The author of The Central Asia Chronicle is Erica Fatlán, a Norwegian journalist, writer and social anthropologist. Before I officially share my reading experience, I would like to point out that between 2012 and 2013, the author Fatlan traveled to five Central Asian countries, namely Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, and then published this book in 2014. Therefore, if there is a difference between the specific situation shared at that time and the actual situation of the five Central Asian countries today, please do not be surprised. If this difference is relatively large, it means that in the past 10 years, the five Central Asian countries have all undergone changes and development, and especially if such changes and development are advancing in a good direction, this is indeed a gratifying and congratulatory thing. It is particularly hoped that in the next 10 years, the living standards of ordinary people in the five Central Asian countries will be improved by leaps and bounds, and the status of women in the five Central Asian countries will be qualitatively improved.
1. Five beautiful Central Asian countries alone
As five independent countries, even outsiders always like to refer to these five countries as the "five Central Asian countries", and each of these five Central Asian countries has its own unique side.
a) Turkmenistan.
Turkmenistan is a country that loves marble, most of the buildings in the country are made of marble, and many ** office buildings or public places are built with both distinctive and luxurious exteriors, but the interior is very inexpensive in terms of decoration and goods sold. Fountains, monuments and portraits of ** can be found everywhere in the capital city of Ashgabat.
Turkmenistan is the country with the strictest visas, only a few thousand tourists are allowed to enter each year, but it has a natural affection for Turkey as a country, and the items imported from Turkey are very popular among the people of Turkmenistan;In addition, Turkmenistan is the only permanent neutral country in Asia.
Turkmenistan is a country that worships horses, and their specialty is a Turkmen horse known as the Sweat Horse. There are many gorgeous racecourses in the country, and Turkmenistan regularly holds horse contests, holds a national horse racing day, and requires almost all the people of the country to participate in this event.
ii) Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan is the ninth largest landlocked country in the world in terms of land area and the largest landlocked country in the world, with four-thirds of it being desert or semi-desertHowever, the population is very sparse, and it is one of the eleven countries in the world with a relatively low population density.
Most of the buildings and office buildings in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, are very new and spectacular, and it has the largest mosque in Central AsiaBut almost all streets in the capital have no names, only numbers.
As the last Central Asian country to declare independence from the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan has established a very friendly and intimate cooperative relationship with its "old club"**, the two countries share the longest national border, ethnic Russians make up a quarter of the population of Kazakhstan, Russian is still the official language of Kazakhstan, and most of Kazakhstan's oil exports are transported through Russian pipelines.
c) Tajikistan.
Tajikistan is the poorest country in Central Asia, but both the height of their flagpoles, buildings, and public buildings are very luxurious.
Tajikistan was the first country to hold free elections after independence from the Soviet Union, and the only Central Asian country to have a civil war erupt after secession from the Soviet Union. Because of the corruption and corruption of the first president, many citizens demonstrated, but they were suppressed by force. After the second ** took office, the civil war and infighting still did not end, and because of the participation of other countries, the civil war and conflict became more complicated, which was undoubtedly a disaster for the people. Not only can the common people not be able to fill their stomachs, but their lives will be threatened at any time, and even individual races will suffer from the extermination of the race.
Nearly one-third of Tajikistan's land area is occupied by the Pamirs. The Pamirs have a harsh climate and poor soil, resulting in desolate landscapes and a scarcity of supplies. Located in the Pamirs, the living environment and conditions are very simple, but the villagers living here are very friendly and the relationship between the neighbors is very harmonious.
iv) Kyrgyzstan.
Compared with the other four Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan is the most free and democratic country, once the local people are not satisfied with the government, they dare to rush into the government and the building, and several terms have been driven out because of thisIn order to limit the power of the people, Kyrgyzstan has also introduced a parliamentary system, which requires the obedience of the parliament and the prime minister. Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, unlike the other capitals of the four Central Asian countries, is not displayed everywhere here. In addition, Kyrgyzstan is the only country in Central Asia that does not require a visa.
In Kyrgyzstan, where more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line, the cost of functioning the state is entirely dependent on the income sent back from Russia by migrant workersKyrgyzstan is also the country with the highest incidence of tuberculosis, which is caused by the poor living and working conditions of the local people, and on the other hand, because the local people are too poor to afford vaccination.
Kyrgyzstan is also the worst public order among the five Central Asian countries, and the local people can be described as "flammable and explosive," with fights and domestic violence becoming commonplace, and the social crime rate is increasing year by year. Most frighteningly, in the country's countryside, the traditional practice known locally as "Aracachu" is still prevalent in the country, which is to kidnap a woman on the road and force the woman to marry the man who robbed her. Even if the robbed woman has a fiancé or boyfriend, in the end, more than 90% of the women will stay and marry the man who robbed her, because after being kidnapped, it is a very shameful thing for a woman to choose to go back to her parents' home, and if she also loses her virginity, then her life will be even more over.
v) Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan is the most serious of the five Central Asian countries, and the local people have almost no freedom in terms of news, news, and religionThe excessive repression of religion has also led to long-term social unrest in Uzbekistan, where civil strife has been staged from time to time. Entering Uzbekistan's borders is subject to very strict checks, and any item is checked once. Uzbekistan prohibits any foreign currency, does not support credit cards or online payments, and because inflation is so high, local people need to carry a large bag of cash when they go out. In Uzbekistan, 90% of enterprises are in the hands of the state, and people trained by public institutions need to serve the country for 3 years before they are eligible to choose other tracks.
