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We should note that the sphere of interethnic relations was more or less calm and quiet, thus confirming the viability of the "Kazakh model of interethnic and inter-religious accord." Nevertheless, it is time to think of reforming and developing this model.
"Etnopoliticheskaya situatsiya v Rossii i sopredelnykh gosuderstvakh," Moscow, 2012, pp. 578-586.
Yevgeni Borodin,
Ph. D. (Econ.), Diplomatic Academy,
Foreign Ministry of Russia
RELATIONS BETWEEN RUSSIA
AND KYRGYZSTAN AT THE PRESENT STAGE
From the beginning of its entry in the Russian Empire (1870 -1880) Kyrgyzstan became its special part. The czarist government artificially divided the territory into Turkestan Governorate General and khanates, thus preventing Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Tajiks to become a new ethnic community. However, at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century czarist Russia's policy played an important role in the formation of the initial or primary educational system, which gave an impetus to Kyrgyz joining the values of Russian culture.
In 1884 Russian-aboriginal schools began to be opened, combining Muslim mekhteb and Russian primary school, with the introduction of Russian as the national language (obligatory subject), and allowing local inhabitants to study the foundations of Islam as the principal means to overcome the indigenous people mistrust in these schools and draw as many children as possible in them. By 1917 there were 17 Russian-aboriginal schools and two boarding schools at the Pishpek and Przhevalsk municipal schools.
In 1918 Kyrgyzstan was part of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). According to national-state demarcation of the Soviet republics of Central Asia the Kara-Kyrgyz Autonomous region was formed within the RSFSR on October 14, 1924 . On February 1, 1926, it was transformed into the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the RSFSR, and on December 5, 1936, -- the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic within the U.S.S.R.
Soviet power radically changed the life of the Kyrgyz people. Equality between men and women was proclaimed in 1917, and polygamy and bride-money were banned in 1921. Important steps were made in combating illiteracy. The Kyrgyz written language was created by 1924. The Kyrgyz population's literacy reached 15 percent by 1926, and by 1939 this figure rose to 82 percent. During the years of Soviet power a system of people's education was formed. The mass media and cultural and educational institutions were organized. Literacy reached 99 percent.
Rapid industrial development took place in Kyrgyzstan in the 1920s - 1930s. By 1940 coal mines of the republic produced 88 percent of coal used in Central Asia. Non-ferrous metallurgy, the production of antimony and mercury, foodstuffs (especially sugar), and light-industry commodities developed successfully. Agricultural collectivization began to be introduced in 1929. Rich cattle-breeders and land-owners were arrested, tried and executed, their property and belongings confiscated. By 1941 there were about 300,000 cattle-breeding collective farms in Kyrgyzstan.
The industrialization of Kyrgyzstan proceeded hand in hand with the development of agriculture after World War II. More than 200 industrial enterprisers were created in Kyrgyzstan from the 1960s to the 1980s. The level of agricultural mechanization has also risen. During a
historically short period of time modern urban life, industry, and the infrastructure of transport and communications have been created.
Kyrgyzstan was distinguished in the Soviet economy by the production of non-ferrous metals, various branches of engineering, and highly productive animal husbandry. However, despite all qualitative transformations and new elements brought to the life of the Kyrgyz people, they retained certain traits of consciousness going deep into the past of Central Asia and formed under the impact of a number of factors.
Historically, Kyrgyzstan had always been a "crossroads" connecting Europe and Asia. The waves of ethnic migrants had moved in different directions. As a result, Central Asia became connected with all regions of Eurasia. And during the Russian and Soviet periods its ties with East Europe became broader.
Then "Great Silk Route" connecting China with India, and the Islamic and western worlds had largely determined certain specific features of the culture and mentality of the Central Asian people. They adopt and transform effects of outside influence and on this basis form their own specific world outlook and perception of the surrounding world.
According to historical sources, Central Asia had been a center of special nomadic civilization. There had been two great nomadic empires of the world in Central Asia - the Turkic Kaganate and the Golden Horde. The nomadic empires of the past had been striving to create a uniform civilizatory community through the formation of a developed infrastructure (transport, communications, and other systems). A developed infrastructure contributed to the expansion of the free-trade zone, economic growth and the emergence of intensive intercultural communications.
The Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union had realized the idea of "conservative revolution" in Kyrgyzstan, based on creation of seats of high culture and supported by traditional and coercive methods in agricultural economy (collective farms).
