Order at the Bazaar: Power and Trade in Central Asia 9781501709746

Table of contents :
Contents
Illustrations
Introduction
1. Varieties of Order in a New Market Context
2. Changing Meanings of Bazaar Trade in Central Asia
3. Organizing Collectively at Dordoi Bazaar
4. Adapting to Bazaar Ownership through Diplomacy
5. Centralizing to Modernize at Osh Bazaar
6. Becoming Trading Elders and Local Authorities
7. Local Orders in Post-Soviet Bazaars and Beyond
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Research Appendix
Notes
Index

Citation preview

ORDER AT THE BAZAAR

ORDER AT THE BAZAAR Power and Trade in Central Asia Regine A. Spector

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS

ITHACA AND LONDON

Cornell University Press gratefully acknowledges receipt of a publication subvention from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which aided in the publication of this book.

Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2017 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Spector, Regine A., 1976– author. Title: Order at the bazaar : power and trade in Central Asia / Regine A. Spector. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017004753 (print) | LCCN 2017006146 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501709326 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501712388 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501709746 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Bazaars (Markets)—Kyrgyzstan—Bishkek. | Postcommunism—Economic aspects—Kyrgyzstan—Bishkek. | Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan)—Commerce. Classification: LCC HF5475.K982 B57 2017 (print) | LCC HF5475.K982 (ebook) | DDC 381/.1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017004753 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cover: Scene in the Karasuu bazaar, Kyrgyzstan, August 2007. Photograph by the author.

To my family

Contents

List of Illustrations

ix

Introduction. The Possibility of Order

1

1.

Varieties of Order in a New Market Context

5

2.

Changing Meanings of Bazaar Trade in Central Asia

21

3.

Organizing Collectively at Dordoi Bazaar

46

4.

Adapting to Bazaar Ownership through Diplomacy

82

5.

Centralizing to Modernize at Osh Bazaar

111

6.

Becoming Trading Elders and Local Authorities

137

7.

Local Orders in Post-Soviet Bazaars and Beyond

165

Conclusion. Rethinking Policy, Politics, and Development

179

Acknowledgments Research Appendix Notes Index

191 195 207 247

Illustrations

Table A.

Interviews referenced

203

Figures 2.1.

Number of bazaars in Kyrgyzstan (1980–2005)

25

2.2.

Retail turnover in Kyrgyzstan (1994–2005)

26

Photos 2.1.

Shuttle trade bags, Osh bazaar

23

3.1.

Bus terminal and buses, Dordoi bazaar

47

3.2.

Bus terminal and buses, Dordoi bazaar

47

3.3.

Trading row, Dordoi bazaar

59

3.4.

Double-stacked containers, Dordoi bazaar

63

3.5.

Open container, Dordoi bazaar

78

5.1.

Rice pavilion, Osh bazaar

114

5.2.

Street traders, Osh bazaar

116

5.3.

Street traders, Osh bazaar

116

5.4.

Main entrance, Osh bazaar

117

6.1.

Kyrgyz kalpaks, Karasuu bazaar

146

ix

ORDER AT THE BAZAAR

Introduction

THE POSSIBILITY OF ORDER

Tatiana has worked at Dordoi bazaar selling Chinese-made children’s clothing for over fifteen years. Dordoi is located on the outskirts of Bishkek, the capital city of the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Rising early to arrive at the bazaar by 7:00 a.m., she serves wholesale clients from all over Eurasia; they come by bus and minivan in the wee morning hours and leave later that day or the next with their wares. In this way, for over fifteen years, she has grown her business and provided for her children. Reflecting on the role of the bazaar in society, she described it as a spring that feeds and gives life to an entire river. Looking around Bishkek and the rest of the country today, she observed that many of those who built new homes and founded businesses such as beauty salons and cafés began at Dordoi bazaar. “It all started with Dordoi,” she said. “That’s why Dordoi is a spring.” By 2007, Dordoi bazaar had become a crucial Eurasian reexport hub and a foundation for Kyrgyzstan’s reputation as a trading state.1 Prior to the country’s independence in 1991, a smaller number of bazaars existed in cities and towns as collective farm markets. Throughout the Soviet Union, these markets provided primarily local fresh produce and other food products. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, bazaars mushroomed in size and number, offering any consumer good imaginable—most made in neighboring China. Some expanded from their origins as collective farm markets; others were founded anew. In addition to people selling goods, such as Tatiana, customers, cart pushers, and other service providers such as café operators and money changers converged on these territories daily, forming a core pillar of economic activity within the country. 1

2

INTRODUCTION

This dynamism appears puzzling given what a casual observer might see at or hear about the country’s bazaars. It could appear to be chaos—consumers competing with cart pushers to get through loud and crowded alleyways, traders complaining of the summer heat and the winter cold, visitors being warned of those who mug and swindle hovering unseen within the bazaar, officials randomly demanding bribes of traders and consumers. Such observations comport with Kyrgyzstan’s low scores on global indicators related to rule of law and security of property rights. The country’s weak state capacity, frequent political instability, and high levels of corruption regularly relegate the country to the bottom of major global rankings.2 Typically, such conditions are presumed to lead to economic decline or stagnation and are reflected in discourses of market disorder and dispossession. Yet closer investigation reveals that while many bazaars are indeed crowded and exposed to the elements, the challenges related to disorder presupposed by these indicators—corruption, predation, instability—had largely disappeared at some bazaars in the two decades since the country’s independence. Order at the Bazaar seeks to explain how this happened. In short, in the absence of a coherent national government apparatus and a bureaucratic state that provide such order, those involved at the bazaar create it themselves. The findings have relevance beyond the bazaars and borders of this small country; they teach us how economic development operates in weak rule-of-law contexts, and more specifically how a variety of organizational forms come to constitute the order that underpins market economies within such countries. This book begins from the premise that national-level economic statistics and governance indicators in this region are at times not only unreliable; they also conceal islands of order, including those that undergird bazaar dynamism.3 Furthermore, many existing analyses of the post-Soviet region focus on narratives of crisis, chaos, and conflict, and in doing so miss the important sociopolitical work that constitutes the creation and ongoing maintenance of order at the bazaar. In this book, I identify who has stakes in Kyrgyzstan’s bazaar economy, what problems they face over time, and how they articulate and work to realize their visions of order at the bazaar. In addition to traders who populate the bazaars and engage in the daily work of commerce, private owners of bazaar land and municipal officials play important roles. This book tells the story of how traders, owners, and officials interacted in an often fluid and crisis-ridden context to define and establish what they believed to be appropriate relationships, rules, norms, rights, and responsibilities that provided the foundation for their work at the bazaar. The book contrasts these processes in the two largest bazaars in Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek. I find that differences in their geographic location and

THE POSSIBILITY OF ORDER

3

integration into Soviet governance institutions shape the divergent privatization processes and subsequent relations between traders, owners, and officials. Dordoi bazaar’s location on the outskirts of the city and its status as an occasional flea market during Soviet times set the stage for one main owner to quickly privatize and expand the bazaar to service foreign consumers. In contrast, Osh bazaar’s central location in the city and its integration into collective farm market governance structures during the Soviet period led to myriad owners in an opaque, fragmented privatization process. Traders worked and maneuvered in these two different bazaar environments initially navigating highly uncertain, dangerous, and risky commercial relations with suppliers, buyers, and transport and travel companies. This book puts the spotlight on older, more established traders and the crucial roles they played in creating islands of order at bazaars. By mobilizing their ideas and experiences, they adapted different Soviet-era and pre-Soviet organizational practices to the new market-based setting, laying the foundation for a variety of legitimate orders at bazaars against the backdrop of initial domination of traders by private bazaar owners and the state. These older traders engaged in a range of activities in their roles, including deliberating and advocating favorable policies and bazaar conditions, mediating disputes, channeling information, and serving as role models for traders. At Dordoi bazaar, these senior leaders are called starshie in the Russian language. They are informally elected from each trading row at the bazaar and constitute the core leadership of the trade union at the bazaar, founded in the mid-1990s. This trade union’s governance system via starshie draws on labor and residential norms and organizational forms established under the Soviet Union. At Osh bazaar, a different type of leadership emerged in some trading areas, known as aksakals (males) or baibiches (females) in the Kyrgyz language. While the starshie have their origins in Soviet-era governance arrangements, the aksakals and baibiches have their origins in rural, pre-Soviet, nomadic Kyrgyz society. Through an analysis of these older traders and their roles, we see that despite common structural conditions in the country’s capital city—a weak state and privatized bazaar land with owners who collect rental fees from traders— different forms of authority undergird legitimate order at these bazaars. While the core power dynamics have not changed over the last quarter-century of independence, this book argues that traders have been able to create and work through organizational forms that make for bazaar workplaces that have grown and thrived throughout this period. Instead of attributing the dynamism and order at the country’s bazaars solely to the adoption of neoliberal economic reforms, the strengthening of formal rule-of-law institutions, or the persistence of age-old cultural norms, I argue

4

INTRODUCTION

that we must recognize how those with stakes in the bazaar economy engaged in intensely political processes, often adapting preexisting ideas and organizational forms to new contexts as part of their efforts. Trade unions, presumed to be weak, corrupt, or coopted in post-Soviet and other developing-world contexts, have been founded and reconstituted with new meanings and practices in a society undergoing radical socioeconomic change. Rural elders, presumed to flourish in rural, village pastoral life, have become intertwined with the urban market economy. The book’s findings suggest that we look beneath national-level analyses and engage in comparisons of islands of order in places we would least expect. Doing so uncovers local understandings and practices as situated in particular historical contexts that change over time. Order at the Bazaar thus serves as a corrective to teleological perspectives on the primacy and effectiveness of formal rule-of-law institutions that predominate in the development literature. In the aftermath of the failures of market reform and structural adjustment, one strand of the development literature has touted the importance of improving governance by strengthening formal institutions as a prerequisite to market reform and development. Instead, I offer a view of institutions that constitute market economies as being created and mobilized, adapted, and imbued with authority and morality by people on the ground, not moving from weaker to stronger, or from informal to formal, with the aid of international donors.

1 VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

Kyrgyzstan is a country in which we would least expect to find thriving businesses and economic dynamism according to institutionalist development paradigms. This small country of roughly five million people in Central Asia has been widely regarded as poor, politically unstable, and corrupt.1 My first research trip to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in summer 2005 coincided with the ouster of the country’s first president, Askar Akaev, earlier that year. In the aftermath of his departure, scandals surrounding ownership of cell phone companies, grocery stores, hotels, resorts, and mining companies captured newspaper headlines and analyst reports at the time.2 Many of these assets had been either directly or indirectly held by President Akaev’s family members and were up for grabs after he was overthrown. These ownership conflicts only confirmed what observers of politics and the economy in Kyrgyzstan had pointed to over the previous decade: constant property redistributions resulting from weak formal rule-of-law institutions and continued political instability. An analyst cogently summarized the common perception as of 2008: “Not only do we live in an unlawful state, we live in a state in which the law has died. . . . There are no normal mechanisms of protection.”3 Kyrgyzstan’s apparent reality mirrored a broader conventional wisdom in postSoviet political economy, which has characterized property as undergoing “permanent redistribution” since the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.4 Against this backdrop, about a million citizens of Kyrgyzstan sought work overseas depending on the season, and upwards of 40 percent of the population lived in poverty. 5

6

CHAPTER 1

This national-level view of Kyrgyzstan’s economy confirms Hernando de Soto’s worst nightmare. For this Peruvian economist and his new-institutional economist followers, the absence of private property rights defined, administered, and enforced by states inhibits growth and development.5 According to this logic, without deeds to property that are widely recognized and protected, individuals are unable to use their property for collateral and thus grow and expand their businesses. De Soto would not be surprised to find that Kyrgyzstan’s weak legal, administrative, and enforcement capacity, combined with continued political instability, have relegated this post-Soviet country to the bottom of major global property rights and investment rankings. Yet the hype at the time surrounding property redistributions and general economic chaos masked an alternative empirical reality: the country had become a regional trading hub, a dynamic entrepôt state for the re-export of foreignmade consumer goods throughout Central Asia and the post-Soviet region more broadly. Sprawling wholesale bazaars received customers from Kazakhstan, Russia, and other Central Asian countries throughout the 1990s and 2000s, while smaller bazaars in cities served clientele from other regions of Kyrgyzstan and from neighboring villages. Take, for example, Dordoi bazaar. By 2011, this bazaar had become renowned as a “city within a city,” a physical space not linked to bribery, corruption, and organized crime, at least as understood by traders at the bazaar. Such governance maladies had become associated with the first two authoritarian presidents of the country after independence in 1991: Askar Akaev (1991–2005) and Kurmanbek Bakiev (2005–2010). Professor Emil Nasritdinov at the American University of Central Asia confirmed this exceptional situation in an exposé on Dordoi bazaar: “There are a few independent economic sectors in Kyrgyzstan. Dordoi is one of them and an escape from any predators. . . . The large number of bazaaris and the ownership structure made it somehow untouchable.”6 This book investigates the sociopolitical work at the level of both traders and bazaar owners that made this “somehow” possible at Dordoi bazaar and compares processes and forms of order with another major bazaar in central Bishkek, Osh bazaar. Shifting the spotlight to the question of order at the bazaar through the lens of those experiencing and creating it unsettles the predominant literature that views Kyrgyzstan through memes of chaos and conflict, or predation and patronage. It reveals that the empirical reality on the ground is simultaneously more varied and orderly than national-level narratives indicate.

Rethinking Post-Soviet Bazaars Bazaars represent a crucial pillar of the economy in Kyrgyzstan, and this book shifts the focus of existing scholarship on the country’s economy to these entities.

VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

7

To date, the literature details the ways in which the ruling families in the 1990s and 2000s coopted and controlled the country’s gold resources and military contracts. Regarding the latter, Kyrgyzstan grew in geostrategic importance over the course of the 2000s because of the role of the Manas transit center supporting the NATO campaign in Afghanistan.7 In many ways, Kyrgyzstan came to resemble the small African country of Djibouti, which is “cursed” by not only natural resources but also its strategic location and the significant amounts of militarybased foreign aid.8 These capital flows favored primarily individuals, their families, and their associates in the country’s leadership. Everyday people have earned their income through other means, including at the bazaar. While sectors such as manufacturing, agriculture, banking, and natural resources have garnered significant scholarly attention in the post-Soviet political economy literature—particularly focusing on Russia and Ukraine—the trade sector has provided the basis for survival and capital accumulation for many and has received less systematic attention from a sociopolitical perspective.9 Indeed, in a subset of the post-Soviet world, the decline of wages for those in manufacturing and state-based employment coincided with the relative growth in importance of commerce, including bazaar trade. A comparison of major capital flows demonstrates the importance of bazaars to Kyrgyzstan’s economy. In 2008, the World Bank estimated the value of annual bazaar imports in Kyrgyzstan to be close to $4 billion. To put this in perspective, the country’s 2008 GDP in current dollars totaled about $5 billion. Other major capital flows in Kyrgyzstan in 2008 include foreign aid ($360 million), gold exports ($464 million), and remittances from Kyrgyzstani laborers working primarily in Russia and Kazakhstan ($1.2 billion).10 Simply put, we cannot understand politics, economics, and development in this country without considering bazaars. Existing literature on bazaars in the region falls into three groups, each of which provides a different perspective on how we might understand the emergence of order at bazaars. The first conceptualizes bazaars in Central Asia as cultural forms in the region, existing along the multiple Silk Roads connecting Europe and Asia long before the Soviet reign that dominated much of the twentieth century. According to these perspectives, bazaars are governed by culturally inscribed routines and patterns of exchange. Economic reformers have adopted this strand of thinking, proclaiming that traders in the region resemble natural entrepreneurs who had been stifled by the Soviet command economy.11 One World Bank analysis, for example, conveys an air of inevitably that bazaars would again thrive in Central Asia after the Soviet Union’s collapse, given people’s cultural predisposition to engage in trade and entrepreneurial activity: “Bazaars in Central Asia date back hundreds of years, demonstrating a sophisticated logistics infrastructure, exemplifying the highly developed entrepreneurial

8

CHAPTER 1

skills of Central Asian people.”12 According to this view, the new governments’ liberalization of borders and tariffs provided the opportunity for a pent-up entrepreneurial spirit to be unleashed and for Central Asians to return to their culturally inscribed professions: as traders along the recomposing twenty-firstcentury Silk Road. Among the Central Asian countries, Kyrgyzstan adopted the most liberal economic policies under the first president, Askar Akaev, making its rise as an entrepôt state seemingly inevitable. From this reified Smithian perspective, bazaars thrive because the “free market”—open borders and liberal tariffs— facilitates the fulfillment of culturally imbued entrepreneurial potential.13 Yet such broad generalizations defy historic reality. Ethnic Kyrgyz never dominated trade and merchant culture in Central Asia. The main cities associated with Silk Road trade are located in modern-day Uzbekistan (for example, Bukhara, Khiva, Samarkand)—and the groups historically associated with this trade are traditionally sedentary Uzbeks and Tajiks, not nomadic Kyrgyz and Kazakhs. Moreover, these perspectives trumpeting “entrepreneurial spirit” say nothing of the real challenges with state breakdown of the command economy, the evaporation of social safety nets, and the proliferation of laws, decrees, and border closures that characterized the 1990s. In other words, to categorize traders and others associated with this sector as natural businesspeople or “willing entrepreneurs” would be to mischaracterize the profound socioeconomic crises and dislocations that unleashed this trade.14 These perspectives further neglect the meanings of this trade in the region and the sociopolitical work new traders engaged in to build authority and institutions that govern markets, key foci of this book. A second, more critical, perspective locates the rise of bazaars and the mushrooming of trade as a violent form of dispossession resulting from rapid neoliberal transformations. In this narrative, women and highly educated Soviet intellectuals, teachers, doctors, and other professionals were forced into petty trade of Chinese-made goods to survive. Rapid liberalization of the economy amid state breakdown unleashed “poverty shocks” for many.15 For example, an analysis of Uighur traders in Almaty’s barakholka bazaar invoked David Harvey’s conceptualization of late capitalism, specifically that “the compression of time and space has produced a complex and dynamic world capitalist system which incorporates various modes of exploiting labor.”16 Traders became the victims, pushed into this form of survival without alternative work opportunities in their trained professions. Order from this perspective is governed by the force of the unbridled market and the drive for profit in the absence of a social safety net. Feelings of shame, uncertainty, and lack of alternatives do characterize many traders’ perceptions of trade in the early years. Yet this story of dispossession in the 1990s presupposes a constant understanding of trade and bazaar work over

VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

9

time and discounts changes in the meaning and practices of those engaged in bazaar trade. It also misses the important role of bazaar landowners and government authorities as key actors shaping and responding to the trading environment. Narrating the story of bazaar growth in the region through this perspective strips traders of their agency and the complex negotiations of meanings, resistances, and capabilities they wrestled with over time. Third and finally, bazaars across the post-Soviet region quickly became associated with havens for mafias and protectors, who capitalized on their monopoly over the use of violence in the context of new countries with weak state capacity. Over the past century, many countries have embarked on the privatization of state-owned assets in the post-Soviet region, or the privatization of communally held property in other parts of the world. However, this twin birth of new states and market economies called into question the possibility that institutions of the state could protect private property and more broadly govern markets and shield people from social dislocations of market creation. Even in the most advanced industrialized states and economies, for example, privatization and the creation of markets entails politically fraught reregulation and the creation of new rules and regulatory agencies; freer markets demand more rules.17 Many governments have not possessed the authority or the capacity to provide the legal, regulatory, extractive, enforcement, and redistributive mechanisms that undergird modern markets.18 In this anarchic, Hobbesian environment throughout the post-Soviet region, the state could not prevent expropriation of new businesses or predation of their profits, including those of kiosk-workers and traders.19 Bazaars and borders became associated with chaos and international traders denounced as “smugglers, profiteers, speculators, racketeers, and ‘criminal-genic elements.’”20 Mafias and bandits filled the void left by the collapse of state enforcement organizations by offering protection and preventing other hungry predators from encroaching on property and profits.21 Order at the bazaar as seen through this lens is governed by the use or threat of force by private violence-wielders in the absence of a coherent state. This characterization holds elements of truth, especially in the 1990s. In the popular press in Central Asia, bazaars at this time were associated with such trends. For example, a newspaper article in 2000 from neighboring Kazakhstan, which experienced a similar boom in bazaars throughout the country, sums up the conventional wisdom: “Together thousands of consumers, hundreds of swindlers, racketeers, pickpockets, and other conmen head for the bazaar.”22 Another press article from 2000 refers to bandits in Kyrgyzstan’s bazaars in the title: “One bazaar and forty bandits.”23 Yet over time, studies have demonstrated that state bureaucracies rooted out mafias and other such groups throughout the

10

CHAPTER 1

post-Soviet region, and chaotic institutional environments sowed the seeds for the mafias’ own demise.24 In Russia, by the 2000s, businesses and traders reported a decline in threats and confrontations from these groups.25 While mafias dissipated over time, the presence of government bureaucrats remained an important concern for traders.26 They fed off of the bazaar trade by demanding a host of fees and fines at almost every node in the system, whether at the bazaar itself or at the country’s border where goods enter. Formal legal codes in the country only contributed to the problem: laws governing inspections, licensing, taxes, and land ownership were developed in an ad hoc manner in the 1990s, leading to ambiguities that government officials and agencies often used to their own personal benefit. Because of this weak state capacity to implement coherent laws as well as to communicate and enforce them in Kyrgyzstan, those with stakes at the bazaar confronted continual challenges in doing business, and worked to remedy them.27 In sum, all three of these perspectives hold kernels of truth. Yet narratives that rest on reified and static conceptualizations of culture, market forces, dispossession, and violence fail to pay heed to the sociopolitical work of traders and other participants at the bazaar in founding, adapting, and working through institutions to achieve order. Any market, including a bazaar, must be governed by relative consensus surrounding an institutional framework specifying what to do and what not to do.28 This includes beliefs, norms, rules, behaviors, practices, and discourses such that only “when there is order can we talk of a market.”29 Without such an institutional framework, we have its opposite—chaos, or the absence of predictability and stability. Bazaar actors worked to create and control such a predictability that served as the foundation for their ability to not only accumulate wealth but also achieve their goals of clothing, feeding, and educating their children, investing in homes and other items that improve their quality of life, and creating a meaningful work environment. This book, thus, investigates the different forms and processes leading to the creation of islands of order in a country we would least expect to have them.30

Understanding the Creation of Order at the Bazaar We can think of bazaars as both physical spaces as well as a complex set of institutions that govern a dizzying array of transactions and social interactions; they are not abstract spaces where goods, people, and information flow in a frictionless market setting. Regarding bazaars as physical pieces of land, they are composed of a variety of types of property, including pavilions, stalls, streets, sidewalks,

VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

11

and containers, thus requiring us to understand who owns this bazaar property. Unlike in other parts of the world, where marketplaces are often located in city squares and designated as municipal property, bazaars in Kyrgyzstan do not rest solely on public land. Instead, when the Soviet Union collapsed, they were enclosed, or privatized, just like factories and farms were across much of the post-Soviet space. They are similar to these other assets in that they were transferred to elite members of society and fell into opaque and complex ownership struggles, as has been well documented in Russia.31 Most bazaars that existed during the Soviet period were collective farm markets governed by cooperative societies. Enclosures of bazaars in the 1990s after the Kyrgyz Republic became an independent country differ from enclosures of commons in past centuries. In his analysis of the parliamentary enclosures in eighteenth-century England, Polanyi describes government-led privatization of common pastureland that unleashed major social dislocations among people displaced from the land.32 Commoners fled agricultural subsistence and local production economies to begin working as wage laborers in privately owned factories in urban areas. Instead, the enclosure of bazaars in Kyrgyzstan took place as people flocked from collapsing state-supported industrial and government jobs into commercial trade at the bazaars. Specifically, the evaporation of state budgets and production networks compelled many factory workers and employees of the state (school teachers, doctors, and others) to the bazaar as former wage earners. Workers became responsible for their own incomes and survival as “traders,” and they did so in physical spaces—bazaars—that were simultaneously being privatized by newly minted owners. These emergent property-based inequalities between traders and owners form the foundation on which bazaars grew and thrived throughout the 1990s and 2000s. In addition to analyzing bazaars as privatized physical spaces populated by different types of actors, I also investigate how they articulated the challenges they faced and worked to create order in a rapidly changing environment. For example, some traders united and created a trade union at the bazaar, where one had never existed before, and became the senior leaders of the governance of the union, drawing on Soviet ideas and organizational structures in other spheres of life (chapter 3). Others acted more individually, over time translating the experience and respect they had acquired as long-time traders to become bazaar elders, drawing on their understandings pre-Soviet village authorities and embodying them in a new market context (chapter 6). We can learn about such processes by investigating who spearheaded or initiated these efforts, what prior ideas or understandings they drew on, and how they came to embody the practical authority to address problems and influence outcomes in these new contexts.33

12

CHAPTER 1

These processes were not preordained after the collapse of the Soviet Union as spontaneous “double movements” that naturally emerged as people demanded state protection from market dislocation in a conventional Polanyian sense. Instead, traders worked individually, as families, and as groups in the midst of socioeconomic crisis, and created some semblance of order by reappropriating organizational forms in new contexts and becoming local authorities themselves at the bazaar.34 Stated in Weberian terms, in the face of socioeconomic dislocation and the magnification of unequal power dynamics in society resulting from opaque privatization processes, we see very different mixes of pre-Soviet and Soviet ideas and institutions that operate to legitimate the domination of new property owners and the state.35 That is, for example, instead of contesting the existence and authority of new private owners or state officials, traders sought to demand from them better infrastructure, more rights, favorable policies, and less predation, as well as carve out spaces within the bazaars where their own example and actions could serve as legitimate authority to help resolve conflicts and create the types of communities that traders valued in their work spaces. Political economy scholarship from the regions as varied as the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America illuminate such syncretic possibilities that people have created in the face of great challenges, involving “reflective imagination” to solve problems and think up new solutions using preexisting knowledge and ideas, often in the midst of seemingly immutable, hegemonic processes.36 In rural Senegal, locals adapted to changes imposed from outside actors not by simply acquiescing to adopting a land market as colonial administrators had desired but rather by creating their own land pawning system based on cash while retaining customary inalienability of land. In this way, local actors fashioned “discrete ingenious recombinations of institutional elements that offer a sense of continuity with the historic past, as well as a tool to address the practical demands of making a living in a liberal capitalist order.”37 Such examples can be viewed as the purposeful recombination by actors of old and new, and the renarration of understandings and meanings in the process. This approach reveals that in addition to examining the response to capitalist domination by property owners through hidden transcripts,38 quiescence,39 and social protest demanding welfare and protection from the state,40 we must also put the spotlight on how individuals use and reshape institutions to their purposes. Especially when confronted with rapid change and significant ambiguities, people seek to create in their work environments senses of “normativity, regularity, and certainty ” to counter the “perceived unruliness, uncertainty, and irregularity of people’s everyday realities.”41 This book, then, is framed both around a puzzle and a set of problems.42 The puzzle emerges from the presence of a booming and orderly bazaar trade

VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

13

in an environment that we would least expect, characterized by weak rule-oflaw institutions and significant corruption and political instability. To illuminate this puzzle, I pay close attention to the problems that people on the ground faced in the region as they articulated them and responded. How did traders come to terms with the stigmas and stereotypes associated with trade? How did they perceive state bureaucrats and bazaar owners, and solve problems related to the trading environment? How did directors of bazaar land legitimate holdings and battle others who sought to challenge them? How did municipal authorities address traffic and safety issues at the crowded central bazaars in the city center? By answering these questions, I demonstrate how different bazaar actors narrated their past and current situations, sought to solve problems and address challenges, and founded and became leaders in ways that would address the challenges they faced throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Institutions in these contexts are best understood as hybrid “assemblages” that reflect a “combination of diverse logics and rationalities that responds to local perceptions of needs within this political economy.”43 Taking seriously people’s understandings and experiences, and their political work through institutions, allows us to see islands of order and the possibility for bazaar dynamism in an unexpected context.

Studying Order at Bazaars: The Approach and Method The goal for this book is not to arrive at a universal, generalizable theory of the conditions under which islands of order emerge in weak rule-of-law contexts. I instead offer a causal story limited to a particular time, place, and context—a contribution to bottom-up understandings of “situated knowledge.”44 Yet the broader approach and conceptual apparatus I use to investigate local manifestations of order is generalizable and portable to other contexts. For example, how people narrate their understandings of disorder and order, and mobilize ideas and resources through prior understandings and experiences within organizations to address challenges, thereby recombining and reconfiguring them, can be studied elsewhere, both within the post-Soviet region and beyond, as discussed in the chapter 7. In short, while causality is context-dependent, analytic generalization is possible. I adopt a strategy of paired comparison at the subnational level,45 focusing on the two biggest bazaars in the capital city (Bishkek) in the north of the country: Dordoi bazaar and Osh bazaar. Both bazaars have thrived throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the former as the largest wholesale bazaar, and the latter as the largest retail bazaar in the country. They both demonstrate patterns of growth and dynamism that challenge conventional narratives of what we might expect in

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a country with weak rule-of-law institutions and a predatory state. By tacking “back and forth between or among cases to leverage difference and similarity,” I find different patterns of order based on the appropriation of different organizational forms.46 The subnational comparison of two bazaars within the same country and city reveals the complex and spatially uneven nature of adaptations to common political and economic transformations. I arrive at this finding through analysis of texts (primarily newspaper articles), interviews research assistants and I conducted, and observations at bazaars and more generally in the country over time. I sought to understand how traders and others associated with bazaar life understood disorder and order in a market economy and addressed problems they associated with their work. I place these subjective understandings at the core of the analysis to arrive at causal mechanisms and broader outcomes. Order at the Bazaar is premised on this notion that “causality-oriented work in the social sciences simply must attend to meaningmaking processes if it is to be credible.”47 Language is crucial to understanding meaning-making. In Kyrgyzstan, people speak both Russian and Kyrgyz in the north of the country.48 Russian was the predominant language of politics, bureaucracy, education, and official life during the Soviet period. After independence, Russian continued to predominate especially in the capital city; people in the villages and outside the urban areas, however, increasingly speak Kyrgyz only.49 In the Russian language, traders, journalists, bazaar owners, and municipal officials referred to the absence of order in multiple ways, using three main words: besporiadok (disorder), bardak (disorder or mess), and bespredel (lawlessness, often related to mafias and organized crime). They articulated and acted on a variety of understandings of order, or poriadok, to rectify these challenges, which changed over time as contexts also evolved. In the Kyrgyz language, disorder or chaos was often referred to as bashalamandik or bashalaman, literally meaning head disorder. The words tartipsizdik or tartipsiz are associated with a certain social disorder, with people who have no manners or ethics. Finally, iretsiz generally refers to being out of order closest to the Russian besporiadok. In Kyrgyz, the two words most associated with order are tartip, meaning specifically to bring discipline and respect norms, and iret, as implementing the law.50 The title of this book—Order at the Bazaar, or Poriadok Na Bazare as it would be translated in Russian—is imbued with a particular paradox. In some settings and contexts, the word “bazaar” itself implies chaos or disorder. For example, while I was attending a forum to address challenges confronting traders at Dordoi bazaar in 2006 held in the Russian language, the then-director of the trade union—the convener of the forum—first welcomed everyone and then asked the participants to engage in a civilized conversation, talking one at a time, as

VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

15

he literally said, “so that we don’t get a bazaar.”51 Newspaper article titles such as “On the Way From a Bazaar towards a Market” imply a transition from a chaotic and disorderly economic space to one that is more civilized and orderly.52 Respondents would recount jokes related to bazaars, such as: “Why aren’t we [as a country] developing? Because we have market prices and bazaar relations.”53 In Kyrgyz, a similar understanding reigns. For example, a common and widely understood idiom is as follows: If you have kids, it’s like a bazar (chaos); if you don’t, it’s like a mazar (cemetery).54 A newspaper article title also reflects the presumption that bazaars are related to chaos: “Bazaar at the Bazaar.”55 There is a certain association, then, of disorder or chaos at the bazaar in both the Russian and Kyrgyz languages, which makes the question of how people understand and work to enact order even more perplexing and salient. Crucial to my analysis is the observation that five main understandings of order come to the fore at different times and for different people. First, order can mean orderliness or cleanliness of the physical environment. Disorder for traders could involve leaking roofs or dirty alleyways and spaces, while municipal government officials were concerned with the disorder related to traffic congestion near bazaars and challenges with garbage/waste removal (see chapters 3, 5, and 6). Second, order can relate to lawfulness and the defense of rights. Traders and bazaar owners, for example, understood disorder to be when bureaucrats sought bribes or extralegal fees from them. Order thus becomes the curtailment of bureaucratic predation and the practice of paying taxes and operating legally (chapters 3, 4, and 6). Municipal officials viewed street traders as illegal since they often did not pay any tax or license fees, thus justifying law enforcement officials to make sure that there is order by removing them (see chapters 5 and 6). Third, order can be understood as the state’s effective regulation of private bazaar owners. Disorder from the perspective of traders is thus when owners continually raise rental fees and do not provide rest times or days at the bazaar; traders sought the government to impose order on them by mandating fee ceilings or closing the bazaar regularly for rest days (chapters 3 and 6). Fourth, order can be related to personal behaviors such as discipline and selfrestraint. Disorder in this view involves littering, smoking, spitting, or drinking at the bazaar. Traders wanted to see individuals adhere to social mores and be respectful of the ways their behavior impacted those around them (chapters 3 and 6). Fifth and finally, order related to the absence of conflict. Disorder in this understanding is heated arguments and verbal showdowns. Traders and owners sought to create respectful and honorable social relationships, including norms of not cheating customers or getting into arguments, and they turned to mediation and negotiation to address problems before they became bigger conflicts (chapters 3, 4, and 6).

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As exemplified throughout the book in more detail, order at the bazaar has been associated with cleanliness, rights, lawfulness, regulation, discipline, respect, and peace. I investigate these understandings of order, paying careful attention to the context and the situation, both in newspaper articles and through interviews with traders, bazaar administrators, and municipal officials. Further details on how I analyzed texts and conducted interviews, in addition to my approach to observing and participating in life in the country, are in the methodological appendix at the end of this book. In addition, preceding each chapter, beginning with the next, are what I call research encounters that describe how I came to study the region, and refine my research topic, questions, and processes.56 They employ first-person reflections that explicate my own thought processes and position in relation to the research environment. As political scientists increasingly seek greater transparency and openness in the research process, the appendix and research encounters offer insights into how I arrived at the questions I did and how I came to the observations and findings in each chapter.57

Drawing Implications: Appropriating Ideas in New Contexts Islands of order at bazaars in Kyrgyzstan were created by the political and social work of different types of actors—including traders—through the adaptation of Soviet and pre-Soviet organizational forms. I contribute to the literature on Soviet and Communist legacies by specifying which forms of “preexisting knowledge and ideas” that undergird these organizations become reappropriated in new contexts.58 Given Kyrgyzstan’s long colonial history—first in the nineteenth century under tsarist Russia and later in the twentieth century as part of the Soviet Union—we must pay careful attention to which knowledge and ideas are part of the process of creating order. Crucially, we must not assume that institutions of the past (whether Soviet or pre-Soviet) look, perform, and are experienced the same way in the present by asking, “How do we know that the phenomenon in the post-communist period is the same phenomenon as the one that existed before communism?”59 Answering this entails researching how different societal actors mobilize their prior experiences and understandings in response to new contexts characterized by massive socioeconomic dislocation and opportunity. Literature on historical legacies has helped us move beyond the general notion that “to fully understand the present it is necessary to take account of the past” by more clearly articulating the conditions under which a legacy

VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

17

argument holds.60 At a minimum, a legacy must exist over at least of two time periods (for example, during Communism and after Communism).61 Yet what is interesting in the examples revealed throughout this book is that while institutions such as trade unions from the Soviet period and village elders from the pre-Soviet period persist in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, they do so in a very different market and state context. The question, then, becomes understanding who carries these experiences into the new time period, and how and in what context they do so. As demonstrated throughout the book, to the extent they even existed in these previous times, bazaars prior to independence were associated with neither trade unions nor village elders. Yet in the post-Soviet period, we see the emergence of both trade union leaders (starshie in Russian) and village elders (aksakals in Kyrgyz) as embodying significant authority and playing important roles in governing and creating order at these bazaars. The origins of these reappropriations of Soviet and pre-Soviet organizations in a new market context must be traced to individuals with particular experiences and understandings that lead them to found or constitute them. For example, Bishkek-born ethnic Russian starshie at Dordoi bazaar initially mobilized and deliberated via the trade union they founded. They had to modify their understanding of its role and impact given their Soviet-era understandings of trade unions. Moreover, they drew from their role as senior leaders in Soviet housing complexes and schools to govern the trade union internally. In contrast, ethnic Kyrgyz men and women originally hailing from villages around the country brought to the capital city’s Osh bazaar understandings of the role of pre-Soviet aksakals by becoming aksakals themselves only after decades of experience in trade at that bazaar. Through these examples, I demonstrate the process through which local adaptations of preexisting ideas become intertwined in new contexts,62 contributing to the broader call for greater understanding of how and why actors “create and communicate” what have become termed informal institutions, or “socially shared rules, usually unwritten, that are created, communicated and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels,”63 and also how the somewhat artificial distinction between the informal and the formal are recomposed and interwoven in new market contexts.64 This approach differs from studies of private order that focus exclusively on relationships, trust, and other informal mechanisms that allow economic activity to thrive in “dysfunctional public settings.”65 Indeed, such private and informal dynamics are part of the story. But where state bureaucrats are actively predatory, where state authorities in city centers have significant interests in bazaar order, where bazaar owners become state officials (MPs), and where traders and owners interact with representatives of the state, such private order and informal

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institution stories cannot capture the sociopolitical and power-laden dynamics that are part of the process of creating order.66 I thus also diverge from theories of “spontaneous order,” which begin from the premise that patterns of order are the result of nonintentional, norm-based action.67 I argue instead that people involved in economic life at the bazaar create organizations and become local authorities themselves as a result of everyday actions, deliberations, experience, and negotiation—at times collective and at times individual. They draw on their own understandings of what appropriate market relationships look like that include seeking profits but are not limited to this goal. Even within small geographies—in this case, at bazaars in the same city—we see significant differences in forms of order at the bazaar that result from the ways in which those at the bazaar draw on ideas and experiences—both Soviet and pre-Soviet—to create and maintain it.

Making Visible Local Islands of Order: Beyond Predatory and Developmental States This book’s findings also have implications for the literature on the state and economic development. One major strand of this literature identifies the relative capacity and autonomy of a state’s bureaucracy in guiding the private sector as a crucial determinant of a country’s ability to mobilize capital and engineer industrialization. In contrast to the relative success of such developmental states in East Asia, many postcolonial countries in Africa, Latin America, and Eurasia inherited weak or captured bureaucracies, where a handful of leaders in the country used state positions and resources for personal gain. Predatory states in Africa, for example, stagnated and failed to follow trajectories of their East Asian counterparts.68 I build on alternatives to binaries such as developmental or predatory states by refocusing our attention to local manifestations of economic activity and order. For example, in Brazil, political leaders created “pockets of efficiency” to promote relatively successful and efficient sectors, such as petrochemical and electricity generation, within the country.69 In Saudi Arabia, there exist islands of bureaucratic efficiency within a traditionally understood rentier state.70 Finally, within the post-Soviet region, Russia has its own “post-Soviet developmentalist” strands. There, both regional and federal state officials mobilized resources and consolidated state authority as they enlisted oligarchic conglomerates in achieving social and development goals in a new market environment, including the creation of crucial electricity markets.71 These studies help us reframe the traditional conceptualization of the state’s role in development in Kyrgyzstan. The dominant conceptualization of

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19

Kyrgyzstan in the literature of the 1990s and 2000s views an authoritarian leader and his family governing political life; patrons—either presidents themselves or other political elite—provide both public and private goods to the population.72 State positions within the bureaucracy and government are up for sale, leading to the marketization and corruption of the state, resembling prebendal politics in Africa of earlier decades.73 According to this view of the state, it is the predatory, patronage-based system that prevents countries such as Kyrgyzstan from developing economically and politically. No doubt Kyrgyzstan has exhibited signs of predatory familial rule, bureaucratic corruption, and a weak state. Yet it is precisely in this context that we see the emergence of bazaar growth and some semblance of local order. By shifting the focus to market actors such as traders and bazaar owners, we see how they struggled to create and defend order at the bazaar, and in doing so, reconstituted state institutions and sociopolitical authority.74 One alternative approach to understanding the possibility for local orders derives from the literature on predatory or stationary bandits.75 According to these top-down new institutional economic and rational-choice approaches to order, rulers, often conceived of as leaders of countries, seek to maximize their revenue—in the form of tax collection—in exchange for providing other services and protection to people. While rulers do work under constraints, such as pressure from associations, unions, or other groups, the main goal is to extract as much revenue as possible under these constraints. One could argue that those who come to own bazaars—and extract rents from traders—could similarly be considered stationary bandits who have beaten out other, roving, bandits competing for these rents and creating order at the bazaar on their terms. No doubt bazaar owners seek to profit off traders at the bazaar through the collection of rental fees and foster the continuation of these monetary flows. However, this top-down perspective presupposes their “stationary” status. Instead, when we look more closely at their actions and behaviors, we see that they are constantly negotiating, working, shifting, and adapting to defend their control over these flows. Moreover, the presumption in this literature is that their sole goal is to amass rents and profits. Instead of beginning with profit-oriented, self-interested logics, I instead focus on the changing moral and social drivers of those at the bazaar, including owners. They desire particular types of order that value social relations, honor, professionalism, and dignity in the workplace, in addition to profit. A bottom-up perspective illuminates that traders come to understand that they have a role to play in creating meaningful environments based on previously learned understandings of how labor and social relations should look. Those at the bazaar are driven as well by logics of appropriateness and survival in this weak rule-of-law setting.76

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* * * In sum, islands of order are not visible in national-level economic indicators. The fluid nature of economic regulations and political change in the country— often assumed to be a weakness—in fact provides a set of possibilities for actors in certain contexts who can adapt and recompose prior ideas and institutions to their benefit. This book demonstrates the possibilities for solving problems and engaging politically not only in democratic contexts but also in predatory, electoral authoritarian regimes. As such, it contributes to a literature that argues that we should look for politics not only in elections and other formal processes normally considered part of the “democratic” process but also in battles over economic order and market arrangements.77 The emphasis on order and possibility in Kyrgyzstan also provides an alternative to existing literature that takes predatory states and corrupt neopatrimonial relations as a starting point. Moreover, in light of the country’s domestic political turmoil and its geographic position near Afghanistan and as a forward operating base for the NATO campaign in Afghanistan after 2001, narratives of chaos, danger, and conflict have come to predominate. Whether referring to multiple revolutions (2005 or 2010), ethnic conflicts (1990 and 2010), ongoing border skirmishes, or internal domestic political violence, to some extent, these discourses cannot be denied.78 Yet the premise of this book is that we must understand not only how local populations view and experience conflict and danger79 but also how they understand and articulate order and strive to achieve and enact it in their lives. I turn now to the first research encounter that tells the story of how I came to the topic of this book, and then continue in chapter 2 with the changing meanings of bazaars and trade among those living in the region. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the creation of order at Dordoi bazaar, and chapters 5 and 6 at Osh bazaar. Chapter 7 summarizes the argument and extends the approach to other bazaars beyond Bishkek and Kyrgyzstan, and the conclusion offers implications for policy and the study of comparative politics and development.

