Editor’s Note: What follows is part of a cross-blog survey that explores what Central Eurasia might look like fifteen years from now.

The history of contemporary Tajikistan began with a lot of problems and difficulties. The most tragic time was the Civil War which followed the break up of Soviet Union. The war left this country impoverished. It is now in the process of strengthening its democracy and transitioning to a free market economy.

Though the civil war is already over the living conditions of the population still remain to be the lowest on the post-Soviet territory. However the recent presidential elections and different surveys prove that the majority of the population is satisfied with the policy run by the current president Rahmonov. He is respected by the population for bringing peace to the country.

Peace and stability are the main factors which make most of the population believe that the present reforms conducted by the government will make their country prosperous. I also want to believe in that.

Actually it is really difficult to say what is going to happen in 15 years from now, but I hope that the life of ordinary people will be much better. So my assumptions are very positive, and I would say that below is the list of my dreams. May be I’m a little bit out of the topic but I think that it is going to happen if not in 15 years then in 30-40 years for sure.

I think that in fifteen years the life of Tajik people will be much better. People will no more experience any political instability: no more wars and confrontations. Tajikistan will continue to strengthen its democracy and will have a free market economy. People will never have such problems as blackouts because there are going to be several huge hydroelectric power stations, such as Sangtuda-1. Each family will have electricity in its house all the time.

The excess of electricity will be exported to other countries and hundreds millions of dollars will flow into the budget of the country. The GDP of the country after several years will be increasing up to 30% each year, or even more.

The new paved roads will connect all the settlements with each other within the country and new roads connecting Tajikistan with the rest of the world will be built. Tajikistan will build a road connecting it with the Indian Ocean which is going to boost the economy of the country. All the Central Asian countries will have direct way to the ocean and Tajikistan will have huge revenues from trade.

Tajikistan is going to have the best planes in Central Asia and no one will be afraid to fly with Tajik Airlines. It will not be the “Scare Lines” any more because the government is going to by in the next fifteen years new planes, mostly Boeings and Airbuses to ensure the safety of the passengers.

The government will start allocating more money from the budget for medicine and education. The life expectancy will increase and the population will be more educated. The education and medicine will be the main priorities for the government in the next fifteen years.

The number of prisoners will decrease and the living conditions of them will be better.

I want to believe that it is going to happen!

Editor’s Note: What follows is part of a cross-blog survey that explores what Central Eurasia might look like fifteen years from now.

Let us try to imagine what is gonna happen in Kyrgyzstan in 15 years. Considering the dynamics of events we’ve been recently facing in the country, it has to be emphasized that any kind of prognosis is problematic and tentative.

Though we asked our analysts about their feelings in terms of the future of Kyrgyzstan. Here is the compilation of opinions and materials that we’ve received from the experts. It turned out to be a fantasy in gothic style.

Kyrgyz economy. Services.
As a country with an extremely limited access to natural resources Kyrgyzstan in the future will need to rely on such sources as rendering services (especially tourism) and agriculture in order to sustain its economy and supplement the budget. In 2009 the gold mining giant Kumtor will curtail its production on 30% due to the lack of resources which will inevitably affect the whole of the country which gets exactly 30% of its revenues as taxes from Kumtor’s activity. As it has already been mentioned Kyrgyzstan will suffer from these trends in 2009-2017.

In this situation tourism will become one the vital elements of the budget. Sea side resorts in Issyk Kul and alpine skiing resorts in Kyrgyz Mountains will be experiencing an influx of tourists which will inevitably affect an ecological situation in the country. As a result short terms revenues will be prioritized over ecological concerns.

Industry and infrastructure By 2020 most of the industrial facilities will be outdated and non operating. It is worth keeping in mind, that most of the infrastructure facilities in the country were created under the Soviet Union and after its collapse Kyrgyzstan was not able to sustain it. We really should be prepared to the fact that in 15 years everything that used to be functional in terms of processing metals, producing glass and building materials will all be disabled. Bear in mind extremely poor quality of the transportation in Kyrgyzstan and you will easily be able to agree that Kyrgyzstan is able to “outshine” the poorest nations that are eager to enter the Club Of Poorest Nations (HIPIC). The only field that will still be trembling by 2020 is power engineering that today is almost completely privatized.

