from her computer and leaned over to see what it was I was looking at. I'm not sure she found it as funny as I do. Maybe you will...


Tuesday, April 25, 2006

 

T-Minus 20 Days

So, we're leaving Bishkek soon and heading on back to the land of extra wide theatre seating. In celebration of this fact, and due to my complete lack of blog fodder this evening, I've decided to start listing. Lists are fun. The kids like the lists. Frank O'Hara liked lists and I like Frank O'Hara a lot (I'd hold his hand in public if the dune buggy hadn't gotten him, is what I'm saying), and if it's good enough for Frank, it's good enough for me. Without further ado, our first list:

Number of bootleg DVDs purchased during stay: 12

Number of said DVDs not in English though assured by salesperson they'd be in English: 3

Number of copies of Munich among the 3 non-English DVDs: 2

Number of DVDs involving Catherine Keener: 3

Number involving Hope Davis: 3

Number involving both Catherine Keener & Hope Davis: 0

Degree to which E & I previously considered ourselves Catherine Keener or Hope Davis fans, on a scale of 1 to 10: 4

Degree to which E & I now consider ourselves Catherine Keener or Hope Davis fans, on a scale of 1 to 10: 7

Number of original dozen films involving Asia's "Heat of the Moment": 2

Last time I thought about either Asia or "Heat of the Moment" prior to watching either of those two films: 1987

Favorite scene among the dozen films: The dragon fight in Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, specifically Hermione's exuberant cheering upon Harry's return to the stadium. Cute girl, that Hermione.

Least favorite scene among the dozen films: The camel toe montage in The Weather Man (based entirely on unexpected squirm factor, not so much artistic merit; as I've seen only 12 films during the last 6 months, I'm in no position to be judging artistic merit).

Best gift idea for my post-Stateside-return upcoming birthday: The 3-at-a-time unlimited Netflix membership plan.

Monday, April 24, 2006

 

From the Whosiwhatsit? Files (& AKIPress)


Osh, 21 April: A peaceful rally was held at the foot of the Sulayman mountain in Osh [southern Kyrgyzstan] today. Over 200 people who attended it protested against holding rallies.

The rally was mainly attended by leaders and representatives of organizations and enterprises in the town of Osh, deputies of the town council, leaders of public organizations and political parties. Some people said that they came from Kara Su and Uzgen districts [of Osh Region] and even [northern] Chuy Region.

The protesters said that they supported Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's policy and protested against holding rallies.

A rally against rallies? Protesting against protesting? I can't help but think of the late Mitch Hedberg’s “I really hate picketing but I don’t know how to show it.” It doesn’t strike me as very complimentary for a group of adults to be living out a Mitch Hedberg joke. In fact, it seems like a really, really bad idea. And a little bit sad.

But than again, I’m very confused. Apparently as confused as the good people of Osh.



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Friday, April 21, 2006

 

Full Frontal Friday

I fell in the shower this morning. Yeah, I thought that was an activity reserved for the Depends demographic as well. Turns out, not so much. I somehow lost my balance while performing what I like to call "the sudsy pirouette." Shower ballet, you know? I'm kidding, obviously. (I hope it's obvious, anyway; though after yesterday's post, all bets are maybe off.) I don't know how I fell; I just did. I tried to grab the wall in those few seconds of Wile E. Coyote arm-waving don't-look-down-don't-look-down off-balance fun, but it turns out that flat, wet, ceramic surfaces provide little resistance against the force of gravity and my inability to stand upright. When Erin came in to see what the ruckus was about, she found me with the shower curtain draped around my neck like a cape and the rod across my shoulders like some avant crucifix. I did something to my knee on the way down--I'm thinking it involved being smacked against porcelain--and my left shoulder is unhappy as well. It is now official: I'll do anything for a laugh.

The shower tumble happened not long after I woke up in some bizarrely contorted position in which I was somehow sleeping simultaneously diagonal across the bed and straight up and down and was wearing one blanket as a toga and another as a kilt. Erin and Janika were having a Kyrgyz language lesson in the kitchen with Jarken, so there was a faint hum of the percussive/liquid flow that is a Turkic language pouring into the room. And it was raining outside quite heavily. There was some shadow of a dream still playing with me and I think one of the blankets may have been tugging a little tight or something, because the first thing out of my mouth was, "Saigon...shit."

So that was my morning. E and I got out of the house around 1:00 and headed over to the university for lunch (delicious, thank you very much), after which she went off to a meeting and I went off to Tsum for a few new DVDs. I walked through the park, startled a couple of teenagers making out on a bench under a tree and affectively embarrassing all three of us, went through the underground bazaar at Chui and Sovietskaya, and on to Tsum, which is essentially a mall or department store or four-story indoor bazaar, depending on how you choose to look at it. So I buy a bunch of new DVDs from the woman we usually buy DVDs from and started out again. As I headed back over to the escalator, a woman in the booth sort of diagonally across from the one where I'd just bought movies from called out to me. "I have good movies," she said, "in English!" "I'm sure you do," I said. "But I just bought some. Next time I'll come to you." "I have special movies," she countered. "Ones you don't see. You'll like." Well, I was intrigued. I walked over to her counter and asked, "How special?" She smiled and bent down to pull a box out from under the counter. "You will like them," she said. "Men like them." Yup, you guessed right: she started dropping porn all over the place. "European girls, Asian girls, Japanese girls, all girls, this one I don't know, African girls...four hundred som each." I don't have a special porn wing in my house and I don't think Bishkek is really the place to start the addition. "Listen," I said, "I don't want any of these." "I have boys, too," she said, "if that's what you want." You don't want all-girl porn? You must be gay. Right, where was the escalator again?