2 CHANGING MEANINGS OF BAZAAR TRADE IN CENTRAL ASIA

Research Encounter: Arriving at a Topic In the late 2000s, I had the opportunity to dine with senior diplomats from Georgia and Azerbaijan in Berkeley, California. In discussing my recent field research trips in Central Asia, one official expressed confusion about the topic of bazaars in Kyrgyzstan. He inquired, perplexed, “Aren’t bazaars in Central Asia prominent among the settled peoples—like the Uzbeks?” My answer surprised him: while bazaars thrived in past centuries along historical Silk Road cities such as Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva in what is now Uzbekistan, today, the biggest bazaars in the region were located in mountainous, neighboring Kyrgyzstan. After two decades of independence, Kyrgyzstan had become known throughout Eurasia as the country to go to for the best deals on consumer goods made around the world. The premise that bazaars in Kyrgyzstan could be an important topic of research clashed with his historic understanding of the region. I initially conceived of this project in Uzbekistan on my first exploratory trip to the region as a participant in a summer language program in 2003. Questions I considered related to the political dynamics surrounding shuttle, or suitcase, trade, a form of individualized cross-border economic exchange prevalent in the post-Soviet region and other parts of the world. Yet during my stay in Tashkent, these questions quickly morphed into ones that focused on the bazaar itself—the heart of the trade. Who 21

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traded at these bazaars, how did they arrive there, and what were their understandings of their roles at bazaars? Who owned the bazaars and how were these owners tied to politics (or, as I later learned, constitutive of political authority)? These questions rose to the fore of my evolving project. My plans for continued research changed abruptly in 2005. After the Andijon events in May of that year, in which hundreds of innocent civilians were massacred at the hands of Uzbek government forces in the central square of this southern Ferghana Valley city, it was no longer feasible to conduct research in Uzbekistan on such topics. The Uzbek government tightened borders and increased scrutiny on foreign sources of funding, non-governmental organizations, and researchers—a trend that continues to this day. My research trajectory shifted to focus on bazaars in neighboring Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where the political and social climate proved more conducive to this type of research. The change in my research location conflicted with initial academic readings of bazaars in the region, which broadly comported with the perceptions shared by the diplomats at that dinner in Berkeley: could I study bazaars and trade in parts of Central Asia not traditionally associated with this form of economic activity? What would such a site tell me about political economy and politics in the region more broadly? As I traveled throughout Kyrgyzstan and southern Kazakhstan between 2005 and 2007, I observed the booming trade in consumer goods, and encountered traders everywhere, not only at the bazaar itself. Everyone, it seemed, knew someone who worked in a bazaar. Parents of student research assistants at the American University of Central Asia traded; copassengers on taxi rides within Kyrgyzstan and between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan traded; and relatives of my local colleagues working in research institutions and development agencies traded. While it was not difficult to find people who worked at bazaars, the language of the bazaar proved puzzling initially. For example, one afternoon in spring 2006, I was sitting in a small grocery shop in one of the back alleys of a bustling bazaar in Kazakhstan’s southern financial capital, Almaty. A women entered, inquiring about a “mini-titanic.” The shopkeeper did not have one. She quickly left. Perplexed at that moment, I registered the question and later asked of its meaning. As the shopkeeper explained, the “mini-titanic” was one of the sizes of the plastic red, blue, and white checkered shuttle trade bags carried by traders. Only the titanic and supertitanic outdid the mini-titanic; the super-titanic was big enough to hold a small refrigerator.1

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PHOTO 2.1. A variety of bags used by shuttle traders in the 1990s and 2000s. Osh bazaar in Bishkek, April 2006.

Traders were often forthcoming and eager to tell me their stories at bazaars, although the way that I introduced myself changed over time. My first visit to Central Asia in 2003 revealed the importance of positionality: I quickly learned that my ethnicity was as much a question in people’s minds as my identity as a researcher or American citizen. My darker skin tone and seemingly mysterious yet familiar Asian features did not comport with their characterizations of an “American” scholar, likely presuming someone with fairer skin and blond or brown hair. As I introduced my research project and questions, I quickly began to include more about myself, my background as half Asian, born in the United States to a mother who came to the United States in her early twenties as an exchange student from Japan. This conversation often broke the ice and eased tensions. It even proved to be the source of jokes and humor. Some in Bishkek shared that they thought I was Indian or Southeast Asian, and others thought I looked Central Asian, but just not Kyrgyz. Multiple people in Tashkent created their own joke surrounding my identity: “So when an American marries a Japanese? You get an Uzbek!” My mixed ethnic background, known in the region as a metiska, provided an ofteninviting entry point into conversations in the region.

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This is not to say that certain individuals did not have assumptions about me and my intentions based on my citizenship. While scholars in the 1990s embarked on field research against the backdrop of Cold War stereotypes, my experience as an American in Central Asia was colored in the mid-2000s by the events of September 11, 2001, and U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan.2 On multiple occasions, especially in the south of Kyrgyzstan, I found myself being interrogated about U.S. actions in the international arena or about the treatment of Muslims in America. The underlying assumptions and premises of these questions were often decidedly negative or colored by regional conspiracy theories. A number of traders opted not to talk to me, likely due to personal shame as discussed in this chapter. And another small subset thought that I would steal customers or threaten their businesses. They replied to my general introduction of the topic with statements such as, “So, do you want to get into this business, too?” likely presuming I was some type of “local” based on my looks.3 After reiterating my intentions as a researcher—and emphasizing the confidentiality of the interview—these people often spoke quite openly throughout the 2000s. Conversations and encounters with traders quickly led me to question existing frameworks that view traders in the global south as either natural entrepreneurs or vulnerable peddlers barely surviving in a new market context. My goal in conversations with traders was to understand how they viewed their roles in this changing environment, and how they reacted and adapted to what I learned were deeply held pre-Soviet and Soviet-era biases against bazaar trade as a profession. Following the nation’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, trading in Kyrgyzstan’s bazaars became one of the most important sources of income for families in the country, and it remained so for decades. Twenty years later, in 2011, one journalist wrote: “It seems like our whole country has become an enormous bazaar.”4 For some economists, the rise of commerce validated the importance of promoting entrepreneurial small-business activity and free trade in the transition from socialism to capitalism. For critical postcolonial thinkers, precisely the same commercial activity became associated with violence, loss, and the relentless march of capitalism. Indeed, trade afforded opportunity and rendered dispossession. Yet both of these perspectives overgeneralize the ways in which global processes interact with local actors such as traders and presuppose their understandings and motivations based on prior theoretical frameworks. Instead, this chapter analyzes the particular context in which traders of various ethnicities—Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek—articulated and experienced this transition from a command economy to a market one. Kyrgyzstan is a multiethnic country composed of a majority of ethnic Kyrgyz, as well as other minority groups

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such as Russians, Uzbeks, Koreans, and Dungans.5 The Soviet socialist legacy spanning seventy years imbued certain common biases against trading for profit; yet at the same time, despite a common Soviet past, differences among ethnic groups emerged in how they framed and understood their new roles as traders. Through a close analysis of texts, local newspaper articles, and interviews with traders of different ethnicities, this chapter finds that understandings of bazaars and trade are both initially embedded in a particular pre-Soviet and Soviet context, and they change over time in relation to the rapidly evolving socioeconomic and political environment of the 1990s.6 Before elaborating on these changing understandings of trade, I first recount how state actions— including a combination of economic liberalization and favorable trade policies as well as state collapse—drove the conditions for bazaar growth in Kyrgyzstan.

Mushrooms after a Rain: Traders and Bazaars after Independence The quiet, tree-lined streets of Bishkek transformed into sprawling bazaars in the 1990s, a stark contrast to the Soviet past, when trade largely occurred in state stores and a smaller number of collective farm marketplaces—locally known as kolkhoz markets or bazaars—selling fresh produce. While about one hundred kolkhoz marketplaces existed in the Kyrgyz Republic at the end of the Soviet period in 1989, by 2005 the number of bazaars had quadrupled (see figure 2.1).7 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50

FIGURE 2.1.

Number of bazaars in Kyrgyzstan (1980–2005)

04 20

02 20

00 20

98 19

96 19

89 19

87 19

19

80

0

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70,000

millions of som

60,000

stores

bazaars

50,000 40,000 30,000 20,000 10,000

19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05

0

FIGURE 2.2.

Retail turnover in Kyrgyzstan: bazaars vs. stores (1994–2005)

Bazaars in Kyrgyzstan remained the primary retail outlet in cities and rural areas alike throughout the 2000s (see figure 2.2).8 While a limited number of retail establishments such as malls, chain stores, and shopping centers appeared in the 2000s, they were located primarily in the capital city of Bishkek and played a limited role in the overall economy.9 Popular accounts of the rise in the number of bazaars and traders suggest a natural and spontaneous process initiated by the liberalization of the Soviet-style command economy. One quote from the local press in Kyrgyzstan from 1996 typifies this presumption: “In 1992, the president of the country, Askar Akaev, gave the order to liberalize prices. And immediately, like mushrooms after rain, spontaneous mini-markets began to emerge.”10 Indeed, Kyrgyzstan ranked among the most rapid economic reformers in the post-Soviet region.11 While some post-Soviet countries pursued autarkic strategies (Uzbekistan) or regional reintegration strategies (Russia), others such as Kyrgyzstan embarked on a program of rapid liberalization culminating in the country’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1998.12 In part as a result of president Askar Akaev’s ideas about the importance of liberalization and economic reform, the country’s borders opened to trade immediately after independence, a new currency was established in May 1993 signaling the official exit from the ruble zone, and privatization of small and medium businesses proceeded quickly.13 Early in independent Kyrgyzstan’s history, the international community dubbed the country the “Switzerland of Central Asia,” a model for other regional countries in the adoption of democratic and liberal economic reforms.14 Both Switzerland and Kyrgyzstan are relatively small, landlocked, and mountainous, and many hoped Kyrgyzstan would “overcome its geographical disadvantages by having a freer economy than its neighbors.”15

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People in Kyrgyzstan began to take advantage of the country’s newly opened international borders; the opportunity to trade and travel coincided with the rise of manufacturing export hubs in South Korea, China, and Turkey, among other countries in the 1990s. As a result of policies supporting export-oriented industrialization, cheap labor, and decreasing costs of transportation and communication infrastructure, consumers around the world increasingly bought textiles, electronics, and other household goods from these manufacturing hubs.16 Thus, on independence, Kyrgyzstan opened its borders to products manufactured elsewhere, and the government promoted policies to encourage trade. Throughout the region, traders initially relied on frequent crossings of porous borders, carrying small amounts of cash or in-kind goods: “Borders create economic opportunities to be exploited by those who are able to cross them regularly, and to take advantage of differences in the supply, demand and price of various goods and services existing on either side of the border.”17 This type of trade became known as shuttle trade, or suitcase trade, and is characterized by individuals called chelnoki traveling across national borders to purchase goods and taking those goods back with them for resale.18 Estimates of the number of such traders in Kyrgyzstan indicate that in 1996, five years after gaining independence, over five hundred thousand people were engaged in trade—a full 10 percent of a population of less than five million people. At its height in the mid1990s, one in every three families survived on this business in some regions.19 Profits were initially very high given relatively small incomes in the region, with the possibility to pocket $500–3,000 in profit on each trip.20 According to survey data from neighboring Kazakhstan, in 1995–1996, traders could make up to 100–200 percent profit on the goods that they brought back and sold in Kazakhstan, and could start up the trade with as little as $500–1,000 capital. As the market became increasingly saturated, profit margins dropped to 30–70 percent and start-up costs ranged from $2,000 to $4,000, although a smaller group brought tens of thousands of dollars on each trip. By the late 1990s, wholesale shuttle trade emerged, whereby traders would pool their capital and send one person to buy goods and transport them back, often with their own transport vehicle or container. For these groups, total value spent on a single trip was at least $20,000. Wholesale traders often hired between two and ten retail sellers in different trading spots in the city’s bazaars selling the goods.21 According to Akyikat Djolu, a Kyrgyz association for the protection of the interests of small- to medium-sized businesses, by 2001, this type of trade comprised 70 percent of the foreign trade turnover of consumer goods in the country.22 Over time, shuttle traders with successful businesses and high trade turnover began to forge direct linkages with manufacturers in China—instead of buying goods at malls and other warehouses. Traders recounted how it was necessary to

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have enough capital to place a large order; smaller-scale traders with just a few thousand dollars would not be able to work directly with a manufacturer. For example, a middle-aged Kyrgyz woman at Dordoi bazaar sold Chinese-made suits with longer skirts primarily to Uzbek clients. Since 2003 (she had started in 1997), she and her sister had been working directly with a Chinese factory in Beijing. She recounted how she traveled there two times a year (once in winter and once in summer) to negotiate the contract and decide on the styles, geared specifically for the ethnic Uzbek population that resided predominantly in the country’s south. Over the course of the season, she would place orders by phone, send money via banks, and receive the goods within about ten days via one of many cargo companies that had been established in the interim decade.23 This trade continued throughout the 1990s in part because of favorable state policies. One main difference between Kyrgyzstan and other countries in the post-Communist region is the former did not seek actively to curtail bazaar trade through fiscal and regulatory policies. Other governments across the region viewed this burgeoning of economic activity as outside the purview of the state, and adopted regulations geared toward curbing the shuttle trade.24 In contrast, the government of Kyrgyzstan played a relatively passive role in reigning in shuttle trade activity throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Instead, the country adopted favorable tariff rates on bazaar imports, and demanded only limited fees and regulations for bazaar traders. Kyrgyzstan’s tariffs and import policies became more competitive compared to other Central Asian countries and Russia in this time period. A comparison of regional customs tariffs clearly demonstrates Kyrgyzstan’s advantages in the trade sector. As of 2001, the price of imports for a local businessperson in Kyrgyz was pennies per kilogram (fifteen cents for road and twenty-nine cents for air), compared to between three and ten euros in Russia,25 and about two euros in Kazakhstan.26 Customs policies adopted in 2005 formalized and institutionalized an already favorable environment for traders by charging based on volume of imported goods, not content value: “consumer goods entering Kyrgyzstan are subject to low flat tariff duties at the border depending on the volume of goods (kubatura) and not their value (equivalent to a strong undervaluation of imports.)”27 That is to say, traders would send boxes or packages of goods and pay the same tariff whether jeans, watches, or shoes were in the packages. Legally, this tax regime applied to “physical persons,” as distinct from “legal persons”; the latter, firms and corporations, had to pay taxes based on the customs value. Traders as “physical persons” had a distinct legal and tax advantage under this special regime.28 In addition to policies that regulate the import of goods, the government of Kyrgyzstan also supported favorable conditions for traders to sell and re-export those goods at bazaars. In particular, the government introduced a combined

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license and tax (called patent) in 1996, whose purpose primarily was to collect income from small businesses—mainly traders and kiosk operators. Traders pay a fixed monthly fee depending on the type of business and the range of turnover. This simplified tax system contrasts with the cumbersome tax system that applies to other types of businesses. These policies have made it possible for traders from Kyrgyzstan to import consumer goods much more cheaply than for traders in neighboring Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and also Russia. Beginning in the 1990s, it became more cost effective for traders from these neighboring countries to travel to Bishkek (instead of directly to China or Dubai, for example), to buy Chinese-made goods in Kyrgyzstan’s bazaars, and then to transport and resell them in their home countries. At the height of this trade in the 1990s and 2000s, hundreds of buses from all over Eurasia would arrive at Dordoi bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, early in the morning between 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., and depart with the traders and their goods in the early afternoon. In this way, bazaars in Kyrgyzstan fulfilled not only the demand of the domestic population, but also those of neighboring countries. Those involved in the trade viewed these policies favorably: “The lower the duties/fees for foreign chelnoki, the bigger the turnover of goods. If prices are low, they can buy more products. A chelnok is like a tourist; they come here for three days, pay for hotel, food, fuel for their cars, and all this money goes to Kyrgyzstan’s economy and in addition to this, they buy goods from us. That’s why we have to support the chelnok’s business and open our doors to them.”29 By the 2000s, Kyrgyzstan had become a crucial re-export hub of primarily Chinese goods to the rest of Central Asia and Russia.30 Up to 70–80 percent of the products at both of the country’s main wholesale bazaars were re-exported to foreign customers as of 2007, and the value of these re-exports totaled in the billions of dollars annually. Over time, international organizations as well as traders themselves began to identify as entrepreneurs.31

Poverty Shock and Dispossession Yet to categorize the traders and others associated with constituting this sector as “natural businesspeople” or “willing entrepreneurs” would be to mischaracterize the meaning of this trade for many and the profound crises and dislocations that constituted its rise. As in other post-Soviet countries, state governments adopted economic policies and reforms without robust institutions to protect society from the dislocations stemming from the collapse of industrial production and the evaporation of wage payments. In Kyrgyzstan, as the transition proceeded in the 1990s, industrial output contracted significantly—from 28 percent of GDP

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in 1991 to just 12 percent by 1996. Correspondingly, industrial employment as a percent of total employment fell from almost 20 percent down to 10 percent. The magnitude of Kyrgyzstan’s industrial collapse, or economic involution,32 proved more dramatic than that of other post-Soviet countries.33 One of the comparative advantages of the Kyrgyz Republic during the Soviet period—cattle herding—also evaporated as people sold or lived off their cattle in order to survive. Between 1992 and 1996, cattle and goat stocks declined by 30 percent, and sheep by over 55 percent.34 The collapse of the Soviet Union exacerbated an already fragile situation for everyday people in the Kyrgyz Republic, and “the economic process of ‘market shock’ had turned into the experience of ‘poverty shock.’”35 As in other parts of the post-Soviet region, crisis, despair, and dispossession became the norm among everyday people in the early 1990s.36 Poverty levels rose to over 60 percent by the late 1990s. State social safety nets and welfare programs, overwhelmed and unable to cope with this level of crisis, drove people to rely on social networks and other forms of assistance. Yet social networks revolving around lifecycle ceremonies (such as weddings) and workplace relationships—important during the Soviet period to maintain interpersonal links and get by in the shortage economy—were also impacted by the collapse of the Soviet Union. The liberalization of the economy meant that the quest for money, not the exchange of goods and gifts, became the focus of life. In this economic environment, the new wealthy elite expanded social networks by hosting functions such as weddings or other parties, further isolating the poor, who increasingly became unable to reciprocate and host such events.37 Against this backdrop, an increasing number of people in the country initially turned to two sectors for survival: subsistence agriculture and bazaar trade. The agricultural sector in part absorbed labor from the declining manufacturing and cattle-rearing sectors: agriculture as a percent of GDP increased from 32 percent in 1990 to 44 percent in 1997, and the portion of the population employed in agriculture increased from 32 percent to 48 percent in the same time period.38 In addition, against the backdrop of the initial scarcity of consumer goods, high unemployment and open borders propelled hundreds of thousands of people in Kyrgyzstan to forge new livelihoods as traders, often out of desperation. A reference to a 1920s popular New Economic Program (NEP) song of the early Soviet period appeared in the press in the Kyrgyz Republic in 1990, calling on people to have pity on poor, private traders, capturing the mood of the time.39 This trade became an important source of survival for families in villages and cities alike in the early years, in part because it was the “easiest and most immediate route to a new economic livelihood for many.”40

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Rural inhabitants and women bore the particular brunt of the changes in the 1990s:41 The bazaar is a mirror of people’s living conditions . . . bazaars are feeding people now. Here one can see unemployed teachers, engineers, doctors, even scientists. Another point that should be mentioned is that people are flowing from different regions, like, Chatkal, Toguz-Toro, Alai, Leilek, Batken in order to earn five-ten soms. It is because they do not have work there. Even if there is work, there is no salary. My heart hurts when I see old ladies, young women, girls who are coming from far-away villages. It seems that life is bad in the villages. We have already slaughtered all our livestock. Newspapers recount the stories of villagers migrating internally to survive, often to work at bazaars initially as cart pushers, package transporters, tea and food stand servers, and sellers hired by people who owned containers.42 In neighboring Kazakhstan, a former resident of the city of Taraz recounted her move to the then-capital Almaty to improve her standard of living.43 Initially working as a hostess in a café for a year and a half, she began working for a Chinese wholesaler in a bazaar for the same amount she was making in the café—500 tenge a day.44 She saved enough to open her own tea stand near a shashlik café and earned about 1,000–1,500 tenge a day. After observing that people needed bags, pens, and other basic stationery to complete their commercial transactions in the bazaar, she opened up a stationery stand in the front of the marketplace near the tea stand. She purchased the goods at the nearby wholesale market and resold them, earning 10,000 tenge a day, of which 2,500–3,000 was profit. This type of trajectory—beginning at the lowest rung of the bazaar labor market and acting on opportunities to fill market niches—represented a common one. Most traders in Kyrgyzstan were women, in part because they were differentially impacted by the collapse of the Soviet Union; more women than men were laid off from state jobs. By the end of the Soviet period, women often worked outside the home and had a minimum of a secondary school education.45 Men did work as shuttle traders and as sellers in bazaars, especially in construction and car bazaars; this bazaar work, however, came to be composed predominantly of women of all ages and backgrounds.46 As women traveled to other countries to purchase goods and engage in trading as chelnoki, local and international organizations viewed this activity as a form of unregulated labor migration dominated by women, with significant social costs, including radical change of family structures.47 These critical perspectives view the mushrooming of trade as a violent form of dispossession, resulting from rapid neoliberal transformations, borne especially by women. From this perspective, the growth in bazaars as a form of survival could read as confirmation of a global trend in which individuals increasingly rely on

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themselves as governments have become discredited as social welfare providers. Instead of protesting and demanding social protection from the state, as one scholar analyzing this trend in the United States recounted, individuals have only to “look within and to depend only on their faith and each other for remedies to their predicaments.”48 Indeed the state in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan has shrunk in its role of providing universal social welfare as it had during Soviet times, and trade became—for some—the only means to survive. As seen from this perspective, traders represent the unprotected victims of the expansion of global capitalism.

The Changing Meanings of Bazaar Trade in Society While both of these narratives have validity, they also overgeneralize the ways in which global processes of capitalism interact with local actors such as traders, and presuppose their understandings and motivations based on prior theoretical frameworks. In short, for those who see the marketization after the Soviet command economy’s collapse as empowering individual opportunities, traders are viewed as entrepreneurial, creative agents of this change. In contrast, for those who view market reform in the context of the collapse in the state’s ability to provide basic social welfare, traders are the dispossessed seeking to survive on their own. What these perspectives miss is how people on the ground viewed bazaar trade in the region and how people understood their roles in these changing processes. While transnational trade networks appear to have emerged spontaneously against the backdrop of the opening of borders to the movement of goods and people in the early 1990s, for many, engaging in trade did not feel “natural” in the Smithian sense.49 People in this region, as in other parts of the former Soviet Union, held strong Soviet-engendered biases against private trade in society. In addition, a particular Central Asian historical and cultural context further shaped people’s understandings about the appropriateness—or as is more accurately the case, the inappropriateness—of trade as a profession.50 It is this context to which I now turn. It might at first appear strange that people in this region had to learn how to trade. Central Asian cities are home to historic Silk Roads, where goods, ideas, and beliefs traversed large swaths of land from China to Europe, from South Asia to Russia. But a closer investigation reveals that ethnic Kyrgyz and Kazakhs were not considered dominant in trade and merchant culture in Central Asia. They confronted entrenched ideas and stereotypes surrounding the legitimacy of trade as a profession when the Soviet Union collapsed, in part undergirded by cultural

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notions that implied that it was not honorable for nomadic peoples—such as the Kyrgyz—to be involved in trade. Many thus underwent a lengthy process of coming to terms with the new economic environment. The Soviet system reinforced these culturally inscribed ideas, in addition to overlaying the additional understanding of selling goods for profit as “speculation,” a criminal offence for ethnic Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Russians alike in the Soviet socialist economy. In Central Asia, bazaars existed for centuries as the center of commercial and social life, where rural and urban dwellers met, where those in agriculture exchanged with those in manufacturing, and where nomadic and settled peoples traded their goods. The radical economic and structural transformations after independence in the 1990s destabilized this long-standing conceptualization of bazaars. No longer were sellers also the producers of the goods they sold. Instead, individual traders paved the way for new international trade networks by traveling to shop for consumer goods overseas that they would use themselves or resell to others for quick profit. The focus on reselling goods in bazaars as a form of survival clashed with local ideas, which associated bazaars with places where goods made with your own hands were sold and exchanged. Such an understanding of bazaars is reflected in the Kyrgyz press with statements such as these in the mid-1990s: “Bazaar venders are those who grow vegetables and fruits themselves with hard work; they breed their own cattle and sheep with tender care; meat, milk, butter—all is homemade. These people (venders) are all hard workers, paddling their own canoe.”51 An informal recorded conversation in 2006 with two local older ethnic Kazakh residents of Taraz, Kazakhstan, in the context of a birthday celebration, reveals differences between the firmly held ideas held by the man about bazaars as places where handmade goods are exchanged, and the woman who had come to view bazaar trade of foreign-made goods as a source of survival and wealth. The male is a former military serviceman who is now on pension. The woman trades at a local bazaar to support her family. I recount the relevant part of the conversation, begun in Russian, here in its entirety led by the male (M) explaining to me what a bazaar is in his view: M: The bazaar, it is when you bring goods that result from your own labor and sell them there. . . . Now here no one controls the bazaar, it’s chaos (bardak) . . . stuff goes through up to five resellers. . . . We can’t know what is sold on the bazaars because no one checks it. After continuing to rail against the absence of modern, civilized stores, the unregulated trade at bazaars, and the mafias and the secrets of the bazaar, the conversation switches to the Kazakh language and involves others, primarily the female (F) trader.

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F: You don’t know what you are talking about. You should tell what you know about the bazaar. Tell about the positive sides of the bazaars. M: What can be positive? Everything is brought from China. If, for example, we would sell leather and wool clothes that we would wear, then maybe we would say it and wear it proudly. F: That girl is not asking about that. She wants to know about regulation of the bazaar. How the bazaars are ruled legally. And we talk about something else. M: But you have to remember that we, Kazakh people, came from bazaar. In the past, people sold goods that they made there. F: But you have to say something good about bazaars. M: Well, even if I say something good it won’t change anything. You see there are no goods made in Kazakhstan at the bazaars. Everything is either Chinese, Pakistani, or from Iran. F: But all the products that we are eating now come from Kazakhstan. M: Well, yes. Only bread comes from Kazakhstan. That is true. F: Bazaar is not bad in any way. People have to find a living somehow. And if you are a positive person then you should also find a living in a constructive way. M: A noble way is when you cultivate land and then have your own crops and then sell it. That is how you make a living in a constructive way. F: You are an interesting person, but what if, for example, that farmer doesn’t have means of transport and I do. I bring it from the farm. M: Do you know what the word “bazaar” actually means? Bazaar is a place where you exchange something. Like I have bread and I change it into potatoes. But we don’t have any goods now. All is imported. F: You should be thankful to people who bring all those goods. If, for example, all the borders were closed, how would you possibly be eating that or this? I bring fresh potatoes from Uzbekistan. In order to provide for my family and children, I add one tenge profit on top of it. If I wouldn’t, how would I live then? M: During the Soviet Union there were no bazaars. Except for cattle bazaars. F: No, bazaars were around all the time. Even in the time of the Prophet. M: Yes, correct. It is an old thing. Why should we create old things instead of new things? In the past [Soviet times] it was all separate. Clothes stores, shoes stores, rugs stores. Everything was available. F: No, that is not true. It was all sold under the table. Only if you have an acquaintance working there you could get those things.

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M: How long are we going to live from the bazaar? Why don’t we develop supermarkets like in Almaty? F: Well, where do you think all the goods come from in supermarkets? From the bazaars. They just buy it wholesale and it is much cheaper. We take their orders on goods. And for you we sell it for retail price. That is how it works. The male in the conversation initially refers to those who sell goods made by others as resellers, or perekupshiki, a derogatory Russian word. Instead, he contrasts that system with the pride he would feel knowing that goods made by hand are sold at the bazaar. For him, traditionally nomadic Kazakhs have been associated with production of leather and wool from animals, and also wheat for bread. In contrast, the woman references her own resale of foreign-grown potatoes that supports her family as a way to make a living, and provides food to others. The female trader is quick to point out the reality of the Soviet underground economy, where social relations and networks governed access to some goods. For the male in this conversation, despite the massive political, economic, and social changes in Soviet Central Asia throughout the twentieth century— including centralization of production, trade, and distribution, sedentarization of nomadic populations, collectivization of agriculture, and industrialization— the perception that various ethnic groups inhabited particular economic niches survived. “By the 1950s, Soviet theory had come to accept the principle that Kazaks, Kirgiz, and some Turkomens had a cultural aptitude for stockbreeding and that the Tajiks and Uzbeks had a special gift for cultivating irrigated fields.”52 Products sold at the markets maintained ethnic niches, and by the end of the Soviet period in the 1990s, as many interviews summarized, the following groups were associated with selling a variety of goods at bazaars in Central Asia: • Kyrgyz and Kazakhs sold meat, except for pork, since they are Muslims. • Kyrgyz and Kazakhs sold some milk products, including kymys and kurt; Russians sold tvorog. • Uzbeks and other locals, including Dungans, sold fruits and vegetables, although some were brought in from regions such as Uzbekistan and Georgia. • Koreans sold pickled goods such as salads and kimchi; Ukrainians sold other types of pickled goods, including cabbage and cucumbers. • Russians sold flowers, herbs, and medicine. In addition to these goods sold at the bazaars, state stores—such as Tsum, the Central Store—offered bread, fresh milk and cheese, chocolate, and light industrial goods. Since most of the goods sold at farmers’ markets in Soviet Central Asia were agricultural products, ethnic Uzbeks and other sedentary ethnic groups often

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dominated this sector of the economy and reinforced their predominance in Central Asian merchant culture at that time; the ceremony of selling, bargaining, and profiting from commercial transactions has been a characteristic of these groups for centuries.53 During the Soviet period, despite official attempts to create industrial hubs in Central Asia, ethnic Uzbeks remained dominant in trade and agriculture.54 Authorities had to bring factory workers from Russia and other Slavic-speaking territories to work in industry. Culturally, Uzbeks took great pride in their agricultural and trading background, and there were significant social stigmas against working in factories and living in cities. As the Uzbek Republic’s First Secretary Rashidov said in 1982: parents often “feel that their children should work in science, culture or the arts and not in [industrial] production.”55 Moreover, from an economic standpoint, working in the private sector in trade and selling goods from household plots was often more lucrative than other, state, jobs in the 1970s and 1980s: “Opportunities for the greatest financial and other gain in Uzbekistan may indeed be found in the services and agriculture, rather than in heavy industry.”56 Thus, both for economic and cultural reasons, Uzbeks continued to predominate in agriculture and trade throughout the Soviet period,57 and were underrepresented in government positions and overrepresented in institutions governing the bazaar trade such as consumer unions.58 In contrast, Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, as historically nomadic peoples, accompanied caravans and provided protection to various groups engaged in the trade between Central Asia and Russia.59 For this reason, in the nineteenth century, the timing of caravan trade missions often coincided with pastoral migration patterns of the Kazakhs.60 Local Kazakhs and Kyrgyz appeared at central marketplaces primarily to buy goods such as fruits, vegetables, craftwork, and other everyday necessities grown and produced by settled Uzbeks and other groups.61 The collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s unleashed a renewed discussion in newspaper articles and popular culture about the appropriate role of Kyrgyz and Kazakhs in the new post-Soviet environment, drawing on these understandings of past bazaar and trade culture. In 1995, a Kyrgyz journalist asked a bazaar director specifically about the challenges ethnic Kyrgyz face working in the bazaar because of their nomadic proclivities that purportedly made trade more difficult. She answered by giving the example of Dungans, an ethnic group associated with agricultural acumen and successful bazaar trade:62 Question: Kyrgyz people are only used to buying, not selling. They have many problems with this. Answer: Yes, I have to admit it. Our people don’t know trade tactics very well. Let’s look at our Dungan friends; they are becoming richer and richer at the market. Kyrgyz people have the same conditions,

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but there is not the same end result. Many of them are getting used to selling only vodka and alcohol, and not just to sell, but also to drink it very often. We have to remember that only our work and labor can create and save our wealth. Other Kyrgyz correspondents in the 1990s captured these negative associations Kyrgyz had of the bazaar: “You might know that during Soviet times it was almost impossible to get a poor Kyrgyz to the bazaar even if you would drag him by a tractor. To be labeled as a trader or speculator (kyzylkulak) was more humiliating than to be shot by gun.”63 Traditional Kyrgyz proverbs and sayings, also appearing in local press and news sources, confirm these cultural understandings of trade, for example: “He who lives near the market will never be rich.”64 This one implies that Kyrgyz spend their money at the bazaar, instead of making profits by selling; the bazaar was viewed not an opportunity but rather a liability. Over the course of the 1990s, this perception began to change. Journalists documented shifts in ideas about the appropriateness of trade:65 Before, Uzbeks, Dungans, Uigurs, Koreans and others would sit in bazaars and nowadays Kyrgyz and Russians sit here too. . . . As life shown us it is possible to get a seat at the bazaar not cultivating a land or being a farmer. But it is also important where you come from. If you are from the south, then you are able to trade; southerners buy vegetables for wholesale and resell them. People who come from Issyk-Kul and Kemin [in the north] can sell apricots and potatoes. People who do not have cattle or vegetables sell hand-made vodka in Osh bazaar. This 1994 quote reflects the idea that traders at bazaars sell the things they make or produce by hand based on their geographic region. Traders, bazaar directors, and journalists continued to question this traditional understanding of the appropriateness of ethnic Kyrgyz as traders throughout the 1990s:66 Trade is now in the veins of our economy. It plays an important role as the veins do in our body. We have not paid enough attention to that before, but if we look through history, there are many facts which prove that trade helped society grow and develop. Even the prophet Mohammed was a trader, and that’s how he traveled around the world and was able to teach Islam. Look at the Dungans and the Koreans; I’m sure that the Kyrgyz and even the Russians are behind them. These people are not trying to get involved in politics, instead they are trying to improve their business and get richer. That’s why they live better than us. We have to change our mentality: we usually say when a new baby is born, he must

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be a tax inspector or a lawyer. This is not right. . . . We have to work hard and do our best to change our psychology. This quote specifically links the history of Mohammed as a trader to a new Kyrgyz narrative seeking to legitimate new trading possibilities. By the 2000s, a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, journalists began to articulate the changing role of Kyrgyz traders in society. A Kyrgyz newspaper article from 2001 explains: “Kyrgyz have never been traders; they were only buyers who would spend all their money at the market. But nowadays, the picture is changing; everyone who lives nearby the market is becoming richer.”67

Recounting Individual Experiences Becoming Traders Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, ethnic groups came to specialize in selling different commodities at main bazaars in the country; these commodities necessitated different levels of capital investments and knowledge to stay competitive.68 For example, in bazaars across the country, ethnic Kyrgyz often traded shoes, office supplies, and other goods that required lower levels of capital and also had lower profit margins. Traders describe a Kyrgyz or Kazakh mentality that leads to this outcome, characterized by norms that require spreading wealth among family members, spending money on cultural rites of passage such as weddings, and forging relations by sitting together and drinking tea. All of these practices contribute to fewer business investments. Such communally driven understandings that value family and social networks in part explain why—using the metric of profitability—the Kyrgyz were often the least successful at bazaars initially. In contrast, ethnic Uzbeks and Russians have historically had more practical exposure to trade and monetary relations than ethnic Kyrgyz, and traded higher-value commodities such as clothing. Ethnic Uzbeks have strong relations among family members and those living in neighborhoods, or mahallahs, but are considered to have more influence and experience in trade—even during Soviet times—in light of their historic role as merchants along the multiple Silk Roads. Russians are viewed to be more individualistic, profit-oriented, and obligated to a smaller number of family members. Soviet language and education policies contributed to these post-Soviet trends. Ethnic Russians were and continue to be educated in primarily Russian-language schools, as opposed to Kyrgyz-language ones; the former became associated with better education and socioeconomic possibilities.69 While literacy and education rates in the region rose from almost nothing to almost 100 percent by the end of the

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Soviet Union’s collapse, a closer look at language segmentation reveals stark differences.70 Only in urban areas did ethnic Kyrgyz attend Russian language schools and reap the socioeconomic benefits of attending these institutions.71 Among the non-Russian ethnic population in the country, primarily ethnic Kyrgyz, only 30 percent of this population considered Russian the first or second language in the height of the Soviet period in 1980, indicating that most Kyrgyz throughout the country spoke in Kyrgyz. Ethnic Russians based in Bishkek forged regional trading networks and featured more prominently in wholesale bazaars, where both turnover and profits were higher. In general, ethnic Uzbeks and Russians dominated trade at the biggest, most profitable wholesale bazaar in the country, Dordoi, in the 1990s, while ethnic Kyrgyz and other ethnic groups focused on local agricultural production and trade predominated at retail bazaars such as Osh bazaar.72 The experiences of older traders from the three main ethnic groups in the country illuminate how each understood trade, bazaars, and his/her role in the process of becoming traders: ethnic Uzbek Salim and ethnic Russian Svetlana at Dordoi bazaar, and ethnic Kyrgyz Almaz at Osh bazaar. In later chapters (3 and 6), we learn more about their understandings of order and bazaar life.

Salim: Falling Off an Apricot Tree into the Gift of Trade Ethnic Uzbeks have had a long-standing historical and cultural relationship with bazaar commerce and merchant culture that predated the Soviet period. Despite this, older ethnic Uzbeks trained in the south of Kyrgyzstan recounted stigmas and conflicted emotions they experienced in the 1990s when trading opportunities became available.73 Like Soviet-trained ethnic Kyrgyz and Russian intellectuals and professionals, some ethnic Uzbeks in the city of Osh missed the cultural and intellectual life of the Soviet period and lamented emergent capitalism’s focus on money alone.74 They spoke of the initial shame associated with bazaar trade, and what they suffered or lost in the process of becoming traders. For these reasons, we should not assume that Salim, a male ethnic Uzbek in his late forties selling plastic flowers and other home decorations at Dordoi bazaar, was destined to become trader.75 In fact, trade as a profession was not his first choice—he arrived in trade after a fateful accident, in which he climbed up to the very top of an apricot tree and then fell twenty-seven meters straight to the ground the summer before he was slated to study in a prestigious aviation school in the Russian Republic. After lying in the hospital for four months in various casts, he was introduced by one of his classmates to a shopkeeper of a Soviet state store, where he worked on crutches before departing for the army. This shopkeeper treated Salim like a son—Salim had lost his father at an early age—and saved his job until he returned. He felt that people valued his work there.