Agriculture Farmers will soon realize that in order to get more profits they need to deal with foreign consumers. In the nearest future they will start selling their products to Kazakhstan and China with these countries more solvent markets. It will inevitably deprive Kyrgyz population in terms of the quality and quantity of available goods. Thus agriculture in Kyrgyzstan can potentially become a competitive and a profitable market sector but it will hardly improve the lives of people living in Kyrgyzstan.

Internal politicsKyrgyzstan will continue suffering from the absence of an absolute champion able to win hearts and minds of the population. Political skirmished between factions and individual politicians will continue leading to further disillusionment of the electorate in Kyrgyzstan.

Foreign politics Kyrgyzstan will inevitably face the necessity to choose its main international ally which will result in pushing out one of the military bases currently harbored in the country. Playing on both side will not be possible any longer and the republic will inevitably be confronted by the uneasy choice of sticking to one of Big Brothers. There are 2 possible scenarios here: we will either become an enemy in the perception of the world community or will get a label of CIS traitors in case the choice will be made in favor of western countries. Certain isolation in this case is inevitable.

Microsoft recently unveiled their answer to Google Books, but because of copyright issues, most of the books available are extremely old.

When searching for books on Central Asia, I came across a book titled The Mohammedan World of To-day, published in 1906. While mainly about missionaries in the larger Muslim world, it has some interesting passages about conversion in what is now Uzbekistan. By today’s standards, it of course comes across as archaic and orientalist, but it is nonetheless interesting to catch a glimpse into the mindset of the few Western travelers in the region during that time period.

The great Russian Trans-Caspian railroad through those lands facilitates travel in Central Asia, and we use it. In our work we try to get the Moslems under the influence and power of the gospel of Christ by preaching, conversion, and distribution of the Scriptures… A number of Moslems have been converted and baptized in the Caucasus and in Bokhara. For this we praise the Lord. Many have found a peace and a salvation which they sought in vain in their own religion. Once I remained in Bokhara two months. From our book store in the city, our native helpers distributed the New Testament even among the people of Afghanistan. One old professor in the high school of Bokhara received from us the Bible in Arabic… One morning he said, “I am convinced that Jesus Christ will conquer Mohammed. There is no doubt about it because Christ is king in heaven and on earth…”

The section goes on to discuss the translation of the Bible into Uighur and the establishment of a mission in Xinjiang. The book also contains this picture of “travelling dervishes from Bokhara.”

Though the rhetoric has changed dramatically (now religious groups often combine aid with conversion), Christian groups are still hard at work proselytizing in Central Asia (though at times with some difficulty).

Kyrgyz government has just announced about its resignation. Kyrgyz president is currently holding an emergency meeting with the head of the government Felix Kulov.
The reaction on the resignation is mixed. According to the governor of the Osh district Jantoro Satybaldiev: ”This decision is a brave step of decent people.’’

Satybaldiev has also emphasized that this is a decisive moment for president Bakiev to prove his credibility and to prevent new unrests in the country.

The minister of Justice Marat Kayipov said that according to the newly amended Constitution the government will now be supposed to be formed by the parliamentary majority. The question for me know is whether the parliament will also be longing for some fresh blood and will stage re elections in order to get a legitimate majority capable of forming the government.

One more reason to start rejoicing at the end of the year. Kyrgyz members of parliament were allowed to possess and carry guns. To be precise, MPs allowed this to themselves – the veto of the president on possessing guns was bypassed in the Kyrgyz parliament as the law ‘On the status of parliament members’ was being amended.