Uzbekistan is a major cotton grower and the sixth largest exporter of cotton in the world. Because the cotton industry is run in a collective form and is owned by the state, every autumn, Uzbekistan** calls on thousands of ordinary people, regardless of their status and occupation, to put down their work to participate in the "grand event" of cotton picking.
As a country with a strong historical and cultural precipitation, there is a very difficult museum in Nukus, Uzbekistan, which collects Karakalpak cultural crafts, Russian avant-garde art and other artworks, which are familiar and loved by art lovers all over the world, and can still receive four or five thousand tourists every year under the condition of very inconvenient transportation.
2. The five Central Asian countries that are evenly matched
In addition to the common point that the five Central Asian countries are geographically located in Central Asia, they also have many things in common
First, as a member of the former Soviet Union, the influence of the former Soviet Union on the five Central Asian countries still exists today, mainly in the following aspects: the architectural style of many cities in the five Central Asian countries is very "Soviet", such as Kyrgyzstan's ** Mansion and *** is a Soviet-style huge building that mixes neoclassical and Fauvist styles;There are still some holidays of the Soviet era, such as Kazakhstan, which will be a public holiday in the former Soviet Union, on Victory Day, where men, women, the elderly and children gather on the steppe, ** various horse-related programs, lively celebration of this holiday;For example, in order to grow cotton in Central Asia, the former Soviet Union reclaimed the desert into cotton cultivation land, and diverted a large amount of water from the Aral Sea, which was still the fourth largest lake in the world at that time, for irrigation of cotton, but due to improper drainage technology, a large amount of water was wasted, and these all led to the current Aral Sea area being only 10% of the original area. Another example is that the former Soviet Union drew an area in the eastern part of Kazakhstan for the development of hydrogen bombs or nuclear **, and almost 456 ** tests were carried out in this area, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, nuclear tests were stopped, but the radioactive waste remaining under the surface of this area was not effectively cleaned up in time, and it was not until 2012 that with the cooperation of Russia, Kazakhstan and the United States, it took 14 years and 150 million US dollars to dispose of the radioactive waste properly. Even so, almost all of the people living in the area today suffer from high blood pressure, and half of them suffer from different types of diseases to varying degrees.
Second, the economic strength of the five Central Asian countries is not very strong, and the local people have few means of livelihood and a large number of poor people. Whether it is Kazakhstan, the most economically powerful of the five Central Asian countries, or Turkmenistan, which has the fourth largest natural gas reserves in the world, most of the people living in them are still very backward and very lacking in living materials, especially the people living in vast villages. For example, in a village just a few hours from Turkmenistan's capital, almost all the houses are made of mud, there is a very simple house that serves as a public toilet in the village, and the only school is a simple house with tattered tables on the dirt floor. Another example is Tajikistan, where half of its GDP depends on the money earned by ordinary people in foreign countries, and it is very difficult for people living in villages but also in cities, with not enough electricity and gas in winter, and no hot water, and many elderly people and children are frozen to death. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, because the local people lack the opportunity to make a living, many people will sell anything of value in makeshift flea markets on the sidewalks: a candlestick, an old vase, a book that has just been read, etc.
Third, the leaders of the five Central Asian countries have taken many actions to prevent the agitation and "erosion" of their own people by other religions. First of all, it should be clear that the common people of the five Central Asian countries have a faith, for example, in Tajikistan, 98% of the population is Sunni Muslims;And 70% of the population of Kazakhstan is Muslim. In order to prevent their ordinary people from being instigated by neighboring religious groups such as Iran and Afghanistan, or by more fundamentalist Islamic beliefs, the five Central Asian countries have taken different measures to prevent them, such as Kazakhstan's efforts to spread a Sunni Islam that conforms to "traditional Kazakh values", banning religious political parties, and strictly monitoring all religious groupsTajikistan had banned the wearing of headscarves in schools, teachers were not allowed to grow beards, and in 2007 more than 80 per cent of mosques had been closedIslamic dress is prohibited in Uzbekistan and only state-authorized mosques are allowed to openIn Turkmenistan, it is difficult to find different religious or political groups, and ordinary people can only pray in state-owned mosques or at home.
3. The five Central Asian countries that are not connected
Although the relations between the five Central Asian countries today have not reached the viscous level of cold lips and teeth, they still exist in the form of broken ties and inextricable and inextricable ties, and in most cases, they are not manifested in political or economic exchanges among the five Central Asian countries, but more in terms of ethnicity and population. Historically, the five Central Asian states, both in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods, were collectively referred to as "Turkestan", based on the Turkic language of the common people who lived there. Today, the borders of the five Central Asian countries follow those drawn by Stalin in the twenties and thirties, and are relatively clear national boundaries, but the specific ethnic groups and populations are difficult to determine through the national borders. For example, nearly half of the Turkmen population in Central Asia live outside Turkmenistan, there are more Tajiks living in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan itself, and Uzbeks account for one-sixth of Kyrgyzstan's population and at least one-fifth of Tajikistan's populationFor example, after becoming an independent country, in order to prevent Uzbeks from holding too much power and influence in Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan promulgated new language regulations in 2004 stipulating that Uzbek language shall not be used within the territory of Kyrgyzstan, which to a certain extent shows that Uzbek language is widely used in Kyrgyzstan.