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After the Soviet Union collapsed, he began to trade at the Karasuu bazaar near Osh. But initial forays and mistakes led to bankruptcy after failed attempts to sell shoes, clothing, and other goods. There was nothing natural or innate for him in the new market environment. He left for Ufa, Russia, in 1994 to sell different household items. There, the Russian woman standing next to him at the bazaar trading decorative flowers slowly taught him how to trade. After she retired, he switched to decorative flowers, and stayed in Ufa until 1999. The stress of being away from his wife and family impelled him to return to Kyrgyzstan, although he had no reason to return to Osh since he had sold everything there after his earlier bankruptcy. So he brought his family to Bishkek, risked everything, rented a container, and started trading plastic decorative flowers at Dordoi in 1999. He has been trading these Chinese-made flowers there ever since. That Salim had experience in the Soviet state trade system and had initial connections did not predetermine him to be successful in this business. His winding road to Ufa and then to Bishkek was intertwined with changes in Soviet understandings of bazaars and trade over the past three decades. Like others, he perceived that many initially had a bad attitude toward traders, calling them speculators. His mother really did not want him to trade in the store that summer he fell off the apricot tree—she was afraid, he recounted her saying, “Oi, never become a trader!” Yet despite this, he described liking to trade during the Soviet period, because it somehow came from his soul, a “gift” he attributed to his father, who had also worked in trade as a warehouse manager for over thirty years—a “trading type.” When asked about understandings of bazaar work after 1991, he recounted how his experience changed: Salim: Honestly speaking, at the beginning, it was a little scary because we were habituated Soviet people—that there’s a salary, that there are weekends, that there is vacation. At the beginning, yes, it was terrifying. But as trade took off, we also forgot [about before] because who knew that one could import, trade quickly, and grow rich. He continued to reflect on changing understandings from the Soviet period to the present: Interviewer: And in Soviet times, how did people perceive the bazaar? What did it mean to them? Salim: It’s like something wild happened. I’m telling you, they all hated traders. . . . I among them also hated them. But my life became so complicated. . . . No, it turns out, there’s nothing wrong [with trading]. Because, we, Soviet people, did not know about this. We hated speculators—these very words—even in the army. [They said] who are you by profession? Trader. A speculator—even officers called [me] that. I hated it. I was only eighteen years old.

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Interviewer: And now how do people perceive the bazaar? Salim: You know, now, without the bazaar, people can’t [get by] in this moment. Especially, in Kyrgyzstan, thank God that this bazaar opened. Because of this, people live and get by. Thanks to the bazaar, honestly speaking, so many people are fed. Even ordinary men, janitors. The bazaar feeds all of Kyrgyzstan. There are few positions for state workers, and factories and plans are already gone. Therefore, for all, even those who work [in other professions], the salary is very small. . . . Thank God, in my life I have seen too much, hard days and happy days, wealth and poverty. Thank God, I have everything now. I am thankful to God that I became a trader. If life were to repeat itself, I would choose this path again. Because the Prophet Muhammad said: Trade never leaves you hungry. At the end of this discussion about trade and bazaars, Salim recalled a quote from Prophet Muhammad about trade that other journalists have referenced and that also features prominently inscribed at the entrance of Dordoi bazaar. Such religiously infused frameworks have become more prominent over the past decade among Muslim Central Asians. As with many other traders, Salim also framed the possibilities at Dordoi in relation to few other work opportunities. The common perception in society twenty-five years after independence had become, as Salim recounted, “Traders are always rich,” and “In our times, those who trade or have a container, it is prestigious and a sign of security. Well, in principle, if you say that you trade at Dordoi, it means that you are provided for.” Yet, Salim and most other traders can attest, this is not always true. As he summarized: “Yes, sometimes we have money, sometimes we are also bankrupt.”

Svetlana: Grateful for the Nightmare The ethnic Russian and Slavic traders, who live predominantly in the Bishkek and northern areas of the country, began trading out of necessity and communicated strong feelings of shame and embarrassment when they first began. Often, shuttle trading goods around Eurasia via minibus and plane, including forging contacts with producers and suppliers in Turkey, China, India, and UAE, proved to be grueling, nonstop work—different in so many ways from the stable wage jobs such as teachers, factory workers, or accountants in their Soviet past. Svetlana was born and raised in Bishkek, and trained as a metal-cutting specialist.76 After the factory where she worked burned down, she worked in a variety of positions during Soviet times, including as a postmaster and as a city hall guard. In the mid-1990s, she came to Dordoi as a salesperson of blankets. Soon

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thereafter, she decided to open her own container of linens of all sorts. After twenty years, she strives to find unusual, prettier goods that will distinguish her products from the others selling similar goods at the bazaar. She contrasted the current environment of people having a plethora of choices of consumer goods but no money, with the Soviet period, when people had money but there were few goods available. She remembered all of the deficit items, and how half the city wore the same blouse, just in different colors, and how that was normal. She expressed tremendous respect for those who worked at the fruit and vegetable marketplaces of the Soviet past—the kolkhoz markets, as they sold the produce they had worked so hard to grow. Today, her perspective of bazaar work is shaped by her Soviet past. As she explained, “we have something to compare this to.” Svetlana continued describing how earlier, despite the deficits, people did not have to worry about the possibility of not having work options. If a factory closed or burned down, they would transfer to another factory or another job. They had normal work hours, vacation, and health care. Now, after twenty years of trading at the bazaar, the question of whether or not she liked her work at the bazaar did not seem relevant. As she stated, given the minimal state support for pensioners (about $100/month as of 2015) and the lack of other job opportunities, she saw no other option than to continue the drudgery she described as trade. At this stage in her life, she wanted to spend time with her children and grandchildren, and be able to groom and cherish them. She views the bazaar, as she stated in the same breath, as at once a nightmare and a source of gratitude, for despite the monotony and challenge of an increasingly unfavorable trading environment, it has allowed her to raise and educate her children and “somehow survive.” As she concluded, “Thankfully, there are many good things about the bazaar. There are likely difficulties everywhere.”

Almaz: Seeking a Job that Corresponds with a Man’s Soul Mixed feelings about their new professions characterized most conversations with ethnic Kyrgyz and Kazakh traders. For example, while noting the physical challenges of traveling back and forth to Dordoi bazaar in Kyrgyzstan to buy goods, a middle-aged Kazakh woman, formerly a teacher, delighted in the colorful scarves and women’s apparel in her container in Taraz, Kazakhstan. She had developed a love of this type of fashion and an eye for what consumers sought. Yet while she made enough money to improve her standard of living in the 1990s, she remarked that the trade had “narrowed” her as a person. After Soviet training in a wide range of subjects, including literature and the arts, she recounted: “We became simply sellers. . . . I feel that I lost so much of my soul . . . it’s sad.”77 She,

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like many other traders, emphasized the benefits of profits, especially for their children’s educations, but quickly lamented the toll that bazaar work took on their own being: they worried often about not having a pension and about the health effects of working in unenclosed structures at bazaars that became frigid cold in winter months. Almaz, a bespectacled middle-aged trader, similarly lamented the challenges of bazaar trade, his second job; he simultaneously worked in the Kyrgyzstani government’s budget department in Bishkek.78 Like many others raised in the Soviet period, he believed that the Soviet system had the “right view” on traders: those who bought and sold for profit were seen as “bad” because they focused only on their own material wealth. He critiqued the contemporary focus on getting rich at the expense of “spiritual values.” Yet despite the problems he associated with contemporary profit-driven trade at the bazaars, he decided to become a trader himself at Osh bazaar in 2014. For him, the option to trade had become the lesser of two evils in a “weak” country with a “poor economy.” The alternative as a government official would have been to take bribes based on the authority he possesses in that capacity. He explained the logic as follows: “Instead of earning money through different corruption schemes, we are looking for a different way. . . . We are searching for jobs that correspond with a man’s soul.” Trading proved one possibility; he recounted how other friends and colleagues opted to have livestock or own and rent out land or property. Without these other sources of income, officials on measly government salaries from his perspective often resorted to bribery, or “corruption schemes,” allowing them to buy cars, houses, and send their children to expensive higher education institutions. Like most other older traders I spoke with, he described the moral suffering he experienced in his first year at the bazaar. He recounted the internal struggles when someone he knew would see him at the bazaar, and say, “Ahhh, are you working here?” As he reflected, friends, colleagues and acquaintances likely asked themselves how this educated and experienced person ended up in the bazaar. He explained his justification tersely: “Well, I did not steal.” Instead of taking bribes and engaging in corrupt practices, he chose the path of part-time trade while still working for the government; for him, this option brought a modicum of contentment. But the trade in itself is not inherently honorable. Almaz also revealed his understanding of ethics in trade, comparing himself with younger traders. For him, a clear “rule” of the trade is not to lie to customers and to practice business honorably. Forms of lying or cheating consumers at the bazaar included rigged scales and returning incorrect change. Traders who practiced such disrespect to clients did not observe the “rules of the trade.” In his opinion, the differences

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among traders reflected a person’s education and “worldview,” which in turn has a significant generational component. Those educated and raised during the Soviet period embodied a sense of moral rectitude and honesty; he inferred that the younger generation did not hold these same values and had become primarily interested in profits.79 In sum, these three older traders of different ethnicities narrated their entrance into the trading sphere as similarly marred by feelings of initial shame based on Soviet ideas of “speculation” and “capitalist profiteering.”80 They had professional training in different spheres, yet they traded to survive, which meant keeping up with payment of all the new expenses associated with the shift from socialism to capitalism, including educational contracts for their children. Trading allowed them to afford newly marketized services previously provided for by the state. While they all managed the shift in language from “speculator” to “entrepreneur,” these three examples reveal the different ways in which individuals framed and legitimated their work. Salim came to view his unexpected role as a trader with religiously infused gratitude and understood his work and profession in relation to his ability to learn directly from others (in his case, ethnic Russians) and indirectly from his father’s aptitude and experience as an employee of the Soviet wholesale system. Svetlana, while at once resigned to this grueling and monotonous work, so different from the Soviet collective mentality she had been used to, described her experience and know-how as the foundation for her relative success and ability to provide for her family. Almaz did not want or choose this path; he understood his honest work at the bazaar in contrast to state positions that became viewed as more corrupt, and framed his upstanding bazaar practices in contrast with younger traders who had different ethical underpinnings. This chapter reframed the rise in the number of traders and bazaars in Kyrgyzstan in a particular historic and cultural context. In the early 1990s, while often compelled into this trade, people displayed persistence as they overcame many challenges. They wrestled with conflicting and changing ideas about the appropriateness and status of trade in society, and they came to describe and understand their roles at the bazaar in relation to other contemporary job opportunities and to their past. Through this analysis, we see that traders should not be viewed in relation to the naturalized presuppositions of liberal or Marxist theoretical frameworks. From a liberal market perspective, they could be labeled as a new middle class, able to afford cars and apartments in a new market society. From a critical Marxistinspired lens, they could be pigeonholed as coerced into this form of work in the absence of alternative employment and protection, and the dominance of

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profit-driven market imperatives. Such characterizations misinterpret the meaning of trade for those who engage in the practice. We underappreciate the ways in which trade increasingly became viewed in relation to a changing domestic political and socioeconomic environment, in addition to the Soviet past and the global neoliberal context. More broadly, this chapter reveals that people’s engagement with trade in a market environment cannot be separated from their social and professional contexts. That is to say, while they turned to the bazaar to make a profit, we must also understand the values and moralities they attached to their work in relation to other alternatives, other traders, or other past experiences or memories. To presuppose the inevitable legitimacy of trade based on logics of profit and efficiency alone is to be complicit in the construction and naturalization of a flawed conceptualization of markets as socially and morally disembodied.81 The next two chapters turn to an examination of the challenges at Dordoi bazaar, and the ways in which a subset of traders and the main bazaar owner sought to address them. They reveal how those at the bazaar articulated desires, rights, and responsibilities in a rapidly changing context, and worked to create and sustain an island of order in an otherwise chaotic state.

3 ORGANIZING COLLECTIVELY AT DORDOI BAZAAR

Research Encounter: Refining the Question “Dooooooorrrrrrrrdoi, Dordoi, Dordoi,” bellowed the marshrutka driver’s assistant, standing at a main intersection in Bishkek’s city center. As this line was repeated every fifteen seconds, passengers stepped in to fill these sixteento eighteen-seat minibuses, a common mode of transportation in the city. This particular route headed straight on Soviet Street (renamed Abdurakhmanov after independence, but still known by all colloquially as Soviet), directly to Central Asia’s largest wholesale bazaar. As one marshrutka filled up and drove off for the twenty-minute ride to the bazaar, another pulled up right behind it, and the call “Dooooooorrrrrrrrdoi, Dordoi, Dordoi,” began again. Like others in the city who had the economic means, I preferred the marshrutka as a source of transportation over the more infrequent and crowded—yet inexpensive— Soviet-era trolleybuses that stopped right in front of the marshrutka line. The wealthiest in society whizzed by in cars or in taxis. By the 2000s, Dordoi bazaar had become a city within a city. Tens of thousands of traders and other service workers converged daily at the bazaar. Some earned just a few soms a day selling tea or charging for parking spots, while others engaged in wholesale trade of Turkish, Korean, Indian, and primarily Chinese-made goods valued at thousands of dollars with clients from Russia, Kazakhstan, and other neighboring Central Asian countries. This trade boomed in the 1990s and 2000s, with hundreds of buses full of foreigners arriving, especially on wholesale days (see photos 3.1 and 3.2).1 46

PHOTOS 3.1 AND 3.2. A main bus terminal at Dordoi bazaar, where shuttle traders arrive in buses, shop for the day, and then return to their home towns with their wares. Dordoi bazaar in Bishkek, July 2007.

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Local student research assistants familiar with the bazaar accompanied me as I learned my way around the bazaar’s rows and pathways. In the United States and Central Asia alike, mention of my primary field research location—bazaars—often prompted responses of concern: “Be careful with your belongings,” I was told, or “Watch out for pickpockets.” While the early days of roving young bandits and the complete security vacuum of the 1990s had passed, the bazaar still had a reputation for various crimes and transgressions. People recounted stories of sophisticated bag slitting and child “robbers” working in cahoots with police officers. This advice, together with other press discourses focusing on lawlessness and chaos, shaped my preconceptions of bazaars in the region. Yet the more I experienced bazaar life by walking around as an observer interviewing traders, what struck me was a certain order that pervaded. Everyone, it seemed, had their roles. Conflict seemed minimal or absent on a day-to-day level. Government officials did not prowl about, seeking payments or harassing traders, as I had witnessed in other businesses and shops in the city. What I observed also clashed with what we might expect based on the literature in political economy and development studies on contexts characterized by weak rule-of-law institutions. In particular, Kyrgyzstan by 2005 had been pegged an unstable, authoritarian regime, and among the countries with the weakest institutions in the post-Soviet region. Yet from my vantage point inside bazaars such as Dordoi, this narrative about Kyrgyzstan seemed to contradict a booming trade and apparent order. If ruleof-law institutions were so weak and property security so scarce, how could a bazaar such as Dordoi continue to thrive year after year? How could I make sense of discourses of disorder and order that characterized conversations with traders and press stories about the bazaar? On one of my first research trips in 2005, I learned of and met with the founding director of Dordoi’s trade union, which worked to support traders at the bazaar. After a lengthy interview that revealed the changing understandings of traders, trade unions, and the range of work that they were engaged in, I realized that this organization—more particularly its members’ understandings and actions—provided a key lens through which to view the relative order that I observed. Initially, references to order appeared tied to physical assets and security: to the possibility of a mugging, the stealing of goods, or the nonconsensual redistribution of property. As I spent time at this bazaar, it became clear that such security dangers and threats to property were only one component of traders’ understandings of disorder and order. Equally important and understudied, I found,

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were discourses of order related to rights, cleanliness, equality, legality, and responsibility, all of which informed their actions and practices as it related to the creation of order at the bazaar, to which I now turn. Many people who began trading at Dordoi bazaar did not choose this form of work. They came to the bazaar out of necessity and confronted similar challenges and dilemmas as those at other bazaars throughout the country and region: conditions were poor, mafias reigned, and uncertainty prevailed. This chapter examines efforts by a subset of traders at what would become the largest transit bazaar in Eurasia to unite in more sustained and organized ways to defend their common interests by forming a trade union in 1997. They imbued new meanings into Soviet-era understandings of trade unions and adapted practices from the Soviet period into this organizational form to respond to the changing needs of this marketizing context. Through their understandings and actions, we see how their bottom-up, collective work helped to create this sprawling island of order. The creation of a bazaar trade union resembles a creative, syncretic process that took an existing organization, a Soviet-era trade union, and adapted it to the bazaar in a marketizing context.2 To be clear, traders’ efforts to realize their understandings of order through a trade union at the bazaar did not always lead to increased trade or better working conditions. Bazaar life became intertwined with external shocks related to border closures, financial crises, and regime change throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The argument instead puts the spotlight on the work of the trade union in governing the bazaar and addressing a range of challenges related to securing property, defending income streams, resolving and avoiding conflicts, and creating a sense of trust and community within the bazaar. That a trade union in Kyrgyzstan plays such a prominent role at the bazaar might seem surprising at first. Trade union density and other indicators of union strength have declined globally in many parts of the world.3 Informal workers, including traders, are often not incorporated into such traditional organizational structures that work to protect members’ rights. Moreover, within the post-Soviet region, the bottom-up formation of this trade union is noteworthy because most contemporary unions are holdovers from the Soviet period. Their members are public sector employees or workers in industrial sectors. The conventional wisdom regarding these unions throughout the post-Soviet space is that while they have been able to “hold on to much of their property and have retained a substantial membership, they have had little or no discernible impact on wages and working conditions.”4 More recent literature on Russian labor unions advances our understanding of the workers constituting these unions as neither passive nor quiescent, and makes important contributions to understanding the ways in which their efforts impacted labor codes and other institutions in later post-Soviet periods.5 This

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chapter locates “the pragmatic forms of agency” practiced by traders within the bazaar trade union, which was founded after the Soviet Union’s collapse in the midst of a rapidly changing socioeconomic environment.6 Focusing on these newer unions allows for a different perspective on the origins and nature of collective organization; more specifically, it opens the possibility for understanding which traders adapted and reshaped organizations in a new market context, and how they did so. Through their work, we see the range of problems and challenges they address to create and maintain bazaar order not only related to property rights and predation, but also to bazaar and state policies, conflicts, and social harmony and community building. The bazaar’s trade union was founded in 1997 by an ethnic Russian who also served as the director for the first decade of the organization’s existence. He unified traders based on the premise that individually, one person’s issues and complaints would not be heard, but that if many united, their voices would carry more weight. Soon after the founding of the trade union, traders established an informally elected body of elders or senior leaders within the trade union, known as starshie (singular is starshii) in Russian. Each main trading row of the bazaar has one or two starshie, traders possessing a combination of knowledge, respect, and desire to serve as the row’s senior leader. An analysis of the forty-two names of the starshie published in a 2006 edition of the bazaar’s bimonthly magazine, together with their trading row and phone numbers, reveals that more than half (twenty-four) were of Russian or Slavic ethnicities; another three were of Korean descent, leaving the remaining fifteen a mix of Kyrgyz, Uighur, Dungan, Tatar, and other ethnicities.7 The predominance of ethnic Russian, Slavic, and Korean people in leadership positions in the trade union at this time mirrored neither the general population nor the population of traders at Dordoi. Within the country, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, for example, ethnic Russians totaled 26 percent of the population. By 1999, this number had declined to 13 percent and by 2009, it was 8 percent. Traders of Russian or Slavic origins, thus, were significantly overrepresented in trade union leadership at the bazaar.8 This Slavic minority founded this trade union at the bazaar not to lobby for a particular subset of ethnic-based interests, but instead to represent all traders.9 The first half of this chapter illuminates the work of the trade union based on press stories on the bazaar, interviews with directors of the trade union, and four randomly selected interviews with starshie in 2015, three of whom were Bishkekraised individuals of Slavic or Korean ethnic origin, and one whom was born in current-day Uzbekistan of mixed ethnicity (see research appendix for further methodological details): Dmitri, in his mid-fifties, first worked at a factory, then in construction, and began trading at Dordoi in 1998; Tatiana, in her early

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fifties, has sold children’s clothing at Dordoi since 2000; Olena, in her mid-sixties, worked in the administrative department of a hospital during Soviet times and has traded kitchen wares and other household goods at Dordoi since the 1990s; and Zarina, a graduate of military school, began trading first at Osh bazaar in Bishkek in the 1990s, and then as of 2006 sold chandeliers and high-end women’s clothing at Dordoi.10

Changing Understandings of Trade Unions Many Dordoi traders in the 1990s and early 2000s—including those who founded bazaar trade unions—had been wage earners of the Soviet state in some capacity: workers, teachers, doctors, engineers, administrators, and other intelligentsia. They came to the bazaar holding memories and ideas about how trade unions functioned based on their own mandatory membership during the Soviet period. Tatiana, for example, when asked her opinion about what a trade union is, referred immediately back to the Soviet period. She described in detail the types of responsibilities the trade union had at that time in providing health services for workers, distributing vouchers for camps, sanitariums, and resorts, and protecting the rights of the workers in large state-owned Soviet enterprises. Others, such as Olena, mentioned these roles in addition to charitable endeavors and social functions of the trade union. These traders grew up and worked in the Soviet command economy, in which trade unions had dual functions, first as “transmission belts” between Communist Party leadership and workers, with the goal of mobilizing and educating them to increase industrial production, and second as a form of support for workers and their socioeconomic rights. The former often took precedent over the latter, highlighting the subordinate nature of unions to party directives and objectives. These unions may have been able to protect labor from specific factory directors; yet they often could not stand up to officials, as the Soviet leadership appointed union officials and mobilized workers to support the regime’s goals and objectives. Collective bargaining was not present in the system.11 Scholars held conflicting perspectives on the strength and functions of trade unions in the Soviet system. While some argued that trade unions were weak because of their relative inability to conduct collective bargaining and labor strikes, others acknowledged the important role the unions played in “managerial, educational and advocacy functions,” while remaining ultimately subservient to the ruling Communist Party apparatus. One final group of scholars found significant activism (although often highly constrained) among local factory union leaders promoting worker interests and protecting them from the Soviet

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bureaucracy. As Ruble argues, while Soviet-era unions were not as “antagonistic” as their Western counterparts, conflict was not absent.12 I find that traders at Dordoi reoriented their understandings of Soviet trade unions to a new competitive market context based on private property relationships. Some traders and starshie described today’s owners of bazaars as “barons,” who can in principle do what they want with their private ownership of land on which bazaars now rest. Because of these power dynamics, they initially believed that unions would not be able to defend and support their interests. However, over time, they realized that contemporary possibilities for trade unions differed from Soviet times. While they could not achieve what they had in terms of social welfare provision, they could unite and serve as an intermediary between the traders and the bazaar administration and preserve some of the other roles and perks of Soviet trade unions. Despite the overwhelming power of bazaar owners, conversations with trade union members illuminated how they lobbied for, protected, and defended collectively their interests and rights.

Governing the Bazaar: Trade Union Leaders and Starshie The starshie gained their status through consensus-based elections among traders in the rows. They began as traders in the bazaar; it was only after at least a few years of trading that they became starshie. Tatiana, the trader of children’s clothes since 2000, described her election in 2011 as follows: Interviewer: And when did you become the starshii of your row? Tatiana: Sometime later. I wasn’t in the trade union [initially]. Then I joined and about two years after that, I became a starshii. Interviewer: And how did you achieve your current status? For example, you mentioned earlier that you were elected, right? Tatiana: Yes, the people elect them. Interviewer: From the row? What’s the process? Tatiana: Honestly, I am not an indifferent person. Even if I were not a starshii, I would still watch, to see who needs help. If I can, I will absolutely help. It doesn’t matter who. If they need it, then I will help. They may have seen that and decided. Everyone agreed. Interviewer: Through elections? Tatiana: [Yes] not appointed. They say, are you [traders] satisfied with her? If not, then no. Even now, if they will say, “we don’t like her, she works poorly, let’s choose another,” there will be elections.

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Elections thus take place by the informal consent of traders in the row. The organization of the bazaar trade union reveals that the idea and practices of the starshie grew out of Soviet-era civil society organizations that often blurred boundaries with the state. I learned this by asking starshie about aksakals—literally white beards—traditional, respected men in villages who have long solved local problems in Kyrgyz traditional society. Zarina, selling high-end women’s dresses, did not associate herself with the role of an aksakal, whom she referred to as older and in villages; instead, she referred to domkom—leaders of apartment buildings established during the Soviet period: Interviewer: So where does starshie come from? Zarina: Starshie of the [trading] row—it is like starshii of a house, like domkom. It works out to be from the plan [referring to the planned Soviet system of governance]. When some questions arise, like in an apartment building, instead of running to the administration every time, we decided to solve problems here in our spots [in the rows]. Interviewer: So were there starshie during the Soviet period? Zarina: Yes, there were. There were always starshie of the housing buildings. . . . At that time, the marketplace was not the same. But there were always starshie [Initially at the bazaar] . . . there were no starshie then with whom we worked and learned from. They weren’t around back then. It’s an innovation for us. . . . If you have some kind of question, we have workers to address it. They come, and we write this and that, for example. If there is a meeting, we raise that question then. We need starshie of the rows to handle all of those things. Such domkom, or housing committee leaders, were one of a variety of types of local, social initiatives established during the Soviet period that blurred the boundaries between state and society. By the end of the Soviet period, many residents of Bishkek lived in high-rise apartment complexes, distributed by state institutions and factories. They are remembered as social places, where everyone knew each other and celebrated holidays and birthdays together; people did not lock the doors to their apartments because they trusted each other. The apartments themselves were relatively small; but the dozens of apartment buildings in a particular microregion included plenty of outdoor tables, benches, and public spaces, including also kindergartens, post offices, food shops, and schools. In each apartment building, a domkom worked to solve problems, address complaints, and influence the social behavior of those living in the complex.13 Throughout the Soviet Union, such social organizations and local initiatives, including the domkom, existed at many levels. Some operated within

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communal apartments; others encompassed buildings and residential areas or microdistricts: “When problems could not be resolved at one level, residents expected the next-highest authority in the community to step in and reestablish order.”14 Drawing from the initial values imbued in Stalin-era communal apartments, the separate apartments in multistory buildings, built under Khrushchev, were situated in communities and intended to create “harmonious social relations and a collectively shared desire to properly care for housing”; in this context, even though the apartment was no longer communal, “the family’s home remained an organic part of the greater, public whole.”15 Private and public space coexisted. These buildings and microdistricts were governed by local committees, including domkom, which were “based on national traditions of collectivism and mutual support in rural communities and neighbourhoods. All these mainly dealt with regulating the community and setting rules.”16 The transport of a domkom-style arrangement to the trading rows of a bazaar in Kyrgyzstan serves as an example of an adaptation of a local, Soviet-era governance mechanism to a new market context. The other starshie also did not associate their roles with aksakals. Dmitri described them as highly honorable traditional, rural village authorities. Instead, while he did not mention domkom explicitly, he brought to bear a different example of Soviet governance at schools, when there were stewards of the class who served as representatives of self-governing local councils, or informal institutes, affiliated with the pioneer youth movement. He described them as an “informal responsibility, and all were elected.” For him, trade union starshie are similarly elected, have many informal responsibilities, but are also part of a formal trade union. Tatiana, the trader of children’s clothing, also did not associate her role as related to an aksakal, who, in her words, was a “person to whom you can go for everyday advice.” Instead, she compared her role as “more associated with the administration of the marketplace.” She elaborated on her responsibilities: Interviewer: What are your responsibilities as a starshii? Tatiana: Well, poriadok in the row. We still have controllers. Interviewer: Who are they? Tatiana: They keep poriadok. The kind of poriadok, so that the containers [trading units] are in order, so that the goods aren’t sticking out. I organize people, so that there is poriadok among people. That is my job. I forge relations with the administration. . . . Because there are thousands of people here. If the administration will say, we have to do this, how are they going to tell everyone? And so every starshii goes down his/her row and tells the information to each container.

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Through this conversation, we learn that different types of order are maintained at the bazaar. The controllers oversee the collection of rental money for trading spaces, as well as the physical placement of containers in rows. They work directly for the bazaar administration. The trade union starshie organize order among the people within the bazaar, and do the day-to-day work of communicating, passing along information, resolving disputes, and other such interpersonal tasks. These excerpts reveal that starshie view their role as a form of local organizing, drawing on similar initiatives either at apartment complexes or at schools during the Soviet period, and adapting them to a radically different market environment as part of a more formally recognized trade union. I now turn to the types of problems and challenges, as described by the starshie that they address.

Curbing Predation and Protecting Property at the Bazaar Dordoi bazaar achieved the status as Central Asia’s largest wholesale bazaar by the 2000s. With trade turnover totaling hundreds of millions of dollars a month in 2003,17 Dordoi alone provided tens of thousands of jobs for capital city residents. An article in the newspaper Delo No. in 2011 described Dordoi as a “state within a state” and summarized a number of relevant statistics to bolster this claim: it serves 1.5 million people per month; provides over one hundred thousand jobs; is home to fifteen thousand containers and even more traders (some traders share containers); employs two thousand cart pushers, one hundred janitors, and hundreds of security guards; and houses fifty cafes and eating establishments.18 The trade had become organized and predictable, with traders using the services of travel agencies and cargo companies, and customers arriving through well established bus networks and roads. After the initial security vacuum of the 1990s, for traders at Dordoi, the problem rested not in mafias or insecure property rights, but rather with bureaucratic predation, or the continual payment of bribes to state officials.19 Bazaars had earned a reputation as havens for government officials to take a slice of traders’ profits. Traders mobilized to prevent tax officials and other bureaucrats from using their authority to make continual “random checks” for necessary business documents. An analyst at the Bishkek Business Club summarized the problem for those in the business world in the country in 2007: there were twenty-one possible government agencies that could inspect businesses and nine different types of inspections.20 The first founder of the Dordoi trade union stated that the organization’s main goal was to protect the entrepreneurs and buyers at Dordoi and, more specifically, to inform them of their rights.21 He mentioned the key challenge was

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working with bureaucrats, including police, tax officials, and customs. While it was difficult to “get on the same page” with these entities, gradually, over time, he and the union succeeded in building ties with deputies, mayors, and other government officials to support them. He emphasized one of their main achievements as forbidding payment of bribes and other “corrupt” activity, and “teaching people how to take their rights into their own hands.” He argued that traders who pay the patent, the combined tax and license, should have labor agreements and rights. In concluding this press interview from the early 2000s, he referenced the Soviet past: “During Soviet times, the government worked a little bit for the people. There were no beggars, no homeless people. There were not children who would quit school. And now, bureaucrats think only about themselves. They should think about not only their pockets, but about the people. People, that is our society. That is our resource potential. We should protect and value them.” Ten years later, a news article published in 2006 on the ten-year anniversary of the trade union reflected a similar understanding of the trade union’s founding: “Tired of the unlawfulness and chaos (originating from the police and rackets, etc.), the entrepreneurs decided to unite.”22 Interviews and such publications over this time period reveal that part of this process entailed renaming “traders” as “small businesspeople” or “entrepreneurs.” While government officials often referred to those who worked at the bazaar “traders,” the trade union director at this time emphatically referred to himself and the members of his trade union as entrepreneurs or small businesspeople. These categories mattered for him because bureaucrats often targeted informal workers and street traders for bribes; to the extent that entrepreneurs working at Dordoi paid their patent, thus abiding by state rules, they had the right to fight to curtail bureaucratic predation.23 The patent, established by the government in 1996 for traders and other types of small businesses, was paid monthly depending on commodity trade or type of service or business. Traders who work under the patent do not have to report precise sales and profit information to the government. After the first decade of the trade union’s work, in the 2000s, starshie proudly recounted that a system for tax and regulatory inspections had been established. They explained the protocols that all bureaucrats had to abide by at the bazaar: inspectors must have authorization from the bazaar administration and a trade union official. Olena continued, “They have no right to just come, show their badge, and start checking.” She elaborated by giving examples about how often officials have been changed at the bazaar, indicating that when complaints arise surrounding particular individuals, the starshie call the trade union director, who has a direct line to higher-level officials. Staff changes ensue, and that official is sent elsewhere. A World Bank study confirmed the relative absence of bureaucratic checks and bribe payments at Dordoi bazaar in 2012. Using survey data of traders, the

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study estimated informal payments at various bazaars throughout the region. The study found few informal fees paid to government officials at Dordoi bazaar, compared with significant amounts of informal fees at other bazaars in Central Asia.24 Traders confirmed this relative bribe-free environment in my own interviews, which proved a dramatic contrast with shop owners in other parts of the city who at times confronted regular streams of bureaucrats, demanding their cut of the businesses’ profits. Analysts employed by other organizations in Bishkek mentioned unprompted the role of the trade union at Dordoi in creating an environment at the bazaar free from predation.25 The threat of theft and mafia influence, however, did not completely disappear over these first two decades of independence. Political changes in 2005 and 2010 proved to be a significant challenge for traders because they unleashed the breakdown of social order across the city. After the ouster of the country’s first president, Askar Akaev in March 2005, mayhem spread throughout Bishkek resulting in significant losses for some businesses in the city center, including at supermarkets.26 Since this event, shop owners became accustomed to closing down for days at a time during political protests to mitigate potential losses from looting and ransacking.27 In contrast, traders at Dordoi—both during the political changes in 2005 in other subsequent periods of instability—successfully managed to prevent theft and property damage. A strong collaborative effort between the bazaar administration and the union resulted in a security presence at Dordoi, which included patrols in every aisle of the bazaar during the presidential overthrow in 2005. No property damage or looting occurred at the bazaar during this change in political power. All of the starshie described in some detail how they worked with the bazaar administration to place gates at the entrances of the bazaar, and to establish volunteer patrol groups that worked throughout the duration of political crises, day and night. Trader mobilization at Dordoi had its origins in responding to the problem of bureaucratic predation at the bazaar. The starshie worked with the bazaar administration to address this challenge, and they also mobilized to prevent looting during later periods of political change and associated vacuums of security and power. Their efforts, as they described, led to a peaceful and quiet trading environment in relation to potential disturbances from outside.

Negotiating Rent and other Policies with the Bazaar Administration While the bazaar administration supported and worked together with the trade union on these initiatives, traders diverged with the bazaar administration on the

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issue of rental fees for land. Regardless of the type of infrastructure the trader works from (stall, table, container, pavilion), in all cases throughout the country, traders pay fees to bazaar administrations for the rental of land on which their trading unit rests. Bazaar owners determined and collected a daily fee for the rent of a table or trading space under the legal pretext that they were private owners of the land and could charge market rental rates. While the amount totaled only $.50 or $1.00 a day per space at smaller retail bazaars, at larger wholesale bazaars, $25–$100 per container per month, multiplied by hundreds or thousands of trading spaces, added up to significant amounts of revenue per year for bazaar owners. Against this backdrop, trade unions confronted bazaar administrations to negotiate rental fee rates and increases. At Dordoi bazaar, the union worked out a compromise by advocating that rental fees be based on a sliding scale depending on the location of the trading space in the bazaar. As opposed to cities where retail space is often most valuable in the center of the city or commercial districts, at bazaars, the highest volumes of passersby are usually found around the perimeters, closest to car and bus stops. In the mid-1990s, all traders paid a fixed sum for rent; over time, the union negotiated that rent would be higher for certain aisles based on trade turnover and access to bus stops. As the acting director of the bazaar stated in 2003: “The price [for rent of land] varies from 1,200 to 4,300 soms, depending on the aisle and sales volume. For instance, containers close to bus and car parking lots pay higher prices than those farther away. We have not changed the rental price since the very beginning.”28 These discussions were central to the traders who formed the union both in the 1990s and as of the publication of this book. All of the starshie mentioned the issue of land rental negotiations and viewed their payment of rent for land as justification of their right to make demands on the bazaar administration for improvements in infrastructure, including better roads and paths, bazaar roofs, lighting, and sanitary conditions at the bazaars. The bazaar roof, for example, protects from weather while allowing sunlight in (see photo 3.3). Later, union members negotiated particular benefits of membership, including receiving a 6 percent reduction on rental fees for land, for the 5,000 total members at Dordoi as of 2013.29 Additionally, trade union members spoke highly of the administration’s ability to address issues related to theft of their goods. These examples point to a form of “collective bargaining” at Dordoi bazaar, although an informal, unwritten form. The vice director of the Dordoi bazaar trade union explained the nature of a collective contract in oral form, and that any decisions or orders taken by the bazaar administration has to be negotiated with the trade union. She mentioned examples related to security, fire safety, and electricity.30 Thus, while the traders and the bazaar administration are not

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PHOTO 3.3. A trading row at Dordoi bazaar, showing the depth of the row and natural sunlight at Dordoi bazaar in Bishkek, August 2013.

interacting in a traditional form of “collective bargaining,” they use this language and promote their role in this informal process. While they are quick to highlight these achievements, the starshie also reflect critically on the challenging nature of the work. They experienced the Soviet labor environment, working fixed hours during the weeks with weekends off.

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They wish for poriadok at the bazaar in the form of regulations that close the bazaar regularly so that everyone can rest and spend time with their families. While traders in theory can choose not to come to work, they feared losing their clients, especially in a highly competitive environment. So technically while it was their choice not to trade, some sought administration-imposed “rest days”—so that the environment would apply to all equally. For them, the daily race of trade can only be suspended from above. One continual source of discontent and negative press focused on the chaos of the money exchangers at the bazaar, who have a long-standing reputation of “fraud, deceit, and corruption” in business practices, as one newspaper article details.31 According to this investigative report, while twelve exchange places at the bazaar were officially registered with the National Bank as of 2011, over one hundred could be found at the bazaar. Luring in foreign buyers with appealing exchange rates, they would allegedly peddle false bank notes or give back incorrect amounts. When raids occur, the illegal spots simple close up and disappear, leaving only the twelve official spots. While starshie mentioned their attempts to check the accreditation of the money exchangers and pressure the bazaar administration to curtail illegal or informal operators—allegedly tied to organized crime networks—this issue appeared to be a perennial problem. Stories of violence and coercion underlie conversations about the money exchange businesses. Yet even in this widely perceived as corrupt and violent sector at the bazaar, some have managed to carve out what they understand as respectable and honorable businesses. For example, a middle-aged Kyrgyz woman described changing perspectives on her role working at a money exchange spot at Dordoi bazaar in Bishkek.32 From a highly educated family in Karakol near Lak Issyk-kul, she began to trade in 1994, remembering that “everyone went to the bazaar.” Initially ashamed of working at a small, local bazaar, she would often buy goods from Osh retail bazaar in the city center and resell them at her local bazaar at night “to avoid the shame of trade.” After accumulating more money, in the early 2000s she started working as a currency exchange specialist at Dordoi bazaar, and by 2007 operated with a license, as she voluntarily stressed. She was proud of the honesty she cultivated in her business and recounted numerous deceptive practices that she had seen other money exchangers engage in. These references to vision and honesty frame her understandings of work, and provide the moral compass that governs her everyday activities. The trade union’s activities do not challenge the fundamental relationships between traders and the bazaar administration that derive from the private ownership of land in a capitalist setting. In fact, they legitimate them by demanding the administration make their policies more socially bearable (in terms of basic

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services and comforts at the bazaar) and also more economically advantageous (reducing fees). While they have not been able to change the seven-day workweek or the issues with money exchangers, they perceive their work and activism as having achieved other important benefits.

Confronting the State on Policy Changes While trade union members have confronted the bazaar administration on some issues, on others, the traders and owners are more aligned. One key policy initiative that galvanized cooperation between bazaar trade unions and administrations was the national government’s attempt to install cash registers at the bazaars in 2003 under the country’s first president, Askar Akaev. The government sought to increase the tax revenue from bazaar sales and move away from the existing combined license and tax system. Authorities sought to replace the patent with a new tax that depended on sales turnover; and they argued that the only way to collect this tax would be to use cash registers to calculate these amounts. While government officials at the time framed this policy as an attempt for the government to “formalize” the “informal” economy, adopting the discourse of international organizations promoting the change to strengthen the state’s fiscal foundation, in fact it entailed a change from one type of tax system to another. Some traders indeed paid the patent, and to the extent that others did not, the problem was one of implementation and enforcement of existing tax policy, not the absence of a policy itself. In September 2003, a coalition of union members, representing traders in major bazaars across Bishkek, stymied this government-led attempt to install cash registers.33 Over 10,000 traders succeeded in organizing a three-day protest, involving the closure of the city’s major bazaars.34 Many traders decided the join the trade union at that time, stating different reasons. Starshie talked about how the cash registers would not withstand the cold winters at the bazaar, or the heat and humidity of the summer months. The implementation of cash registers also hinged on a constant supply of electricity, which especially in the winter months proved sporadic in the 2000s. Finally, traders mentioned the problem with cash registers related to the nature of informal credit arrangements between traders and clients. Wholesale traders who had built trusting, long-standing relationships with clients often gave goods to clients in advance, with only a small amount of cash down. When their clients sold the goods, they sent back or returned the rest of the money to the trader. Accounting for this type of economic transaction using cash registers would be challenging, according to the traders.