As one of the deputies mentioned in the interview to the Public Rating: ‘the idea itself was dwelling on the fact that recently there have has been a number of attacks against our colleagues. We don’t feel safe any more and that’s why we badly need to ensure that we do have some kind of protection’.

This was yet another step towards turning Kyrgyz parliamentarians into a privileged cast.
It should be stressed that Kyrgyz parliamentarians have been discussing issues of their own security for several months in the breaks between different rallies. On the one hand, one can be sympathetic: the situation in the country is far from being stable and it feels more secure when you are aware that if things go wrong you can just use your pistol.

On the other hand it’s not only MPs who are endangered. Does it mean that everyone will get a slack and be allowed to carry all kinds of guns?

The latter will probably not happen. Safety of the electorate is not in the agenda of Kyrgyz parliamentarians today. It is law enforcement bodies that are supposed to be taking care of that on the regular basis. When there is a free time the Ministry of Interior will be dealing with assigning guns to MPs for the period as long as life time, which means that even when the term in parliament is over ex parliamentarians will be able to enjoy the privilege of shooting, say, birds. Or someone else.

Here is the translation of the post that I’ve placed on Tajik-Russian blog. All the sources are in Russian

Recently I’ve heard a story about one guy, who was put in jail for drug-smuggling, and after a year he died of tuberculosis. He was not even thirty years old and he had a little kid. Everybody was shocked. No one could believe that he was a drug-dealer and no one could believe that he could die in such a young age, because physically he was very strong.

Unfortunately, one can hear a lot of such stories in Tajikistan. There are many young people who are put in jail for drug-smuggling and some of them do not come back. It’s a one way ticket. They die of different diseases, mostly of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a widely spread disease in Tajik jails.

48 prisoners in the first half of the year 2006 died of in the jail facilities. The main causes of death are tuberculosis and heart disease…

…nowadays 1,400 prisoners are suffering of tuberculosis.

This statistics was provided this year in July by the head of the Jail facilities department at the Ministry of Justice of Tajikistan, Bahrom Abdulhakov. Last year according to the same official 62 people died during the whole year. 115 people were registered as HIV-positive.

Till October of this year in the jail facilities of Tajikistan were kept more than 12 thousands prisoners, but the number was substantially decreased by the amnesty. 3,960 prisoners were released and the prison term of 2,457 prisoners was half shortened in accordance with the amnesty which was dedicated to the fifteenth anniversary of Independence Day. The last amnesty was pursued in 2001. In accordance with that amnesty about 10 thousand.

There are 14 jails in Tajikistan for 8,450 prisoners, and 5 investigative isolation wards for 2,500 prisoners.

This year on 30th of January the number of convicted people in Tajikistan was 9 thousand – 164 people out of 100, 000 of the country population were in jail. This statistics made Tajikistan stand on the 79th position in the world, rated by International Center for Prisons Studies (ICPS) at London University.

In this sense the situation with jails in Tajikistan is much better than in other Central Asian countries. For instance, in Kazakhstan this number equals to 386 prisoners, Kyrgyzstan – 390, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan 489.

Obviously the number of prisoners in our country is lesser but the living conditions of the prisoners leave much to be desired. Only 1,27 somonis (about 35 cents) per day are allotted to each prisoner, while in Kazakhstan 2,000 dollars a year are alloted.

The allotted money is not enough for the normal food, not saying about the medical care and clothing. The sense of kinship is strong in our country and it makes the life of prisoners much easier, because all the necessary stuff they can get from their relatives if it is not provided by the government.

Despite the hardships in captivity, some of the prisoners do not lose hope. Recently, Ferghan.ru citing Varorud reported that in one of the jails in Sogd region one prisoner got married to a girl non-prisoner. It was the sixteenth marriage this year. Last year there were registered 20 marriages in Sogd region.

Here is the translation of some recommendations from AsiaPlus on how to survive during the energy crisis in Tajikistan.