The post-revolutionary period in the history of Kyrgyzstan was a time of mastering modern Europeanized culture and education, but in their Russian version and often through the prism of Marxism-Leninism.
It should be noted that in Soviet times the Kyrgyz language and Kyrgyz culture were practically completely ousted by the Russian language. Kyrgyz culture was only used as something touristy. Inasmuch as the attracted culture was dominating, Kyrgyz culture was defined as more backward, which tended to form an inferiority complex among the indigenous people, and those who became "Russified" acquired a superiority complex. All this led to greater tension in society, all the more so since material inequality was growing all the time.
After the proclamation of independence in 1991 Kyrgyzstan came across economic difficulties connected with transfer to a market economy. Interethnic conflicts became more frequent and acute in the republic. Relations with the Uzbek minority in Osh region worsened considerably, and there were interethnic clashes with casualties. Similar developments took place in neighboring Tajikistan with regard to the Kyrgyz minority. All these problems, along with a considerable burden of foreign-policy problems of the Central Asian vector of the former U.S.S.R. (imprecise borders, Afghan conflict, growing Islamic fundamentalism, drug-trafficking, etc.) confronted the young Kyrgyz state in the post-Soviet period.
The disintegration of the U.S.S.R. has led to the factual collapse of economic ties between the Russian Federation and Kyrgyzstan,
simultaneously giving an impetus to the development and intensification of economic relations with other foreign countries.
By the time of the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. there were a democratic government and a developed multiparty system in Kyrgyzstan already. On May 10, 1993, Kyrgyzstan's own national currency - som - was introduced. Its parliament adopted laws on the privatization of state-owned enterprises and other state property, and in May 1993 a new Constitution of the country was approved. On December 24, 1995, new presidential elections were carried out in the country, which were won by Askar Akayev, who received 71.65 percent of votes.
The period between 1995 and 2001 was characterized by the strengthening of sovereign statehood of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan. Numerous laws were adopted at the time, most of which (about 80 percent) were initiated by the government of Kyrgyzstan.
In the period from the proclamation of independence up to the "revolution of 2005" an administrative-clan system was created in the Kyrgyz Republic, which was a direct continuation of the Soviet system of distribution, the living standards dropped markedly, and family and clan relations were thriving.
The years 2005 - 2010 can be characterized as a period of the growing personal power of K. Bakiyev and his family. In the view of Kyrgyz and Russian political observers the Bakiyev family, having usurped power and economic levers, adopted all crucial decisions, disregarding the opposition, public sentiments and foreign partners.
The cooling of Kyrgyz-Russian relations exerted a noticeable influence on the development of revolutionary events in 2010. It had a profound impact on the sentiments of Kyrgyz society which displayed growing pro-Russian views after the events of 2005 - 2007. Economic dependence of most people in Kyrgyzstan on Russia caused feelings of
strong discontent with the Bakiyev regime which was largely responsible for the worsening relations with Russia. The revolutionary change of power in 2010 and the following transformation of presidential-parliamentary republic into parliamentary-presidential took place under the banner of returning the pro-Russian forces to power and strengthening interstate, military and economic relations, the peak of which was the signing of documents on greater Russian economic and military presence in the republic in September 2012.
It can safely be said that Kyrgyzstan owes its history as a sovereign state to Russia. Its people have traversed the entire path from the formation of a Soviet republic to a state with its own Constitution, parliament, president and government with mentality similar to that of the Soviet and Russian people, and the events in Kyrgyzstan resemble those taking place in some Russian national republics (Bashkortostan, Tatarstan).
In the modern history of the Kyrgyz Republic there have been three forcible changes of the heads of state, followed by changes of the configuration of the elites. Unfortunately, the constitutional and economic reforms have not resulted in the formation of a full-fledged independent state on the territory of the Kyrgyz Republic. A tangle of problems in the foreign-policy sphere (Afghanistan, drug production, sale and trafficking, problems of the Ferghana Valley and borders with the closest neighbors, economic crisis, interference of the U.S.A. and western countries in its internal affairs), as well as the absence of progress in solving the economic and social problems in the domestic life lead to the preservation of the "instability zone" in the first and "most democratic" state of Central Asia. All this determines the many-vector and complex character of relations between Russia and Kyrgyzstan.