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During the coordinated strike against cash registers across the city, commercial activity halted. The government ultimately backed down, and there are no cash registers in the city’s bazaars to this day. The patent system still exists, and trade unions have successfully negotiated a reduction in the monthly patent fee in some cases, as trade union members mentioned. Another example of a policy battle between bazaar traders and the government erupted over a more recent attempt by the government to impose a tax for double-stacked containers in wholesale bazaars such as Dordoi. By day, the bottom containers are open storefronts displaying the wares of the traders. By evening, they are closed storage units sitting next to one another, forming aisles of steel boxes. Most are double-stacked, with the top row serving as storage units (see photo 3.4 for an example from Dordoi after the trading day ends). The trade union achieved its goal to take the proposed fee for the top-level container off the table for consideration after almost two years of lobbying at the level of the parliament; as of 2015, traders at Dordoi did not pay for stacking a second container on top of the first one.35 These efforts to block new taxes or defend lower rates, however, reflect only one dimension of the work the trade union engaged in with relation to state policy. Interviews between 2005 and 2015 reveal that members of the trade union at Dordoi help enforce and ensure that traders pay the patent. These practices also featured prominently in newspaper interviews about Dordoi, including this interview excerpt with a starshii: “At the market [Dordoi], we absolutely cannot work without a patent. It is strictly forbidden. Those who have been working for a long time choose starshie for the rows and conduct outreach with newcomers about which taxes they absolutely must pay.”36 The trade union, then, assists state bureaucracies in monitoring tax collection. Trade union starshie see their role as preventing bureaucrats from profiting from unofficial payments and also making sure that new traders abide by the formal rules and pay the full patent. Again, for this reason, as early as 2005 when I first began interviewing at the bazaar, trade union members vehemently opposed the terms “informal traders” or “unofficial trade.” Instead, by paying the patent, they viewed themselves as entrepreneurs working squarely within the law. And they saw their role as teaching government bureaucracies how to work, as the current trade union director articulated in 2011: “It was us who taught the government—how to clear the goods through customs, how to calculate taxes, how to keep poriadok.”37 This type of order, then, refers to fiscal relationships between traders and the state. Most starshie described how if someone in their row has not paid the patent, the starshie will personally talk to that person to encourage payment. In this way, they have both worked together against certain government-initiated policy

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PHOTO 3.4. Double-stacked containers in a trading row after the trading day ended and all containers were closed, Dordoi bazaar in Bishkek, August 2013.

changes, such as the implementation of new profit-based taxes, while simultaneously helping the government to collect its due and operate according to the law. Newspaper reports with the region’s tax officials around this time suggested that the state collects patents from nine thousand people at Dordoi bazaar.38

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Mediating Conflicts with Cargo Companies and Container Owners Trade union starshie have also helped to resolve internal conflicts within the bazaar. Here I discuss two: one with cargo companies and the other with container owners. Regarding the first, while traders learned how to stay competitive in their own commercial interactions at the bazaar largely through trial and error, mobilizing family or social networks, and learning through experience, they relied on other entities such as cargo companies to help with their business. Initially, in the 1990s, consumers from all of Eurasia, including Russia, would arrive to Dordoi bazaar on buses, buy goods, and return with their goods to their home countries. Over time, traders came to Dordoi to buy goods, but enlisted the services of cargo companies to send goods back independent of their travel to the region. However, by 2006, traders at Dordoi observed that cargo companies began working directly with these consumers at Dordoi bazaar using warehouse space as showrooms, bypassing the traders altogether. A news story summarized the effect of this trend: “The inflow of wholesalers is not declining but the trade within the marketplace has sharply declined.”39 In 2006, I was invited by the trade union leadership to observe a forum on this topic, attended by the bazaar administration, cargo companies, and representatives of the trade union.40 The meeting was moderated by the then–trade union director, a long-standing ethnic Russian trade union member, recently elected as the successor to the founder of the trade union, who had moved to St. Petersburg. Over the course of this multihour meeting, over one dozen traders spoke up, recounting stories of clients lost to the services of the cargo companies, pleading for the cargo companies and the bazaar administration to work together to save the bazaar. Some traders threatened to boycott cargo companies, or engage in an uprising to resolve the issue. Representatives of cargo companies emphasized that if they, as Kyrgyzstani companies, did not carry the goods, then companies from other countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and others, would step in. A representative of a state ministry indicated that this is a problem internal to the bazaar and relationships between entrepreneurs and cargo companies cannot be legislated. After airing all of the issues, complaints, and suggestions, the trade union director indicated that a commission would be established to illuminate and make more transparent what was happening in the warehouses and to arrive at a solution to the problem. In the subsequent issue of the bazaar’s magazine, an article announced an agreement whereby cargo companies operating at Dordoi were required to direct their activities in a way that would support demand for the entrepreneurs, and that the trade union would monitor the situation.41 In the

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event of violations, the bazaar owners would stop providing access to the cargo companies of the bazaar premises. The article concluded with the new director’s enthusiastic statement that the Dordoi trade union is considered the most powerful, “combat-ready” organization in the country. A second example of a different type of conflict at the bazaar revolved around container rental disputes. To understand the nature of these conflicts, we must first review the history of how shipping containers came to be owned at this bazaar. The containers themselves have various origins.42 At Dordoi bazaar, longtime traders recalled how the bazaar administration initially bought many containers and offered traders to buy the containers at a particular price. Prior to working out of the container, traders worked on tables and had to store their goods in separate warehouses at night. Once they owned a container, traders could store their goods in the containers at night as well as sell the containers to others, but still paid rental fees to the bazaar owner for the land on which the container was located. Over time, individuals brought in their own containers as the bazaar administration relinquished its control over the sale of new containers.43 As of 1998 at Dordoi bazaar, thousands of containers existed and they sold from anywhere between $500 to $3,000 to $4,000.”44 By 2006, some of the most valued containers in wholesale bazaars fetched $20,000–40,000, and later in the 2000s, containers in prized trading rows would go for $100,000–200,000—which could easily buy an apartment in the city center. When individual owners of these containers started to sublet their containers to other traders in the 2000s, a new type of conflict emerged within the bazaar: how to govern the sublet market for these containers, especially as trade slowed down after 2010. These sublet arrangements often transpired without formal contracts or documentation. Traders often mentioned the challenges this system created. For example, a newspaper article from 2008 documented a trader’s complaint about container owners at Dordoi amid the ongoing financial crisis at the time:45 If before we paid $500, we pay $700 now [per month for rent]. Moreover, there are no sales now, and we still have to pay for our expenses. We are suffering because we are not able to pay back creditors. Nowadays many [traders] work by taking credit and loans from banks, with high percentages. We give money that we get from the bank to the container owners. The owners ask to pay six months or one year beforehand, and do not agree to receive monthly payments. We may say that we are feeding only the container owners here. The challenges with high rental rates, and the confusion surrounding sublet arrangements of containers, constituted for some traders legal disorder at the

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bazaar, including renters such as Zarina, recently designated as starshie of her row. She recalled in 2012–2013 that rental rates were as high as $2,000 a month, with the stipulation to pay six months or one year up front (which would total $12,000 or $24,000). She articulated these oral deals, not subject to formal documentation, as legal disorder. When asked to elaborate, she replied: Legal poriadok, that would be when you rent a container, you fill out all legal documents. Not just orally. We [subletters] never filled these out, not for one container. The [bazaar] administration and the owners of the containers have such a contract. It is these tenants [the owners of the containers] from whom we lease. This is how the sublease is obtained. We don’t have any contracts. Each can do what they afford, for example, somewhere rent is $500, somewhere else $300. Everyone negotiates as they can. There is no unified legal documentation. More important than legal documentation, the key word here is unified. Embedded in these discussions about the problems with container subletting is the idea that rental rates are different—even within the same trading row with equal numbers of passersby. Traders such as Zarina seek a form of fairness, a sense of relative equality when it comes to renting containers. But without collective action, such equality could never come about since each container owner can legally set rates individually as the owner of private property, the container. As long as the bazaar administration received its basic land rent for each container, container owners charged what they wanted to subletters. The trade union stepped in to help resolve different types of conflicts surrounding subletting containers. For example, conflicts arose when the owners of the containers “evicted” the renters on short notice, perhaps just a few days. The trade union intervened with its own informal policy that container owners should allow renters one month to leave, arguing that the renters have already purchased merchandise and deserve time to relocate. This unwritten law, or norm, established by the trade union helps to manage expectations and conflicts in this sphere.46 The trade union more recently helped container owners understand the decline in trade since December 2014, and the hardships incurred by traders when rental rates for containers increase in this climate. Zarina described more specifically the role of the union in her situation: There was an incident, when our [container] rent was raised. We went to the [bazaar] administration to complain, and we were told to vacate the container. Thanks again to our trade union leader, Damira eje. She somehow handled this conflict. She said that those who traded in the

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containers throughout the winter did not see any trade. We were in debt during these months. . . . We didn’t have any trade. It turns out we were paying for rent, we didn’t have significant profits, those of us who stood there throughout the winter. For example, I have been standing in this container for four years already. She [the container owner] said there would be no increase [in rent]. Again, the situation was handled. They [the trade union] called those who rent out containers, the owners of the containers. We found a common language, so that there is stability, so that there are no protests, no conflicts. Yes, we got out of this situation. Thanks to our trade union for helping us. Later in the interview, she further elaborated that a negotiated common reduction in rental rates was the outcome for the renters in her row. In this way, traders work through the trade union to make changes to help them retain some profit from their trading business. They have not, however, formalized or codified oral contracts for rents of containers, nor have they changed the fundamental ownership dynamic at the bazaar—either with regard to owners of land or owners of containers. Despite this, they did view the union as working on their behalf to preserve order and prevent protest. For traders, protest had come to have a decidedly negative valence after the political instability and looting in 2005 and 2010, the ethnic riots in 2010, and the environmental-based protests against mining companies in rural Kyrgyzstan.47 As many traders stated, such protest is bad for business.

Avoiding Conflict by Inspiring Order within Oneself This chapter has focused on the ways in which traders understand and organize themselves to solve problems they face at the bazaar. They also seek, however, to avoid getting involved in certain conflicts; this orientation is equally important in understanding order. A sole focus on change misses the many microdeliberations traders engage in that seek not to rock the boat, as we might say. Traders invoke such understandings of order when discussing relations with clients or with other neighboring traders. For example, Zarina, the starshii selling highend women’s dresses from a rented container, responded to the question of what poriadok at the bazaar meant to her: “Poriadok is significant; each person should initiate poriadok in oneself. If there is poriadok in your own working environment, if you have good relations with your clients, if also with neighbors, then that’s poriadok. We have that, thank God.” Many traders and starshie recounted

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engaging with customers (sometimes called clients) in ways that avoided conflict and preserved peace. Zarina continued about how she avoids conflict and changes before a potential conflict can break out: “I haven’t had those kinds of conflicts, because if we have conflicts with our clients, well, we don’t let it get to a conflict. Because this is the most important thing in business, that every client is valuable to us. Of course, if the client is not right, we try to explain the situation. But in my experience, I have not argued with clients. . . . [The goal is] not to lose your clients. With this kind of trading now, every client is very valuable to us.” The other starshie, all of whom have been working at Dordoi for over fifteen years, also related this self-initiated order to the broader social context of the country. They contrasted recent disorder and chaos, or bespredel in Russian, associated with multiple revolutions in the country with Soviet times. Since 2005, when the country’s first president was overthrown, people increasingly mobilized either on behalf of others or by themselves to protest and demand change. The following excerpts from Tatiana, the trader of children’s clothing, illuminated these sentiments held commonly among starshie of Dordoi bazaar. The people are all peaceful [here at the bazaar]; it’s normal. We grew up during Soviet times, we were supposed to be tolerant of each other. . . . We were raised that way. No matter what nationality a person was or what level of wealth the person had. The most important thing was what type of person [you were]. And most were like this, and people were even ready to help those who had less. And now it’s the kind of time where everyone is just surviving. But what to do—at least there is no war, right? . . . We are fed, we are warm, and we are dressed. Everyone has some kind of roof over their head; they are doing something, right? We are not going around and are not rebelling. We do not demand anything from the government. We are trying to make money for ourselves, as best we can, within the realm of the law. The conversation continued with a discussion of the law, and the contrast with lawlessness or disorder, bespredel. She quickly referred back to the two revolutions in 2005 and 2010, when the country’s presidents were ousted against the backdrop of protests (in the second case violently), followed by looting throughout the city. She recounted: Before, we lived through two revolutions—that was bespredel. And who took part in revolutions, running round, ta-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta. Only those who loaf around, right? Those who had their own affairs, their own homes, families, they worried about peace, about the lives of their loved ones. And for those who didn’t care, they loitered around. And they

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were even promised money. If you go out onto the square, we will pay you, feed you, give you drinks, and all you have to do is walk around and shout our slogans, right? That’s who did the revolution, and normal people, they just minded their own business. They didn’t have any time. . . . We still have to educate people properly. A state can not just order everything and everything will go smoothly. No. Take any family, one family. How many children, nieces, grandmas, grandpas [are there], you don’t just order them around. [The government] has to somehow adopt some policies so that everything is peaceful, so that everyone interacts fairly with one another, so that there is no arguing. We should just live. And any state, even if there is a revolution, it does not matter, everyone understands the need to work. Above all else, to work, so that we can live. People want to be dressed and fed. In the quotation above, Tatiana stated that traders do not actively demand anything from the government—referring to social welfare and subsidies. She does, however, underscore the role of government in providing overarching social and economic stability. Instead of ordering everything from above—referring to decrees and other forms of laws—the government, in her view, should instill norms of peace, tolerance, and fairness. Implicit in her statement is that such norms existed during the Soviet period. What has changed since Soviet times? The demographics at the bazaar reveal an increasingly stark difference between those raised and educated during Soviet times, and those born in the post-Soviet generation. In the early 1990s, most traders were former state employees from the highly educated Soviet intelligentsia, including those who became bazaar starshie in the 2000s. Over time, younger people from villages who came of age after the Soviet Union collapsed started to work at bazaars in the absence of other employment opportunities. Some engaged in trade, and others in service work, such as porters, tea and food vendors, and other as packing assistants. In the same interview, Tatiana came back to understandings of law and order, and the state’s role in instilling this order within people. When asked about her perspective on law, she replied: Tatiana: They say, Dordoi harbors sin. At one point, there came enlightenment, people wanted poriadka, beauty and cleanliness at Dordoi. They [the administration] printed and hung big banners that said, “Don’t litter, or there will be a fine and administrative punishment.” But people had no conscientiousness. That meant that there should have been some people who would watch and fine, right? But it didn’t work out here. Take a person who was eating sunflower seeds, and they approached him, telling him to pay a fine, and then [he] will say,

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“It was not me.” So there, how does that law work? What should we do? So I can go around and yell at everyone. “It’s dirty, pick up your broom and sweep!” You can pass a law, but it won’t work. It’s also like this at the state level; there are many good intentions, but who will observe them, even the rules of the road? They exist; they have already existed, for one hundred years. So, everything depends on us alone. I think that the most important role of the state is to educate people from birth. The state should work for people first. I think so. I am from that generation, still Soviet, when laws still worked. Interviewer: So today laws do not work? Tatiana: Maybe they work. I don’t want to say that, because we somehow live in peace. Probably, somehow they work, but not the way they do in Europe, for example. In that regard, I wish there were more poriadka. So that, if we adopted a law, that it would be for all, shouldn’t that be correct? If it’s not allowed to drive in the opposite lane, that means it’s not allowed, right? At a red light, you have to stop. That’s what I would start with. You see how we drive on our streets. We need everyone to relate to these things in such a way that they do not violate these laws. For this, people have to be educated, from cradle, to daycare, then at school, and then in their profession. So that adults can demonstrate what is allowed, not because he is afraid, but because he respects other people, and respects poriadok. In my [trading] row, I try [to engage in such a way], so that people respect one another. People are very different. For this middle-aged trader, then, law and order is not contingent on formal state-based institutions that resolve conflicts—such as courts or other arbitration mechanisms, or enforce rules—such as police or security officers. It should derive from the education and professional institutions of the state, and from individuals in the ways in which they respect and relate to one another. Other trade union members mentioned and elaborated on the importance of the state’s role in educating and serving as role models for youth, implying that the trying years of independent statehood in the 1990s and 2000s precipitated the cultivation of poorly educated people who are nonetheless ambitious. A Russian trade union activist at another bazaar in the city described the situation as a result of “lack of education” since the country’s independence, and the belief of young traders that renting a container will lead to immediate millionaire status.48 While the activist does not say so explicitly, many of these “young ambitious traders” are ethnic Kyrgyz who did not play such a large role in bazaars in the 1990s. Other research on ethnic Kyrgyz traders confirms that their lack of

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experience with money and market-based systems has resulted in different ethics and norms related to trade: “This lack of financial experience is today reflected in the lack of values associated with trade: careless spending, frequent cases of cheating and not returning money. . . . Not returning loans is even more common among relatives because family members are expected to help each other.”49 The emphasis the starshie place on the state’s role in socializing and civilizing society recalls the work of Eugen Weber and Norbert Elias. Weber’s study identified the schools, the military, and other state institutions in the late 1800s and early 1900s in the creation of a French national identity.50 Prior to this time, within France, people from different regions and villages saw each other as uncivilized and barbarians, despite having lived in the French state for centuries. It was only through the process of state-led nationalization that a unified French national identity emerged, according to Weber. In this post-Soviet context, the state both created ethnic identities in the 1920s and 1930s and also fostered the “friendship of the peoples”—a tolerance for other groups through education and military experiences that had Soviet citizens interacting with one another beyond their republican borders in an attempt to create a unified Soviet identity.51 Starshie traders expressed particular understandings of appropriate behavior at the bazaar, and in society more broadly, shaped by their Soviet upbringing. In the Western European context of the “civilizing process,” as Norbert Elias calls it in his account of the European shift from feudalism to state monarchy, “this whole reorganization of human relationships went hand in hand with corresponding changes in men’s manners, in their personality structure, the provisional result of which is our form of ‘civilized’ conduct and sentiment.”52 The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the ensuing two decades of socioeconomic collapse provided a stark comparative referent for starshie; a significant part of their everyday trading experience revolved precisely around creating this sense of order both through internal self-control as well as through micronegotiations with those around them in the absence of a state that could serve as such an example. This careful attention to conversations of traders revealed their active choice not to blame others and incite conflict in many contexts. Order at the bazaar, then, is in part undergirded by these individual choices of traders who carry with them engrained sensibilities instilled from Soviet education, and make clear their desires to see the new state in Kyrgyzstan continue to socialize people in the same way through example. This investigation of the seeming absence of conflict at the bazaar on a day-to-day level suggests that areas of contention are not absent. Conflicts exist. It is the active choice to avoid and prevent conflict that in part undergirds the buzzing and humming of traders, consumers, cart pushers and the daily grind within the bazaars.

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Why do traders choose to avoid or prevent conflicts? Existing literature has identified reasons including depoliticization, apathy, and anomie.53 I do not think the traders are apathetic, embodying anomie in the context of this broad socioeconomic change and crisis; they are instead intensely mindful of the competition and delicate nature of business transactions, and hesitant to disrupt a fragile social environment that relies on the constant flow of consumers and goods. Most importantly, however, we must take seriously the engrained Soviet-generated ideas of order and social behavior and the ways in which these ideas come to provide the foundation for their actions in a radically different socioeconomic context. Starshie adopted a particular sense of responsibility not just to practice these understandings themselves—they also see their role as helping to create poriadok in social relations and reduce conflictual situations in their rows. Many view poriadok as precisely the “absence of conflictual situations.” Olena, the oldest starshii, describes herself as a teacher, as one who greets new traders and those from villages with equality, with smiles, saying that “we are all the same.” “We just explain to him, show him.” These roles and practices are particularly important given that traders do not take claims to court. A press interview with a starshii summarized the three rules of the bazaar, the first two of which I have already discussed in this chapter.54 The first is to work legally by paying the patent. The second is related to discipline: “You come across people who lack self-control, who are rude, but we try to find common language with them to prevent potential conflicts.” Third and finally, she stated, “We the traders do not leave one another in trouble. We always try to help in difficult times.” I now turn to this third dimension of their work: the cultivation of the spirit and the practices of the collective and social welfare provision.

Creating Community and Social Welfare The meaning and practices of trade unions have changed for these trade union members at Dordoi bazaar since the Soviet period, and they have incorporated Soviet-era institutional and behavioral practices into a very different, market, context. Other Soviet-era social welfare and community building activities also continue to constitute the practices of this bazaar trade union, despite the fact that it was founded in 1997, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Soviet-era unions managed and administered childcare, cultural retreats, and other forms of social welfare. All workers were automatically part of trade unions, and at that time, members of trade unions and their families had access to vouchers to go to the sanatorium and to send their children to summer camps. In postSoviet Russia, Soviet-era trade unions survived after the Soviet Union’s collapse

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in part because of their ability to “restore their authority within the framework of the institutions of social partnership and on the basis of the legal regulation of labour and social relations.”55 In Kyrgyzstan, such practices became incorporated into new bazaar unions, including at Dordoi. Starshii Olena elaborated on these types of activities: We arrange New Year or Christmas shows, give presents to children. There are a lot of children’s homes, old people’s homes, and homes of people with disabilities. We buy cereals, rice, flour, candies, cookies, and some gifts for the New Year. We give such things to people as they really need; for example, we give some dressing gowns, men’s shoes, and other clothes to old people’s homes. If there are some children clothes left we give them to children’s homes, or we sell these clothes much cheaper than at the bazaar. Others talked about the vouchers they receive to get spa treatments and discounts for summer sanatorium stays. Starshie also sought to create some type of collective identity at the bazaar, drawing on their recollection of common identity and solidarity in Soviet production environments. The trading environment radically uprooted workers from these kollektivs, and thrust them into the world of economic activity governed by profits and the individual with perhaps the help of family members and friends. Sisters and brothers divided the long hours selling in the trading stalls; children or relatives living in China or Turkey arranged for clothing and other goods to be sent to parents or sisters in bazaars; and teenagers helped with everyday tasks of trade after school and on the weekends. While other studies have documented this loss of collective identity in the shift to an individual-based capitalist economy, traders attempted to re-create forms of community. These friendships and the trust embedded in them constitute an important foundation for order at the bazaar, as Tatiana elaborates: ”At least, it’s like this in our row. We trust each other. Look, she goes to the bathroom for five minutes, should she close up [her container], and then open it up again? No, she just hangs a chain and asks us to look out for her. During holidays, we drink tea and celebrate together.” No longer were traders working in state-owned factories with a social support system; transported to an intensely competitive, capitalist environment of the bazaar, they organized their trading rows by setting examples of order and respect, and recreating feelings of trust and camaraderie within the row.56 They view their role as to build relationships through dialogue with those in their row over time. Yet starshie did not always feel that they could create this sense of community and address traders’ concerns, the biggest of which by 2015 was the dramatic

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decline of foreign customers frequenting the bazaar. When asked about the most challenging moments in her job as starshii, Tatiana lamented not being able to fulfill her own goals. [Traders] asked me something. I think, “That probably can be resolved.” I go there [to the bazaar administration], but there are other problems. They say it can wait. We have bigger issues . . . and it is that feeling that I cannot help because there are objective reasons. For [traders], it is important, but for the administration there are more important largescale problems. I have to reassure people, entrepreneurs, and somehow explain as clearly as possible that they have bigger problems. . . . I thought that we could just go and resolve everything, let’s do it like this and like that. They say, “Well, just wait a bit.” I have the type of personality that I want to do everything right. But it doesn’t work out that way. Her response reveals the administration’s tactic of asking her to “wait”—a sign of both the structural nature of the problems at hand as well as the power that the administration wields in its interactions with the trade union. Yet, while these types of bigger issues remained uncertain and unresolved, Tatiana continued her daily work resolving problems and enacting order through maintaining relationships, and taking control of what she could by serving as a role model in her row and creating a sense of community within it.

Assessing Trade Union Work: Perspectives of Other Traders Those in the trade union working as starshie express a particular sense of responsibility and motivation as longtime traders and trade union members. Before concluding, I investigate other understandings of order at Dordoi bazaar from the perspective of three traders who are not starshie: older, longtime ethnic Russian and Uzbek traders and a younger, more recent ethnic Kyrgyz trader. These interviews reveal that traders have very different understandings and relationships with the trade union, depending on their previous professional backgrounds, ethnicity, or generation. While most traders recognized the presence and activities of the trade union, some did not see the union’s role as very significant. Svetlana, for example, the fifty-three-year-old ethnic Russian whom we met in chapter 2 who was “grateful for the nightmare” of trading at the bazaar, recounted the history of her trade in linens since the late 1990s, and the relative absence of any issues or problems

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with bureaucrats, cargo companies, or the administration.57 She also expressed relative ambivalence toward the trade union (she was not a member), although she recalled fondly the gifts that the trade union distributed to all of the traders and the tea times they organized around holidays in years past, explicitly referencing the roots of this tradition in Soviet trade union practices. In this context, she lamented the absence of feelings of collective and working together that she experienced during her work experiences as an engineer and foreman at a textile factory; she mentioned that “you are on your own” at the bazaar, that you can only “count on yourself ” if something happens, and that you “feel unneeded.” Yet despite this, traders do come together for each other in difficult economic times. Svetlana recounted a recent story of a trader whose house burned down at night: Our [trading] neighbors, a man and a woman went, explained the situation and people gave not 50 soms, or 500 soms, but by the thousands. Now, after our row, they had collected 24,500 [soms]. He, of course, was shocked, yelled, exclaimed, said, “You what?!” Today, he came . . . went down all the rows and thanked everyone for treating him that way. It was pleasant and we were surprised that people here in this trading environment, [which is] not great, yes, but that they treated one another with humanity. Despite the quest for profit and the intense competition at the bazaar, and the long work hours without weekends off, Svetlana observed that traders in the row do come together to help one another. Order for Svetlana is directly tied to the bazaar administration—in fact it is the administration that disturbs order in her opinion by not systematically communicating with the people, and “asking about their needs, claims, whether [things] are justified.” She knew about the trade union and the starshii in her row, but was not a member and did not attribute any sense of order or have any specific knowledge about their work. As the previous chapter recounted, she sees no other choice at her age but to work at the bazaar, and is grateful for the nightmare that has allowed her to help raise her children and grandchildren. Her experience reveals that while ethnic Russians founded the trade union and served disproportionately in its leadership as starshie, among the traders, individuals had varying orientations and positions toward the trade union and issues related to order.58 In contrast to Svetlana, Salim was an enthusiastic member of the trade union.59 This ethnic Uzbek trader of plastic flowers in his later forties whom we met in chapter 2 elaborated in some detail the work of the trade union and the relative order at the bazaar. He recalled the 1990s: “I remember when we started going to the bazaar. We even paid to enter the bazaar; there were racketeers. In the

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beginning it was very dangerous.” Over time, changes led to more convenience and comforts for traders; as he states, “There are no more of these unnecessary inspections. Before . . . someone came, checked and took money from everyone. But now, there’s no such thing, thank God.” He appreciated the improvements in working conditions at the bazaar. Order for him—as an ethnic Uzbek—was also tied to social relations within the bazaar. Against the backdrop of multiple bouts of interethnic violence in the country between 1990 and 2010, he noted that tension between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks have heightened: Salim: And on the subject of when there is disorder (besporiadok), there are those who are insolent—[who think that] once they stand up, they can trade. Interviewer: What do you mean by “stand up”? Salim: Well, for example, in front of my container. These people also come. The people are very arrogant—I’m not saying specifically the nationality [as a whole]. Once they determine you’re not Kyrgyz, you’re a certain kind of person [i.e., if you’re not Kyrgyz, they discriminate against you]. Such people exist too. These are the unconscious people. I’m not saying they’re bad—there is no such thing as bad groups of people, there are bad individuals. And when asked how he resolves problems, he underscored the crucial role of the starshie: Salim: Yes, I start with the starshie, they immediately decide, go to the administration, and they [the administration] immediately kick them [the troublemakers] out. Without scandals, that’s good—that’s good, about the poriadok you mentioned. If we didn’t have such a thing, then we would of course have many scandals. In addition to helping with such conflicts, he mentioned both the role of social welfare and distribution of information the trade union provides: Salim: If, from our aisle I can say that, if something will happen to one of our traders or if someone gets sick or is dying, the trade union will immediately come to the starshii of our row, and every trader will give as much as they can. To help the family. This is also a point. Because with every family it could happen or [you could] get into an accident. Summarizing whether he was pleased with the work of the trade union, he said he “can’t complain”—they are immediately available if problems arise, and in the

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case of interethnic issues, “If we didn’t have such a thing, we would have a big scandal, especially between nationalities. That is a very dangerous line now. It’s good that they [the starshie] exist, that poriadok is maintained.” Salim thus recounted many contributions of the starshie, with a particular focus on the interethnic issues that only heightened after violent clashes in the south of the country in 2010. Newspaper articles also reported heated conversations related to ethnic issues at the bazaar, for example with the Dordoi trade union director and government officials. In this printed conversation, the director implored the government to order the interior ministry and other agencies to stop targeting for fines innocent ethnic Uzbeks who had been working at Dordoi for decades.60 Conversations with ethnic Kyrgyz traders revealed that some were also trade union members like Salim, but for very different reasons. Almagul, a thirty-eightyear-old ethnic Kyrgyz woman schooled initially in medicine and retrained at a teaching university, turned to trading of men’s clothing at Dordoi in 2006 after she had given birth to her two sons.61 Like other new traders in the 2000s, she became a member of the trade union when she needed a reference for credit; starshie in the rows provide required references for bank loans. The trade union requires trade union membership in order to write the reference. She complained about the poor conditions of trade, the absence of weekends off or rest days at the bazaar, and the declining trade in recent years. Instead of extolling the praises of the trade union’s work as Salim did, she focuses on her ability to survive challenging times and her approach to trading. For Almagul, one way that some traders have improved workplace conditions has been to put a front door on the container. Most containers throughout the 2000s and early 2010s were open for all passersby to glance into, including Almagul’s (see photo 3.5). Within recent years, some traders—in order to install heaters or air conditioners—have put fronts and doors on their containers, so that passersby and customers have to open the door to enter the sales space. For Almagul, while this might help improve her health, she describes how ordinary people—including her clients—perceive such doors as barriers. They assume goods behind closed doors to be more expensive. Ordinary, “uneducated” people like her clients would feel uncomfortable entering such containers. Unlike other wholesale traders or traders of high-end goods, she sells primarily retail or in small batches to villagers living in the surrounding Bishkek areas. While many other traders have suffered due to the decline of foreign nationals buying at the bazaar, she has maintained a local clientele, and is proud that her container is “open to everyone.”62 Through these examples, we see that traders have different orientations to the role of the trade union and the challenges of creating order at the bazaar. In its

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PHOTO 3.5. July 2007.

Open container of women’s clothing, Dordoi bazaar in Bishkek,

simplest formulation, not all ethnic Russian traders are enthusiastic members of the trade union despite its initial founders and leaders being of similar ethnic origin. Moreover, newer ethnic Kyrgyz entrants tend to be members of the trade union out of necessity since they need membership in order to get loans to begin their businesses. Both ethnic Russian and Kyrgyz traders similarly lamented the challenging nature of bazaar work, the long days, and the absence of alternative work opportunities. The member of one of the country’s more precarious ethnic groups—the Uzbek—sang the trade union’s praises the loudest. A group of majority-ethnic Russian traders at Dordoi bazaar founded and governed a trade union to address the challenges they faced in a new market environment. This chapter has argued that we should view the work of the trade union as a form of collective action among traders that has produced an important foundation for order at this bazaar. I have described what trade unionism looks like at Dordoi bazaar by paying careful attention to how individuals in this bazaar trade union describe the origins, roles, and functions as trade union members or directors. Through conversations with trade union elders, or starshie, in particular, we see how they reshaped their understandings of trade unions in light of

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their Soviet past, and adapted their role to address different challenges they faced in a liberalizing state characterized by weak rule-of-law institutions. This bazaar trade union emerged from the bottom up, resulting in an organizational form that fully resembles neither Western nor Soviet trade unions. They have formed linkages not with traditional employers as in the West but rather with a range of individuals and groups, including bazaar owners, container owners, banks, and representatives of the state.63 They have adapted Soviet social organizations, relying on starshie in the bazaar rows to help resolve conflicts and communicate among different groups; these individuals carry with them from Soviet times particular understandings of order that they enact in their everyday interactions. Earlier research on unions concluded, “The roles and functions of unions are very different in competitive capitalism, corporate capitalism, or under state planning.”64 These contexts all presume the existence of a coherent state with stable rules and capacities that all actors in society recognize and abide by. In post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, such a state does not exist. State bureaucracies lacked a monopoly over the use of violence in the 1990s, and the capacity to extract taxes and redistribute them effectively. In this context, traders created assemblages of new practices mixed with older ones that constituted their work as trade union members, and produced islands of order and deliberative collaboration within a national environment widely held to be corrupt and unstable. At its broadest level, this chapter makes an intervention into how everyday people respond to the global force of capitalism in weak state contexts. Instead of presuming binary logics of failure to counteract seemingly all-powerful economic forces and entrenched power dynamics on the one hand, or, on the other, of success in demanding from the state what private employers or owners refuse to provide, this chapter paid close attention to how individuals responded, created meaning, and navigated uncertain and shifting terrain through the creation and adaptation of preexisting organizational forms. Traders renarrated themselves as entrepreneurs, some working legally, supporting and even shaping state institutions. They viewed the arrangements they made regarding rent of land, of containers, and in working conditions, as meaningful results of their work. They viewed their own internal orientations toward conflict and order as assets, and brought them to the bazaar out of a sense of responsibility and moral rectitude. Such bottom-up organization and activism deserves more attention especially in light of the generally perceived weak civil societies across the region.65 Many traders viewed the trade union as a source of legitimate authority at the bazaar, even if the union could not impact broader structural challenges or did

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not help them directly. Yet some traders, especially newer ones, did not recognize their work as effective. When asked about this trend, starshii Dimitri answered: Interviewer: Some people say that the trade union is not effective. Do you agree with this statement? Dimitri: Some people do not see the work of the trade union. Say, take the case of tax for land rental. When the [bazaar] administration wanted to raise the land tax, we argued with them, and the same rate remained. But the average person, who pays 1,000 soms for that tax, continues to pay this tax as before, and he does not see any difference and does not know that this is thanks to the trade union. But I usually go around, so that everyone knows. Many therefore think that the trade union is not working, because they do not see it or do not know. It’s the same thing with the cash registers. . . . They only know what has changed, and if for example people would know about the taxes and what all goes on, then people would rebel. Olena similarly reflected on the often-invisible nature of her longtime work as a starshii: “Of course, you understand that it’s important—everything that is small, not visible, that you do. Look, we’ve been at Dordoi already twenty years—we work, roll onwards, we’ve done that, helped someone, worked with our neighbors and with clients, when some kind of quarrel arises.” In an answer to a question about how the transition from a command economy to a market economy impacted her, she focused on how she decided that her role has been to help resolve conflicts and problems—“to keep poriadok and help people.” She continued, “To be honest, I’m not so introspective. The most important thing here is to deal with the problems at the marketplace. More global issues they deal with at the general meetings.” While my initial research in the 2000s at the bazaar commenced during a relative boom, by the time the final interviews were conducted in 2015–2016, the bazaar had become shrouded in economic crisis and uncertainty. Indeed, over the course of its post-Soviet life, Dordoi bazaar had been alleged to be “dying” multiple times. In 1998, as the Russian economic crisis rippled across the region, the aisles of the bazaar thinned out as trade declined significantly. By 2003, border closures with Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan resulted in the decline of foreign buyers. While there used to be hundreds of buses daily with traders, only dozens appeared at times in the 2000s. Despite these proclamations, however, the bazaar continued to expand, with the mid–late 2000s considered thriving bazaar times. By summer 2015, the situation seemed to have irreversibly changed. Traders attributed the slowdown to the border closure with Kazakhstan as a result of

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Kazakhstan’s entry into the Russian-led Customs Union in 2013: they characterized trade as “sleeping” since then. Since December 2014, trade had become even worse. At that time, the Russian economy began to tank as a result of low oil prices and economic sanctions imposed by the West related to events in Ukraine. The bustling and packed trading rows had become eerily quiet by spring 2015. More than anything, traders sought open borders, so that people could go back and forth as they used to. Kyrgyzstan’s official entry into the Customs Union— announced years earlier but not yet implemented as of August 2015—in theory would allow the border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (as well as Russia) to be open again as it had been for the previous decades. As I continued to research how traders understood and worked to create order at this bazaar, by 2015, what was pressing on their minds did not relate to order, but rather survival—when customers would return. As older Russian and Slavic traders began to transition out of bazaar life after 2010, others stepped in, including ethnic Kyrgyz. As of 2011, a longtime ethnic Kyrgyz female trader became the new director of the trade union, and other ethnic Kyrgyz took over as starshie of the trading rows to a greater extent than in the past. While ethnic Russians founded and dominated the governance of the trade union in the early years, more recent changes in leadership signify the organizational continuities and legitimacy of the trade union and its starshie despite the challenging trade environment. This chapter has demonstrated that trade union starshie are aware of their context and vulnerabilities, and have advocated for a range of policies, solved myriad problems, and served as role models and mediators for their trading rows. We should view them as neither quiescent and coopted by the bazaar administration on the one hand nor activists yearning for radical structural change on the other. Instead, they calibrated when to compromise and protest, how to adapt and reshape, and what they could do to advocate for themselves and to facilitate the realization of their own understandings of order at the bazaar.

4 ADAPTING TO BAZAAR OWNERSHIP THROUGH DIPLOMACY

Research Encounter: Studying an Owner Traders and other service workers at the bazaar are highly visible; they arrive day in and day out. Owners, on the other hand, often do not show their faces or appear at the bazaars themselves. They appoint administrators to oversee the daily workings and to manage relations within the bazaar. They hire controllers to collect rental fees from the traders on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, depending on the bazaar. In some parts of Central Asia, for example in Kazakhstan, traders and the general public often do not know who the owners are; bazaar politics appear shrouded in mystery and secrecy. A culture of suspicion and the self-censorship of such topics by journalists made research particularly challenging. In such contexts, it took persistence to track down individuals who had deep knowledge of those who controlled bazaars and their backgrounds.1 Kyrgyzstan, however, is different. Bazaar owners, including Askar Salymbekov of Dordoi bazaar, are well known among traders, analysts, and the media. Salymbekov has given many interviews to press outlets over the decades, as I discovered in my library research, and has been present and active in the affairs of the bazaar over time. He has also held multiple political positions. This public presence is precisely part of the story of his work renarrating his role as bazaar founder and owner amid perceptions of the notorious rise of self-interested oligarchs across the post-Soviet region. 82

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At the same time, however, I noted his relative absence in other parts of Kyrgyzstani political life, including some political protests in the 2000s. Such protests, organized by elite politicians, toppled two presidents in the country, and became an accepted form of political communication under the country’s first two authoritarian leaders. Yet Salymbekov was noticeably absent from the November 2006 protests, one of many during this time organized by members of the opposition to the then-president. I arrived in Bishkek on November 1, 2006, from Almaty, Kazakhstan, and immediately observed everyone talking about the “meeting,” or political rally, in the center of the city to be held the next day. The rally had been announced months ago by the opposition movement “For Reform,” which included many prominent businessmen-politicians. The leaders demanded constitutional reform from the government tandem of President Bakiev and Prime Minister Kulov. Because of the potential for violence and unrest, I was advised to stay home and not leave my apartment. The fear of a repeat of March 24, 2005, when the president was overthrown and looting occurred throughout the city, proved palpable. All big stores and shops in the main part of the city closed on November 2. I was thankful that I had been able to stockpile basic food provisions when I arrived the day before. Beginning that afternoon at 3 p.m., I watched the ensuing rallies and protests covered live on the television station NTS. From the coverage, I could see crowds starting to gather in the square. The three local newspapers I had bought the night before were packed with details about the planned meetings. Many speakers addressed the thousands of people in the crowds, in Russian and in Kyrgyz, railing on the corruption of the Bakiev regime and calling for constitutional reform and a parliamentary system. The protests continued for the next six days. After the first day at home, I continued to observe the unfolding processes at the office of a local think tank I was affiliated with at the time, the Institute for Public Policy. Life continued amid the peaceful protests until November 7, six days after they began. On that Tuesday afternoon, the director of the institute sent all staff home. The demonstrations rapidly became tenser and opposition protesters clashed with pro-government forces. Protests continued the next day, as crowds increased and both opposition and government multiplied the number of tents and yurts on the main square. The day after that, on November 9, after many behind-the-scenes meetings and negotiations, the parliament voted and passed a new constitution, formally granting more power to itself.2 As I stepped back to analyze the political logic of these events, Salymbekov’s absence stood out. I later understood that this was not an accident, and that it is just as important to investigate those who stay on the

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sidelines and out of the limelight, in addition to those who are most visible. Through my conversations with analysts in the region, including multiple individuals who previously worked in government apparatuses, the tacking between seemingly opposite logics of protest and silence, passing and avoiding legislation, and other such strategies, became clear. The political work and constant maneuvering of this owner allowed for Dordoi bazaar’s relatively stability and the possibility that it could become a prominent island of order in the country. The last chapter argued that as Dordoi bazaar grew and expanded throughout the 1990s and 2000s, traders helped to create order at the bazaar by starting a trade union and collectively organizing, advocating, and solving problems they faced. This chapter shifts the focus from the perspective of the traders to its main bazaar founder and owner, Askar Salymbekov. The ongoing work of the trade union was predicated on a single main private owner of bazaar land. Salymbekov’s role in securing ownership through creating a narrative that legitimated his role, forming a security apparatus, and navigating a fluid political context allowed the trade union to govern as described in the last chapter. His efforts combined with those of the traders and the trade union provided the foundation for the bazaar to expand over the 2000s. Thus, in short, we cannot investigate the role of the traders and their collective organization in isolation; their work was predicated on an owner willing to provide basic stability and infrastructure and channel their interests to the highest political levels. Yet it would be mistaken to also view the owner as simply a transmission belt working on behalf of the traders; owners had their interests in making profits based on the collection of rental fees for land, and in his case, using the bazaars as a launching pad for other business ventures. Such a profit-oriented, self-interested interpretation might view him as an “oligarch,” “patron,” or “predatory bandit,” as often presumed in post-Soviet societies. Such narratives based on new-institutional economist or rational-choice thinking might tell the following story: after beating out other roving bandits in the 1990s and more successfully collecting revenues and securing control at the bazaar as a stationary bandit,3 Salymbekov then mobilized poor, village-level constituencies in a competitive, authoritarian electoral environment, seeking from them as clients their votes in exchange for various types of goods, such as money, food, inputs, and infrastructure. As typical of oligarchic behavior, then, he captured state institutions such as parliament to lobby for his own private interests.4 Driven by self-interest and profit alone, in this rendition, order at the bazaar is a top-down creation involving the use of force and mobilization of informal relations dictated by he who sits at the helm.