1. Stock up on: optimism, candles, flashlight, firewood (in case if it necessary to cook outside), thermos with hot water and matches;

2. Try to purchase a gas-vessel with gas for gas-stove and also buy a kerosene stove;

3. Regularly ventilate the your accommodation in order to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning (if you use the heating stove);

4. Fill all the thermoses with water and stock up on boiled water. Those who live in the apartments higher than 3rd level should stock up on regular water;

5. Hermetically glue up all the window cracks and cover the doors with thick blankets;

6. In order to preserve the warmth all the inmates should move to one or two rooms;

7. In order to avoid accidents do not leave the gas-stoves on for a night.

Elite Kazakhstanis celebrating on this Independence Day weekend may soon have more in common with their rich brethren in the United States. According to a Kazakhstani Embassy dispatch Snow Queen Vodka, the “best non-flavored vodka in the world” and product of Kazakhstan, is being rapidly introduced to the US market.

“Based on international demand, a United States launch plan was moved ahead of schedule,” relates an Embassy representative, “in addition to [Washington DC], Snow Queen Vodka is now available in New York, Chicago, Miami and the Caribbean, with a
nationwide rollout staging over the coming year.”

The vodka has thus far received a very warm welcome, particularly in DC. “We are thrilled with the incredible reception that Snow Queen has received in the nation’s capital,” said Rowland Hill, CEO of Snow Queen, “Snow Queen has fast become the vodka of choice for so many important Washingtonians, and while this is no surprise based on the quality of our product, we are delighted with the rapidity in which this has occurred.”

Mr. Hill’s statement may not be your run-of-the-mill PR fluff: according to recent reports, Snow Queen essentially sponsored Vice President Dick Cheney’s Christmas Party. Now they need only work their product into the liquor cabinet of incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and America (or at least its political upper crust) is theirs.

And what do locals think about Snow Queen? Hard to figure- no one in this area of Kazakhstan can seem to afford it. “[But] Vodka was better in the Soviet Days,” a local carpenter, and rather heavy drinker, assured me.

A power shortage in Tajikistan caused blackouts throughout the country. Barki Tojik, the Tajik state electricity provider had warned that the total blackout will last for three days and then the power supply will remain limited for almost a week.

The blackouts have been caused by the construction of Sangtuda-1 hydropower plant. The river Vakhsh in southern Tajikistan was closed off today to enable construction of a dam for the plant to go ahead. Construction works at Sangtuda have caused power supply disruptions from the Nurek hydropower plant that produces about 75 percent of Tajikistan’s electricity.

Barki Tojik officials suggested planned shortages would not affect “strategic sites” such as schools, hospitals and airports. They also said other hydropower plants will allow providing limited electricity supply to Dushanbe and Khujand, administrative centre of the northern Sogd Oblast. GBAO, Tajikistan’s largest region located in the Pamirs will also not be affected by the blackout.

Authorities suggest that power blackouts are a temporary measure that will ensure a “better future” for the impoverished nation. With a design capacity of 2.7 billion kilowatt hours per annum, the plant is expected to meet the local energy demand and provide excess power to sell abroad.

In November, when the blockage of the Vakhsh had been scheduled, electricity shortages in Tajikistan came at a severe economic cost. The river blockage had been put off because contractors at the site failed to meet the deadlines.

Meanwhile, IWPR reports that energy experts blame winter blackouts on poor planning.

“Energy experts say management of the project has been poorly coordinated, leading to delays to the start of construction and the ensuing power cuts at the coldest time of the year,” IWPR reports.

Despite Barki Tojik’s claims that the population “has shown understanding” of the inevitability of power cuts, people are disappointed with the way authorities handle energy problems.

“We have had power outages since early December,” said Mohira Rozakova, resident of Dushanbe. “Why could not they put it off until a warmer season? Because of their stupid policy the price of bread and gas increased. They don’t see it through the windows of their palaces and fancy cars”.

Officials with Barki Tojik promised they will resume power supply from Nurek on December 21. However, many observers say there is no guarantee that the power restrictions will not be extended until much later.