Back outside, laughing and literally shaking off the conversation, I headed back toward the university. On the way, I passed a woman singing karaoke, on the sidewalk, all by herself. She was kicking out a pretty fair version of Madonna's "La Isla Bonita." It was enough to stand in front of her for a few minutes smiling to forget about the unexpected porn dealer in Tsum. And I think that's what it was, too, the totally unexpected nature of it. I moved from buying bootlegs of very recent blockbusters (sorry, copyright police...but I like a little mindless entertainment every now and again) to being shown boxes with photos on them of naked people doing things I couldn't even figure out. It's one thing to knowingly go into an adult bookshop (our house in Bloomington was no more than a hundred yards from College Adult Books, a cleverly named emporium of the biggest little secret in America...it was only a matter of time before I gave it a look-see is what I'm saying). You can mentally prepare yourself for the onslaught of images you're going to be faced with and plan out evasive maneuvers against whatever variety of sketchy old dude you may come into contact with. But just going about your Friday, thinking happy thoughts about finally getting to see King Kong so you too can trash it, and then wham!, you're getting the hard sell on a movie called Hong Kong Suck Fu. It's like one minute you're washing your hair and the next you're wearing the shower curtain like a yoke and limping around the bathroom naked with soap in your eyes screaming obscenities. Peter Jackson, take me away...

Thursday, April 20, 2006

 

You Know You're in Need of an Emotional Massage When, without Irony, You Proclaim...


...Mr. & Mrs. Smith to be "an utterly brilliant film."

Especially when this comes only hours after you say to your wife, again without even a passing glimmer of irony, "I think I'll try something new with my hair today."

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

 

An Entirely Crap Bit of News

paige
Paige
1992 - 2006


When I was leaving my parent’s house the night before E and I left the country, as I was scratching Paige in the same way I have when leaving my parent’s house for any considerable duration of time since going to boarding school when I was seventeen, I very purposefully told her not to die while I was gone this time. Not even dogs can control those things, I guess. News to me.

George Carlin once said that life is just a series of dogs. I got Paige as a gift from my parents on my fifteenth birthday, about four months after our other dog, a dachshund-beagle mix named Bonnie, died at the age of sixteen. I named her after Jimmy Page because I was fifteen and Hendrix was vetoed by the others present. My mother added an I in order "to make it more like a proper name." There are two dogs currently waiting for me in Ohio (or at least they’ll come home with me when I go to retrieve them; I’m not convinced dogs wait for anything in an emotional sense). Neither of them are named after guitar players (one a song by Mephiskapheles and the other thoroughbred jockey and Saratoga god Jerry Bailey) I got one of those two dogs on my twenty-fourth birthday—by coincidence, not as a gift—when she was one day shy of six weeks old and weighed less than ten pounds. She’s now a few weeks from five years old and just shy of a hundred pounds.

There’s no real narrative here, I just felt incredibly distant and wanted to type something below the photo. And I’m sad and heartbroken and feel a little foolish being so in the face of the world’s larger problems and as a result have no idea what to say. So.

 

The Midnight Special at 21 Togolok-Moldo

Time: Monday, April 17, 2006, 11:36 pm

Last Meal Eaten: Sometime Sunday

Reasons for Hunger Strike: Mostly to do with laziness & excessive sleeping

Contents of Refrigerator:
* 1 rotisserie chicken, minus both breasts and a drumstick, purchased from a street vendor

* 1 open, half-full can of mushrooms, purchased by Janika for Saturday night's calzone & beer fest

* 1 open, half-full can of sliced black olives, purchased by Janika for Saturday night's calzone & beer fest

* 1/2 bunch slightly wilted but still salvageable green onions

* 1 open 2/3-full 200 gram tub of sour cream, inexplicable purchased for Saturday night's calzone & beer fest

* 1 open, half-full jar of rather loose, not-so-pasty tomato paste of unknown origin

* 1 reused tomato jar 2/3 full of what we shall guess as having once been milk

* Assorted jams, jellies, and condiments

Pantry supplies:
* Rice of some unspecified variety of "white"

* 1/3 jar of local honey, declared "Best Honey Ever" by certain residents of apartment