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Some analysts, activists, and traders in Kyrgyzstan have indeed referred to him as an oligarch, baron, or patron. In fact, within society and among traders, these characterizations are hotly contested. Such labels presuppose a certain consensus that I argue was in flux for much of the 1990s and 2000s. This chapter asks how he himself understood his role at the bazaar, how he articulated the challenges he faced, and how he acted on them. We see how, just like many traders in the 1990s, he struggled with his new profession and identity: initially, it was neither natural nor legitimate to “own” a bazaar, given societal and cultural stigmas against trade. Moreover, Salymbekov’s ability to create and maintain order at the bazaar entailed not only gaining formal property rights to the land and adopting a narrative that legitimized his claims but also governing the bazaar “diplomatically” in such a way that validated the work of the trade union and defended his ownership of the bazaar from others in this tumultuous first two decades of independence. Instead of viewing his actions through the lens of a predatory, stationary bandit seeking to maximize profit,5 we instead must look at how he sought to survive and adapt in an inauspicious political context.6 More specifically, what is often missing from studies of elite political action, and of oligarchs in particular, is an emphasis on context, experience and intuition as the drivers of decision making, not only “analytic rationality” based on interests, plans, and rules.7 This chapter seeks to demonstrate the importance of a range of logics, actions, and choices that resulted in his relatively stable control of Dordoi bazaar of the first quarter-century of Kyrgyzstan’s independence.

Nomenklatura Origins as Komsomol Dordoi bazaar lies on the northern outskirts of the capital city on 80 hectares (about 200 acres) of land. During the Soviet period, except for a small secondhand flea market that took place on the weekends, the land stood empty. The bazaar’s main founder, Askar Salymbekov, transformed this space from an ad hoc “spontaneous” flea market, where traders sold goods out of car trunks and blankets to a more centralized and organized bazaar. As in other parts of the post-Soviet region, the origins of property access and business opportunities in the early 1990s Kyrgyz Republic favored nomenklatura. Salymbekov graduated from Kyrgyz State University in the Department of History and Economics and worked for the Soviet youth party committee, the Komsomol, in Frunze (now Bishkek) during the Soviet period. Membership in the Komsomol gave him training and experience in management and politics. One journalist asked him in 1998: “Askar Maatkabylovich,

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if you believe the social structure of post-Soviet society, then more than anything, businessmen came from technical intelligentsia, party nomenklatura, and shadow economy workers. . . . You are which one?” He answered, “From the Komsomol. I was the Secretary of the Komsomol organization in physical culture and medical institutes. . . . The Komsomol taught me not only how to dutifully stay in line, but also how to manage people and be a leader.”8 By the end of the Soviet period, he had become head of Frunze’s sport department, also directing the Federation of Sport Journalists. He also oversaw the city’s municipal office for marketplaces, which provided him with key insights and networks that would become the foundation for his future wealth. In the early 1990s, equipped with experience and political connections at the municipal level, he adapted them to a new market context. According to a 1995 interview with Salymbekov, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, he noticed many smaller, spontaneous marketplaces emerging throughout the city. He observed, however, an acute need for a larger wholesale market:9 At that moment, I was the head of [Bishkek] the city sports department . . . I wanted to try this kind of business. . . . All our other markets were full already and traders needed some new places to do their businesses. As you know, the market economy was one of the key elements of [President] Akaev’s reform program. The market plays a very important role for us; if we have markets full of different goods and in big volumes, it means that prices are going to be low and people’s income will grow. . . . In this way, our company began working to continue the improvement of marketplace construction. Salymbekov’s connections with local municipal officials in the 1990s facilitated his acquisition of necessary access and documentation to acquire land and begin construction. To learn how to build a big, international wholesale marketplace, Salymbekov traveled to Tashkent and Moscow in 1995. He realized in his foreign travels that the location of marketplaces was crucial; people from different parts of the country and neighboring states would need to be able to easily access it. This meant new roads and adequate territory for parking spaces. He observed that bazaars in the city center became increasingly congested and overrun by traders without requisite infrastructure to support the trade.10 The location of Dordoi on the outskirts of Bishkek had the potential to be convenient for regional and international travelers, yet not without additional investment: Salymbekov worked to get new roads built to the bazaar from the city center and outlying regions, and also to reconfigure electricity and power lines. Crucially, Salymbekov’s business did not entail directly buying or selling

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consumer goods. As one of his staff members stated in 2003: “Our merchants buy goods, transfer them through cargo services, and sell them all by themselves. We do not assist them with anything but places to sell and addressing administrative issues.”11 These administrative issues, including infrastructure upgrades, proved challenging given the high levels of corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency, as Salymbekov himself stated in 1998: “Collecting signatures for certain documents is still hell for us. Since November, we have been collecting signatures. We are going to each institution and asking to put signatures here and there. . . . See, they could have easily allowed us to finish the work. But bureaucracy is about collecting signatures. . . . Due to such bureaucratic hell, many [other] workers have abandoned their business.”12 His connections with municipal authorities based on his previous government positions assisted in his ability to reconfigure transportation and power infrastructure to enable the bazaar to attract customers and grow in size. Controlling land, and later shipping containers, became an important source of wealth in Central Asia. Yet recalling the changing meanings associated with trade and bazaars discussed in chapter 2, Salymbekov also confronted stereotypes about embarking on a new profession in the 1990s. He recounted in a 2012 interview public perceptions surrounding his initial decision to create Dordoi bazaar and be its bazarkom, or formal administrator:13 Many people said to me when I was building Dordoi: “What are you doing? You are a member of the sport committee and now you are giving that all up and going to become a bazarkom? And moreover you chose a place [to build it] next to a cemetery?” This is how our people used to think back then: a Kyrgyz should be a lawyer, an economist, or a business executive. And then my business started picking up, and those who laughed came to me saying, “Give me a container!” As much as possible, I haven’t refused anyone. Earlier articles about Salymbekov’s role in founding the bazaar similarly recounted the surprise that his friends and family members conveyed when he quit his job and started this bazaar in an “unknown place in the city.”14 These comments reflect the significant changes occurring during this time about the meaning and appropriateness in society not only of the burgeoning trade and bazaar economy, but also the role of owner. Salymbekov did not found Dordoi alone; his partner in this business was an old classmate and friend from their time as students at Kyrgyz National University, Kubatbek Baibolov. With a Soviet KGB background, having served in Afghanistan and Moscow in foreign intelligence, Baibolov retired after the

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collapse of the USSR and began to work in the Bishkek city administration and in business. Baibolov’s wife, Nurzhamal Baibolova, also had a background in the KGB and served on the country’s National Security Committee in the early 1990s under President Akaev before legally taking over her husband’s stake in the bazaar in 1996 when he became a member of parliament.15 While these primary founders and owners of Dordoi bazaar were not directly related via kinship to President Akaev or his family, both Salymbekov and Baibolov had good relations with the Akaev family.16 The importance of these nomenklatura bazaar founders confirms the broader post-Soviet finding that individuals of this status benefited economically after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nomenklatura at multiple levels of governance (local, regional, or national) and in the main spheres of life (party, military, universities, media, and factories), enjoyed access to goods and services that most ordinary people did not possess. Against the backdrop of new resolutions permitting a wider range of economic activity in the late 1980s, they used their political power to acquire economic wealth by mobilizing their personal connections to gain access to land and make cash-based profits from new business ventures. Nomenklatura businessmen who converted their administrative capital into economic opportunity have been well documented in Russia, the Caucasus and the Black Earth region in Eastern Europe.17 The logic of nomenklatura business success similarly applies to Central Asia, including Kyrgyzstan. Well-connected Soviet elite used their political connections and status to acquire property and improve infrastructure, allowing marketplaces including Dordoi to expand and thrive.18 While members of the Presidential Akaev family acquired stakes in many businesses by the late 1990s, most bazaars were founded and controlled by individuals unrelated directly to the presidential family.19 Yet as the wealth generated by these bazaars increased, so too did threats from presidential family members and other elites.

Conceptualizing Bazaar Work: Business as Diplomacy Over the course of the 2000s, regimes throughout the post-Soviet region sought to dismantle the economic foundation of newly wealthy individuals—especially as they began to assert political ambitions.20 In many cases, property and assets were redistributed to Presidents and their families or allies using both legal and illegal methods, both subsumed under the term reiderstvo, or the nonconsensual redistribution of property. Kyrgyzstan proved no exception.21 The country’s first two presidents, Akaev and Bakiev, backed by administrative and coercive

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resources of the state, held many lucrative businesses by the end of their reigns in 2005 and 2010, respectively. Bazaar owners experienced and articulated constant threats to their holdings. Dordoi bazaar owner Salymbekov, for example, described in 2012 his orientation to these threats: “Many officials, including from the highest echelons of power, look at our success with a certain amount of envy. They have attempted to get into our business, or take it away, and we have had to make diplomatic moves to keep our business. Where can you go to? You can’t go anywhere. Sometimes we had to lead difficult negotiations.”22 Salymbekov articulated the means through which he has secured his business using the language of diplomatic moves and negotiations; he did not refer to exit, violence, political allegiance, or alliances—categories that have been used to explain the relative success of property holders and business leaders in such contexts.23 The language of diplomacy and negotiation as strategies to defend property claims and protect business interests suggests a set of interactions that are constantly confronted and reshaped. Later in the interview, when asked to elaborate on the logic of diplomacy in business, Salymbekov more concretely described what he meant and referred to the importance of flexible maneuvering in uncertain conditions: “I have to be flexible, I need to lead negotiations. One needs to take into account hundreds of factors; to control the situation, to know many things. To know when to compromise and when not to. Danger is everywhere—on the right, on the left. It is necessary to maneuver. A wave is coming, dive in; up ahead [lies] an obstacle, climb a tree.”24 Implicit in this quote is the importance of accumulated knowledge and experience to make decisions about when to “compromise” and how to “maneuver” if danger is ahead. While these strategies have included back room deals with officials or what might be understood as political “loyalty” to the regime, such a perspective presumes a stable political context and attributes too much authority and control to the regime. People such as Salymbekov negotiate, maneuver, and learn to control the situation as the context demands. He underscored the importance of intuition and experience in this 2011 interview when asked about the secrets of his success: “You must carefully consider every project. When we started to set up Dordoi, we operated on intuition. But intuition is [only] good when you are already acquainted with other experience, when you have already visited other countries and observed what they have. . . . This is how it worked out for us.”25 As he confronted challenges in the course of building the bazaar, the diplomatic nature of his actions and relationships drawing on years of experience and intuition proved crucial for Salymbekov. One key to being able to navigate these changing contexts and negotiate tricky business deals—including those related to expropriation—was his active discursive

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reframing of the dominant perceptions and paradigms associated with bazaar owners in the media and general public.

Discourses of Founding and Jobs As bazaars flourished throughout the 1990s, claimants of bazaar land confronted a battle of public perception surrounding their newfound professions and roles in the capitalist economy.26 Critical journalistic accounts presumed that bazaar owners operated opaquely and that they profited enormously at the expense of traders. For example, a 1997 article recounted such sentiments after five years of Dordoi’s existence:27 The bazaar’s condition leaves much to be desired; why doesn’t the administration provide anything, when venders pay money to sell? . . . But how much does the administration take? The percentage given to the government is unknown. How can we know anything if there are no such things as reports, records, order? In short, everything is a mess. . . . There is a new iron gate right at the entrance of the bazaar, which is not finished yet. And there are also empty aisles, which were supposed to be for venders. Why then are those merchants are sitting on bare ground, when there are empty spots? We were never able to get a satisfying answer to our question. Why does the bazaar administration turn a blind eye to these issues? And where is the consumer protection board? Well . . . I guess it shows their irresponsibility and careless attitude. The outside of the bazaar is even worse. Cars, carts, carts with drinks, all at once, smashing each other; such a muddled place . . . In general all the bazaars of our city have the same fate, and in all markets one can see the same picture of mess and chaos. Such articles focused on the absence of responsibility, order and transparency in the governing of bazaars, and frame the result as an injustice for traders, who should receive better conditions in light of their payments for rent of spaces.28 Other press articles, such as this one from 1999, articulated broader critiques of the owners and their relations with traders in the context of the country’s transition to an independent, market economy:29 What have we achieved by getting sovereignty? Becoming a free and democratic state has shut down all the factories and industrial facilities, and has increased unemployment, the poverty rate, and the number of

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people with shattered fates. With our heinous actions we forced people to see bazaars as the only source of making money and staying alive . . . Under the slogans, “We are building market economy” and “We are bettering the market economy,” many individuals enriched themselves beyond the concept of the word “wealth.” Millions of soms have gone to those individual’s pockets; they have stuffed their pockets until they got so sick with money; until they were so full that their bellies were ready to blow up like huge balloons . . . Those who sucked blood out of civilians were enjoying all the pleasures of life sitting on their comfy chairs, sipping fancy wines and stuffing their bellies. This period of time was marked by emergence of gigantic bazaars in our country; these bazaars have grown from nothing to huge markets in the region. . . . This is not an exaggeration, it is the bitter truth. Recalling narratives of the dispossession and the violence associated with market transition discussed in chapters 1 and 2, this quote vividly captures the emergent inequality and the recreation of class and status hierarchies at the bazaar. Another long-time trader owning containers at multiple bazaars in the city, when asked of bazaar owners, writ-large, described them as “barons of an estate—they do what they want to.”30 These conceptualizations of bazaar owners and their perceived actions and interests highlighted rapidly growing economic disparity between traders and owners—all rooted in the legal ability of owners to charge rent from traders at market rates in this new liberalized economy founded on private property relations. To counter this narrative, Salymbekov consciously engaged in a public discourse that appealed to the struggling majority of the population.31 He sought to establish a narrative that legitimized his claims to bazaar land in the context of a state that had effectively collapsed as a primary provider of jobs. By emphasizing the role that his bazaars played in providing good trading spaces for thousands of traders, he articulated the legitimacy of his status as not only an owner, but also a bazaar founder. The title of a newspaper article exemplifies a phrase he often mentioned in interviews: “I founded Dordoi—it’s thousands of working places.” As he elaborated, “It is helping former engineers, medics, and teachers earn for their families and raise their children. Otherwise they would be picketing with signs in front of the White House demanding work and bread.”32 His broader public claim underscored the ways in which the bazaar he founded provided possibilities for survival beginning in the 1990s. This emphasis on the potential for destabilizing social conflict is important. Scholars of market creation and liberalization in the European historic context

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documented how the losers of marketization—the dispossessed—demanded state-based social protection from the dislocations they experienced.33 Salymbekov made the explicit linkage that his bazaar replaced state functions of providing jobs and social welfare, implicitly referring to the Soviet system that prided itself on providing employment and basic living conditions for all. His interviews portrayed the bazaar not only as a substitute for the state, but also an important stepping stone in the creation of small and medium-sized businesses that allowed people to buy cars and apartments, start other businesses, and provide the foundation for a certain upward social mobility. He underscored the importance of actively changing prior stereotypes of what were considered respectable professions in society. Instead of viewing judges and tax collectors as respectable and traders as unscrupulous and unworthy, he argued that it should be the reverse:34 We should change our psychology and mentality. If a Kyrgyz boy is born, the people wish him to become a judge, a policeman, or a tax collector. This is wrong. This is easy money. By easy money I mean people who work in those types of services are involved with corruption, bribing and so on. They are distant from the law and they do things contrary to it. There is nothing secret about it, it is evident to us. Therefore, we should all make sure to direct our sons and daughters’ desires towards agriculture and business types of work. . . . I think if this will be the way a man will teach and change his son’s psychology, then society will benefit from it. His reference to corruption and law is revealing: he associated government work as “distant” or “contrary” to the law because of the widespread practices of informal payments and bribery associated with bureaucrats. Salymbekov thus argued for the possibility of honor associated with working in a lawful profession such as trade— even if more challenging than the easy and corrupt money associated with government positions. This logic had become more widespread in society by 2015—recall in chapter 2, Azim at Osh bazaar began trading precisely for this reason. Salymbekov’s articulated role as a provider of jobs and founder of a space for honest accumulation of wealth did not imply that he himself engaged in such “honest” activities. In fact, given the bureaucratic morass discussed earlier, he admitted complicity in the system of bribing bureaucrats for big infrastructure and safety changes related to the bazaar: “Look, when we are doing work for the security of the traders [referring to electricity, roads, and other infrastructure upgrades], they make us wait for a signature or they direct us to bring a certain amount of money, otherwise they won’t move. When you say ‘stop it’ (koi-ai) they will find another reason to send their inspector. In short, it is hell. Then I realized that it won’t work, so I give what they ask for. There are so many [others] who cannot fill the pocket of officials.”35

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In the same interview, Salymbekov also recounted the challenges with police officers “robbing” foreign traders by pretending they are checking documents. He proudly proclaimed that he hired fifty private security officials to patrol the bazaar, noting that all the racketeers had been “taken out” by 1998: “In our security service we have young men who were influential and previously active in sport. They know who is who. Whatever group will emerge, they can smash them down.” Salymbekov, then, viewed his role as providing honorable and secure opportunities for traders to trade, in effect protecting them from state bureaucrats and violent entrepreneurs. In this way, he saw his role as “creating the conditions for social stability” and providing the opportunity for honorable work in the dire transition period of the 1990s. Unlike other bazaar owners who ignored or quashed trade unions at their bazaars, Salymbekov instead embraced the trade union at Dordoi bazaar that traders founded in 1996. Traders involved in the union talked about the willingness of the bazaar administration to listen to the concerns of the traders, even if they did not always achieve their stated goals, and that the administration worked with them to find a “golden middle” or “compromise.” The members of the union collected grievances and desires of the traders, and put forth suggestions. They said the administration always at least considered proposals and never responded with “categorical nos.” This relationship that Salymbekov forged with the union reflected the “business as diplomacy” orientation articulated in the quotes earlier: he negotiated and compromised—especially with regard to issues related to bazaar fees, infrastructure, and security—key concerns of the traders. This orientation toward the trade union both legitimated its existence, and also created the foundation for an “us against them” mentality with regard to owners and traders working together against a weak, corrupt state apparatus. Part of collaboration with the trade union entailed regular meetings with its leadership. Since the trade union’s founding, Salymbekov met directly with union leadership regularly as trade union elders recounted to me with pride. He also made himself personally available to set up appointments with traders or others who work more directly for him to resolve disputes or hear concerns, as when disputes arose in the trading rows that neither trade union starshie nor bazaar administration officials could resolve. His administration also established a system for registering the many cart pushers who assisted customers from getting goods from the bazaar back to busses or cars; and he also became the repository for documentation of container ownership. Owners of containers went through the notary public to validate the sale of the container, and then gave the documents to the bazaar administration, as opposed to the state property registry. Universally, traders at Dordoi who owned containers praised the stability and fair process governed by the bazaar

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administration on this issue. Olga, a longtime trader at the bazaar, articulated the fully legal and transparent process of the sale of the container: “We did it through the notary. It’s definitely a plus here [at this bazaar]. A copy of the documents that we filled out is at the marketplace administration. We have an administration here. We have everything; it’s all legal, and documented.”36 Traders used statelicensed notaries to formally document the sale, but the repository for these documents of sale lie not with the state institution that registers property, but with the privately owned bazaar administration itself. This system of container ownership reflects a legitimate form of property relations that combines the involvement of private container owners, the notary, and the bazaar administration.

Political Positions: Adapting to Shifting National Context Salymbekov built infrastructure, relationships, and processes within the bazaar over the 1990s. He simultaneously navigated a fluid domestic political context. As Salymbekov’s business empire and social networks expanded, so too did the importance of maintaining elite political access. In the twenty-year period between 1991 and 2011, the country had two authoritarian presidents (President Akaev, from 1991 to 2005, and President Bakiev, from 2005 to 2010), and a semiparliamentary system under a new constitution (after 2010). He adapted relationships within these systems as the context changed, initially outside the formal political arena and later within it; at times he displayed political loyalty and at other times he moved toward the opposition. Salymbekov’s Soviet-era sociopolitical status as nomenklatura shaped possibilities for access to bazaar land. But this was no guarantee of future business stability as the Akaev presidential family sought to acquire partial or full control over lucrative businesses in the country,37 mirroring a broader post-Soviet trend towards the vertical consolidation of economic wealth across the region.38 Salymbekov’s first major foray into politics came in 1998 as an appointed governor of his home region (Naryn oblast, one of seven in the country), a position he held until 2005, when he briefly served as mayor of Bishkek city. Prior to becoming governor, his own perception of electoral politics proved decidedly negative, as he revealed in newspaper interviews. In 1998, he reflected on the Jogorku Kenesh, the country’s national parliament:39 For already two years the general prosecutor has not been able to open a single criminal case against [parliamentary] deputies. Millions were stolen. At the same time poor Kyrgyzstanis are imprisoned just for stealing

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goods worth 50–100 soms. After seeing this kind of paradox on a regular basis, people’s trust in authority has been decreasing. The people say: “Why is the president silent?” “The Jogorku Kenesh is involved in black activities.” “No one looks after us.” And “People with authority are doing what they want.” This is how their trust has been decreasing. During these early years of independence, wealth derived in part from privatizations of state-owned enterprises and assets, such as those in the gold sector, which were transferred to President Akaev’s family and friends.40 The origins of Salymbekov’s wealth do not follow this wealth-generating avenue. Instead of taking command of newly privatized industrial or mineral resources, he became a landowner and he expanded Dordoi bazaar for the first seven years after independence. It was only in 1998 that Salymbekov became governor of the Naryn region through an appointment by the president. He used this position to continue to expand possibilities for Dordoi bazaar, including the improvement of the road network with China (Torugart Pass) that fed the bazaar with commodities of all types.41 When asked how he viewed his own career trajectory and wealth accumulation in 1998, he contrasted his trajectory with others in the country:42 I would not really like to get into power. . . . Let us look at world practice. Take the west: there, first a person grows in maturity, then he increases his capacity and becomes financially independent, and only then he might become a great politician. Then such people will pursue clean politics. Whereas our politicians, in pursuit of restoring their material well-being, commit a lot of crimes. That is why, if you do not want to earn a bad name, you should go clean to achieve power. In Japan, people get involved in politics after their sixties. In their congress, there are not many youth represented. In their young ages, they spend time in business, production, in short they get experienced and only then they come to rule to serve the state, the people, the land. And wherever they work they try to work honestly so that they won’t be dishonored when they will be in politics. If you are going to be independent financially, then it will bring many results. Salymbekov made comparative references in these interviews to the change in parliamentary politics by the late 1990s, in particular the dissolution of the independent “legendary parliament,” and the consolidation of its control by President Akaev. Akaev used referenda and subsequent parliamentary elections (1995, 2000, and 2005) to forge bargains with new wealthy leaders in the country, who ran as independents, believing that local businessmen “would be easier to control in the new parliament and would vote in parliament in favour of the government agenda.”43

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Prior to 2005, Salymbekov observed these changes in parliamentary composition and practice from afar, while growing his bazaar business empire and serving as presidential-appointed governor of Naryn. Journalists predicted that Salymbekov would be one of the most successful businessmen in Kyrgyz history, noting that he was able to build his entire business—not only the bazaar but also others as well—without significant loans or credits from the government.44 By 2004, however, the political environment had changed. Appointed positions had become more tenuous as the President retained the power to fire or remove governors at will. It was Akaev’s declaration not to run for president again in 2005 and the possibility that a new political leader could renegotiate the foundation of business and political relationships that propelled Salymbekov instead to run for a member of parliament seat for the first time.45 In Kyrgyzstan, most MP candidates were businessmen seeking office to defend their property and business claims, and expand their opportunities, as this aphorism reveals: “Kyrgyz usually say that when a man gets rich, he marries, builds a house, and becomes a politician.”46 Salymbekov’s logic, as one of his advisor’s summarized, revealed the differences between an elected position and an appointed one by 2005: “Nowadays, when you are a civil servant, you can be fired at any time; this does not happen if you are a member of parliament. The parliament is also a place of confrontation between the different lobbies and we need to be a part of it to defend our economic interests. My candidate is also interested in the immunity given by his status as MP in order to protect his private business.”47 Importantly, Salymbekov began his campaign for MP status when it became clear that President Akaev would not be running for another term after 2005. Salymbekov thus sought to become an MP, as one journalist wrote, to find “a stable niche, with immunity, for what could be a period of uncertainty.”48 To the extent that a change in regime might result in expropriations and property redistributions—as earlier “electoral” revolutions in Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004) had revealed— Salymbekov sought to prevent such a scenario by assuming MP status, despite his own critical understandings of electoral politics and his previously stated political intentions.

Protest: To Participate or Navigate the Ambiguous In-Between By the mid-2000s, the ability to gain a seat in a competitive authoritarian electoral system required strong societal backing in local regions that could be rallied in support of the candidate. The design of electoral institutions in Kyrgyzstan

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helped to create incentives for business people to strengthen political and social networks. In particular, electoral systems that encourage voters to cast ballots for individual candidates in single-member districts (SMD) incentivize business people to cultivate local relationships with constituencies to a greater extent than closed-list proportional representation (PR) systems in which voters choose a single party as opposed to an individual candidate.49 Single-member district systems, in place in Kyrgyzstan until 2007, encouraged “small, regionalized political support bases” and independents in third and fourth wave democracies.50 Existing research has documented the ways in which wealthy individuals and business leaders in Kyrgyzstan mobilized locals on their behalf, for example in 2005 surrounding competitive parliamentary elections that resulted in the ouster of President Akaev.51 What has received less attention is the ways in which these mobilizations have operated outside of the electoral context. While business leaders mobilized constituents as part of the process of acquiring and defending political and economic status, the unexpected observation I made is the relative absence of protest and social mobilization by certain bazaar owners such as Askar Salymbekov in 2006 and 2007. I argue that his decision to remain on the sidelines of social protest reflects a distinctive political strategy. While the 2005 elections serve as an example of Salymbekov “jumping in front of a wave” by mobilizing and ensuring a seat in parliament, sitting on the sidelines in subsequent years reveals his family effectively “hiding under a tree.”52 This section illuminates the political logic undergirding decisions to mobilize or not to mobilize protesters. As discussed, Salymbekov decided to run for parliament in 2005 in light of uncertainty surrounding the post-Akaev environment. As part of his electoral strategy, his intermediaries organized protests and made busses available on election day to facilitate voting in the Naryn region, where he faced stiff competition from another prominent regional governor (of Osh oblast), also born in At-Bashi district of Naryn.53 Prior to this time, he had been building strong ties to his local constituency in the preceding decade, by helping to improve roads, railroads and other infrastructure as well as help individuals and organizations in his home region—as varied as farmers, artists, youth sports teams, elderly homes, and religious institutions—with scholarships and donations.54 All of these benefits accrued to his home region, not to traders in the bazaar from Bishkek and the rest of the country. As his business expanded, he began to employ people from his hometown and region in the capital, Bishkek, where many of his business enterprises were headquartered. Conversations in the security offices of Dordoi Plaza in Bishkek (the mall owned by Askar Salymbekov’s relative) revealed that most of the security team hailed from Naryn province. A former controller (the person who collects the rental fee from traders) at Dordoi bazaar confirmed that most of the

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controllers at the bazaar, as well as some of the cart pushers, were “Salymbekov’s people” meaning people from his village and region, and the same was true of employees of his vodka factory.55 An analyst planning his wedding to be held at the luxurious Koi Tash hotel—built and owned by the Salymbekovs—on the outskirts of Bishkek, also remarked that the service workers in the hotel were largely either “Narynski” or “At Bashinski”—again referring to the region and city, respectively, from which the Salymbekov family hailed.56 The distribution of jobs both at home as well as in the capital Bishkek served as the foundation for a source of support and loyalty to the family. This relationship between job opportunities and future political loyalty via votes indicates the foundation for the mobilization of patronage relationships, however, one that he realized only much later in 2005 as the national context changed. Drawing on this social capital that he had fostered over the last decade, Salymbekov successfully mobilized these constituents in his home region in 2005 to gain a parliamentary seat, as we might expect given our understanding of the logic of patronage politics in the region. What has received less attention is his absence at the protests that continued after the President Akaev was ousted and President Bakiev came to power. Following Akaev’s precedent, the new president Kurmanbek Bakiev appointed relatives and close friends to high-level government positions and ambassadorships. More troubling for the country’s business elite, Bakiev’s son, Maksim, took over the role that Akaev’s son, Aidar, played in taking over business networks. Press chatter of Maksim referred to him as “new young monster,” “oligarch #1,” and “main advisor to his father.”57 After Akaev’s ouster, assets such as the Kant Slate and Cement Plant, the largest grocery store chain in Kyrgyzstan, important gold mines, and the largest cell phone operator in the country, were allegedly transferred to family members or allies of the new Bakiev administration, which perpetuated similar presidential familial asset grabbing begun under Akaev. In addition, Maksim and his loyalists gained control over fuel contracts for Manas air base formerly under control of the Akaev family then transferred to the Bakiev family. Bakiev regularly used threats of force and mustered administrative and bureaucratic resources to his favor, signaling clearly to all that it was his turn to reap the economic benefits of political power.58 The perception quickly spread that Bakiev’s family was following in the footsteps of Akaev. An NGO representative presciently stated of Bakiev in June 2005, right after Akaev left office: “We already do not believe or trust him, he is sly.”59 Against this backdrop, tensions heightened as President Bakiev’s family members became more involved in politics and business and as political violence increased.60 Political demonstrations became a common occurrence, with three major protests occurring between April 2006 and May 2007 in the capital city.

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They were neither initiated by civil society organizations nor launched by spontaneous swells of mass protest; rather, they were announced in advance—at times weeks and months in advance—by threatened businessmen-MPs. While concerns about constitutional reform and corruption were the main publicly stated themes of the protests, one of the key underlying issues was the perception that the Bakiev family was profiting excessively from presidential status. Prominent protest leaders included Akaev-era elite whose assets were being challenged by the Bakiev family and his loyalists, and protests became a form of political communication at the time: “Throughout last year [2006], street protests have become quite institutionalized as a means of pressuring the authorities, and the voicing of specific demands by opposition [this way] may well turn into a new tradition of political communication.”61 As another analyst observed about the power of protest claimed by these individuals: “Try now to take someone’s property. [The businessmen] are all established, they have their own people. They can put thousands of supporters on the square tomorrow if they wanted.”62 Askar Salymbekov was one of the most prominent Akaev-era businessmen. Yet amid the hype surrounding these major demonstrations in the press, his presence was noticeably minimal. In contrast, others, such as Akaev loyalist Kubatbek Baibolov, led protests in the capital city; the November 2006 and April 2007 protests lasted for about ten days each, and total crowds reached over ten thousand on some days.63 In response to a question about the reasons for the protests in 2007, Baibolov emphasized Bakiev’s involvement in business in the country:64 It is a fact, and it is one of the main reasons why we repeatedly went out onto the streets and are making preparations to do so now. We demand a halt to the illegal redistribution of property. In fact business is essentially stifled. We have never been tested with the kind of chaos that we have now. My position is . . . to achieve reforms. . . . It is necessary to address, above all, to the president, these questions and indignations. Because of his unwillingness to destroy the system of individual, one-man rule, unfortunately, we are following a dramatic succession of events. All essential reforms, about which all of us speak, rests only on one thing—the unwillingness of the president to reduce his authority. All the rest is secondary. In fact Bakiev has concentrated in his hands more authority than Akaev! It is necessary to dismantle autocracy, government of the family. However, without pressure, without protests, the president will not accept decisions. Baibolov clearly articulated widespread resentment of presidential influence over business and the appointment of family members in key government positions,

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and advocated the use of protest as a way to gain leverage over the executive. At the protests, the opposition made numerous demands, including for the President to “stop practicing familial management,” and more specifically remove family members from state positions, business and the media.65 Protesters were largely drawn from the personal networks of individual businessmen from different regions of the country, including rural villages, confirming the continued importance of businessman linkages to local groups in the post-Akaev era.66 Protests lasted days. Yurts were set up on the central square, and the organizers brought musicians, singers, and other artists to entertain the crowds. Interspersed protest leaders spoke. Post-Soviet political economy scholars have identified such business-led protests as a form of “voice” in a system with weak property rights and other related protections for businesses. Through protest and other forms of mobilization in Russia, for example, businesses pressured the state to constrain its predatory impulses.67 Seen through the lens of Albert Hirshman’s tripartite Exit, Voice, and Loyalty,68 “voice” is a bottom-up strategy that operates in active and clear opposition to the state— whether the predatory ruling regime or venal bureaucrats. While we do see examples of all three of these strategies in the post-2005 environment in Kyrgyzstan, including also exit69 and loyalty,70 Askar Salymbekov’s strategy cannot be clearly placed in these categories. Instead, he fits into a group that I call the “missing middle”— neither squarely in opposition nor staunchly pro-regime. He constantly sat on the fence. This strategically ambiguous position is the least studied but yet most important for understanding Dordoi bazaar founder Salymbekov’s role in these protests, and arguably a much wider swath of post-Soviet business orientations. The Salymbekov family balancing of exit, voice and loyalty supports the effectiveness of sitting on the fence. By 2006, the family had amassed not only economic wealth, but also significant political power and leverage with two family members serving in the national legislature, and one in the Bishkek city legislature. Family members did appear on stage at protest rallies in April 2007, for example, but their actions were not considered active.71 They found a way to signal pressure to the regime by attending rallies, but simultaneously sought to maintain a low profile by not being a mobilizer or leader. It would be a mistake to subsume this nuanced strategy under any single category. Instead it reflected a calibrated attempt to send signals by navigating in the spaces in-between; the family maintained presence at the protests without implying voice, and sat on the sidelines implying neither loyalty nor exit. He survived this period by carefully navigating these tensions, and by forging compromises related to his business assets: for example, he was forced to sell his DosCredo bank in exchange for retaining other holdings, including the bazaar.72

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This examination of protests between 2005 and 2007 suggests that we think carefully about the relationship between business and protest. On the one end of the spectrum, the events of 2005 leading to the overthrow of the first President Akaev demonstrate the powerful effects of “subversive clientelism,” when elites mobilize local supporters and unite to effect a change in leadership.73 On the other end of the spectrum, an opposing conventional narrative by the late 2000s presumed that Akaev-era bazaar owners and other magnates remained in power because the new President recognized their preexisting strength and influence, as a journalist summarized: “Bakiev had sufficient intellect not to encroach on the assets and property of big magnates, who were able during Akaev’s time to accumulate significant capital and found trade-production empires.”74 This quote recalls Max Weber’s articulation of the classic struggle between patrimonial leaders and the local leaders on which they attempt to exert power:75 The continuous struggle of the central power with the various centrifugal local powers creates a specific problem for patrimonialism when the patrimonial ruler with his personal power resources—his landed property, other sources of revenue and personally loyal officials and soldiers—confronts not a mere mass of subjects . . . but when he stands as one landlord . . . above other landlords, who . . . wield an autonomous authority of their own . . . The patrimonial ruler cannot always dare to destroy these autonomous local patrimonial powers. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, those such as Salymbekov simultaneously sat as members of parliament by the mid-2000s, thus reorienting Weber’s patrimonial hierarchy into a formal, institutionalized struggle between the executive and the legislature. Moreover, Salymbekov did not act as a unitary actor; he increasingly incorporated his family into his business and political structures over the years at the local and national levels.76 Instead of perspectives that elevate the power of elite-led protest or the constraints that leaders perceive from wealthy businessmen, I find that putting the spotlight on the dynamics of a range of strategies, including diplomacy-like negotiations and selective engagement in protest, is for the key to understanding an important subset of the political and economic elite in the country. In fact, Salymbekov represented one of a majority of “missing middle” MPs between 2005 and 2007.77 This analysis also demonstrates the limitations of the literature on the post-Soviet region that divides elites into opposition figures and propresidential supporters.78 These in-betweens are often invisible yet govern political choices and business intuition in the region.