While authorities keep promising a better future, the population seems tired of not having decent living conditions. On Wednesday, December 13, residents of Kanibadam in northern Tajikistan organized a rally in front of the khukumat (local authorities). They protested against power and gas outages.

As much as five participants of the rally in front of Kanibadam khukumat have been detained by police. Officials from the local Prosecutor’s Office have suggested that strict measures would be applied to participants of such “unauthorized rallies”. The government has thus sent a clear message that any attempts to question its energy policies will not be tolerated.

Zerafshan valley is one of the most picturesque places in Tajikistan. And one of the most isolated too. Centuries ago, the valley was the centre of Sogdiana (Sughdiyon), a wealthy and developed state on the Great Silk Road. During the Soviet rule, the valley was divided in two: Samarkand went to Uzbekistan, while Penjikent and other regions up the Zerafshan river went to Tajikistan.

The road from Dushanbe to Penjikent is 270 kilometers long. In summer, you can make this distance in 7 to 9 hours on a good car. In winter, it might take you the whole day to get to Penjikent.

There used to be a direct flight from Dushanbe to Penjikent. It took the old Soviet An-24 only 40 minutes to take you from the Dushanbe airport to the place that for some reason bears the name of Penjikent airport. The flight was cancelled this year. According to the Tajik Airlines (foreigners usually call it “Scare Lines”), the flight was too costly for the company.

In winter, Zerafshan valley is almost as isolated from the rest of Tajikistan as any region in the Mountainous Badahshan (Pamirs). The region is closer, both geographically and economically, to Uzbekistan than to Tajikistan. During the Soviet period, there was a direct road from Dushanbe to Penjikent via the friendly republic of Uzbekistan. As soon as independent Uzbekistan closed off from the rest of Central Asia, Zerafshan Valley became an isolated island.

A massive mountain range separates Zerafshan Valley from central Tajikistan. From April to October, the high-elevation Anzob pass allows cars and trucks passing through the range. From November to March, the road lies under tens of meters of snow.

To link the valley to the rest of the country and ensure constant transport routes, Tajikistan has invited an Iranian company to build a tunnel under the mountains. The tunnel titled “Ushtur”, in construction since 2003, had to be completed this summer. However, after completing most of the work, Iranians were suddenly confronted with the problem of underground water that they have not yet been able to resolve. The tunnel is not officially opened, but Iranians have allowed a limited traffic through the pass to make the valley accessible.

The driver of an old Soviet UAZ skillfully maneuvers his car through frequent turns and serpentines. After a three-hour drive, we reach the tunnel so awkwardly projected by the Iranians. Despite the official report that the tunnel is “almost completed”, it actually looks like a hole in the concrete rock. There is no lighting and no tarmac. It takes us about 20 minutes to drive through the dark tunnel.

On the other side of the tunnel, the road is even worse than before. After another three-hour drive on a narrow road squeezed between rocks and rivers, we are in Ayni.

Ayni is a big village that marks the beginning of the Zerafshan Valley. It is a crossing point of two major routes: Dushanbe-Khujand-Tashkent and Dushanbe-Penjikent.

Sirodj, one of our passengers, gets off in Ayni. He says in winter, Ayni is probably the last place on earth he would want to live if he had a chance.

“We have power for only two hours a day and sometimes don’t have at all” says Sirodj. “There are no jobs and no places to go. Almost all men from Ayni have left for Russia to work as labor migrants. Only women, children and older men are left. I do not know why this village still exists”.

At the Ayni checkpoint, our driver has a brief conversation with the local GAI (traffic police) officers who demand “choypuli” (tea money), a bribe. Our car is rounded by young boys selling dried apricots, nuts and apples. For them, cars passing the checkpoint are often the only source of income.

As soon as our driver gets back in the car, we continue the trip to Penjikent. Starting from Ayni, we drive along the Zerafshan, the river that gives name to the valley.