* Small bag of candied cherries purchased months ago and since forgotten

* Assorted spices, herbs, and whatnots of the flavor variety

Preparations:
Remove jar of milk from fridge and throw it from window during lull in traffic. Remove remaining fridge items (excepting jams, jellies, and condiments) and set them on countertop for inspection. Place among them the bag of rice, leaving cupboard door open for spice consult. Remove candied cherry mass and throw into street. Notice that the house is void of any cooking fat and swear loudly. Hand open jar of olives to wife along with a fork for her snacking convenience and in order to get the disgusting "food" interloper away from the superior cuisine makings. Stare at assembled foodstuffs for some time, occasionally turning gaze either in direction of stove, wife, or ceiling. Emit familiar groans of the perennially stupid while reminiscing on having declared only hours earlier I don't need to eat dinner. Hastily grab pan and get some rice cooking in water, vinegar, hot sauce, and smoked paprika. Demand mid-career Miles Davis to be played over tinny computer speakers in hopes that improv skills & inspiration might somehow travel through the agitated air and into your pores. Begin shredding chicken. Upon finding the chicken's wishbone, squeal with the delight of a fat man drunk on the idea of dinner. Demand of your wife that she stop actively working on her research, C'mon, just make a wish, and wrap her pinky around the slimy skeleton bits. Taunt wife when you win the greater half of bone, insisting that your wish was better anyway, as it involved time travel. Ignore mocking laughter and continue shredding remaining chicken meat. Place shredded meat and mushrooms in bowl and place on stove beside cooking rice. Wait. When rice stops hurting teeth upon tasting, empty contents of bowl into rice and mix through. Find tomato "paste" jar, open, and sniff. Confident in your gag reflex to discern spoiled food from non-spoiled, empty contents of jar into rice and stir through. Grab an armload of spices from the still-open cupboard and scatter contents of pan liberally with cumin, salt, pepper, a leftover packet of samsi mix, and ground coriander seed. Worry over sudden lack of moisture in pan and re-open the fridge for some culinary life preserver. Find previously overlooked box of Jaffa Gold grape juice and declare it a suitable salvation. Pour "about enough" juice into pan, and stir through for some minutes, while simultaneously holding the upended and open jar of honey over contents of pan. When finally some amount of honey has been added, recover pan with tin-foil and wait.

Presentation:
After enough time has elapsed to allow for your having sliced the wilted green onions and to engage in a heated discussion regarding your query as to whether or not the commentary on The 40 Year Old Virgin was even better than the movie or whether it's just been awhile since you've experienced funny people being funny in a language easily followed, remove tin-foil from pan and waft delicious scents wife-ward. Remove two plates from cupboard in anticipation of wife's comment that It looks like you've made enough for both of us... Serve half of the pan's contents on each of the plates, top with sliced wilted green onion bammage and serve alongside 2/3-full tub of inexplicably bought sour cream. Bask in the steamy warmth of the dish and your wife's unprovoked comment that This is actually not disgusting. I mean, I'd maybe eat it again.

Finished Product:

midnight special

The "Midnight in Bishkek Special" at 21 Togolok-Moldo, seen here paired with a hearty plastic mug of Jaffa Gold Grape Juice, mid-March vintage, with a full bouquet and a sweet, unrefined finish. A boxed grape phenomenally well suited for accompanying such a well-planned culinary adventure.



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Monday, April 17, 2006

 

Wanna See an Eagle Kill a Fox?


Well, someone at the BBC did and they posted the pictures as a slideshow here. It's awesome, in that holy holy, them's some big talons wrapped around that fox's neck! kind of way. Enjoy!


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Friday, April 14, 2006

 

Short Takes #6

In the first installment of these Short Takes, oh so long ago, I mentioned that E and I find ourselves often baffled by someone known around the apartment as Yelling Guy. Multiple times a day he walks through the courtyard behind our apartment and, well, yells. For a while I thought it was a call to prayer, as it sounded something like the call to prayer (which begins with Allah akbar), but not exactly like the call to prayer. And while I've never heard him five times in a single day, I've heard him a few times and I'm not home all the time, so I could be missing something.

Turns out he's selling milk.

The Russian word for milk is mahliko. When yelled so that every vowel sound stretches to its limit like the grandstand vendors at Fenway with a tray full of popcorn or beer, mahliko can sound an awful lot like Allah akbar. Especially when you don't speak Russian too well.

I will now forever associate the call to prayer with milk. I don't know what that will mean in the long run.


***


As the above demonstrates in a sideways sort of way, E has not been eaten by wolves or been swept up in revolutionary fervor or even taken to hunting down Kyrgyz criminals who shoot people we know in the head. Nope, she's alive and well. And incredibly busy with the last leg of her dissertation research before we trade in the angry, debauched politics of Kyrgyzstan and flitter on back home to the angry, debauched politics of the US. If you don't want to take my word for it, head on over to her blog and see for yourself. She's taken a break from the madness long enough to post an update and say hello.


***


I have completely given up shaving cream. Not shaving, just shaving cream. Post-shower I walk my still warm and wet face over to the mirror and have at it. Better results, razor burn -- counter-intuitively -- a thing of the past, and, as a special bonus for the lazy OCD-sufferers among us, less clean-up. I'm totally smitten.

Thank you, McSweeney's Recommends.


***


Sitting at dinner the other night with E and Janika, I was asked, by Janika, what computer games I played as a child. I had drank my way through a half liter of Baltika 9 by then and was momentarily stumped. (Baltika, you see, the beer of choice in these parts, comes in brews of various alcohol content ranging from 0 to 9, with 0 being non-alcoholic, 6 being a porter, and 9 being flammable and something akin to bubbly grain alcohol. The rest all taste like Bud Light to me, with just a little bit more of that inexplicable formaldehyde flavor mixed in for fun.) While I battled to right my soggy brain cells and find the name of a game I played as a child, Janika threw out Maniac Mansion as one from her childhood. I got excited, as I too spent a good amount of time talking to green tentacles and meteors and searching out fuel for the chainsaw (damn you, LucasArts, and your clever ruse!). My Maniac Mansion fun mostly happened in the Flanders' basement, though. When it came to computerized geekery on the homefront, there was only one real answer: King's Quest.