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Parliament: To Make Rules, or Avoid Them through Negotiation Askar Salymbekov and his brother entered parliament as MPs in 2005 as wellestablished business leaders in the country. They sought this status not to accumulate initial wealth from state positions, as was the case with many earlier MPs and government officials,79 but rather to defend and expand their business empire in an uncertain environment. Instead of viewing the parliament as simply “captured” by such businessmen, or parliamentary status as an ironclad protector of business interests, I suggest that we look more closely at how membership in this institution serves as a starting point for significant political work and continual renegotiation to maintain the status quo.80 This section relies on two in-depth interviews with long-time analysts of the Kyrgyzstani political system, Bakyt and Azamat, who have significant personal experience working in and with the political and legislative system of the country (see research appendix for more details on my strategy for elite interviewing in the country).81 While it does not specifically draw on data related to the Salymbekov family members in parliament—such access is difficult to obtain—it reveals broader trends that pertain to many MPs. One of the presumed political goals of parliamentary status in the state capture literature involves passing or blocking legislation. Throughout much of the post-Soviet world, businessmen used their influence and wealth to pay off bureaucrats and politicians in exchange for favorable legislative outcomes.82 In Kyrgyzstan, MPs also introduced legislation that favored their interests; the issues were often minor in scale and unconcerned with the broader social welfare and public good. They were also timed to correspond with electoral campaigns so that MPs could claim productivity to their constituents: Azamat: For example, . . . . it was written that [one of the deputies] was the initiator of forty—actually how many?—seventy bills. Yes. But of them, all were minor laws . . . to protect one’s own business. Thus, with these changes, he’s only changing the Tax Code, the Customs Code, and so on. Finely, but little by little. . . . Well, they are minor laws that don’t have any broader meaning. That is, they aren’t substantive. Interviewer: Yes. Azamat: They don’t change the situation in the country for the better, yes? They do not change the development of the country for the better. In addition to passing these minor or small-scale laws, MPs also stymied attempts by municipal and national leaders to make changes that conflicted with their interests. Three examples include attempts to ban the import of right-sided cars

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(both right and left are now allowed), reconfigure municipal transport (now dominated by privatized marshrutkas), and revise the combined tax/license system adopted in 1996 (patent). National and local MPs had stakes in the import of right-handed cars, monopolies over private marshrutka routes, and small businesses such as cafes, salons, and trading stalls that rely on patent.83 Attempts to change all three have failed over the years. On its face, this evidence confirms the post-Soviet literature on state capture by business. Yet the logic of these practices presumes clarity in the legal system and effective law enforcement. In fact, many forms of formal “law” govern post-Soviet politics and society, some of which contradict each other. Given this situation, I find that parliamentary status also provided MPs access to presidential gatekeepers and other high-level officials that allowed them to avoid laws and negotiate solutions to business challenges, in addition to passing or blocking legislation.84 To illuminate this logic, we must begin with the legal context of 1990s in Kyrgyzstan. During this time, presidential decrees had a similar status to laws passed by parliament. These authorities, the president and the legislature, issued rules simultaneously and many were only sporadically or instrumentally enforced. To make sense of which rules mattered and when, it increasingly became important to gain access to high-level officials to either get a pass to ignore conflicting legislation, or mediate disputes about how to apply or interpret the rules. Only in 2009 did the “hierarchy of law” in the country become established, making a parliamentary law a higher status under which a presidential decree must comply. In other words, only after this time, a decree from the president could not contradict a law implemented by parliament, as Azamat explained.85 The establishment of this hierarchy of laws came into effect in 2009, almost two decades after a plethora of often-contradictory laws and decrees had already been made. Prior to this, analyses of parliamentary transparency and participation in the law writing process in Kyrgyzstan confirmed that as of 2007, only ten to fifteen MPs out of a total of seventy-five were actually “strong and engaged” in the policy-making process.86 Instead of writing laws, MP status allowed individual MPs to expand possibilities to access and negotiate with presidential and bureaucratic gatekeepers. As a journalist stated: “Conflicts about property in the country are impossible to resolve if you do not have contacts with the President or with high-ranking officials.”87 Take the complicated tax code with multiple possible tax regimes as an example. A businessman-MP could use the position to negotiate with highlevel tax inspectors for favorable rates. Since bureaucrats can be fired or dismissed with relative ease—especially if smeared or framed with kompromat— compromising material collected by opponents88—the businessman-MP often had the upper hand.89

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MPs also negotiated on behalf of their interests using the cover of “constituents’ interests” to validate their claims. Bakyt recounted the logic of such practices: If somebody wants to make an unlawful attempt to your business, you can control the situation, you can write to the [prosecutor] office and then as deputy you have the right to control the outcome. . . . . I will not say that this is my café, right? It is the café of my stepbrother. And my stepbrother has another name, another [last] family name. [Imagine:] He wrote officially to the deputy saying “[Mr. Deputy, Mr. Deputy] please, we have some kind of unlawful attempt. Please, take care of it, we are yours [electorate and voter].” And then you can say, “Oh, my voters are under pressure of some tax inspection and it is illegal. Please take care of it.” Thus, beneficial customs or tax treatment for business arises not via the passage of legislation, but by gaining access to top bureaucrats who can informally solve problems. Azamat also confirms this logic in explaining how appointments for ministers and government heads work. MPs vote to approve these appointments, and when they feel threatened by associated bureaucrats, for example the tax officials, they can directly call the ministers in charge to effect change. Since the low-level tax officials sit at the bottom of the totem pole and are aware of the power that ministers have over their removal, they come to learn not to disturb the businesses of the MP. In this way, he concludes, the businessperson who is an MP is “transported to another level.” In addition, MPs in Kyrgyzstan claim to have “immunity” from government prosecution. Presidents used pretexts such as involvement in illegal or shady privatization schemes, the nonpayment or partial payment of taxes, or the violation of other codes and regulations to redistribute property. Since many businesses operated illegally to some degree due to the complex and contradictory tax and regulatory codes, the guarantee of immunity that became associated with deputy status proved appealing for businessmen. Azamat explained that while parliamentary immunity is supposed to apply to activities associated with being a deputy only (not private business, for example), because of the influence of Soviet understandings and times, the deputy is perceived to be untouchable. While not impossible for a president to strip a MP’s parliamentary immunity, the way the immunity clause is interpreted has raised the cost of doing so. Thus, in sum, MP status in and of itself did not necessarily guarantee stability in property and business relations through automatic constraints or rules; instead such status became a crucial point of access with which to negotiate, exert leverage, and gain control when challenges arise. A Bishkek-based businessperson and political observer confirmed the logic of parliamentary status

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under President Bakiev, which “saved” a person from going to jail and provided the right to talk with the Presidential family to negotiate an alternative to state “raiders” expropriating property.90 Finally, in addition to these relationships and negotiations, MP status provided crucial access to information outsiders were not privy to. For example, regulatory codes or tariffs, issued by bodies such as the Ministry of the Economy, were often opaque and complex. Bakyt described the logic: Bakyt: Yes. They get some kind of notes with economists’ forecasts, which are also closed [to the public], yes. Some kind of [think tanks], yes, they develop it and say, we have this tendency, for example, that the ruble will fall. For example, I’m a deputy, and I know about this. And another person, who isn’t a deputy, but who is also an owner, for example, the co-owner of a bank, yes. He doesn’t have this kind of information. Do you understand? Interviewer: And you can only know this from being a deputy? Bakyt: Yes. Because they’re in committees, they hear private information, yes, that which is not covered in the newspapers, on the Internet. [The information] is prepared by some kind of institute— the National Bank, the Ministries of Finance. When they adopt the budget, they carry out a large research project about the trends, for example. Additional types of information flows that helped to expand businesses included greater access to opportunities for kickbacks from investors and government tenders.91 The meaning and practices of parliamentary status, thus, shifted over the course of the 1990s and 2000s. From President Akaev’s perspective, he initiated changes in electoral politics as a way to bolster authority and shore up support amongst increasingly wealth business leaders in the country. However, the authority they acquired over time led to his eventual overthrow. From Salymbekov’s perspective, while initially very critical of the corruption and criminality associated with deputy status in the 1990s, he and/or one of his family members successfully ran for MP positions between 2005 and 2015, allowing him to defend control over the bazaar and expand its size. Salymbekov reflected on the period of the 1990s and 2000s under Presidents Akaev and Bakiev in a 2011 interview. His remarks confirm the perception of real threats he faced in his business, which he successfully navigated:92 All of the country’s complexities and progress we experienced together. All of the ups and downs that Kyrgyzstan experienced, we lived through.

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In 2005 and 2010, we were victims of looters. It was a huge blow to us. We were dependent on foreign threats. We suffered damage from organized crime. We experienced bureaucratic tyranny. And from our former presidents and their circles we got the full amount. All of them watched our success through a mirror of envy and their eyes burned with desire, as if there was something to get. But thanks to our people, the collective of Dordoi, our robust strength, that we, ourselves, wanted to work and feed our families—we established our work places and duly paid taxes, and we held out. I think that, thanks to such people and their strength, we proceeded step-by-step and reached our twentieth anniversary. As a Soviet-trained and educated owner, just like many of the traders and starshie, he mobilized an understanding of the collective—kollektiv—the common work environment and united goals shared by all, and the common challenges they overcame together. This analysis suggests that instead of characterizing the parliament as captured by oligarchic interests, I propose looking at the political work that transpires around and within this institution. Salymbekov joined a parliament in 2005 whose roles and functions in relation to the broader economic environment had changed since the early 1990s, and his status allowed him to solve problems related to weak rule-of-law institutions and significant political turmoil. Indeed, Salymbekov was one at least a dozen bazaar owners who held parliamentary status throughout the 1990s and 2000s.93 This analysis does not suggest we condone the system or overlook the pitfalls of these practices. However, if we disregard parliament as corrupt or coopted, we miss the dynamic political work practiced by MPs that significantly shaped the possibilities for a certain order and stability in important segments of the economy and society.

Traders’ Perceptions of the Bazaar Owner The question remains how others at the bazaar as well as in society perceived of this owner’s intentions and contributions to the creation and maintenance of order at the bazaar. Some longtime traders recount with pride the opportunities that bazaar trade has afforded them. In a newspaper interview, for example, the most recent ethnic Kyrgyz trade union director mentioned her friends who started at the bazaar and now have other successful businesses in the city. She concluded: “And we’re all grateful to Askar Salymbekov for the fact that he created such a favorable place, where we were able to make money.”94 The narrative

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here, as Salymbekov himself has articulated, is that he is the founder and creator of a “favorable” working environment. Similarly, Salim, the longtime ethnic Uzbek trader of plastic flowers recounts an explicit patronage-based logic associated with his success at the bazaar.95 In return for this trading opportunity, he was quick to volunteer that he would be supporting Salymbekov’s newly formed Emgek political party in 2015, against the backdrop of parliamentary elections that autumn. He referred to members of the administration of the bazaar as his “very good friends,” and supported the party Emgek because, in his words, “I gained my footing here” and “I find my bread here.” In contrast, he lamented, the other parties such as SPDK do not provide anywhere to work. At Dordoi, he raised his children, and because of that, he chose Emgek as his party. The discourse of jobs and stability in income, then, resonated strongly with Salim, and he views as his obligation to vote for this party. In contrast to these perspectives, those outside the bazaar—other business people, journalists, and analysts—are often quite critical. According to them, while Salymbekov promotes a particular narrative of being a job provider and maintaining the conditions for social stability, his family is interested in collecting rents from traders in order to expand capital investments internationally. In 2007, for example, together with a high-profile company that makes national drinks, Shoro, Salymbekov invested in a factory in Kashgar, China, to expand production and sales in western China.96 The critique of this type of business venture presumes that the bazaar trade should be a stepping-stone to a more advanced domestic industrial or productive economy. Instead of shipping capital overseas, doing good for the country from this perspective would involve investing the money back at home.97 A different line of critique revolves around local understandings of bazaar owners and their relationships with family, home villages and regions. While those directly employed by him in his businesses display a sense of loyalty and gratitude for his actions as their “patron,” including trade union members at other bazaars he owns in the city,98 others who still reside in his home Naryn region reflect a more critical perspective. For example, a resident from Naryn province, when asked about Askar Salymbekov and his role in helping local communities, laughed disparagingly, and indicated that Salymbekov does not do anything for rural communities and is only interested in himself and expanding his own business.99 A different conversation with a scholar from Kyrgyzstan familiar with Salymbekov’s business and practices indicated that he does not give that much in charity, but what he does give is well publicized. His broader strategy is not to be a “patron” in the classic sense of the word, implying generosity and “affection,” but

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rather to protect himself and his family by “giving everyone a little,” as this educator stated.100 In his eyes, villagers and local citizens have come to expect inducements around election time, and act as if business owners such as Salymbekov are patrons, but do not see their patrons as generous or affectionate. In home regions, people believe it is through their own hard work, effort, and adaptability that they have been able to succeed, not as a result of their patron. Traders unassociated with Dordoi understand his party, Emgek, not as the Party of Labor (Emgek means “labor” in Kyrgyz), but rather as a Party of Owners, or more starkly in one activist’s words, the Party of Oligarchs.101 Other critical perspectives also view the expansion of his family networks through education and marriage as serving his business opportunities, not contributing to his home community. One of his sons went west for training in English and Western business management, and another went east to Beijing, China to study. His brother’s daughter married a Chinese business partner’s son, and his brother’s son married into the prominent Osmonov family, whose members hold multiple positions in parliament and government.102 As one analyst commented in 2007, Salymbekov has succeeded because of his “smart strategies:” not only was he rich and a member of parliament, he also “put his relatives and people in every position in business and politics.”103 The critique of this strategy revolves around the promotion of his global and international connections via family members at the expense of local interests. In contrast to glowing praise from within, or critical perspectives from outside, most traders at Dordoi bazaar express a conflicted ambivalence about Salymbekov’s role at the bazaar. Traders simultaneously label the owners of bazaars in general as barons or oligarchs, but yet in the same conversation express gratitude for the ability to earn money peacefully and provide for their families. Many attribute the bazaar’s founding to Salymbekov, and praise opportunities at the bazaar, yet simultaneously reflect that the bazaar administration could do more for them. They attribute their own hard work to their success. In 2012, the government awarded the Dordoi Association the country’s highest honor as the Daneker awardee for the twenty-year anniversary of Dordoi bazaar. News articles of this event reflect the narrative of the bazaar’s role in society and the economy that its main founder has worked to establish. Like Askar Salymbekov’s accounts, they refer to the importance of the bazaar in allowing educated citizens, who were “forced” into shuttle trade, to not only establish livelihoods but also to do so with some sense of respect and dignity.104 This chapter has focused on the ways in which Salymbekov adapted to a changing economic and political environment, allowing him to survive and thrive the first two decades of independence. Salymbekov’s success at defending

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and growing the bazaar cannot be attributed to any single strategy—such as political loyalty or state capture. Metaphors such as stationary bandit behavior imply a certain stability. Instead, I have shown how he was constantly on the move politically, engaging in strategies as diverse as protest, silence, and negotiation as the context changed. In doing so, we must rethink categories such as “patronage,” “state capture,” and “loyalty” used in the literature on property rights and business in the region. Regarding patronage, Salymbekov did forge what might be interpreted as traditional patronage relationships with his local constituency in At-Bashy village in Naryn province in the 1990s and 2000s; yet to view the logic of order at Dordoi bazaar—or of Salymbekov’s political role more generally—solely through the lens of patronage relations would be to misinterpret the breadth and complexity of his understandings, actions and relationships. The conceptualization of “loyalty”—or what has also been termed “collusion” with the ruling regime—masks different types of “loyalty” and conceals dynamics and relationships in which “loyalty” are embedded. Specifically, businesspeople who seek appointed positions are different from those who seek elected positions in certain contexts—both seeming displays of “loyalty” have different implications for property security in Kyrgyzstan. The former, while doled out to loyalists, are more precarious and susceptible to the whims of the President or other appointing authorities; the latter have the potential to build layers of familial and social relationships that give them power that can be not only subversive in relation to the political regime, but also allow them to defend and expand their business interests via negotiation over time. In other words, “loyalty” presumes the aggressor or predator has power, and this is not always the case. The act of engaging in a seemingly “loyal” political relationship at one time may be undergirded by different opportunities to build power bases, which could shift power relationships over time. Finally, instead of “state capture,” I suggest we view the political logic of Salymbekov’s parliamentary status not only as a way to enact or block legislation, as traditional institutionalist thinking would suggest. Instead, status in parliament provided MPs with a series of possibilities and opportunities—including information and access to important individuals—to negotiate and resolve problems. This brief analysis of how these strategies were perceived by traders and other members of society can be compared usefully to politician Banharn, an MP who represented an agrarian province in Thailand for decades in the 1970s and 1980s. As with Salymbekov, how he was perceived depended on with whom one talked to. Journalists, analysts and Bangkok-based citizens described him in pejorative terms, as a corrupt and illegitimate wealthy politician. Yet locals in his province of Suphanburian supported him as a legitimate and respected leader, despite the relative poverty of his province in relation to others. The reason for his success

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emerged from his ability to engender a collective regional pride in what was formerly pegged as a backwards province. Instead of taking the conventional narratives of patron-client relations, corruption, and vote buying among political analysts of Thailand as the starting point, this analysis reveals an alternative perspective, one that characterizes Banharn as a “benevolent and efficient ‘Robin Hood’ who has developed the formerly backward Suphanburi on behalf of, or in contrast to, the callous, inept, and lackadaisical central state.”105 The in-depth analysis of Banharn, then, unsettles the dominant narrative of Thai rural society as a “socially inferior and changeless ‘other’”—and demands a rethinking of such narratives that are “complicit in reproducing and perpetuating this uniformly adverse “Orientalist” image.”106 Salymbekov should similarly be understood not as a post-Soviet predatory oligarch or stationary bandit, but instead as an individual who as maneuvered outside and within what he would likely view as a similarly “callous, inept, and lackadaisical” state, helping people provide for their families and do so with a sense of honor and pride in their work. Analyzing his collection of rental fees from traders in isolation from this broader discourse and context obscures major challenges and uncertainties he faced during this time period. In his case, it is not the collective regional pride that he generated, but rather a certain stability and order at the bazaar that allowed for possibility for people to feed, clothe, and educate families. Perhaps the most interesting parallel could be made with the rise of Cosimo de’Medici as the ultimate political authority of the Florentine state in the 1400s. His success was due to the fact that he was “multiply embedded in complicated and sprawling Florentine marriage, economic and patronage elite networks.”107 Instead of a rational actor framework that assumes that individuals pursue and maximize their interests, Ansell and Padgett underscored his strategy to engage in what they call “flexible opportunism: maintaining discretionary options across unforeseeable futures in the face of hostile attempts by others to narrow these options.”108 Dordoi bazaar’s main owner operated in a similar rapidly changing economic, political and social environment, and he built both a discursive foundation as well as a range of relationships including within institutions, such as governorship and parliament, and among different businesses, societal groups, and constituents to increase his possibilities for action when challenges arose.

5 CENTRALIZING TO MODERNIZE AT OSH BAZAAR

Research Encounter: Comparing Bazaars Dordoi bazaar and Osh bazaar are both located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and play important roles in the country’s economy as key commercial hubs. They have both featured prominently in press stories and conversations among everyday people. Yet as I researched the governance of Dordoi bazaar, including the trade union starshie and its main owner, it became clear that such organizational forms were not universal at all bazaars in the country. Osh bazaar, for example, did not have a similar all-encompassing trade union. Moreover, while the narrative of Dordoi revolved around governing a growing and expanding wholesale bazaar catering to foreign consumers, the narrative at Osh proved very different. In contrast to Dordoi bazaar, which is located on privately held land outside the city center, Osh bazaar sits in the middle of the city, on private land as well as along municipal streets. It serves residents of the city and neighboring villages and regions, as opposed to foreign wholesale clients. I quickly realized that understanding order and disorder at this bazaar required a closer investigation of the history of privatization, or the enclosure of this bazaar, as well as a greater focus on municipal understandings of order. Because of Osh bazaar’s location and history, its overarching narrative revolved around continual municipal efforts at civilizing and modernizing it. Indeed, Osh bazaar itself looked very different from the outside between 2005 and 2015. In 2005, the bazaar encompassed many blocks in the center 111

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of the city—a seeming sprawling mass of traders, consumers, cart pushers, cars, and minibuses. Traders selling wares of all kinds lined the streets in and around the bazaar with their carts, blankets, and makeshift stands; others, with more permanent trading spots, crowded the center of the bazaar. The original Soviet-era market with pavilions and buildings still served as the core of the bazaar, along with the main plaza that constituted the formal entrance. From this central zone, multiple alleyways and bridges radiated outward, engulfing municipal streets, sidewalks, and other preexisting buildings and structures formerly surrounding the bazaar. One decade later, by 2015, the bazaar’s look and feel had changed. Fewer traders lined the sidewalks, and the streets surrounding the bazaar had been considerably widened. Metal barricades prevented cars from backing up their trunks to the sidewalks to serve as sales points, and police patrols circling the bazaar on foot appeared regularly during daylight hours. The main entrance of the bazaar, formerly brimming with ad hoc traders of food products, cell phones, and other used items, felt empty in comparison. This long process of modernizing and civilizing the bazaar involved complex and hotly contested struggles over bazaar ownership that simmered under the surface for decades. Understanding these dynamics initially involved peeling back the onion to its core—to the Soviet origins of the marketplace. This involved wading through newspaper articles in Russian and Kyrgyz over the last thirty years related to this bazaar and the broader processes of privatization that received significant media attention in the 1990s. Interviews with bazaar administrators who lived through these changes confirmed the contours of these histories. Only after I situated debates about order at this bazaar in a shifting context—including major changes such as independence, privatization, decentralization, and regime change—could I turn to the voices and experiences of traders who worked within it. The central marketplace in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, also known as Osh bazaar, is one of the largest of the over seventy bazaars in the city. Tens of thousands of residents shop at the bazaar every day, and it also supplies people from the nearby villages who come to buy for their families and also to resell goods in their local markets. Those who work at the bazaar purchase most of the clothes and nonfood items from the wholesale bazaar, Dordoi, located outside the city center. Fresh produce originates from the nearby wholesale fruit and vegetable market and from local Dungans and Uighurs who grow food themselves and sell it at the bazaar.1 Thousands of traders work daily on makeshift tables and stands, in pavilions, and in little kiosks and shops that line the alleyways and streets.

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In the 1990s and 2000s, this bazaar became renowned for its chaotic environment. Different understandings of disorder or chaos appeared in the press and everyday conversations. Consumers found it challenging to squeeze through the narrow alleyways lined with stalls and tables; streets and sidewalks near the bazaar overflowed with traders and sellers. Municipal officials did not know who owned bazaar property. Street traders complained of state bureaucrats persistently finding ways to collect fees and fines from them. Claimants of bazaar land, traders, and municipal officials grappled with what was widely perceived as a variety of forms of “disorder” at the bazaar. This chapter investigates conceptions of disorder and order at Osh bazaar in Bishkek through the prism of the city’s municipal officials; unlike at Dordoi bazaar, located on the outskirts of the city, Osh bazaar’s integration with the streets, transport hubs, and sidewalks in the city center created very different municipal interests and dynamics. In 2011, after multiple failed attempts, municipal authorities managed to reorganize Bishkek’s main retail market as part of their vision to civilize and create order at the bazaar. This chapter investigates why this reorganization took so long from the local government’s perspective, given talk of such chaos and disorder dating back to the 1990s. Throughout the world, local governments have been reenvisioning urban landscapes according to modernist logics that displace perceived chaotic or disorderly trading spaces via reconstruction.2 In response, backlash against municipal-led reconfiguration of bazaars and street trade has become a global phenomenon. Traders have mobilized to disrupt plans to eliminate trade from city centers and reconstruct urban landscapes, unleashing battles around the appropriate use of public space.3 In the mid-2000s in Zimbabwe, the government razed entire city districts and businesses associated with informal economic activity, including traders.4 In other countries, such as Mexico and Philippines, municipal attempts to eliminate or reconfigure marketplaces and street trade have been dramatic and violent, although in these two contexts traders have been able to preserve their spaces using a variety of tactics and strategies.5 In all of these other cases, traders and bazaars rested on municipal land, and the struggles that ensued pitted traders against municipal authorities, as the former sought to defend their rights and workplaces against the latter. While in some of these cases, associations or unions became involved in protecting trader rights, in general, the core battle lines divided traders against municipalities. Much of the literature focuses on the response of traders to these municipal efforts around the world. At Osh bazaar in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, though, the contestation also revolved around whether or not the space was municipal, and how municipal authorities negotiated to centralize decision making before they could impose

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order and modernize the bazaar. In this case, the fragmented nature of bazaar privatization in the 1990s led to different reconstruction dynamics than we see in these other cases. Specifically, the process of informal negotiation revealed a struggle not between traders defended by trade unions and associations on the one hand, and municipal authorities on the other, but rather one that was mediated by well-placed owners of sections of the bazaar. As much a story of struggles among officials within government, the reconstruction of the bazaar at its core constituted an intense political battle. For municipal officials and previous owners who attempted to civilize and modernize the bazaar throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the key obstacle proved to be the fragmented nature of ownership: by the mid-2000s, over seventy parties, or sub'jekty as the government called them, composed the bazaar. Sub'jekty were not traders, but rather individuals or firms who claimed to control pieces of bazaar infrastructure such as pavilions, cafes, buildings, or land. While on its face, the bazaar appeared to the consumer or casual observer to be a seamless swath of traders and trading spaces, in fact, each pavilion, trading area, café, and other such territory had a separate owner. See photo. 5.1 for an example of a pavilion selling rice.

PHOTO 5.1.

The rice pavilion at Osh bazaar in Bishkek, August 2007

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The origins and legitimacy of these owners varied—many of them were selfproclaimed, either without formal rights to the land, or with formal rights acquired under opaque and perceived illegitimate circumstances. Municipal attempts to modernize and civilize the bazaar unleashed struggles between competing claimants of bazaar land. Owners viewed their territory as private property, while municipal officials claimed control over streets throughout the bazaar. Conflicts grew increasingly politicized over the years, as owners of bazaar land also became city-level deputies in the local parliament. Thus, attempts to create order through reconstruction were rooted in property struggles that dated back to the origins of the bazaar’s privatization and decentralization in the 1990s. City officials sought to centralize the bazaar before modernizing it. Recent research from the post-Soviet region has identified cases where centralizing occurs before liberalizing the economy. For example, in Russia, electricity-sector liberalization and marketization hinged on the ability of central authorities in Russia to consolidate power away from local, regional officials, who had amassed considerable autonomy and authority in the 1990s.6 I find that failed attempts to centralize Bishkek’s central bazaar over the 1990s and 2000s involved intense, politically heated battles among competing representatives of the state over control of this bazaar. While in Russia, the battles played out among central and regional officials, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the battle lines for this struggle divided city leaders and members of the city parliament.

Osh Bazaar: Discourses of Disorder Over the last two decades, city officials and residents have spoken out in newspaper articles, demanding that “poriadok be imposed on Osh market,” as the streets surrounding the bazaar had become “clogged with traffic jams and spontaneous, disorganized trade.”7 In her reference to poriadok, this journalist mobilized an understanding of order related to the physical and spatial constitution of bazaars. They overflowed into public spaces such as sidewalks and streets and created traffic nightmares. In the 2000s, for example, along one side of the bazaar near the rectangular-shaped parking area, every spring and summer, villagers filled the sidewalks, sitting under patio umbrellas, selling fresh berries, apricots, and other fruit in boxes and buckets of all sizes and colors, as photos 5.2 and 5.3 display. Along a nearby street lying perpendicular to that parking area, city minibuses, or marshrutkas, cars, and other vehicles battled to pick up passengers, while pedestrians sporadically crossed to and fro with bags in hand. At the main central entrance, shown in photo 5.4, vendors of bread, fruit, and other produce

PHOTOS 5.2 AND 5.3. Street traders selling fruit along the perimeter of Osh bazaar in Bishkek, August 2007

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PHOTO 5.4.

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Main entrance of Osh bazaar in Bishkek, April 2006

crowded to get the first chance to sell fresh goods before customers even entered the bazaar; the entrance is in the far background of the photo. Journalists captured such perceptions of disorder at this bazaar in articles throughout the 1990s and the 2000s. For example, one title, “Bazaar at the Bazaar,” draws on the double meaning of “bazaar,” with the first usage of the word implying “disorder.”8 Another used an article about Osh bazaar to provide evidence about how the “disorganized” bazaars in the country became popularly viewed as representations not of a “market economy” but of a “savage economy.”9 Even in the late 2000s, such impressions remained: as one journalist wrote, “Shopping in the Osh market has become like extreme tourism: you do not know whether you will be able to come back safe and sound.”10 Other types of disorder also reigned at this bazaar. Throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, newspaper articles about Osh bazaar documented periodic “raids” or “checks” at the bazaar organized either by journalists or city officials, revealing a variety of unregulated activity. State authorities did not inspect and certify as hygienic goods such as flour, cooking oil, and rice. Fiscal agencies did not receive taxes from traders. Traders did not have licenses to sell at the bazaar.11 These notions of disorder referred to the challenges in the state’s regulatory and fiscal capacity to govern economic activity at the bazaar. Through these examples,

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we see that narratives of disorder ranged from orderliness of trade and physical space to the inability of state institutions to govern the trade.

Soviet System of Bazaar Governance In addition to these understandings of disorder at Osh bazaar, the central disputes revolved around the ownership of bazaar property. By 2010, the ownership structure of this bazaar had come to look like a multicolored checkerboard, with different owners collecting fees from traders in their sections, rows, pavilions, or cafés. The origins of this outcome lie in the Soviet governance structure and subsequent changes to it in the 1990s after independence. This bazaar, along with most central retail bazaars in other cities and towns throughout the country, began as a kolkhoz marketplace, or collective farm market, prior to the country’s independence in 1991.12 The origins of kolkhoz marketplaces were a result of intense debates in the first three decades of Soviet rule. At that time, private trade at bazaars and marketplaces was both condoned and banned at various times, as Soviet authorities struggled to create and implement a new Soviet socialized trading system. The tension between permitting and eradicating private trade came to a head over a decade after the Bolshevik revolution in the 1920s, when a decree in May 1932 legally sanctioned the private sale by peasants of surplus produce and handmade handicrafts.13 Artisans and traders were not allowed to have stores or intermediaries; instead they sold their wares at kolkhoz markets, which benefitted society in a number of ways: “Actually the kolkhoz markets represented a capitulation both to peasants, who by the sale of a portion of their produce at exorbitant prices were getting some compensation for delivering another portion to the government at low or token prices, and to hungry city dwellers, who were eager to get food even at these exorbitant prices, because the supplies obtained by the government through obligatory deliveries . . . were quite inadequate.”14 The legalization of these markets in 1932 served as a compromise by Soviet authorities, and they continued to exist in this legalized form up until the end of the Soviet Union’s existence as a complement to the Soviet state-run system. Their presence reflected the failure of the state-led Soviet retail and distribution system to satisfy basic consumer demand: “Despite the Bolsheviks’ explicit modernizing and Westernizing intentions, the Soviet regime only strengthened the role of the bazaars. This had longterm effects on Soviet society, preserving a traditional, face-to-face culture of exchange alongside the bureaucratized modernity of the Soviet shop.”15 Bazaars filled the need for produce, other food products, and some household goods throughout the Soviet period.

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In sum, the Soviets created a state-led centralized trade system directed by central authorities of the Ministry of Trade in Moscow with local level trade representatives in the cities and regions throughout the country: “The government not only owns all trading facilities, but it administers and controls distribution functionally at the wholesale stage and geographically at the city, regional, and republic levels.”16 But the Soviet authorities also rehabilitated private trade to a limited degree by formally recognizing and legalizing the role of bazaars as kolkhoz markets in this trade system. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the salient question became: who controlled the kolkhoz markets at which increasing numbers of private traders were selling their goods? During Soviet times, their administration rested under the purview of local branches of the Soviet Ministry of Trade, although at times they operated under the Ministry of Railroads or other agencies depending on their location. Selling goods at the bazaar was not free; instead, farmers paid minimal rents for booths as well as other equipment such as scales and storage. These fees covered the operating expenses of the market. A summary of the system at the time reads: “Rents are charged for space, booths, tables, etc., subject to the approval of local councils, which are ordered to charge ‘as little as possible.’ The government authorizes the local council to extract a fixed rate tax on all produce brought to market and 10 percent of this goes toward meeting the direct operating expenses of the market. These fees are collected daily.”17 Directors, appointed by the local trade authorities, oversaw the general workings of the bazaars, and ensured certain basic hygienic standards such as cleanliness, refrigeration, and waste removal. Controllers who worked for them were in charge of collecting set fees for the use and rent of space, scales, and other services.18 Thus, embedded in a system of state-controlled trade and distribution, farmers sold goods privately and bazaar administrations charged daily fees for land rent. The current-day relationships between bazaar directors and traders—namely the system of charging for rent of space—have roots in this codified Soviet system of kolkhoz markets.

Origins of Ambiguities Surrounding Bazaar Property The most important change at the end of the Soviet period in the late 1980s that set the stage for subsequent conflict over bazaar property was Soviet-level reform of the system of kolkhoz markets, put forth in a resolution issued February 26, 1987, by the Moscow-based Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of Ministers of the USSR, “On Conditions to Improve the Work of Kolkhoz Markets.” This resolution attempted to address significant food shortages

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across the entire country, including at the country’s kolkhoz markets.19 The decree corresponded with other laws and reforms issued at the time intended to decentralize and improve manufacturing and distribution of consumer products.20 While kolkhoz marketplaces continued to offer a more consistent supply of food than stores, even their supply was waning by 1990: a reported 30 percent decline between 1989 and 1990. Meanwhile, prices increased steadily at bazaars, with some items selling four to five times as high as in state stores.21 In addition to the state’s dealing with the challenge of shortage throughout the Soviet Union, local planning documents from the Kyrgyz Republic suggest that authorities were continually working to increase the number of official Soviet shops and trading points in the city as well as to ensure that they complied with technical and sanitary standards.22 The problem, then, was not only one of shortage but of storage: physical spaces such as warehouses, shops, and distribution points for all of the goods the Soviet Union produced.23 According to local press articles from the late 1980s, the republic lacked warehouse space to store goods: in 1989, there was enough space only to satisfy 54 percent of total demand, worse than the average in the USSR. Moreover, mandates to increase the amount of warehouse space in the republic were not being built according to schedule: the eleventh five-year plan in the Kyrgyz SSR only fulfilled 38 percent of the increase in construction that it was supposed to. Workers in the Soviet trade bureaucracies—writing openly in newspapers—lamented the general lack of innovation and attention to the problems of production of goods as well as their distribution. One journalist wrote of the need for a perestroika or restructuring of the entire wholesale trade system.24 Others noted a deficit in retail stores themselves25 and the lack of a central location for people to sell used items.26 By 1982, the central committee of the communist party of the Kyrgyz Republic recognized the lack of store space. In a decree from October 1982, the government outlined a program for the construction of new stores in the city of Frunze (Bishkek) for the sale of agricultural products in particular. The agricultural and consumer cooperatives around the Republic were to collaborate with the appropriate ministries and agencies to plan out the location for twenty-two new shops, begin construction, and resolve problems of equipment, materials, financing, and other building requirements. Some were slated to be in or near existing kolkhoz markets, others in other districts of the city.27 The decree issued by local authorities in the Kyrgyz Republic in May 1987 intended to fulfill and implement the national resolution on kolkhoz markets that came into force earlier that year. The document outlined the goal of improving access to agricultural and consumer goods in the cities and manufacturing regions, as well as listed all the problems and challenges facing kolkhoz markets. Perhaps the most significant proposed change ordered that the kolkhoz

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markets—at that time primarily under the direction of the Ministry of Trade— be transferred to the Kyrgyz Consumer Union, or Potrebsoiuz, which united local and regional cooperatives involved in trade and distribution.28 The Potrebsiouz was one important subset of state-dominated cooperatives that acquired significant power in the late Soviet period. Cooperatives held valuable property in the Soviet Union, including buildings, warehouses, land, recreational centers, and resorts. Each region and city had a branch with representatives who worked in the organization. They existed primarily in rural areas and supplied goods largely by purchasing farm products and distributing them throughout their extensive retail network. Each regional branch of the consumer union had hundreds or thousands of shareholders, made up of members of local collective or state farms. In 1991, Kyrgyzstan emerged as an independent country with six regional cooperative unions with a total membership of 250 primary cooperative societies. The cooperative unions operated three national, nine regional, and two district wholesale warehouses, as well as 3,500 retail stores.29 When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Potrebsiouz in the new country of Kyrgyzstan continued appointing directors of rapidly expanding kolkhoz markets, who in turn administered and controlled fee collection in them. While fees played a relatively minor role during the Soviet period, in the context of a liberalizing economy, acquiring money through the rent of market stalls became the crucial objective. While these decrees formally empowered local Potrebsiouz officials to manage these processes, local governments were simultaneously directed in 1987 to ensure the implementation of trade reforms involving the kolkhoz markets: “The fulfillment of the work of the kolkhoz markets with necessary goods should be at the center of attention of local government authorities.”30 Local city officials thus interpreted this as condoning their involvement in marketplace governance. These local municipal authorities, in addition to powerful regional governors appointed by the president, played important roles in marketplace property struggles in the 1990s and 2000s.31

The Rise and Demise of Potrebsiouz Power Compounding the confusion relating to the interpretation of the 1987 directive about the municipal government’s role in this process, Kyrgyzstan’s first president issued numerous contradictory resolutions pertaining to kolkhoz markets within the first five years of independence. The rapid dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s caught many government officials off guard. As one bureaucrat summarized, “We were like blind animals, scrambling around. . . . We

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didn’t know what to do.”32 This sense of uncertainty about the country’s reform trajectory bred competing interpretations of the directive on kolkhoz market reform that began in the late Soviet period. Initially, President Askar Akaev decreed in 1993 that the interference of local governments in the work of cooperatives’ financial and economic activities be halted, and that the cooperative property rights be respected. This decree came at a time when local mayors were de facto taking over marketplaces by appointing their own directors of the bazaars; one newspaper article title referred to this the “akimization” of power.33 Yet just two years later, in 1995, a new decree completely contradicted the earlier one, in effect legitimizing the akimization that had already been under way, and codifying the loss of control by the consumer union over the marketplaces. Amid these changes, the question became: “Who is the real owner of marketplace property? To whom belongs this or that property?”34 With this latter directive, local government authorities had won the legal right to control the marketplaces by appointing their own directors. Municipal authorities made claims to bazaar land on the basis of their location and categorization of the territory as municipal property: along central roads, rivers, and other squares considered municipal. While independent Kyrgyzstan’s constitution in fact gave significant power to local governments, which were “empowered with autonomy from the central state, particularly with regard to municipal property,” urban land management became “one of the most nontransparent and confusing areas of public management” in Kyrgyzstan.35 Different agencies competed and overlapped in granting land rights for ownership and development of municipal land, including the local architectural office, the local state property agency, or Gosregister, and municipal authorities. Members of the cooperatives viewed municipal takeover of bazaar land as a clear infringement of existing legislation on property and cooperatives.36 Numerous meetings of the consumer union to solve these crises led to few tangible results. Directors were fired in a meeting of the consumer union in May 1995 for failure to resolve the situation, and new people were elected.37 Later that year, in November 1995, the representatives and heads of cooperatives gathered to discuss the possibilities of reforming the system with a particular focus on how to guarantee that flows of goods between the industrial producers in the cities and the agricultural producers in the villages could be met.38 The urgency of resolving the cooperative problem reached its peak in early 1996. President Akaev signed a decree, “Urgent Measures of Reestablishing the System of the Consumer Union,” that created a committee to reorganize the consumer union and cooperatives within one month. Yet this decree, mired in controversy and dispute, again failed to produce tangible results.39 By this point in the mid-1990s, the consumer union struggled to function as intended. Total wholesale trade,

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production and distribution under the purview of the consumer union had drastically decreased.40 The Soviet-era system was in a state of limbo—the institutions formally existed but the trade flows had diminished drastically and ownership rights to property were contested. The main source of dispute became who had the authority to appoint directors of the marketplaces: consumer union leaders or municipal officials. Those who claimed authority to appoint directors also claimed the right to privatize the bazaars’ land and infrastructure (pavilions, stalls, warehouses). A conversation with Soviet-era employees of the consumer union at one bazaar in a microregion in Bishkek revealed the consumer union had built the bazaar infrastructure during Soviet times, and then the director of the consumer union sold parts of the bazaar to others while taking a main building and trading area for himself.41 A similar critical story of a Soviet-era head of the regional consumer union in Jalalabad begins with the title, “He wins by stealing.” Recounting that this rich Kyrgyz lived as a khan, or traditional local leader or authority, during the Soviet period, the article focuses on how he used his administrative position to privatize land to himself and his friends: he “did not ask permission from the shareholders and sold all shops, dining-rooms, restaurants to his acquaintances and those who had money. He bought a big two-store unfinished building in Zhalalabad bazaar that was built with the cooperative’s money for 70,000 soms and named it . . . in honor of his son, and celebrated its opening. . . . He ignored the resolution of 1996 that said, ‘The warehouses, stores cannot be sold.’”42 These de facto privatizations were occurring throughout the country in tandem with struggles over who had the authority to appoint directors of bazaars and make claims to bazaar rents. These privatization dynamics recall the ongoing struggles over factories and farms in Russia.43 As we learned from these struggles, we should focus on not only initial conflicts but their evolution over time. Bazaars effectively became privatized, and Soviet-era directors and cooperative shareholders vied to retain control over the collection of bazaar fees and rents in a complex, uncertain, and rapidly changing post-Soviet environment. These claims only intensified as property values increased after 1991; as in other parts of the Soviet Union, private ownership of property, including buildings, apartments, and land was restricted in the Kyrgyz Republic.44 I have paid particular attention to the legal status of kolkhoz markets in the 1990s, which fell into the realm of “fuzzy property,” as Verdery conceptualizes in her analysis of the Romanian countryside. According to her, these are cases in which either owners of property are not clearly defined or overlapping authorities claim the rights to the property. In these cases, different actors “contest ownership of a single object, complicating the assessment of use rights, obligations,

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and claims to revenue. If property is a relationship between persons with respect to things, then conflicting definitions of that relationship give the things in question ambiguous status.”45 While collective forms of property were strengthened at the expense of individual ownership in the Romanian countryside, I find that in the case of Osh bazaar, collective forms of marketplace property were dismantled and overtaken by many private individuals in Kyrgyzstan.

