Finally got around to digging up some old photos I took several Nauryzes ago (several years ago on Nauryz). It was my first year in Kazakhstan and I went to Duman to watch them put up the yurts, having never seen this before. Watching, I got the idea to do a little photo instructable on how to put together a yurt. While I doubt anyone could use these instructions to actually build a yurt themselves, I hope it’s interesting to see the different steps involved.

The materials all laid out. Believe it or not, this is all you need (except for the outside covering). The shanyrak or roof and the wall frames.



For fancy yurts, step one is to put up the door. Simpler yurts have no door, only a doorway.

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A great website Central Asia History, which consists of oral interviews with people from Kyrgyzstan, particularly focusing on older people and the early years of the Soviet Union, World War I, the settlement of nomadic people, World War II/the Great Patriotic War, and life now. It’s extremely interesting to read and I’d love to see something similar done in Kazakhstan.

I’m late to the party with this story, as I’m late with every story due to an unanticipated hiatus I was forced to take from blogging. But this is a great story nonetheless. New evidence suggests that horses were first domesticated and milked here in Kazakhstan, about 5, 500 years ago.

This follows on an earlier discovery of an ancient stone corral in northern Kazakhstan dated around 3700-3100BC, as well as horse leather products. However scientists concluded that horse domestication probably started in Russia or Ukraine.

Now they seem to have found horse teeth that show wear that only could have come from a bit, with one tooth dated to 3500 BC. In addition horse skeletons found in North Kazakhstan have slim legs that look more like domesticated horses than wild horses. Finally, they found clay pots that had remains of fat from horse milk and horse meat in them. While it isn’t surprising perhaps that people ate horses, research also suggests that milking came pretty soon after domestication. I believe that no other culture has been known to drink horse milk regularly so it would be fascinating to know why Kazakhs came up with the idea. This also might explain why kumys (fermented mare’s milk) remains such a strong part of Kazakh culture.

The world news has covered this story pretty well. The President of Kyrgyzstan announced on a trip to Russia a few weeks ago that he would revoke the rights for the NATO airbase in Manas which has been serving coalition troops in Afghanistan. The US government responded with surprise as they had heard nothing before that announcement.The government of Kyrgyzstan quickly confirmed that it would close the base citing two reasons: first, the U.S. has consistently failed to pay rent in full and that a variety of incidents, including the shooting of a local truck driver, created ill will. Other observers have claimed that Russia resented a US/NATO presence in Russia views as its sphere of influence and offered Kyrgyzstan aid money in exchange for closing the base.

Registan has an interesting, and from the comments, controversial editorial by Jeffrey T. Renz, Clinical Professor of Law at the University of Montana. Renz is primarily targeting Alexander Cooley, whose editorial on Eurasianet argues that the US itself is to blame for losing Manas.

Got this announcement in my mail today and I thought I’d share it with you as I know that TOL is an excellent source of news and information about Central Asia and the former Soviet Union:

Transitions (TOL) today launched a new version of Chalkboard, the
website dedicated to news and analysis of education issues in
transitional countries.

We’ve improved the old site with a more modern look and feel, and
have added new features and resources for readers and journalists
alike. Go to http://chalkboard.tol.org to have a look at the new site.

KEY NEW FEATURES

• Highlights of the key obstacles and success stories in education
  reform, from critical thinking skills, to teacher training, corruption
  and curricula development.
• A database of Transitions Online’s articles, covering education in
  Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
• The “Snapshots of Reform” series: overviews of the education
  reform process in 32 countries, from Eastern Europe to Central Asia,
  South East Asia and Africa.
• Resources, tools and information for journalists to help with writing
  engaging news and feature stories on education topics

I have written a bit about this earlier. In a post from February, Which Candidate is Good for Central Asia?, I noted that Obama is widely viewed as having a more international outlook and being more willing to negotiate with foreign countries, even those that may have questionable human rights policies. However commentors agreed that policy toward Central Asia would not be particularly different under Obama or McCain, nor would it change much from previous policy. US Ambassador Richard Hoagland yesterday also affirmed that relations between the US and Kazakhstan would not change drastically.

However Obama was by far the favorite choice of Kazakhstan. (more…)

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned The Tin Cocoon here before. It’s a fun blog by an Afghan woman (Miss Talibonita) living in the US. Great commentary on pop culture both Central Asian and American and some awesome posts on how Central Asian culture is viewed by Americans.

I particularly wanted to share this image that she picked up from an Egyptian ad for Burger King. An outstanding mix of Islam and America in one image, a burger bit into the shape of the crescent moon. The text says “Ramadan Kareem” or “Happy Ramadan”.

The biggest news of the past months has broken: Barack Obama, the US Democratic Party Presidential candidate, has pickedJoe Biden as his vice-president. As many pundits have been pointing out for months, one of Obama’s weak points is his lack of foreign policy credentials. Biden, a Democrat from the state of Delaware, is a long-serving Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meaning he has excellent foreign policy experience.

He made headlines for us Kazakhstanaphiles when he wrote a stern letter to President Nazarbayev in early 2007, threatening to work against Kazakhstan’s attempt to get the chairmanship of the OSCE if the nation did not do more to promote democracy. (more…)

Haven’t posted in a while because I took a trip to Mongolia last week. Of course nothing casts a pall on travel plans like political protest that ends with the burning of the leading political party’s building and sacking of the nearby Culture Palace. Assured by my friend in Ulaan Baatar and by various Mongolian blogs that the protests were a one-time deal and that the streets were safe I went ahead and got on the plane anyway.
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Thanks to Registan.net for pointing me to this article on problems with US AID funding for Central Asia:

Aid for almost every country in the former Soviet Union will be falling in 2008, under the current foreign affairs budget released by the US State Department. Much of the planned US assistance will go toward helping independent-minded states in the region resist Russian efforts to reassert its dominance in the Caspian Basin and elsewhere. Even so, some Washington experts lament the drop-off in aid, and describe the dwindling budgets in recent years as “monuments to weak analysis, inter-agency pettiness, and trite bureaucratic formuli.”

Overall, the budget for the Freedom Support Act, which provides aid to former Soviet states, is $346 million for fiscal year 2009, which actually starts on October 1, 2008. That is down from $396 million in fiscal 2008, and $452 million the year before that.

It’s interesting to note because one of the sponsors of the Freedom Support Act was John McCain, who will likely be the Republican nominee for President. So perhaps the Central Asia crowd should be cheering for McCain who has paid some attention to the region. On the other hand, Barak Obama is widely believed to be more of an internationalist and perceived to have sympathy for Muslim countries, having been raised in Indonesia. Perhaps he will be more willing to dole out aid to developing countries and to sympathize with the common rhetoric of Western democracy balanced with Asian values that is rife throughout this region. Hilary Clinton, on the other hand, seems to have a more shameful link to the region via ex-President Clinton who seems happy to do business deals here to help out his buddies and lend credence to regional leaders by talking to them.

I’d be interested in what you readers think. Which US Presidential candidate is best for Central Asia?