When we got home, still reeling from the Baltika 9 and the giddy fun had explaining to Janika the wonders of mid-80's RPGs (what up, Oregon Trail!), I hopped on the computer and discovered, much to everyone's delight I'm sure, that one can now download the original King's Quest in an updated version. I highly recommend it. If you've got some free time. What I'm saying is: prepare to become obsessed.


***


It is about 75 degrees outside right now, a Friday afternoon, and I have a remarkably smooth face and comfy new shoes on my feet. In the words of my man Bobby Plant, it's time to ramble on. We'll chat on Monday. Until then: stay classy, Internet.



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Thursday, April 13, 2006

 

OK, Now I'm Really Pissed (& Feeling Just a Little Bit Nauseous)

From EurasiaNet:

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT IN KYRGYZSTAN UNDERSCORES SLIDE TOWARD INSTABILITY
4/12/06

Concerns about Kyrgyzstan’s political stability are rising following an assassination attempt April 12 against a prominent civil society figure.

The attack against Edil Baisalov -- head of the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Society, a Bishkek non-governmental organization – occurred as he was leaving the organization’s offices in central Bishkek at approximately 6 pm local time. He suffered a wound in the back of his head, but doctors could not immediately determine whether the wound was caused by a bullet, or by a blunt object. The lone assailant, who was not immediately apprehended, was described as a "young man of Kyrgyz nationality," the AKIpress news agency reported.

Witnesses to the incident reported hearing a bang, as if a pistol, possibly equipped with a silencer, had gone off. Baisalov, who only briefly lost consciousness, was quoted by AKIpress as saying, "It was a clap. There is a hole [in my head], but I am alive." After suffering the wound, Baisalov’s driver hustled him into his car and sped off to a nearby hospital. Doctor’s now believe Baisalov’s life is not threatened, but say the wound will require extensive treatment.

Kyrgyzstan has experienced frequent spasms of political violence since the Tulip revolution swept Askar Akayev’s old regime from power in March 2005. Prime Minister Feliks Kulov, who visited Baisalov in the hospital, characterized the assassination attempt as politically motivated.

In early April, Baisalov led an NGO effort to organize mass demonstrations, calling on President Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration to vigorously pursue an anti-crime and corruption agenda. Baisalov had also been vocal in his opposition to a Supreme Court decision that enabled reputed organized crime boss Ryspek Akmatbayev to contest a parliamentary by-election. Akmatbayev subsequently won the parliamentary race. But the head of the country’s Central Election Commission (CEC), Tuigunaly Abdraimov, announced April 11 that Akmatbayev would be temporarily barred from taking his seat, pending judicial review of a January murder case in which the MP-elect was a defendant. In the initial trial, Akmatbayev was acquitted of the murder charge against him, but officials are now probing whether any improprieties occurred during the proceedings.

The assassination attempt sent shock waves through Kyrgyzstan’s NGO sector. Medet Tiulegenov, the executive director of the Soros Foundation – Kyrgyzstan, suggested that the incident could fuel criticism of the Bakiyev administration for not taking a tough stand against rampant crime and corruption. "Today’s attempt to take the life of a civil society leader signifies yet another manifestation of the deteriorating governance of Kyrgyzstan," Tiulegenov said. [Both EurasiaNet and the Soros Foundation – Kyrgyzstan are affiliated with the New York-based Open Society Institute].

Bakiyev, Kulov and members of parliament have been locked in a three-way power struggle in recent months. There is widespread suspicion in Bishkek that the Bakiyev administration engineered the court decision that reversed the CEC-imposed prohibition and allowed Akmatbayev to run.

Akmatbayev, via an attorney, denied involvement in the assassination attempt against Baisalov. Kulov, meanwhile, told reporters that the incident underscores the need for a comprehensive anti-crime offensive, hinting that only such measures could prevent Kyrgyzstan’s descent into lawlessness. The president must give the government the power to "undertake measures to restore law-and-order in the country. Otherwise the consequences for the nation’s future are already known," Kulov told reporters.

Kyrgyzstan has been the scene of geopolitical competition between Russia and the United States in recent years. However, there are indications that both states are alarmed by the country’s burgeoning disorder. US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher urged Bakiyev to implement stabilization measures during talks held April 11 in Bishkek. Meanwhile, in an interview with the Regnum news agency, Russian political analyst Arkady Dubnov indicated that Moscow policymakers are chagrined with Bakiyev’s conduct.

"The [parliamentary] victory of Ryspek Akmatbayev was a surprise for the Russian leadership," Dubnov stated. The Kremlin had made its concerns about stability known, and right up until the by-election "Moscow assumed that the Kyrgyz leadership would not allow such a development [Akmatbayev’s win]."