Failed Attempts to Centralize and Modernize at Osh Bazaar In 2011, city workers in Bishkek began the reconstruction of the perimeter of Osh bazaar, including widening streets and erecting barriers. In early April, they dismantled over eight hundred stalls and tables at the main retail bazaar in Bishkek, and cleared away over one thousand cars that had come to the parking lot daily to sell products out of trunks, all with relative ease.46 Subsequent phases of reconstruction proceeded, as discussed later in this chapter, with some protest and eventual success from the municipality’s perspective. Yet multiple mayors in years past had tried to achieve this reconstruction, realizing their visions of imposing order, with little to show for it. These changes were the latest in an ongoing twentieth-century history of construction and expansion. The bazaar was founded in 1942 in the midst of World War II. By 1982, it spanned two hectares and provided 536 trading places. As a direct result of the 1982 decree that prioritized and authorized the expansion of retail outlets for agricultural products, in 1983, funding from regional cooperatives allowed a new central building to be built on the territory of the marketplace.47 Because some of this funding and labor came from the cooperative in the southern city of Osh, the bazaar acquired the informal name of “Osh bazaar” in addition to the formal name, Alaarchinskii. During this expansion, 17 trading rooms were built totaling 5,000 square meters of trading space, providing an additional 507 trading places for the sale of meat, milk, produce, industrial goods, and cafés.48 The main director of the marketplace in 1995 recalled how the new buildings and renovations in the 1980s were built by ashar—the collective labor of the entire community, a pre-Soviet tradition.49 By the mid-1990s, the cooperative that controlled the bazaar experienced severe fiscal crises, and lost de facto control of the bazaar. In an interview in 1995, one director of Osh bazaar advocated for the privatization of the bazaar, but lamented that the cooperative prevented it from happening.50 In his opinion, because of the lack of formal privatization, financial difficulties mounted,

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and security in the bazaar became difficult to enforce. In this period, roving bands of young men and teenagers were known to extort money from traders and steal goods. By June 1995, a resolution of the Kyrgyz Consumer Union formally divided the bazaar land into two enterprises, with a director for each. Both of these individuals used this resolution as a pretense to sell parts of the ever-expanding bazaar to different people. These pieces of property included new cafés, storage facilities, and pavilions for fruit, meat, grains, and milk products. Interviews with traders in local newspapers at the time revealed feelings of injustice and dismay at the processes unfolding. Allegations that a director gave particular parts of the bazaar—for example, the milk and vegetable pavilions—to relatives and friends without offering assets to traders who had worked there for years caused resentment among local traders.51 Moreover, former employees of the bazaar cooperative administration were not paid regularly or fired altogether. One employee, a former head for the department of construction in the bazaar, was fired without any notice.52 Other former marketplace administrators conveyed feelings of injustice and unfairness regarding the nontransparent transfers of property. One opposition newspaper interviewed three of these women in 1997.53 The first stated: “Privatization is occurring in our bazaar not on the basis of the law. We were fired from our work and left without any shares. We also did not know that there would be privatization . . . We are left with nothing. Is it acceptable that he just gives these assets to his relatives who never worked here? To tell you the truth, we have come here looking for justice.” This former employee explicitly mentioned the deception involved in privatization—not only did it happen in an unlawful and unjust way, the director allegedly promised that the bazaar would not be privatized and then when she later asked about rumored privatization, he said, “Nothing is left, everything is sold.” A second employee similarly expressed the paradox that new owners collected increasing amounts of money, while salaries of Soviet-era cooperative administrators of the bazaar decreased. Moreover, the fact that property was privatized to others—not to those working in the bazaar—formed the core of her understanding of injustice.54 When I first started working, there were 1,200 spaces that paid fees. Now there are 2,100 places. If there are so many places, why don’t people get their salaries for 1996? Where is that income going? Why doesn’t he [the director] lease the highly profitable pavilions to us? . . . I have met many bazaar directors, but I have never seen such a person who would run after money like this and cross the line, as our current head of Osh

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bazaar. Where is humanism? . . . In reality we are left aside and he is sharing this place among his relatives who came only yesterday. A leader should be just. Finally, a third administrative employee of the cooperative similarly recounted the deception on behalf of this director in selling the objects of the bazaar to others. She recounted what she heard about pavilions sold to high-level individuals: “Why am I disappointed with this man? Even knowing that we have been working in this sphere for 20–25 years, he did not include us in the privatization. . . . What makes me sad is that [he] is excluding me from this system. . . . He is not being just.” These quotes show how Soviet-era cooperative employees of the marketplace had been sidelined or altogether ousted in the process of privatization. By the late 1990s, city officials and other politically connected people had acquired de facto control over the rents and distribution of assets. One newspaper article laments: “When it was a cooperative, the law . . . said that the bazaar director had to be appointed by the cooperative. . . . [But] the Bishkek city government is also interested in the Osh bazaar and the appointments of its directors. Now the bazaar is in-between.”55 These conflicts were exacerbated by the actions of the new selfproclaimed owners of small parts of the bazaar, who began hiring their own people to administer and collect rents from the bazaar, leaving former longtime employees and traders without any opportunities to continue working in the bazaar’s administration. Initial attempts to centralize control over the bazaar began as early as 1995, when one of the two competing directors sought full authority over the bazaar. He stated that on investigation, twenty-four “masters” controlled the bazaar, including “cooperative societies, mini-enterprises, and farms.” He continued: “Our life would be better if our government officials said: ‘this [entire] place is yours, you will be responsible for this place.’”56 At this time, the bazaar was in legal limbo, with cooperative organizations and municipal officials claiming the right to appoint directors. Other pieces of bazaar infrastructure were privatized under the table. A former cooperative worker surmised at this time that the reason government officials did not intervene in this situation and “ignored” quarrels at the bazaar was out of self-interest: bureaucrats would lose the informal payments they were pocketing from the collection of rental fees at the bazaar.57 This attempt to centralize the bazaar went nowhere. The next attempt began in 1998, when a new bazaar director, Askar Shambetov, was appointed, allegedly to bring order to the situation. He is the brother of President Akaev’s wife, and was appointed by the head of the Kyrgyz Consumers Union in Osh city at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse.58 Throughout this

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time period, Akaev family members played a prominent role in gaining control or shares in lucrative businesses throughout the country.59 Shambetov graduated from the Samarkand Cooperative Institute (in currentday Uzbekistan) and worked at various branches and levels of the Kyrgyz Republic’s Potrebsiouz. According to newspaper interviews with Shambetov, he described the origins of decentralization at the bazaar as follows: “Before [during Soviet times] Osh bazaar had only one leader. We used to call it the Potrebsiouz. In 1993, Osh bazaar was sold to private ownership. From that time, over 40 joint-stock companies appeared. Each one has its own owner. . . . By 1998, the big and famous Osh bazaar had been robbed.” This metaphor of being “robbed” by so many private interests led to myriad disorders, ranging from lack of physical cleanliness, poor security, and inadequate legal and regulatory capacity at the bazaar: “When I came, the bazaar was a mess. It was like an ant house. It was dirty in summer as well as in winter. In spring it was muddy. There were too many pickpockets, alcoholics and prostitutes. . . . Over 40 companies put kiosks and tables in the area to form rows. There were many people who did not register and did not pay taxes.”60 Shambetov sought to address these challenges. When he tried to remove illegal spaces and newly created rows to be able to walk through the bazaar and provide garbage collection, he received pushback from the many small owners and the traders. The dozens of new directors of different pieces of the bazaar provided spaces for traders, and thus the traders viewed the de facto owners as “employment providers,” allowing them to earn a living by trading. As Shambetov described in an interview:61 The directors . . . tell people “we want you to trade here, but Shambetov wants to take away your places.” Traders believe them . . . I try to keep things orderly, and ensure that firms work according to the rules. . . . Yet there are so many people who have interests in the bazaar. We’ve seen that some people come and build trading places at night. In the mornings you see new pavilions. They seem to spring from the ground. . . . We need to obey regulations. We are taking away informal spaces; firm owners do not agree with that. They are not tired of putting in illegal spaces. They make more money if they have more spaces. The tax inspection does not recognize them. They collect taxes based on stated trade seats. The seats are invisible. That’s why firms put more spaces in. Thus, Shambetov’s attempts to centralize the bazaar and create order were hampered both by directors who profited from the collection of rents from each trading place (whether officially declared or not), as well as from traders who relied on these spaces for employment and viewed their “directors” as protectors of their trading places.

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He also attempted to “formalize” ownership claims to 5.4 hectares of the bazaar, complaining that many others had informal claims that were not formally declared.62 As part of this process, in 1999, he converted the main portion of the bazaar under his control to a limited liability company (OsOO) “Osh Bazaar,” with Shambetov himself receiving more than 51 percent of the shares, and registered this with the Ministry of Justice. While this 1999 decision was reversed the next year in 2000 by a resolution of the Soviet of Kyrgyz Consumer Union, in practice, this resolution was not adhered to.63 Shambetov retained control despite the opposition of the Kyrgyz Consumer Union. Under this new governing structure, he continued to try to provide basic services at the bazaar, thus bringing order by working with the city region’s government, prosecutor, and mayor. In response, the local authorities issued decrees.64 Yet in practice, Shambetov continually complained that government authorities and agencies did not assist:65 I have been fighting with power organs since I came here, for six years. I started when Saliev was mayor, and now Kerimkulov is mayor. I visited him three times suggesting regulations on “Measures to improve Osh bazaar.” After that I visited Prime Minister Tanaev. All of them say, “we’ll help, we’ll improve the situation,” but they do not do anything. . . . We are trying to do sanitary and other work ourselves. Of course, we need the help of power organs. . . . If I count now, I have appealed to the Lenin district administration 53 times, the Bishkek city administration 43 times, and to the Minster of Internal Affairs 26 times to improve the situation. Throughout this period, local bureaucratic officials fed off of the bazaar, taking bribes and extracting other fees from the traders for a host of violations and services. Shambetov could not realize his goals because state regulatory and enforcement agencies were not doing their job, and he did not have authority over the dozens of private actors who had amassed control, despite his status as a presidential family member. He did, however, proclaim to have achieved limited improvements by 2004, including reconstructing gates, putting down asphalt in some areas, increasing tax payments to the city, providing clean water, and arranging for waste removal.66 By 2005, the bazaar had been divided into seventy-six separate entities, each with particular assets, whether a pavilion with trading spaces, a storage space, or a café.67 Shambetov continued vocalizing his displeasure with the many “owners” through the media, alleging that collected taxes did not go to the country’s coffers, but rather to individual bureaucrats’ pockets. He called on journalists to understand that their critiques of the uncleanliness and disorder should not be blamed on him but rather the chaos that arises when dozens of firms work at the

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bazaar, each profiting from the rental of spaces but none taking responsibility for overall maintenance at the bazaar.68 The title of one article in 2004 quoted him as saying: “Power is weak when there are many masters.”69 Shambetov’s attempts to centralize and achieve order at Bishkek’s central bazaar underscore the complicated renegotiations with other directors and city officials that resulted from what many believed to be the unjust and illegal privatizations of the 1990s. Yet his attempts came to a screeching halt after President Akaev’s ouster in March 2005; Shambetov was removed as the bazaar’s director, as was the case with many other presidential family members with stakes in business in the country.70 After the appointment of new governors and mayors under Akaev’s successor, President Bakiev, the new government brought legal cases against the former ownership. Shambetov was effectively removed as head of the company OsOO “Osh Bazaar” in October 2005, and one of the deputy directors, also a previous owner of the company, continued to serve in this position as of August 2007 but lost his 25 percent share in the company once Shambetov left. When asked why his share was taken away from him, the deputy director responded simply, “Because the Akaev regime is over.”71 Others also lost their shares of the company upon the end of the Akaev era. The new leadership of OsOO Osh Bazaar reportedly had ties with President Bakiev. The new bazaar’s leadership continued attempts to centralize the bazaar, however, to no avail. They sought to unify all seventy-six parts of the bazaar into one unit and build a more modern structure that would bring order to the surrounding areas of the bazaar, alleviating problems related to street trade, chaotic parking practices, and poor sanitary conditions. The new Bishkek city mayor, as well as the officials in the bazaar’s city district (the Lenin region, one of four in the city) backed this proposal. To legitimize the claims by the new city officials over control of this bazaar, the city issued decrees in 2005–2006 at the city level that the territory of the bazaar is municipal land, therefore justifying the appointment of the bazaar’s director by the city.72 The city at this time, then, attempted to gain authority and control over the bazaar through the issuing of a form of law (decree) that would validate centralization efforts. A subset of the bazaar directors, however—some simultaneously elected members of the city parliament by this time—voiced categorical opposition to the plan.73 In particular, a group of ten to fifteen private claimants of the seventy-six total sought independence from this new general director, and formed their own coalition to take control over the bazaar. The deputy director explained that the motivation for this group revolved around rent collection from street traders or hawkers that lined the streets and pavilions of the bazaar: OsOO Osh Bazaar claimed to have the right to gather fees from street traders

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all over Osh bazaar, since the company took care of services such as garbage, sewage, and snow removal.74 Attempts from the mayor’s office to remove these 1,000–1,200 daily street traders, whom municipal authorities termed spontaneous traders, and bring order to the bazaar failed multiple times throughout the 2000s because of stiff resistance by traders and the businessmen who collected anywhere from 20–100 soms a day from them. Municipal officials made it a point not to collect the patent tax from these traders because it would legitimize their existence.75 Thus, the crux of the conflict between the leadership of OsOO Osh Bazaar backed by the city mayor, and the other bazaar directors, some of whom were local politicians, had roots in the disputes over who controls land and thus the ability to extract rents from the traders. After the 2005 change in power, the conflict became more contentious, as one city parliament member said: “Now the process of dividing property is going on. First, we need to get an exact analysis of the marketplaces and surrounding territory; then many things will be learned. Before the deputies of the city parliament were not even allowed to talk about this topic.” Another city parliament member echoed the need for a committee to actually clarify who owns and who rents land.76 Subsequent press reports revealed that twelve former heads of the cooperative unions and former directors of the bazaars retained their control over small segments of the marketplace as “market owners,” although they allegedly obtained their spaces illegally.77 City officials continued attempts to reconstruct the bazaar in 2008. At that time, Mayor Daniyar Usenov’s outlined his vision to “restore order,” or navesti pariadok in Russian, that served as the basis for the reconstruction of the market. In a newspaper article tellingly entitled “On the way from the bazaar to the market”—implying the bazaar’s eventual transition from a disorganized, disorderly trade space to a modern shopping complex—the journalist quoted the local district authority as “imposing order,” or navedenie pariadka, on the outer perimeter of the marketplace as the first phase of bazaar “cleansing.”78 Usenov proudly recounted dismantling fifty stalls and 157 pavilions and containers along the bazaar’s exterior, giving traders places in other markets in the city. The remainder of this section draws on this article. Yet while this first phase seemed to go well on the surface—the streets clean and free of traffic jams, at least for a time—Usenov noted the challenges ahead in the next phases of the plans to impose order within the market, outlining three major challenges. First, the city’s architecture office was entrusted with designing multistory parking garages and shopping complexes to replace the small stalls: the vision called for creating internal order by building up and not out. The clear political challenge, as discussed earlier, rested in the outcome of negotiations with the small stall and pavilion owners within the bazaar.

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Second, the mayor sought to enforce sanitary and fire regulations; in his view, petty traders within the bazaar blocked sidewalks and alleyways, creating fire hazards and other safety concerns. He justified the dislocation of these traders by making the discursive distinction between businessmen and the unemployed: businessman connoted legality and compliance with tax payments, while unemployed traders implied those who evaded taxes and violated city codes. By labeling those that worked on sidewalks and along streets as unemployed, he legitimated his role as a state official in promoting the work of legal “businessmen.” Finally, the problem of accountability for common services arose again, summed up with the question: “Who is the owner of the market?” The mayor himself stated, “There is no discipline. Now it turns out that one store belongs to Vasya, another to Gulya, and the road between them belongs to the city. One has a janitor, others do not. One twists in the light bulbs, others twist them out. In general there is confusion and vacillation, and there is nobody who can be held accountable.” Seeking to address the lack of discipline and accountability, the mayor sought to establish a single executive body responsible for all common infrastructure at the market, but the traders did not want to pay in for such services. While they supported the mayor’s efforts to clean up the bazaar and make it more sanitary, in their words, addressing the mayor: “Who can guarantee that you will not be promoted to a higher position and that the new mayor will not make the decision to redistribute property?” Indeed, the mayor of the city frequently changes. Traders and everyday people knew this, and advocated the status quo as a result. Thus, throughout the 1990s and the 2000s, the decentralized ownership structure formed the basis of multiple questions that proved central in addressing questions of “order” and attempting to “civilize” the marketplace: Who was responsible for communal services such as waste removal and snow plowing in the winter? Who had the authority to collect rental fees from traders lining the small streets within the bazaar and sidewalks? How were decisions to be made among the dozens of owners of the bazaar? How did the city map out ownership claims to the bazaar to make it legible and thus the object of centralization and modernization?79

Law, Order and the Politics of Reconstruction after 2010 After the country’s second regime change in 2010, discussions to implement changes to the bazaar reemerged. On a walking tour with a journalist in 2011, a city official explained the plans to widen surrounding roads, improve sidewalks,

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and pave parking lots—recounting even more elaborate plans than from a decade ago. The official also stressed the importance of cleaning the internal pathways to allow for firefighters to enter in case of a fire, again recalling earlier plans to “order” the internal parts of the bazaar, as well as the external ones. The mayor stated that the battle lines over reconstruction revolved around those who would be “deprived of workplaces” and those who seek to “bring poriadok to the Osh market.”80 His conceptualization of order more explicitly included the “creation of civilized elementary working conditions,” which first would entail legalizing the workplaces and second providing basic sanitary facilities. Regarding the latter, many newspaper articles at the time detailed the problems with traffic congestion, pollution, security and safety of pedestrians, sewage, and waste management. The mayor used words such as “horrified” and “nightmare” to describe Osh bazaar. For him, the way to bring order was to mobilize the law and create a distinction between “legal” and “illegal” workplaces. Yet as previous officials experienced, the fragmented ownership structure of the bazaar proved to be the main hindrance: “The problem is that Osh bazaar has 78 owners, and because of this, it is difficult to put things in order (navesti pariadok).”81 The root of the conflict continued to be a discrepancy in how municipal authorities and the owners of the trading infrastructure viewed those working at the bazaar. Their choice of words, as in the 2000s, signaled a difference between “trader” and “retailer.” The “retailers”—another way of labeling the smaller owners of various objects—sided with traders and sought to postpone reconstruction. They supported the city administration’s efforts to establish more “normal” conditions for the residents of Bishkek, but they called for more attention to the “interests of the simple traders (prostykh torgovtsev).” Indeed, “retailers” viewed those working at the bazaars as “simple traders,” implying they were simply trying to survive. In contrast, the mayor demanded that the city and citizens not become “hostages to the demands of the retailers (kommersantov).” The mayor and other city authorities sought to support “retailers” or “businessmen” who lawfully abided by tax laws and other regulations, thus justifying the city’s crackdown if they did not. As the mayor stated: “There is nothing to worry about for retailers who work on a lawful basis and possess all licenses for installing retail stands and kiosks. It is illegal retailers who are to be hung out to dry. Every person has to work legally. This is how it must work.”82 He mobilized this narrative in life-size banners and public symbols displayed around the bazaar: “Workers of Osh Marketplace Respect the Law.”83 This mayor continued by expanding on the challenges related to illegal ownership of the pavilions and trading areas: “Regardless of ownership, and who is the owner, whether it is a high official or an ordinary citizen, I am strongly

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determined to bring order, and of course, I realize that around Osh market there are many interests, including of influential people. However, we will act in the interests of all citizens.”84 In this interview, he used the language of “civilizing” and “modernizing” the bazaar: “Bishkek belongs to us all, and we must do everything so that our capital will become a civilized, modern, and beautiful city.” While discourses of legality and the law dominated newspaper articles, to actually carry out his plans, he negotiated with the “owner” of each object individually to work out an acceptable bargain, according to this journalist. These plans were finally implemented later in 2011, although not without a number of protests. In January, according to the mayor, impacted traders were “forced” by bazaar owners to go to rallies against the planned reconstruction; he stated that owners threatened that traders would lose their jobs if they did not attend.85 These impacted traders and associated claimants of the land next took their concerns directly to the speaker of the national parliament, who initiated a parliamentary committee to investigate possibilities to keep “spontaneous trade” available to those who needed to work while also “restoring order.” The results of the special commission were announced January 30, 2011.86 Part of the solution brokered among municipal officials and other large bazaar owners in the city involved providing trading spaces to displaced traders in other bazaars around the city. Finally, in late March/early April 2011, ground broke on the reconstruction. The eight hundred stalls and over one thousand cars along Beishenalieva, Toktogula, and Kievskaya streets were removed with relative ease, under the purported justification that these traders were illegal and without any rights.87 Other parts of the bazaar were more difficult to clear, with traders objecting, holding placards, and forming a protest that moved from the bazaar toward downtown. Again, this protest quickly became politicized as traders began shouting in Kyrgyz “Omurkulov [the mayor] leave” (Omurkulov ketsin), adopting the language of earlier such events against President Bakiev in the late 2000s that eventually led to his violent ouster in 2010 (Bakiev ketsin was a common refrain). When the protestors arrived at the presidential office building, they demanded to speak to the president, speaker of parliament, or another member of parliament. A negotiation ensued about one hour later, when a representative of parliament offered for a delegation of three traders to state their demands in parliament. The protestors refused; they insisted on meeting representatives of all five factions of the parliament (five parties had been elected in 2010). A member of parliament then offered instead to create a group of ten traders to talk with MPs. This also did not satisfy the protestors—they insisted on talking with the prime minister and the mayor. After three days of such confrontation, including attempts by some to scale the fence held back by three lines of police guarding the building during this

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time, the protestors finally agreed to meet with the speaker of the parliament. After voicing concerns about the challenges of being moved to other bazaars in the city and lack of funds associated with such a move (including the requirement that they buy or rent new more expensive containers or stalls), the speaker agreed that on April 31, this issue of the demolition of trading spaces would be discussed in the national parliament. A journalist retold the story of this protest and the negotiations between the traders and government officials. She argued that the capital city of Bishkek had begun to live “according to the laws of the traditional rural periphery.” By that, she meant that poor urban residents and the Russian-speaking population do not get involved in these protests, preferably “holed up at home.” Instead, certain traders and villagers mobilized by self-interested “owners” or bazaar directors use protest to gain access to the highest-level officials and begin the process of unofficial discussions and bargains surrounding the implementation of these reconstruction plans. At the end of the article, the journalist argued that the “impossible became possible”—the members of parliament that evening adopted a resolution requiring the municipality to suspend the dismantling of the bazaar and the relocation of its traders. A former mayor and then-MP suggested building a new municipal marketplace for the traders. Another MP sought the implementation of a law “on trading marketplaces,” which would regulate the organization of the market and detail the rights and obligations of traders. This MP called for adding bazaars such as Dordoi, Karasuu, and Osh as “strategic objects” with socioeconomic value for “sustainable development” in society. Indicating full support of this proposal, the speaker of parliament stated, “We should do everything we can so that people can return to their working places and stop demonstrations.”88 Yet despite these stated plans, traders moved and reconstruction ensued. It is important to note here that some of the owners had constructed more “modern” buildings in earlier decades and were not opposed to the local government plans for reconstruction. For example, one of the owners of the minimarkets, Besh-Sary, recalled the history of Osh bazaar in the 1990s, stating that after independence, “the number of people increased and trade became disorderly. So then we constructed out of this disorder a well-maintained and organized bazaar.” His multistory building on the territory of an expanding Osh bazaar had the looks of more “modern” features, as opposed to the pavilions and stalls that constituted the majority of the bazaar. Continuing in this interview in 1995, he proudly mentioned that another bazaar he opened in a different part of the city had just been awarded a certificate by the mayor for being one of the cleanest in the city.89 Order, from his perspective, implied modern structures and cleanliness.

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In another example, the general manager of Bereket bazaar (also a deputy in the city parliament and deputy director of the Standing Committee for Municipal Property and Land Issues), also favored the municipality’s efforts.90 In an interview in January 2011, she stood behind the city’s effort to make these changes; in the case of her portion of Osh bazaar, most of the trading spots were already housed in “orderly” trading structures and only about one hundred people in her area would be affected by reconstruction. While she conveyed sympathy to the trials of those unemployed street traders trying to support their families, she argued that they should not violate “social order,” or in Russian obshchestvennyi poriadok, and “create inconveniences for other people. It’s as easy as that.” By social order and associated inconveniences, she meant that most traders in her part of the bazaar pay for their rented space to bazaar owners, and pay the combined license/tax to the state. “This makes [legal traders] different from illegal traders.” She continued by talking about how the “illegals” not only do not pay taxes but also draw customers away from the inner parts of the bazaar, where the law-abiding traders stand patiently waiting for customers. For this reason, she argued that law-abiding traders support the initiative of the city authorities since they behave in accordance with the law and do not go out and protest. At its core, the politics of reconstruction pitted municipal authorities seeking to implement “order” at the bazaar against certain owners of the land, who controlled parts of the bazaar territory and infrastructure. City officials adopted a particular set of categories for those who worked in the bazaars, differentiating between those who worked legally to make the case that the latter could be justifiably moved under the law. Owners outwardly sought to protect the status of the street traders but ultimately decided their fate by entering into closed-door negotiations with the mayor himself. This chapter began with a discussion of how municipal officials and journalists articulated “disorder” at Bishkek’s central retail bazaar, and recounted attempts to “civilize” and “modernize” the bazaar over the past twenty years. Unlike more authoritarian countries such as Zimbabwe, where state use of violence and authority led to the full razing and demolishing of such spaces, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the process unfolded sporadically, with many failed attempts. Moreover, the key difference between this bazaar and others around the world is the fragmented nature of ownership; “civilizing” and “modernizing” the bazaar rested first on the municipal authority’s ability to at least partially centralize control over the bazaar and create a language that identified “illegal” and “informal” traders from legal ones. This chapter’s focus on the reconstruction of part of Bishkek’s Osh bazaar underscores the contestation originating in the late Soviet period surrounding the status and control of the bazaar. The ad hoc decentralization and opaque

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privatization in the 1990s further set the stage for a long and protracted battle to first centralize and then “modernize” the cityscape. Many of the “illegal” traders relocated as bazaar reconstruction took place. For those who were impacted, most willingly moved, relocated, or found other opportunities. Unlike in other bazaars in Kyrgyzstan such as Dordoi, discussed earlier in the book, there were no unified trade unions or associations to help traders stay in those spaces and protect the “right” to trade. On its face, this case confirms the observation that most traders throughout the world are viewed as facing a lack “of material resources, of leadership skills, and of political connections”91 to effectively advocate for their rights. Yet in this case, I’ve demonstrated that the outcomes for traders were not unilaterally determined by municipal officials or the owners. Instead, the outcome for traders along sidewalks and streets resulted from a long and complex set of political negotiations and bargains between city officials and bazaar directors. The city mobilized discourses of modernization, legality, and civilization, while other bazaar owners tried to protect spaces not only for traders but for their own income as rent collectors. Bazaar owners in other parts of the city ultimately offered free trading spaces and other benefits to reduce the dislocations of relocation for the impacted traders. The next chapter shifts the analysis to the views, experiences, and practices of traders at this bazaar. The last part of the next chapter focuses on street traders dislocated by the municipal reconstruction efforts described in this chapter; the majority of the chapter, however, focuses on traders who work within the bazaar, and who were not directly impacted by these efforts. The chapter reveals that amid these discourses of disorder and the municipal efforts to actively change and order the situation, some traders adapted and created their own local forms of order and governance at the bazaar.

6 BECOMING TRADING ELDERS AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES

Research Encounter: Discovering Aksakals The decentralized and fragmented ownership structure at Osh bazaar prevented traders from unifying under a single trade union. Whereas at Dordoi bazaar, starshie of the trading rows represented traders at that bazaar, no similar unified organization existed at Osh bazaar. At first, having learned this, I took discourses of chaos and property struggles at face value, as reported widely in the press. As interviews with traders at this bazaar revealed, however, some older traders self-identified as bazaar elders, or aksakals. It was unexpected and puzzling to me initially to discover aksakals in urban Bishkek. I associated them with rural village life. I thus sought to learn more about these aksakals, who had traded at the bazaar for decades and had become known as sources of local authority in their section of the bazaar. They were not associated with a trade union, not listed in a public place at the bazaar’s entrance, and not universally known by all traders in the bazaar. They were not elected formally or informally; and not all areas of the bazaar seemed to have them. To interview them required a research strategy based on word-of-mouth and the help of a Kyrgyz-speaking research assistant (RA). I learned of their presence initially through the interviews RAs conducted with Kyrgyzspeaking traders at the bazaar. One RA followed up with the traders who mentioned aksakals, asking where we could find them. RA interviews with 137

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aksakals themselves—all in the Kyrgyz language—revealed that they were born in areas and villages throughout the country (as opposed to the capital city), emerged from the bottom up through experience and reputation, and became a very localized source of authority, drawing on reconfigured pre-Soviet rural institutions and practices. Their existence and local understandings related to order shed a different light on a bazaar that is usually viewed as lawless and chaotic. Moreover, in contrast with the Dordoi bazaar’s trade union starshie, recomposed from Soviet understandings of social organization and activism, these aksakals draw on pre-Soviet village traditions that not only survived but became ascendant during the Soviet period. Osh bazaar mushroomed after independence, with dozens of new directors controlling pieces of the bazaar after a flurry of ad hoc privatizations in the ambiguous legal context of the 1990s and 2000s, as described in the previous chapter. Because of the multilayered and opaque ownership structure, combined with the increasing political power of some of the owners, municipal attempts to reorganize and modernize the bazaar were met with considerable resistance. The media, especially, put forth narratives of the chaos and disorder, and protest and conflict, to characterize these processes. While the plight of street traders working on sidewalks and on the bazaar perimeter received considerable media attention at the time of reconstruction of 2011, most traders inside the bazaar were not directly impacted by these events. The daily buzzing of trade at the bazaar continued throughout this entire period. This chapter argues that in the absence of a collectively organized, deliberative organization that spanned the bazaar, a different form of order emerged.1 Specifically, villageborn traders—literally white beards, or aksakals—who had been working at the bazaar for fifteen to twenty years became important sources of local authority in different parts of the bazaar, helping to resolve conflicts, channel information, and serve as role models for other traders, especially younger ones. This reappropriation of a pre-Soviet Kyrgyz village institution in a capital city bazaar serves as an alternative way in which people drew on their experience and came to constitute local authority, contributing to the ordering of everyday life at the bazaar. Their status and authority appear to resonate especially with young Kyrgyz traders from the rural south of the country. In contrast to these younger traders, other, older, traders of a variety of ethnicities have a much more critical view of bazaar life, particularly regarding government officials and bazaar owners. These varying orientations are a result of differences in generation and rural/urban upbringing; they shape how likely and in what ways traders will regard local forms of authority, more specifically these trading aksakals.

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The Changing Roles of Aksakals in Society The emergence of aksakals as local sources of authority at bazaars in Bishkek might initially seem out of place given the history of this pre-Soviet informal institution. Aksakals have long existed in parts of rural Central Asia. Prior to the Russian conquest in the 1800s, they were one of multiple groups who resolved disputes and were looked to as local authorities in this nomadic society based on a complex clan and kinship system. At that time, aksakals were older men who had “earned respect and authority within the village as a result of their moral behavior, integrity and wisdom gained through experience.”2 They were not elected, and solved problems related to migration conflicts, marriage, and other social issues within linages. Other authority figures at the time included biis (often wealthier leaders of larger kinship units), kazis (local elected judges in the Ferghana valley established by the Khans of the Kokand Khanate), and manaps (wealthy herders). Each of these groups resolved different types of disputes. For example, aksakals resolved disputes within encampments while biis resolved disputes between encampments and clans; and aksakals mediated conflicts based on customary law and Islamic shari’a law, while kazis applied shari’a only. When Russian colonizers arrived in the 19th century, they established military courts to resolve disputes between locals and Russian settlers. They also instated the power to annul decisions made by the biis, and required elections and record keeping by the biis, thus significantly changing their form and role in society. While the Russians sought to allow the continuation of these local institutions, in fact, the changes both to the role of the biis and the kazi courts led to their eventual disenchantment among the population. Everyday people instead began turning to the aksakals, who had effectively been ignored by Tsarist authorities. When the Soviets came to power in the 1920s, they abolished most forms of local institutions altogether, including the biis and the kazi courts. The Soviets also deemed the manaps as class enemies because of their wealth, thus leading to their societal demise. Yet once again, the aksakals “seem to have escaped the focus of the Soviets” in part because they were regarded as elders and family-based authorities, not a legal institution.3 While the Soviets established new courts and councils throughout the region, oral histories reveal that people took disputes to aksakals first during this period so that they did not reach Soviet courts. Over time, aksakals came to resolve issues not only within clans, but also among them. At times they worked independently, at times as teams, but at no point during the Soviet period were they formally recognized by the Soviet state. In this way, aksakals as a customary rural institution continued to exist and evolve throughout the Soviet period. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, its role continued to change and adapt. In post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, the newly independent

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country’s first president, Askar Akaev, decreed the creation of aksakal courts in 1995 as a way to revive what he understood as a historic self-governing mechanism of the Kyrgyz people. These courts were officially civil society institutions that resolved disputes at the local level, initially in the villages but by 2004 also in the main cities. Locally respected aksakals to this day resolve disputes related to property and social issues, including family disputes, on the consent of all parties involved. If aggrieved parties seek to contest the aksakal court ruling, they can appeal to state courts. As of 2006, there were over one thousand aksakal courts throughout the country.4 Different interpretations of the origins of contemporary aksakals emerged in the 2000s. President Akaev sought to revitalize aksakal courts based on his (fictitious) understanding of their legal role in pre-Soviet times; while aksakals have long existed in society, aksakal courts as institutionalized and recognized bodies did not exist. Foreign organizations alternatively had their own understandings of these courts as “new” and “invented,” legitimating their own funding opportunities for those inhabiting them deemed in need of training. While the aksakal courts based their “legitimacy on traditions and customs of the presocialist era,” according to these funders, the aksakal judges themselves needed trainings on alternative dispute resolution, local self-governance, and the law of the new state.5 In contrast to these two narratives of the president of the country and foreign funders, interviews with aksakals themselves reveal that they take on both roles as informal mediators, as well as more formal judges on the aksakal courts. In addition, many aksakals during the Soviet period also were intertwined in other Soviet state institutions and positions, and thus had a keen understanding of Soviet political dynamics, social issues, and conflicts. They view their primary duty as teaching youth about, “ak zhol (the right way; literally the white path) of living a moral life. They mediate between conflicting parties, drawing on their extensive knowledge of customary law, kinship relations, proverbs, and stories.”6 As it pertains to order at the bazaars in Kyrgyzstan, I find that aksakals have come to serve not only village society through the now institutionalized aksakal courts, but also build and extend their authority in the commercial life of the country.7 In certain trading rows and parts of Osh bazaar, these aksakals—both men and women—see themselves, and are viewed by other traders, as legitimate sources of authority and go-to people who can resolve conflicts and provide a moral compass in their orientations in the bazaar.

Becoming and Being Bazaar Aksakals I now illuminate the origins and practices of two self-described aksakals at Osh bazaar, who began to trade in the 1990s out of necessity—like most others in the

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country. The male ethnic Kyrgyz and Kyrgyz-language speakers were trained in different professions during the Soviet period in their hometowns and regions throughout the country. They do not view themselves as affiliated with the legally codified aksakal courts created by President Akaev after the country’s independence. They neither possess formal institutional powers that aksakal court judges have, nor have the authority to issue orders and judgments in these state-like court settings.8 In contrast, they describe their practices as rooted in understandings of authority based on honor, honesty, and deference to social hierarchy based on age and experience, as opposed to the force of formal institutions. These two aksakal traders work in different parts of the bazaar, and are both in their fifties. Medet, born in a city in Osh region in the south of the country, began trading at the bazaar in 1994 and now sells traditional Kyrgyz clothes and hats to support his family, including three children.9 He served two years in the Soviet army, graduated from the agricultural institute in Bishkek, and then taught a range of subjects including chemistry, biology, and agronomy to students in the Osh technical college, where he graduated. As most other traders, he left this profession for the bazaar to survive. He witnessed so many changes in the past three decades, from communism to capitalism, from trade as a crime to trade as a “profession,” one that requires “talent” and a “strong-willed personality.” When asked to elaborate on what he does as an aksakal at the bazaar, he described four main roles. First, he stressed his work as a role model and a leader, or in his words, “a mirror” for the younger generation. He proudly recounted how he reads books about ethics, aesthetics, and history, and passes on orally the key “good things” about these books—as he repeated multiple times—to the younger generation. As an older, more educated trader, he saw his role as inspiring and leading his community of traders to represent and enact a respectable bazaar culture—which includes refraining from littering, smoking or spitting, as well as not shouting or putting down people. By setting an example through his own words and practices, he perpetuated this bazaar culture in the face of those who disrupt the order—from his vantage point the youth who enter the bazaar without the same norms or experiences. In managing these types of conflicts between the generations, which are the most prevalent type of problem in his experience, he described in detail how he speaks to the older and the younger representatives of these generations. He explains to the young person, “this is an aksakal, you can’t act this way towards him,” referring to his experience and authority as a member of the older generation. And then to the aksakal, he says “this is just foolish youth, forgive him, he is a young guy.” Through this informal mediation on a case-by-case basis, he actively mitigated tensions and helped to create a culture of respect in his part of the bazaar.

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Second, he described his role as an aksakal as making sure relations between traders and clients are friendly and polite. For example, about two to three times per week, different types of conflicts arise. One common problem that causes friction is when a consumer buys something that does not fit or does not work, and wants to return it. In those cases, he intervened as mediator and worked out an arrangement—for example the trader takes back the good but does not return the full amount. In these contexts, he viewed his role as reducing friction in the bazaar by making sure people act with respect, and not only for profit and greed. Third, he described his role as an organizer and provider of social welfare. He recently collected 9,000 soms from traders around him and brought it to an elderly home to slaughter a sheep and provide food for those who live there— about fifty-five people, including Kyrgyz and other ethnicities. By emphasizing the ethnic diversity of people who live at this shelter, he made it a point to demonstrate the more general nature of his social welfare goals, not narrow ones dictated by ethnic identity. He also helped collect money for the local mosque, and for victims of catastrophes such as an earthquake in a southern village. Fourth and finally, he stressed the importance of his role as a law-abiding citizen, paying the combined license/tax, or patent, to the state, and negotiating with owners of bazaars when issues related to bazaar governance emerge.10 When asked of his perspective on the bazaar’s reconstruction in 2011, he perceived the mayor’s initiative as positive. He described the previous situation as chaos, or bashalamandik in Kyrgyz, which for him was a source of shame for the capital city. While he empathized with informal street traders who lost their spaces— making it a point to note that they should have received compensation for fivesix months to help them move and find another trading spot—he agreed broadly with municipal efforts to modernize and clean up the bazaar. While Medet initially confirmed and described himself as an aksakal, in a later part of the interview, he recognized that his status is contingent: he is relatively young, fifty-two years old, to be an aksakal. In the villages, he stated that aksakals generally are over fifty-five years old. But in the city and the bazaar, they can be younger, as in his case. He laughed as he recounted that when he is in the presence of an older aksakal trader at the bazaar, he is no longer an aksakal but a “young one.” When aksakals in the bazaar meet informally at the kymyz kana—the café where fermented mares milk, kymyz, is drunk—he goes there as a “young one” to learn from the aksakals about the history of Kyrgyz tribes and genealogy. He described his position as a “young one” in these settings as honoring the aksakals and learning from them. Begaly, a fifty-nine-year-old aksakal in a different part of Osh bazaar, similarly described his role.11 Having moved from a village in Talas oblast in northern Kyrgyzstan to Bishkek in 1997 to find work, he began trading in 1998. He completed technical college in beekeeping during the Soviet period and traveled to various

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agricultural regions throughout Central Asia with his bees. He recalled the “big achievements” of this time related to state beekeeping farms, none of which has survived. He now trades household supplies, including paints and linoleum. He is one of five or six aksakals in this part of the bazaar. Similar to Medet, he emphasized his responsibility as a teacher for the youth about history and wisdom of Kyrgyz peoples, recounting what he says to them: “Our such and such father was like this . . . Kyrgyz were like that. . . . We have to be like them.” Sometimes traders come to work at the bazaar, and before they open their containers, they come to him asking for “one good word” before the day starts. He recounts something that he heard, or read in a book, or that he knows from ancient history. While there are other older traders at the bazaar, he underscored that not anyone becomes an aksakal trader once they are a certain age; to do so, one must be able to tell stories, listen to the youth, and behave with honor and respect. He emphasized that he does not go to others seeking to proselytize or sell his role as an aksakal—people come to him themselves. He helps traders talk through their problems, and spreads the word about good things. While initially he said that people did not know him and would not listen, now, people in the bazaar know him: “They listen to the words that I say.” Like Medet, he led by example, proudly recounting that he does not argue or use bad words, nor does anyone else in his trading area. He treats all—whether traders or mafia-like sportsmen—with respect. For this reason, he believed that there is order (tartip) in his part of the bazaar. He recalled alcoholics and thieves breaking this order in the past, but did not blame them. Instead he focused on putting the blame on the transition from the Soiuz (Soviet Union) to democracy: people suffered because “they entered democracy without understanding it.” As a result, disorder reigned, and people became alcoholics and homeless. He commends himself and the people in the community for working to rectify this situation and prevent disorder over the past two decades. Begaly advocated for traders and engaged in collaborative relationships with the bazaar administration and the state. For example, he encouraged traders to pay the state the full patent instead of a partial bribe to a bureaucrat, so that elderly can get their pensions, as he explained it. He worked with the bazaar administration to protect the bazaar during politically unstable times. He helped younger, inexperienced traders when they turned to him after falling into debt, unable to keep up with rent or patent payments. He fully acknowledged the imbalanced power dynamics at work in these situations: the administration can lock the trader’s container, thus preventing the trader from opening it if the rent is not paid on time. On their behalf, he negotiated deals with the relevant officials—either by reducing fees, allowing late payments, or working out prorated payments. During the slow trade in winter 2015–2016, he recounted, the

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owner reduced rent by 10–20 percent during this difficult time as a result of his negotiations and efforts. He very clearly contrasted this mode of working out issues and problems with those that work outside his section of the bazaar, including the street traders. In elaborating, he reminisced that in the past, referring to Soviet times, the aksakals would solve problems without ever involving formal state authorities. Now he lamented that—with the introduction of “democracy”—“trouble” started. For him, “trouble” is when a female street trader gets into big and loud arguments with the police, and that these situations are “messy” or “disorderly,” or beizhay in Kyrgyz. He agreed with state officials that street traders pull up their carts and cars, cause traffic jams, sell on the sidewalks, and draw away clientele from law-abiding traders inside the bazaar. He expressed thanks that the mayor Isa Omurkulov widened the roads and made the space clean, although he observed that after he left office, bardak, or chaos in the Russian language, returned—with trash and traders filling the streets again. Yet thankfully in his opinion, the bardak is outside his section of the bazaar. He poetically referred to the bazaar as providing food, security and stability for him and his family during the rocky transition of the 1990s. Both Begaly and Medet are practicing Muslims as are many Kyrgyz in the country; yet they do not see themselves as religious authorities and are quick to point out that issues related to religion or religious interpretation are directed to others in the bazaar, including local imams. Moreover, they practice a moderate and localized understanding of Islam, as opposed to stricter versions.12 Begaly explicitly recounted how he came to understand his role as a Muslim and the place of religion in his part of the bazaar. In 2000, he became more religious not only by attending the mosque regularly but also traveling to the Hajj in Mecca in 2004 and changing his dress by wearing robes and his physical appearance by growing a beard. The key moment of realization for him occurred when he traveled across the border to Almaty, Kazakhstan, dressed in these robes. He was checked and inspected by officials in a way that persuaded him to “leave” this path and instead conform to a more “cultured” way. Instead, now he wears local clothes, not Arab clothes, in his words, and dons national hats such as kalpaks (Kyrgyz felt hats), topus (Central Asian skull caps), and shapkas (Russian warm winter hat). While he still goes to Friday prayer weekly, and makes general religious references throughout the interview, he is proud to say that there are no “such ones” wearing robes in his part of the bazaar. While he did not directly associate order in his part of the bazaar with religious beliefs or norms, he seemed to imply that his example and influence led to a common understanding about religion in his part of the bazaar. Walking around other parts of Osh bazaar over the past decade, the number of, as Begaly called them, “Arab” influenced traders has visibly increased. But they could not be seen in his part of the bazaar.