Both states can coexist and successfully develop on condition of their all-round interaction and cooperation in the spheres of common interests. Speaking at a news conference on the results of an official visit of the then resident of the Kyrgyz Republic Askar Akayev to Russia in March 1996, the then President of Russia Boris Yeltsin assessed bilateral relations between Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Federation as a sample for other CIS countries to follow.
At present the foreign ministers of the two countries emphasize that they hold similar positions practically on all major international problems and closely interact at UN, OSCE, as well as at regional organizations - CIS, EurAsEC, CSTO and SCO.
The two countries try to help each other in the situation of economic instability of recent years. Russia granted credit of $300 million on favorable terms to Kyrgyzstan on April 30, 2009. This money should go to developing many industries in the republic, which suffer in the conditions of financial instability. Besides, the Russian Federation pledged to invest $1.7 billion in the construction of the Kambaratin hydropower plant, and also to grant Kyrgyzstan free financial, aid to a sum of $150 million. In turn, the Kyrgyz Republic pledged to close down the U.S. military base "Manas" on its territory, and hand over to Russia several buildings in its capital Bishkek to house a cultural center of the Russian Federation. However, the revolutionary events of 2010 prevented the implementation of these agreements.
In September 2012 President V. Putin of the Russian Federation and President A.Atambayev of Kyrgyzstan signed documents on setting up a Russian military base and building the Verkhne-Naryn cascade of hydropower plants and Kambaratin hydropower plant-1. Experts estimate the cost of these projects at $4 billion. Apart from that, Russia agreed to write off Kyrgyz debt amounting to $489 million. Besides,
Russia donated Kyrgyzstan a grant of $25 million to support its budget. The Russian "Gazprom" Corporation is buying the Kyrgyz Company "Kyrgyzgaz" for a symbolic sum of $1 million with an obligation to carry out modernization of the republican gas infrastructure.
The agreements signed in 2012 and those to be signed in 2013 are a natural sequence of Russian-Kyrgyz joint activity and made it possible to consolidate the Russian presence in Kyrgyzstan.
Kyrgyzstan is exceptionally important for Russia due to a whole number of important factors.
First. From the geopolitical point of view a greater part of Russia lies in Asia and borders on several states, which were parts of one and the same country for almost two centuries, whose development was oriented to and formed by Russia, and whose culture continues to be under Russian influence. A great many Russian-speaking people live in Kyrgyzstan. A considerable number of Kyrgyz people works or studies in Russia. Russia and Kyrgyzstan are participants in joint military-political and economic organizations created after the disintegration of the USSR.
Secondly. From the geostrategic view Kyrgyzstan is a key to the Central Asian region, which is part of the "instability arc" stretching from the Balkans to Indonesia and the Philippines. The military threats emanating from it are quite real because of the strengthening of separatism and international terrorism. Today these threats have transformed into military conflicts between the United States and their allies, on the one hand, and the international terrorist movements on the territory of several countries bordering on the region, on the other. Destabilization of the situation around the region is increased by the anti-Iranian campaign organized and carried on by the United States, as well as the permanent Indo-Pakistani conflict capable to transform into a war between two nuclear states. The conflict potential in Kyrgyzstan
itself has not been exhausted either due to existence of unresolved socio-economic problems, disputed border issues, and the motley national composition of the republic.
The strategic importance of Kyrgyzstan also lies in that it is a transitional zone between the North and the South of Asia, and the situation in it exerts a considerable influence on the situation in these two parts of the continent. It also influences stability along the southern borders of Russia, as well as its security in those parts.
Thirdly. After September 11, 2001, the struggle for Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia has acquired a global character. Its new development stage has begun, which is more closely connected with integration in the world economic and geopolitical relations. The great powers have confronted one another strategically in Central Asia. The main actors -the United States, Russia and the European Union pursue diametrically opposed aims. The United States and the European Union are striving to gain control over the rich energy resources of the region and prevent Russia to rally around itself the republics of the former U.S.S.R. again.
The interaction of Russia, the United States, the European Union and China in Kyrgyzstan is a complex intertwining and rivalry of the "great" for influence on the "minor", and coincidence of the interests of these states and insurmountable contradictions, and elaboration of a common strategy in the globalized world.
Thus, relations between Russia and Kyrgyzstan are characterized by desire for continuity and stability. The two countries are connected by common history and age-old bonds of friendship between their people. The development of bilateral ties between states is a long and multifarious process, including movement toward one another.
"Vestnik Rossiiskoi natsii, " Moscow, 2013, No 1-2, pp. 311-319.