"The threat of a new wave of instability in Kyrgyzstan is not in the interest of either of the two world powers [The United States and Russia]," Dubnov added.



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Wednesday, April 12, 2006

 

It Ain't Revolution, But I Kinda Dig It

So not much exciting has happened since last week, which means I don't have much to say. I could tell you what I've eaten for lunch the last few days, but that would bore me. Or I could tell you that it's been dangerously close to 70 degrees for nearly a week, but who wants to talk about the weather? I could even tell you that E and I went on something of a shopping spree recently and have nearly hit our quota for trinkets and gewgaws to be handed out upon our return to the country we left (US), which I assume is now called I Hate Immigrants & I Vote or something equally fun, but I like surprises and think you should, too. So I won't do any of those things. And I didn't go to any other Chinese restaurants today and copy their menus down for the sole purpose of allowing others to laugh at them as much as I do. Which leaves me with very little to talk about. So what I'm gonna do is drop a poem on you.

Since I finished a draft of the novel I was working on, I've been writing these "Postcards from Bishkek" poems as a way of keeping busy and taking up the time I usually spent every day writing. Muscle memory works in this context as well, it would seem. But anyway, I should maybe point out that though I suffered through a great many years of ill-advised poetryphilia, I have recently been beset with an all-consuming hatred for the state of contemporary poetry as is made by Americans. So these postcards have served as a way for me to continue actively making poems while simultaneously continuing to actively hate poetry. A sticky wicket, for sure, but one that is proving to be quite a bit of fun. The thing is, you see, I no longer care. At all. And that's a lovely thing to have happen to your writing, let me tell ya.

Anyway, here's one of the dozen or so I've written thus far. This is, I think, the first one. Or the second one maybe. I don't know, actually. Do with it as you wish...


To Salt Lake City, UT


RECTO:

Wedding party beside a mountain road, smiles big as sky. The bride is beautiful, happy, a fluff of white and bows. Her eyes look out at the viewer, clear and dark, seemingly sincere. The women around her laugh, flash gold teeth, fill the roadside with the colors of their clothing. Men beside them touch one another--hand to shoulder, hand to back, hand to hand--and hold vodka in paper cups, bottle necks gripped in tight fists. At the right edge of the frame a maroon Lada sits with its hood raised, engine bared. Ribbons and bows decorate the windows, the antenna, stream from the hood ornament down to either door latch. No one appears to pay it any mind in the makeshift celebration.


VERSO:

Dude (do you mind
if I call you Dude?)--

polygamy's got nothing
on bride kidnapping.



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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

 

English Translations as They Appear on the Menu at Our Favorite Chinese Restaurant in Bishkek, Where I Just Ate My Weight in Deliciousness

Cup of Meat
Fish as though Grapes
Rich Crop
Smoked Language
Beef with a Strange
Peanuts in sweet cover
Stewed Sine of Beef
Safe Crisp Fish with Spice Sauce
Special Safe Crisp Fish
Paste Circles with Honey & Sesame
Duck over Peking
Splint-Chopping Chicken
Book Salad
Book with Mustard Sauce
Crisp Book
Bowels with a Pepper
Fish Squirrel with Sweet & Sour Sauce
Tofu with Stuff in Dough
Cabbage with ???
Fried Potatoes over China
Soup with Egg & Purple


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The Saga Continues...

Elections were held yesterday in the district where Ryspek (surely you remember Ryspek, right? The accused murderer/gang leader running for the seat in Parliament left vacant following his brother's murder last fall? You remember him. Of course you do.). Things turned out exactly as everyone assumed they would turn out: He killed his competition. Figuratively, I mean. He took a sizable chunk of the vote, not a sizable chunk of his opponent's flesh. One must be careful with language when discussing dirty politicians.

Though he won, the controversy is far from over. Not that anyone thought it would be. According to the AP, Edil Baisalov, leader of For Democracy and Civil Society, a Kyrgyz civil society coalition (and organizers of a wonderfully peaceful and well-executed protest here in Bishkek on Saturday), is echoing what I hinted at in my post on Friday and has "accused President Bakiyev of pressuring courts to allow [Ryspek] Akmatbayev to run for parliament in breach of the law."

The fun doesn't stop there, dear readers. Oh, hell no! This comes from AKIpress (roll with the language here; they're primarily non-native English speakers at AKI):

Chairman of the Central Election Commission Tuigunaly Abdraimov at the press conference in Bishkek on April 10 said that he plans to apply to the Kyrgyz parliament with request to clarify two articles of the Elections Code that contradict each other.

The contradictory situation is related to registration of Ryspek Akmatabaev as a candidate for membership in the Kyrgyz parliament who gained 79.22% of votes as a result of elections on April 9 in Balykchy constituency . The Bishkek City Court suspended the court investigation of the criminal case brought against Ryspek Akmatbaev. He was accused of organizing a gang, committing triple murder, possessing weapon, etc. Ryspek Akmatbaev was declared not guilty in January 2006 by Pervomay District Court of Bishkek. However, family members of Ministry of Internal Affairs Colonel Chynybek Aliev murdered in May of 2004 appealed to Bishkek City Court.

Mr. Abdraimov reported today that the Article 28 of the Elections Code on candidate's status stipulates: "Registered candidate is not subject to criminal proceedings, detention or administrative nonpunitive measures imposed by court. Institution of a criminal case will not be the grounds for not allowing a candidate to realize the right to be elected."

According to Mr. Abdraimov, this article contradicts to paragraph 4 of the Article 56 on grounds for cancellation of registration that runs: “in case when the court initiates criminal proceedings with regard to the candidate that gained the majority of votes and has not announced the respective verdict, the Election Commission suspends determination of voting results and registration of elected candidate”.


So, you can't still be on trial for triple murder and run for Parliament? Or you can? What if the sitting president seems to think it's a good idea for you to be in Parliament, what then? Oh, now my head hurts.

Actually, at this point I'm beginning to feel toward the Kyrgyz political monster as one might toward a sibling accused (and by all accounts, sickeningly guilty) of some heinous crime. You want to protect him, make everything go away, bury both of your heads in the sand and pretend the future will be just as rosy as you thought it would be when you were nine and spent most of your time sprawled out on your back in Technicolor-green grass looking up at the clouds ("That one looked a wicked lot like Oil Can Boyd's right hand! Did you see that?") thinking the biggest of the big nine-year-old thoughts, all of which always came out to the same two conclusions, though you obviously favored the one that went When I'm an adult, I'm gonna be wicked awesome. But at the same time, you can't help but want to punch him in the face for a few hours while screaming, "How could you be so awful...how could you be so awful?" to the same rhythm as your fists. (Somebody please cue the "Why are you so fat? Why are you so fat?" scene in One Crazy Summer. It's Bobcat at his best, kids. Well, no, this is Bobcat at his best. But Egg Stork still gets a special place in my heart.)

It's a love/hate thing is what I'm saying. I want them to get their act together and I want this whole thing to work out--the fledgling democracy, the national identity, the foundations for a lasting economy, et cetera, et cetera, on and on. But I also want to march into Parliament and scream until that one vein in my neck goes from scary-throbbing to out and out explosion. Of course, neither my Kyrgyz nor my Russian is up to the task. So I'll just go to bed and read a book until I fall asleep in hopes that tomorrow will be better. Which, for the record, was the only other conclusion my nine year old, cloud-gazing thoughts ever came out to. And that ain't half bad, either.


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Friday, April 07, 2006

 

If It's Good Enough for NYC, It's Certainly Good Enough for This Lil' Corner of the Interweb

My bookcase now lives in many boxes somewhere in Ohio, so my favorites are not at hand. However, this will do (and strikes me as oddly appropriate). But enough about me; I turn the floor over to Mr. Ashbery:


JUST WALKING AROUND

What name do I have for you?
Certainly there is not name for you
In the sense that the stars have names
That somehow fit them. Just walking around,

An object of curiosity to some,
But you are too preoccupied
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
To say much and wander around,

Smiling to yourself and others.
It gets to be kind of lonely
But at the same time off-putting.
Counterproductive, as you realize once again

That the longest way is the most efficient way,
The one that looped among islands, and
You always seemed to be traveling in a circle.
And now that the end is near

The segments of the trip swing open like an orange.
There is light in there and mystery and food.
Come see it.
Come not for me but it.
But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.



(If you're confused, go here. If you're really confused, go here.)

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Thursday, April 06, 2006

 

Panic in the Streets of Bishkek, Pt. 2

So the character thus far missing from this lil' story is the current President of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiev. Yes, Kyrgyzstan has a parliamentary system with a PM and a president. And, oddly, the President still retains the bulk of the political power. Yet Bakiev has been strangely quiet through this ordeal, allowing events to unfold as they may and staying a bit quiet until then. He gained his seat following last year's revolution and remains more or less the only person to have positively gained as a result of the uprising. (So far; many people here still hang on to the idea that things will be looking up soon enough. I'm less sure, simply due to the fact that these things seem to have historically taken a long time in other parts of the world. The US didn't really get the kinks out until...well...is Karl Rove in prison yet?)

Many of Bakiev's critics following the revolution claimed that he was continuing with business as usual. (Former President) Akayev and his family may not be in office and sucking the economy dry anymore, but the wealth and power isn't spreading too far afield in their absence, either. Those critics were somewhat quieted last month when Bakiev went unannounced onto the floor of Parliament and demanded of the legislators that they either get their act together regarding the embroiled budget debates or he would disband them all and hold open elections to fill their seats. A big move for a man of up to then questionable political might. (Aside from, you know, leading successful revolutions, I mean.) So what happened on Friday was both a surprise and another in a series of shocking political moves. Well, sort of anyway.

When E and I made our way to AUCA on Friday morning, we noticed a rather large number of marschutkas and cars parked along Frunze, the street running parallel to Abdumomunova, where both AUCA and Parliament sit. We walk along Frunze toward the university more or less everyday and usually find it essentially without traffic, much less rows and rows of cars and mini-buses parked along the roadside and up on the grass. So our curiosity was piqued, to say the least. When we crossed through the park and got onto Abdumomunova, we were greeted with a few bands of riot police and what appeared to be a makeshift cage constructed across the street from the parliament building, just in front of the Lenin statue I'm posing in front of over there in my profile picture at left. I was reminded of the Arrested Development episode where Lindsey sets off to protest the war (I think; maybe the destruction of the wetlands?) and winds up doing a wet t-shirt cage dance for the local police. I wondered aloud what the Kyrgyz equivalent might be but was shushed by Erin, ever the wiser of the two of us.

When we got into the school building there were rumors flying around about the upcoming events: Ryspek had assembled an army of supporters and they were coming to Bishkek to get their protest on! I heard he had 11,000 people! I heard they had guns! I heard about a guy one time who ate a hundred hard boiled eggs in one sitting! Oh, sorry, wrong game. Anyway, amidst the rumors and sketchy details, all that was really clear was Ryspek was pissed, he was coming to Bishkek, and he had a posse. Around 3:30, as we were sitting in the teachers' computer lab, the university sent out an alert that the building was to be cleared immediately and all students, faculty, and staff were to get somewhere safe as soon as possible, somewhere preferably more than ten feet from Parliament. The shit, as they say, was well through the fan and splattering about the room like water from a Wacky Wiggle. I don't know who says that either; just me, I guess. The point is: exodus!

When we got to the street, people were huddled in bunches, passing gossip and cigarettes and eyeing the neighboring Parliament building with a fair bit of worry. Everyone we ran into said essentially the same thing: "What are you still doing here? It is not safe. Go home!" So, we went home, Janika in tow. But first we made a pitstop at the bazaar around the corner so we'd have some food and drink to hold us over during what Erin dubbed the Revolution Rerun Party. The bazaar was packed, with people throwing elbows to get their hands on cucumbers and rotisserie chicken, clutching their bags in tight and scurrying with an alarming speed, given the usual stroll-on-the-beach pace of most pedestrians here.

We got home, we ate, and, because if there was any possibility for an anti-Westerner contingent to this revolution we wanted to give them every possible reason to hate us, we watched a fuzzy bootleg of Wedding Crashers. Around 8:00, Aida (#2, from the Social Research Center at the university) called to inform us that the protest had broken up peacefully and all was again well with the world, or at least the Bishkek part of the world. "The protest just broke up peacefully?" Erin asked. "Well," answered Aida #2, "President Bakiev went out and addressed them, told them to wait to see what happened with the appeal of the ruling, and off they went."

The man can move a crowd, that's for damn sure. Of course, he was flanked at the time by roughly a hundred armed guards and later went on television to say that some other high-ranking elected official should have also addressed the crowd (You hear that, Kulov? Yeah, I'm talking to you, buddy. You blew it!). But still, pretty sweet move, right? Maybe not. As Aida #2 said, Bakiev told the assembled to wait for the appeal ruling. The ruling came out Monday: Ryspek is allowed to run. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that "the Judicial Collegium has decided to uphold the ruling of Bishkek's Birinchi May District Court dated April 2, 2006, on this case. The reviewing appeal by the representative of the Kyrgyz [Central Election Commission] has been rejected." The one that said Ryspek couldn't run because he didn't meet basic residency requirements. That one. It has been rejected. Pish-posh, law!

So maybe Bakiev isn't on the up-and-up after all. I'm not sure anyone actually ever thought he was. But having made men in office isn't always a bad thing. Just look at Providence. There's a reason it's called organized crime. (The protestors on Friday--a few hundred at the very least--were served lunch on paper plates by Ryspek's people and trucks showed up an hour later to clean up the trash. That's my kind of protest.) And if they operate somewhere within the scope of their prescribed responsibilities, well, so what, right? Right now it may be more important to get things done in this country than worry about occassional kick-backs to village leaders and the guy smuggling stereos in from China.

But what does all of this mean? Fledgling democracies take a bit longer to get off the ground than maybe we'd like. Well, we knew that. I hope we knew that, at least. Just as we know that it takes some time to get corruption out of the public sector. Just ask Chicago. Or, hell, ask the current administration in Washington. Or recent representatives in the UN. What all of this means in the end is, I think, we're just gonna have to be patient on getting these countries back on their feet. And with the CIS countries, especially those like Kyrgyzstan who benefited from a more hands-off approach from Moscow than some of the other Soviet republics, that they have a bright future behind them is only going to make patience a bit more difficult to muster. And with the World Bank threatening to pull out completely, that doesn't leave much wiggle room. I guess we'll just have to wait for someone to change the world. Any takers?


(I unconsciously used the word wiggle twice today! High five!)

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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

 

This has nothing to do with Bishkek, me, or, really, any impact on anyone living outside the NYC area...

...but I really like John Ashbery and think you should, too, as I like to impose my fancies on the world. I also like to use the word "fancies" before a vast, nameless audience such as you, Internet. Anyway, let's get to it.

From Poets & Writers:


NEW YORK CITY DESIGNATES APRIL 7 AS JOHN ASHBERY DAY

Led by council speaker Christine Quinn, members of the New York City Council recently honored poet John Ashbery for his “literary and cultural contributions” by designating April 7 as “John Ashbery Day” in the city.

The proclamation coincides with the Ashbery Festival at New York’s New School. The event, which takes place on April 6 to April 8, features readings by Ashbery and other poets, including Mark Bibbins, Billy Collins, Daniel Halpern, Bob Holman, Ann Lauterbach, Ron Padgett, James Tate, and Susan Wheeler, and a staged reading of Ashbery’s one-act play The Heroes.

Ashbery, who lives in New York City and Hudson, New York, has published more than twenty poetry collections, including Where Shall I Wander (Ecco, 2005), Girls on the Run (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999), and Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (Penguin, 1976). He is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Fulbright Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. He currently serves as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard College.


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Panic in the Streets of Bishkek, Pt. 1

Last Friday (March 31) saw a dramatically energetic change to the usual "we'll get there when we get there" pace of life here in Bishkek. This was mostly due to a large number of people (anywhere from 200 to 2000 in the news reports we've read) gathering in the central square demanding that Ryspek Akmatbayev be allowed to run for a vacant seat in Parliament. (Ok, it was entirely due to that, but with a little dose of the subsequent flashback to last year's Tulip Revolution immediately drawn into everyone's mind thrown in for good measure as well.)

This story really starts last October, when Ryspek's brother, Tynychbek Akmatbayev, a member of Parliament and political rival of the current Prime Minister, Feliks Kulov, was killed in a prison riot outside of Bishkek. Why was a member of Parliament at a prison riot? you ask. I haven't the slightest idea. There are rumors (very loud ones) that Kulov, who himself spent time in prison and is said to have connections with the underworld and its imprisoned cohorts, planned the riot in order to lure Tynychbek there in order for him to be killed. That doesn't explain what an elected official is doing inside a prison during a riot, but it does get points both for upping the drama and moving the plot of our story along nicely. Following the murder, Ryspek led the chorus in blaming Kulov for his brother's death. Of course, he (Ryspek) has ties to organized crime as well (he is rumored to be whatever the Kyrgyz equivalent of a don might be; think John Gotti in a kolpak) and was very recently tried on murder charges (though subsequently acquitted due in large part, if one were to believe the rumors, to a series of well-timed, very firm, very rewarding handshakes), but it would seem the pain of losing his sibling overrode any sense of hypocrisy that may have bubbled up inside him alongside the accusations.

After the furor of the murder subsided a little, Ryspek declared that he'd be running to fill his brother's vacant seat in Parliament. Naturally, people weren't so keen on the idea. The Kyrgyz equivalent of "We don't cater to their kind 'round here" was heard with some frequency around the capital. But after a few months of handing out money and televisions and food to the voting public in his district, the people came around to Ryspek's side. Or some of them did, anyway. The ones with the new money, televisions, and food. Everyone else seemed to continue either not caring or actively cursing his name, depending, of course, on where they stood before the Santa Claus routine.

So for a while there, during the quiet moments between cups of tea or during the walk home from the bazaar, the country was braced in a contemplative calm, quietly concerned about the future of Parliament, wondering what could be done to stop a known criminal from running and essentially buying his way into government (he wasn't, after all, convicted; and even if he had been, the sitting PM was very recently in jail, so where's the line in the sand?). The question was put before Parliament (via the Central Election Committee), which, if anything like the rest of the world's elected bodies, is just brilliant at policing itself. Early last week they announced that Ryspek was out on a technicality: it seemed he did not meet residency requirements, as he has not lived in Kyrgyzstan continuously during the past five years. That announcement was followed on Thursday by his followers blocking all of the main roads in the area along the northern shores of Lake Issy-kul, where he would be running from, as well as blocking the mayor's office there. As that went so splendidly (sarcasm aside, it did work to disrupt commerce and traffic and local governance and in that sense was a brilliantly executed bit of political demonstrating), Ryspek and his posse decided to up the stakes and move things to Bishkek. And that brings us to Friday, which, as this has gone on long enough for a single post, I will get to tomorrow. I will leave you only with this: Where's Buddy Cianci when you really need him?


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Tuesday, April 04, 2006

 

Bus Stop Beauty

I had a nice long post planned for today about last Friday's pseudo-uprising here in Bishkek. But then I took a nap and things got all fuzzy and that post will have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm throwing a back-up post at you, one far less manpower-intensive on my end, as the working folk like to say. Plus, it's got pictures!

During our travels around the country, Erin and I have both been admiring the weird and wonderful bus stops adorning roadsides pretty much everywhere. They are truly remarkable, partly-crumbly, fifteen (or so) foot tall cement monuments to various cultural aspects of the Kyrgyz and their Soviet friends. We've seen giant kolpaks (the traditional hat you may have seen the lone Kyrgyz Olympian wearing during the opening ceremonies in Turin this past February), eagles, horses, yurts, Lenin's head, various mosaics, on and on. And all with cozy spots inside to hang out and wait for the marschutka. So that's nice.

On our last trip to Talas, after passing a particularly brilliant fifteen foot kolpak, Erin leaned over and said, "I want to hire a driver next summer and spend time driving around the country taking pictures of these bus stops." Unfortunately, someone beat her to it. In some sense, anyway. His name is Christopher Herwig and you can find him here. But what you really want is this. They're apparently not just in Kyrgyzstan. Who knew?

Monday, April 03, 2006

 

Opening Day!



I just wanted to get the good mojo started right from the get-go. I may be in Central Asia, but that doesn't mean I don't care.

Also, check out this week's surprisingly applicable PostSecret highlight here.


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