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Medet and Begaly became aksakals over time through experience and a way of being that drew on their own understandings of what aksakals do in rural Kyrgyzstan as adapted to a new bazaar context. They have come to constitute and practice aksakal behavior as part of the responsibility they have taken upon themselves in creating order in their parts of the bazaar.

Becoming and Being Baibiches Aksakals are traditionally understood as male village authorities. However contemporary aksakals are not circumscribed to men; older women have also begun to associate themselves with this role over the past decade. In the aksakal courts introduced to the capital city, Bishkek, in 2004, for example, most judges in fact are not elder “white beard” Kyrgyz men, but rather non-Kyrgyz women. In this context, female judges resolve disputes related to water leaks and maintain harmony among neighbors in microdistricts. Female urban aksakals look not to their rural male equivalents but rather to state courts and foreign advisors for advice, and their legitimacy comes in part from the fact that state courts are perceived as corrupt and time consuming.13 At the bazaar, some older women who have traded for two decades have also come to be revered and respected, although like their male aksakal equivalents at the bazaar, they operate more informally than in the formal aksakal courts. Some also refer to themselves not as aksakals but rather as baibiche, or respected older women. Again, as with the aksakals, it might seem out of place to see a baibiche at a bazaar in central Bishkek, as they are often associated historically with rural, Kyrgyz nomadic society. A baibiche has traditionally been understood as the first of multiple wives of a bai, or a wealthy landowner in Kyrgyz society. References to the baibiche date back hundreds of years to Kyrgyz nomadic oral history accounts, and the baibiche is understood to be happy to receive additional wives into the family because it increases her authority. She is viewed as a “respected, experienced person whose word is valued and who lives an exemplary life, with a good family line.”14 Within the household, the baibiche responsibilities included organizing household chores among the girls and other wives, teaching them how to spin wool and make clothes, and directing the preparation of food and meals.15 When the Soviet authorities banned having more than one wife in the first part of the 20th century, baibiche became associated less with the first wife of a bii, manap, or bai, and instead associated with any older, well-respected, and experienced women. To this day, a baibiche is looked on with reverence and love, and has a much different connotation than the tokol, or second/third wife in nomadic

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tradition.16 With the popularization of the story of Kurmanjan Datka who lived in the nineteenth century featured in a recent popular Kyrgyzstani film in 2014, a baibiche has come to be understood as a well-respected, heroic older woman. One of the two female trading elders I feature in this chapter considered herself a baibiche. Aiman came to Bishkek from a village in Osh oblast in the south of the country.17 There she trained as a middle school teacher and taught history until 1995. She then moved to Bishkek to support her family. She had learned during the Soviet period how to make traditional Kyrgyz hats, kalpaks, from a wool product called kiyiz, also made by hand. After independence, she started to buy kiyiz from a factory and continued to make kalpaks by hand, selling them at the bazaar. She trained her relatives, who still work with her at the bazaar, and was proud that her kalpaks are made out of original wool, not synthetics, which, she inserted, are “harmful to human health.” In producing these hats, she expressed pride in continuing the tradition of her forefathers. She remarked how many people today wear kalpaks compared to the past—and not just ethnic Kyrgyz but also those from other nationalities and even foreigners from the West and from China. See photo 6.1 for an example of these hats. While her primarily role at the bazaar was to sell the handmade goods that she and her relatives produce to support her family, she also considered herself a

PHOTO 6.1. Stall selling traditional Kyrgyz hats, including kalpaks, at the Karasuu bazaar in south Kyrgyzstan, August 2007

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baibiche, a respected elder woman. As with the aksakals, she gave advice to traders, sharing her wisdom and work experience with those at the bazaar. In reflecting on a question about the roles of aksakals in contemporary society, she attributed their origins to village life but refers to city aksakals as having become modern. An aksakal or baibiche’s disposition and orientation entails specific characteristics at the bazaar and in society more broadly. According to Aiman, he or she should not “show their bad side to the youth” and should serve as a role model for them. She emphasized that elders with a “negative character” are not considered aksakals and therefore are not respected and honored. To become an aksakal or baibiche, she underscored, “your bad side should not be seen.” Good words and actions—even how you eat and walk—should serve as examples for the youth. “Only then can you become an honorable person.” Reflecting on her own status as a baibiche, she associated her success at being able to mediate and gain respect and authority as originating in her training as a teacher during the Soviet period, and more specifically being able to understand people’s psychology. As with the other aksakals, one primary role as a baibiche is to serve as a mediator—to talk through any issues or disputes between traders and clients, or between traders and the bazaar administration. She met regularly with the administration about the cleanliness of the bazaar, about security, and about electricity. For her, the current situation is so much better than the chaos— bashalaman or bashalamandyk as she says in Kyrgyz—of the 1990s. While the previous mayor brought some physical order to the streets and the infrastructure of the bazaar—he made the bazaar “right and straight”—she did not see a universal order, or tartip in Kyrgyz, in the bazaar to this day. Such order for her rests in an individual’s disposition; the youth especially does not possess it, in her view. She also attributed bashalamandyk to the fragmented nature of the bazaar: since there is not a single owner, conflicts emerge. Like Aiman, the second female elder, Bermet, came to the bazaar in the mid1990s to feed her young family, and cannot pinpoint exactly when or how she became an aksakal, only that people know she has been trading a long time and is respected.18 As with the older male aksakals, she helped defuse conflicts among generations, in part by imparting advice to the youth: “You should not scold people who are like your father.” She also saw her role as providing social support; widowed and with little means, she still assisted those who came to her with sick relatives. She gave them goods to start their trade and tips about what works and what does not. She recounted that quite a few other women had been able to “get on their feet” because of her. Like aksakal Begaly, Bermet confirmed that others resolve religious conflicts when they arise. But she did intervene in conflicts related to bazaar administrators. For example, when they come to collect rent from traders who are not at

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their trading spots, administrators sometimes say disparagingly, “Oh, they went to pay respects to God, this and that.” Referring to the administrator, baike, out of respect she would say: “Baike, do not speak like that. Anyone may pray to God, or read namaz. Some do and others do not.” In return they would retort, “These are Wahabbis, the guys who have beards are Wahhabists, this and that.” She argued with them: “Do not say that. We do not know whether he is a Wahhabist or not, how do we know? These guys are good guys. I know they read namaz, they do not speak unkindly to others.” She praised them for not drinking and smoking like other drunks who come around asking for money, and choosing the “right way” to provide for their families. Despite her status, she differs from the three other Osh bazaar elders discussed thus far in her critique of the bazaar administration’s continual increasing of rent and fees for the traders. She has attempted to mediate in such conflicts. For example, one of the traders got into a fight recently with a representative of the bazaar administration over rental fees of the spaces. She tried to intervene by saying to the administrator, “If they have money, they will pay” and then to the trader, “Do not scold or use such language to people older than you.” In the end, they asked each other for forgiveness. She chuckled as she ended the story, saying that it turned out that the administrator and the trader were brothers! In her eyes, everything revolves around money now, and conflicts over money can break familial bonds. Indeed, while her role as an aksakal was to mediate and defuse these conflicts, she admonished the administration for squeezing the traders— even family members—in difficult economic times. Her understanding of order at the bazaar is conflicted: on the one hand, she helps to mediate everyday conflicts and create a work environment that is peaceful and constituted by mutual understanding. At the level of relationships among traders and between traders and clients, she sees a certain order. On the other hand, the structural ownership challenges confronted by traders only worsens as the economy in the country teeters, and this dynamic is the root of discontent that she can only mitigate but not fundamentally change. Similar to the aksakal men, these two women practice an adapted pre-Soviet customary role in a new urban market environment. They see their work—even if limited and ongoing—as part of their responsibility in the constitution of micro islands of order at Osh bazaar.

Order from the Perspective of Older Traders: Disorder from Above Older traders—those over about forty-five years old at the time of interviews in 2015—came of age during the Soviet Union, similar to the aksakals and

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baibiches. They received Soviet education, underwent specialized professional training, and had at least a few years of employment during the Soviet Union before its collapse in 1991. They recalled the trading environment of the 1990s, and described Osh bazaar at that time using words such as “chaos” and “mess.” While they approved of municipal reconstruction leading to wider streets and a cleaner bazaar, they more clearly and forcefully articulated disorder resulting from the ability of private owners to operate without restraint and even outside the law. Despite being of the same generation as aksakal traders at the same bazaar, they relate in very different ways to questions of order and in particular owners. Almaz works as a government employee and a trader, and he began to trade at Osh bazaar in 2014 to avoid “various corruption schemes” associated with his position, as we learned in chapter 2.19 Although he did not work at the bazaar in the 1990s, he referred to this time at the bazaar as bashalaman or a mess, elaborating on the ways in which criminals used to collect fees independently from government authorities. When asked about changes after the 2000s, he referred to a process of the bazaar “getting into order” although from his perspective the power of “private owners” remained strong as of 2015. He elaborated throughout the interview on the need for “laws to check private owners.” He stated, “Apparently the government is not able to get the money that we are pouring in. Because there are private owners.” He argued that traders perceive themselves to be dependent on the owners, indicating that if they complain or rise up against their bazaar administration, they will lose their trading spaces and be unable to feed their families. “That is why they [traders] agree to everything,” he said. Later, when asked what the word lawlessness, or ozumbilemdik in Kyrgyz, meant to him, Almaz responded, “Ozumbilemdik is coming from the [bazaar] administration. Very strong. Voobshe, voobshe [very much]. Like I said before, in the Jogorku Kenesh [parliament], good laws should be created and implemented in order to check private owners. We don’t have that. Maybe they have it, but it is not here [at the bazaar].” Again voicing concerns that traders’ interests are not being protected, he elaborated: “There should be rest once a week. All the tax payments should be open. It should be transparent. . . . There should be some kind of benefits. As it should be. The relations between an employee and an employer do not work.” In this quote, he referred to his position as a trader in relation to the private owners as one based on “employee and employer,” distinctions based on his Soviet experience where all workers were employees of state enterprises or the government. Instead, in the contemporary context, traders do not hold wage-based labor positions, although they do work under the authority of bazaar owners since the latter own land. Almaz complained that rents were becoming more expensive, and that nobody could stop this trend.

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When asked whether the situation would change, he described his skepticism, attributing the lack of change to the “top” or higher powers. He yearned for a different type of national leadership: “For that, strong, clean, principled mekenchil [the ones who protect their own state] authority is needed. Mekenchil authority, clean . . . stable, with his good team. . . . We should work systematically, systematically without stop. Not giving up oneself to wealth and power. Not like the two authorities before [referring to the country’s first two presidents between 1991 and 2010]. And then that wave will come here [to the bazaar], it will not start from here, it will come from there.” Despite the fact that these changes have not occurred from his perspective, continual political turnover and regular elections spurred the possibility that there could be some improvements, even if small and incremental. For example, when asked of what he expected in the next one-two years, he stated: “In two years there might be some small changes, because the authorities will be elected in the fall [referring to parliamentary elections in October 2015]. They will work with diligence, saying, “Let’s work on this and that. . . . There might be some changes. But mostly, things will not change for the good, and taxes will increase. . . . There are almost no institutions that protect the interests of the traders,” referring to the lack of a union or similar organization representing traders. When asked of his understanding of bespredel at the bazaar, or mafia-related lawlessness, Adyl, a similarly aged trader originally from Osh confirmed what most other traders stated: there is not that kind of bespredel at the bazaar.20 Rather he said that the kind of bespredel is related to the lack of vacation and basic benefits, explaining: “There should be something like vacation. We don’t have such a thing. . . . In summer, every person should have ten to fifteen days of vacation, this should be given. . . . Maybe because it [the bazaar] is private, such things are not looked after. At least it [the bazaar] should be closed once a week.” While traders can stop working at any time by taking a day off, they are still charged the daily rental fee from the bazaar administration. He desired that the administration decree that the entire bazaar would be closed for a week in the summer for vacation, and that everyone could leave work at 5 p.m., instead of 6 or 7 p.m. Adyl recounted an effort by traders to try to convince the administration to close the bazaar once a week instead of the current once a month in his section of the bazaar, but some traders disagreed, wanting to work every day to make more money. The administration declared that until the entire population of traders agreed, they would remain open seven days per week. Those who desired the day off per week did not want to close on their own for fear that other traders would take their clients. So, he explained, “if you close and leave, you keep paying. [Fees] will keep accruing. That is why, when you go somewhere [for vacation], you go

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and come back in a hurry.” He recalled efforts of someone to organize a union, demand vacation, get sick leave, and organize protests, but nothing came of it. Adyl’s understandings of the phrase “order at the bazaar” also related to fiscal order, and like Almaz, he deemed that such order must come “from above.” He discussed how tax officials only take half and leave, or those with a kriesha—an acquaintance, a politician friend—might not pay at all. He talked about how the “system is building corruption” because the salaries of government workers— including tax officials—are so low, and the patent is too high. His understanding of order at the bazaar presupposed a government that is disciplined and strong, one in which salaries are raised and taxes go to the budget. As he stated, “This is not done here.” Unlike the younger traders discussed next, he described his rights at the bazaar in relation to the bazaar owners: he repeated that they have no rights and “private ones [owners] decide themselves.” For him, while laws are on the books, they have no power. The law should be fulfilled. . . . Discipline must be strongly observed, starting from up high, from the president. We don’t have discipline. No one fears. They just say, democracy, democracy. . . . That is why today, from kindergarten, from childhood, [a child] should understand the law correctly. . . . If he grows up well, it is good. Nowadays, getting everyone under discipline is difficult. For that we need a really strong president, perhaps. He spoke of small mafias, or rekets, disappearing; instead, they are now big. A reketpeket, a way of exaggerating a word, operates at the level of deputies and other government officials. For him, the hypocrisy of well-known criminal authorities being able to effectively buy their way out of prison while the “ordinary” guy is imprisoned reeks of disorder. Despite Adyl’s critical characterization of high politics, over his last seven years at the bazaar trading consumer products—after having traded initially in Uzbekistan, fallen into debt, and worked in construction in Sakhalin, Russia, with relatives in the 1990s—he has been able to clothe his family and educate his children. He proudly volunteered that his daughter now studies at the presidential academy in Bishkek. Nadia was the most critical trader at the bazaar interviewed; a fifty-six-yearold Russian woman from Issky-kul, she has traded tools and other household goods since 1997.21 During the Soviet period, she was a leading technologist in a factory producing balers with a specialization in metal cutting. She came to trade when the factory collapsed in the mid-1990s. She recollected that rents at the bazaar were relatively small back then. Once the bazaar was privatized, however, the rents have only gone “up and up.” Because of the competition at the bazaar

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and the higher cost of rent, she reflected, “It turns out that a big portion [of the profits] we must pay to the owner of the bazaar, and for yourself, you’ve already worked so much that you’ve tired yourself out.” She referred to attempts of traders to confront the administration, but that they fear doing so because they could lose their trading spaces. The administration simply says, according to her: “If you don’t like it, leave your place! Then go to another place!” Nadia confirmed what the older traders stated, which is that traders often do not protest out of fear of losing their trading spaces. These perceptions of domination by bazaar owners reveal that traders have not been able to unite to effect change of their conditions or work environment as they did at Dordoi bazaar. When asked about how the term bespredel, or lawlessness, applied to bazaars, she stated, “Where there are private marketplaces, there is bespredel. Why is this? State organs cannot come here. . . . For that reason, owners can do what they want. As they say, so it will be. . . . The owner decides everything.” She continued by talking about how the owners own all of the containers, and traders “just rent and that is all.” For her, there was no order at the bazaar because the marketplace is private, and she does not have even a day off per week, or weekends. “We pay for every day; if you come or don’t come [to trade], we pay. No discounts, discounts only for Afghan veterans and disabled.” She recalled how she was sick for three months and still had to pay for rent. She understood herself as having no rights at the marketplace. Even the rights to the container rental are not formalized in her section of the bazaar, according to her, on purpose. Implying that the director is “smart” and does not give them such a document, she further underscored that the only option is to simply “not open your mouth.” For her, to survive at the bazaar was to stay healthy, remain silent, persist, and listen to the owner. Multiple times throughout the interview, Nadia referred to the Soviet period, reminiscing that everyone held professional occupations and places to live. The disorder she described on so many fronts—relations with owners, high rents, and absence of days off—was all shaped in relation to her understanding of possibilities the Soviet system afforded, and the current state’s inability to provide for its people through the provision of regulated work opportunities. While Nadia did not mention the potential for a trade union or a uniting of trader interests to help her, Aigul did. This fifty-two-year-old Russian-speaking ethnic Kyrgyz trader of clothing—and former school teacher—expressed desire for a trade union with educated lawyers who could protect interests when asked about order, or poriadok, at the bazaar:22 What does poriadok at the marketplace mean for me? For me, poriadok at the marketplace, it is when the administration of the marketplace provides good working conditions for its entrepreneurs. . . . So that we

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have a trade union, a lawyer, who would defend our rights, our interests. In any civilized country, there are trade unions, there are lawyers, there to protect the interests of entrepreneurs. We do not have such a thing. Here we would like to see the administration of our market pay attention to us, to defend our interests, in some ways to support us and in some ways to yield to us. We don’t have free medical care, and let’s say, we’re all people—somebody’s mother is dying, someone’s father, there’s someone’s son who died, someone’s daughter, and there is never material assistance provided. We don’t have this. In the absence of organized representation of trader interests, she stated that traders resolve problems themselves when conflicts arise. Well, how? We just try not to argue, not to swear, not to let conditions lead to a situation that will need someone else to intervene. Why do we need that? To lose our nerves? We sit here for the whole day, for years we have been sitting here. We have been sitting next to each other for fifteen years now, looking after one another. Sometimes, it does happen that not all people like you, right? And sometimes there are people you don’t like. We have opinions that differ, views on life that differ; everyone has his own opinion. Everyone has their own point of view on what is happening, right? So here, I try not to interfere, and even if you clash, I try to restrain myself [from getting involved.] Aigul spoke later in the interview about how she herself is a teacher by training and how she managed to adapt to the market environment in 1998 due to the skills she learned as a teacher: “I just immediately got in the groove, adapted. Because I am a teacher, I have experience, I’m a smooth talker, I tried to get along with everyone, not to engage in conflict, to find a common language with everyone. The most important thing is not to clash [with others].” When asked what she would change at the bazaar if she worked in the administration, the first thing she said was that she would create a good working environment for traders, whom she also called entrepreneurs, at the bazaar. For example, I would cut the rent, in the sense that we would reserve some sort of minimum—this is first. Then second, I would create a foundation, so that we would have a lawyer, so that we would have a trade union that would defend our rights—the honor, as they say, of the entrepreneurs. Because we have a lot of nuances, a lot of unresolved issues, and the administration does not solve them. Then, third and again, I would do something, organize every holiday, all the holidays, celebrate them and greet the entrepreneurs. Maybe something festive,

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lay out the tables. . . . But first of all, I would create a good environment, purely human, so that we wouldn’t be dragged down, so that they considered our opinion. Because we are traders, we are enriching them [the owners]—really, that’s the bazaar, at whose expense does it enrich? At our expense, at the expense of the traders. We work, we make money for them, we pay taxes, we pay for our places—all those things are money. Interviewer: And your patents [combined license/tax to the state], do you consider the cost of your patents fair or not? Aigul: Well, it’s not going anywhere, it’s already legal. We should pay the taxes, so we pay the taxes. I think it’s fine. In this quote, Aigul clearly articulated her desire for what the trade union at Dordoi has achieved without mentioning Dordoi explicitly: a forum for defending the rights of traders, resolving disputes, and creating a “human” environment. She is not opposed to paying taxes to the state—that for her is “fine” and legal. Her complaints and suggestions for change revolved around rent, conditions, and culture at the bazaar, all lacking because of the owners. For Aigul, the bazaar has become more ordered from the perspective of physical infrastructure and security (as she said, strange guys demanding profits do not come to the bazaar anymore). She has been able to fund the education of her children, as with the other older traders interviewed in this section. But for her, the relationships with the bazaar’s owners constitute an underlying disorder at the bazaar. As with all of these older traders, Soviet-inscribed experiences of the workday, vacation time, unions, and collective mentality (kollektiv) inform understandings of order. We can glean from these older traders of different ethnicities that there is widespread resentment of bazaar owners and the nature of their working conditions, despite their ability to clothe, feed and educate their families by working as traders at the bazaar. Interestingly, the aksakals and baibiches, some of whom had very similar Soviet-era educations, professional experiences, and trainings, did not express the same visceral and uniform sentiments. Instead, they emphasized their own responsibility and practices related to the creation and maintenance of order through the becoming of status authorities at the bazaar. Older traders who were not aksakals were more likely to believe that you are on your own at the bazaar, and the problems lie in the government’s inability to regulate and curtail private owners.23

Younger Traders and Respect of Authority Over the last decade, an increasing number of younger traders under the age of about thirty-five have begun to trade in the country’s bazaars. While they

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experienced their childhood in the Soviet period, they had little work experience under the Soviet system. Interestingly, many young traders at Osh bazaar hailed from the south of the country—for example, Jalalabad, Nookat, Uzgun, and Leilik, where job opportunities dried up over the 1990s and one of the only alternatives to be becoming labor migrants in Russian and Kazakhstan proved to be moving to Bishkek and working in the bazaars.24 They viewed trade as an opportunity and when asked about their rights at the bazaar, generally stated something along the lines of: “I have the right to open and close my container when I wish. I buy the goods wherever I want. I finish work when it is comfortable for me. I only pay for the rent on time.” Most were proud of recent municipal reconstruction efforts and saw them as a sign of the strengthening authority and control of the state. They adopted the discourse of the city’s efforts to strengthen rule of law at the bazaar and to root out informal traders, and recognized the role and authority of the aksakals. Taalai’s experiences and perspective on order at the bazaar typify this group of traders.25 Originally from a village in the rural Batken oblast in the south of the country, he initially worked in Almaty, Kazakhstan, at the biggest bazaar in that city, Barakholkha, in the 1990s to survive. After accumulating money there in trade, he returned to Bishkek, bought a house, and began trading children’s clothing at Osh bazaar in a container that he bought in 2008. As he explained, “Better to be a [shoe] sole in in your own land than to be a sultan in a foreign land.” At thirty-five years old, he described his business as improving and expanding, despite the crisis that everyone talks about. When asked about how his business has been changing over time, he recounted how payments for land rent and for the patent have increased, but that at the same time the roads near the bazaar have become smooth and straight. In describing this process, he switched from Kyrgyz to the Russian word for order in multiple different places in the interview when the issue of municipal reconstruction arose: “Little by little there is poriadok.” In this context, he associated poriadok with the municipal government understandings of order related to roads, infrastructure, and physical modernization. In contrast, when asked about how he understands order at the bazaar using the Kyrgyz word tartip, he stated that order begins from within oneself. Taalai explained all the ways in which an individual trader should look after himself— not litter, not get into arguments or fights, not drop sunflower seeds everywhere, not spit. Abiding by all of these forms of self-discipline led to order at the bazaar, in his view. And in his section of the bazaar, because it is relatively clean and there are no continual arguments, there is order. Like most other traders, he expressed very mixed feelings about the informal traders lining the streets of the bazaar. While he understood that they are there

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out of necessity and difficulty, and “not from a joyful life,” he does not think it is their right to stand on the sidewalks and trade. According to him, they are not paying taxes or rent for their spaces—“They pay nothing.” While grateful that they work and do not steal, he supported the previous mayor’s reconstruction efforts and attempts to eliminate these street traders. Kanat was the youngest trader interviewed, at thirty years old.26 He finished high school in 2001 in a village in Jalalabad oblast and started working at the bazaar right away. His uncles initially founded the business trading military uniforms. He worked for them for three years, and has since been running the business himself. His interview revealed very mixed understandings of order and the government’s role in governing the bazaar and in society more generally. Initially, when asked of the atmosphere at the bazaar, he described conditions in the 2000s as very bad, and viewed reconstruction of the bazaar as an improvement in order and cleanliness, including the new covered boutiques within the bazaar. He elaborated: The roads are being fixed gradually. Confucius said, “Development starts with the first step.” Based on this we can say that fixing the roads is the first step of development. People’s faith in the government is becoming better. People who worked at the market did not pay taxes on time before; they worked without taking patents. Now people started endeavoring for the nation, country, future. People who work at the market started working according to the law. Everything is becoming better. At the same time, however, he talked about the government as “powerless,” blaming the government for the large number of migrants who work overseas, causing family life to suffer. Especially referring to the challenges of migrant work, he stated: “I would not wish such a life to anyone. I wish the family to stay together.” He spoke of being a law-abiding trader, paying taxes and rent and thus having no conflicts or problems with state officials or the bazaar administration. Disorder at the bazaar, then, for such traders as Kanat is not associated with bazaar owners or particular government agencies or bureaucrats related to the bazaar. Kanat mentioned unprompted the role of the aksakals in resolving conflicts. None of the traders at Osh bazaar interviewed mentioned that they had taken conflicts to court, attributing their reasons to the court’s being expensive and time-consuming. Kanat explained: Interviewer: Why don’t people who work at the market resolve disagreements by going to court? Kanat: Because they do not have time for court proceedings. There is no need to apply to the court because of a small disagreement. Generally our modern Kyrgyz people never apply to the court.

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Interviewer: How do they resolve disagreements, if they don’t go to court? Kanat: There are aksakals here, and there are also leaders [of the administration]. They solve problems justly. Interviewer: Please, tell me more about aksakals. Kanat: For example, if young people quarrel, aksakals solve it using peaceful measures. They resolve the problems at the scene of a quarrel. In fact, it was Kanat who gladly provided the referral for the elder in his area, Medet, whom we met in the first part of this chapter. Kanat was proud to proclaim that there is order in his part of the bazaar, referring to the absence of certain social practices perceived to be disorderly. Interviewer: What is order at the bazaar, in your opinion? Kanat: In my opinion, order at the bazaar is when people respect each other, do not crack [open sunflower] seeds, do not smoke cigarettes, do not use foul language, let elders and cart pushers pass, and treat customers well. Interviewer: Do you think that there is order at this bazaar? Kanat: Yes, there is. Because people who work near me are well-bred people. Interviewer: Who disturbs order at the bazaar? Kanat: People who are not well mannered. For example, these are people who do not respect themselves, smoke in public places, have little understanding, are silly, and use foul language. If society will be improved, then there will be fewer such people. The problem at the bazaar, then, for Kanat, is that a broader societal degradation has occurred. When asked how the market can become more orderly, he explicitly traced improvements to the country’s leadership: Interviewer: How can the bazaar become orderly? Kanat: This is where the country plays a role. If the heads of government are well- mannered, people here will get used to order quickly. Even now, order is getting better. Throughout this interview, Kanat did not reference Soviet institutions such as trade unions or understandings of workplace conditions or rights, as the older traders did. Yet he simultaneously critiqued the influence of “private persons,” referring to owners of bazaars, while also expressing pride that he has been able to pay more taxes to the government over time and see the country develop. He

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began the interview with his impression of bazaar work as for “desperate people,” but he ended the interview stating that he likes his job, and sees himself as honest and happy his family is together.27 Finally, Nazgul, from a village in the south of Kyrgyzstan, has worked at Osh bazaar for over fifteen years, since she was twenty years old, selling swimsuits in the summer and other clothes in the winter.28 When asked what order at the bazaar means to her, she quickly defended the notion that bazaars are somehow inherently disorderly: “In my opinion, people think about disorder when they hear bazaar. However, order at the bazaar is fine. In general, order depends on the behavior of people.” She continued, explaining the main disruption of order, “In general, there is order, unless disagreements between sellers and customers take place.” For her, customers are the main culprit of disorder. She recounted that a customer bought an item and brought it back demanding her to take it back. After she refused to take it back, they worked out a compromise that she would resell it and then return the customer her money once it sold. She also suggested that trade at first was “gentler” and more honest; because people are now interested in money only, they act slyly. When asked of her perspective on municipal reconstruction efforts, she was highly critical of what she called the “illegal” street trade and lauded municipal efforts to curtail street traders, stating that she fully supports these efforts: “Lawfulness should be at the market. I am against staying on the street, blocking the street, and causing difficulties for people.” She attributed improvements at the bazaar to a previous mayor who oversaw the reconstruction efforts of 2011: “Order was brought when Omurkulov was mayor. The roads were fixed; it became cleaner. Disorder appeared after he left his position.” She continued with a discussion of the informal traders starting to flood the streets again in more recent years, and her participation in a meeting just months before to advocate that street traders be rooted out again. She described these efforts as successful, and reiterated: “The market has developed now. Order has improved. We have more income. The roads have been fixed.” Nazgul, as many others working inside the bazaar, did not look favorably on street traders who were removed during reconstruction efforts because they did not pay for spaces, they took away clients from the traders inside the bazaar, and they did not “respect the country’s directories and laws.” When asked how either the bazaar administration or the government could support her business, she said that neither could help, elaborating: “I cannot make demands of the government. Everything is good. A patent costs 1,020 soms. This is a good price. . . . . . The taxes are cheaper compared to other countries. Therefore, I have no dissatisfaction with the government.” She contrasted her brief previous work at a state agency with her trading position, recalling that her debts increased during this period due her dependence

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on salary and associated meager wages. In contrast, at the bazaar, she got income every day. The only thing she did not like at the bazaar was “work without resting”—but, mirroring other younger traders, she did not attribute blame to any individual, organization, or institution for this condition, unlike the older traders as discussed above. These younger traders express an orientation towards trade and order at the bazaar more in line with the aksakal traders. Like them, they hailed from the rural regions of the country and held similar self-restraint and respect-based conceptions of order. They were more likely to acknowledge the authority of aksakals, unlike the other older traders.

Street Traders: From Sausage Producer to Canteen Worker Most traders working inside Osh bazaar interviewed thus far—whether elder, younger, or older—viewed street traders with a certain level of disdain, even if they sympathized with their hardships. Yet talking with former street trader, Ainura, reveals that her entry to the marketplace does not rest in the initial collapse of the Soviet Union and the socioeconomic crises that ensued, as commonly assumed; rather it was forcibly brought on under President Bakiev’s reign between 2005 and 2010, after she had founded a thriving manufacturing business.29 By shifting the blame away from the transition and the travails of new democratic statehood, her experience shows how the policies of the country’s leadership almost twenty years after independence impelled her to the street. During Soviet times, Ainura worked as a store manager in the main statecontrolled store in a city near Lake Issyk-Kul in the north of the country. She graduated from Kyrgyz State University in the economics department, studied accounting and trade, and worked in state-based trade. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and transformation of the store to a joint stock company, layoffs ensued and she moved to Bishkek to find work in 1996. By the 2000s, her family had a successful—and legally registered—sausage production business run out of their home, outfitted with refrigerators and industrial freezers to keep raw meat, pelmeni (Russian frozen dumplings), and other sausages. Their products were shipped to cities throughout the country, as well as to sellers in Osh market in Bishkek. They employed staff to make the pelmeni, and bought meat from nearby villagers. Recalling that times under the first president, Askar Akaev, were “good,” she blamed the sudden closure and bankruptcy of her business on President Kurmanbek Bakiev, who served from 2005 until his overthrow in 2010. As she retold

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the story, one day, suddenly, “Bakiev cut off the three-phase power supply in the houses. We went bankrupt immediately.” As a result of this government action in response to electricity shortages in the country, she told of everything in the freezers melting, spoiling, becoming worthless. The store’s employees and the villagers that supplied the meat all lost their jobs and income streams. She emphasized in her recounting of this episode the legality and lawfulness with which she conducted her business. Not only did she have a manufacturing business, she worked with all the necessary documents. “They cut off the electricity without any notification. . . . We had permissions from every instance, including the sanitary epidemic station. They cut us off without any notice.” When asked why she did not take her case to court, she explained: Who would we apply to? Who would listen to us? If Bakiev did it for himself, who would pay attention to us? . . . [I didn’t file a claim in court] not because I did not trust the court. If we filed a claim, what would it say? Who would it blame for cutting off the electricity? If the order was given from above [by the authorities] to cut off the three-phase power supplies in the houses because of shortage of electric power, who is guilty? The court would have ruled that the order was given from above and that the electricians are not guilty. Bakiev could not be guilty before so many citizens of Kyrgyzstan. In short, she believed that the court would be on her side, but because there was no clear authority to blame other than the authoritarian president, the claim would have never been resolved. Holding debt and without other options to provide for her family, she spent four years getting back on her feet, selling bread and candies at Osh bazaar. When the city reconstruction of the bazaar took place in 2011, officials eliminated her trading place in order to extend the road. According to her, she was given the option to go to a space at two other bazaars in the city, or go elsewhere on her own: “They told us that they would not leave us without a space, that they would clean Osh bazaar and bring order to the city. They asked us to go to these other places at will. And we went to the places they suggested.” She continued describing the details of what happened when she moved to another bazaar: she worked out of two containers, rent-free, for one and a half years. But, she lamented, there were no consumers. As she recalled, “We just sat there with the security guard. . . . Nobody was used to buying [food] products there.” When asked about protests related to reconstruction at Osh bazaar, she recalled that she and many others did not partake in them, despite the attention media paid to protests by a subset of other traders seeking to keep their spaces. Instead, over time, she and many others eventually left their rent-free

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spaces when it became clear that people were not frequenting these bazaars to buy food products. Some found their way back to Osh bazaar, others moved to other professions, and Ainura began running a canteen at Osh bazaar in 2013. In reflecting on understandings of order at Osh bazaar in light of her experience, she stated that the bazaar has become more ordered from the perspective of informal traders on the streets and alleys, but she wanted those who remained to be “chased away and not allowed to sell.” Recounting how she and many others in her situation moved and tried to remake their business in a new environment, she implicitly criticized the city for not finishing the job it started: “If you start doing it, you need to finish it and bring order. Osh market is ordered now, it has become much better. . . . It is easier to move around; people hustled before. There were many pickpockets. Our money was stolen, our bags were cut. Now, it is good.” From her perspective, the state has now “taken an interest in our work, how we are doing, whether we have work, and whether everything is quiet. With the help of the city administration, we pay for garbage removal . . . everything is calm. We are good.” She articulated her role in producing order at the bazaar as engaging in honest work, in her words, “So my landlord will not suffer and will not be gossiped about. So people will not say that this canteen is dirty or the food is not tasty, so the landlord will not ask us to close or look for another renter.” Through Ainura’s experience, we see conflicting and mixed feelings related to the municipal reconstruction effort. Although she herself was directly impacted and physically moved to another bazaar in this process—leading to a collapse in her trade—she simultaneously believed that those who were not moved should be out of a sense of fairness, and that the work of “ordering” the bazaar should be completed. Her involvement at Osh bazaar as a street trader and then a canteen worker originated in what she deemed the illegal actions of the previous presidential regime, and the disorder that ensued from them. One interpretation of her adaptation to this displacement to and from Osh bazaar would be to see it as a form of conflict avoidance. Indeed, she did not protest the city’s actions formally. Yet as Musoni has argued, drawing from his case of the Zimbabwean government’s razing of traders in the capital city,30 we should instead view Ainura’s responses as a creative and tactical one that allowed her to individually rebuild her source of livelihood and continue supporting her family in light of these changes. Traders and their responses should not be interpreted as apolitical; Ainura displayed a keen awareness of the possibilities that allowed her to find her café job after her trading work failed to thrive in the new bazaar. This form of response by traders recalls what Asaf Bayat describes throughout the Middle East as individuals retreating inward, asserting rights to basic life necessities, including the right to earn a living, and actively avoiding state authority, a form of noncollective “quiet encroachment.”31 In Kyrgyzstan, despite the

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proclivity of society toward protest politics, such “quiet encroachment” in fact has been the norm for most at this bazaar.32 This chapter has illuminated how a small subset of older traders at Osh bazaar viewed themselves as helping to create and maintain order in their trading areas. Originally from rural regions of the country, they became aksakals by drawing on rural elder traditions now reappropriated to an urban market context. In this primarily Russian-speaking capital city, they joined others seeking employment and “came down from the mountains,” as commonly recounted, bringing with them the Kyrgyz language and village institutions that survived Soviet rule.33 During the Soviet period, the Republic represented a “divided society, where the urban population had access to Russian language resources, while the rural population communicated almost exclusively in Kyrgyz.”34 Over the last two decades, the urban population of Bishkek has become increasingly mixed with rural internal migrants. Practices in the city have become shaped and influenced by these Kyrgyz-speaking rural-born citizens. Aksakals at Osh bazaar see their cumulative experience and authoritative practices as constitutive of order they create in their part of the bazaar. These ethnic Kyrgyz trading elders were born and raised in different parts of the country, they all lived through the last decade of Soviet rule as adults and professionals, and they all came to Bishkek’s Osh bazaar to trade out of necessity. Over the course of decades working at the bazaar in the capital, they turned to and drew from the pre-Soviet, nomadic, rural-based traditions to help them create meaning and carve out their own place in helping to order the bazaar. Their authority and practices resonated especially with some of the newer, younger ethnic Kyrgyz traders from the south of the country. The younger generation largely perceived their work at bazaars as governed by their own interactions and behaviors, and viewed municipal activities to create order at the bazaar as a sign of a strengthening state. In contrast, for traders of the older generation who were not aksakals, while they were not against these attempts to bring order as the municipality articulated it, disorder reigned and rights proved scarce. For them, the lack of guaranteed vacation and benefits constituted a disorder, and they especially blamed private owners of the bazaars for not treating traders appropriately. Instead of bypassing employers and directing such claims for rights directly to the state itself—as Agarwala found informal workers are doing successfully in India35—in Kyrgyzstan, these traders desired a strong, central state authority to restrain, contain, and bring order to the private owners but did not act collectively to achieve this. Younger and older traders named certain common challenges, such as the absence of rest days, vacation, and benefits, yet only the older ones clearly vocalized blame targeted at government officials and bazaar owners.36

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While younger traders could fear losing trading spots or enraging owners who are believed to have significant power over them, I also find that older traders more specifically articulate and pinpoint alternatives to the status quo based on their experience in the Soviet system and a concrete vision on which to base their ideas. Returning to the role of aksakals in helping to create a certain order and stability in contemporary urban society, we have also seen their roles in ordering other locales beyond the bazaar. For example, amid the ethnic looting and violence in the south of the country in June 2010, we saw pockets of order and stability within the city, protected zones that did not experience destruction or causalities. In one of these multiethnic regions in the center of Osh city, in addition to the spatial and geographic configurations that made rioting and violence less appealing, a local Kyrgyz woman named Datka was informally nominated by ethnic Uzbek elders to “take leadership and coordinate defensive measures in the neighborhood.”37 In a majority Uzbek neighborhood, the transfer of this informal authority to an ethnic Kyrgyz might seem surprising; yet she had ties to police and was seen as a social patron and organizer of neighborhood events. Datka restricted movement in the neighborhood to be able to monitor potential attackers, established teams of monitors constituted by elders and other activist women, coordinated activity with local gangs, and counteracted and dispelled rumors. As a result of these activities, the neighborhood remained peaceful, and Datka’s authority propelled her to become the most influential informal authority in the neighborhood. The role of elders and informal leaders in a variety of contexts, including at the bazaar, suggests that municipal narratives of disorder and chaos mask certain local orders created from the bottom up. In other words, Osh bazaar is not only governed from the top down by private property owners and municipal officials. Indeed, just as at Dordoi bazaar, certain owners in the patchwork of Osh bazaar land holdings had acquired significant political power and managed to claim and defend property rights to land over this period, as the previous chapter recounted. As in the case of Dordoi bazaar, the core problem from the perspective of traders is not predatory bureaucratic officials as in the 1990s; indeed, some traders proudly pay patent and operate legally, a possibility facilitated by the help of bazaar owners and administrations, who use their own social and political influence to curtail predatory behavior. The core problems, as the experiences of older traders demonstrated, lie in the changing generational and social context at the bazaar, and the increasingly problematic inability of the state to regulate bazaar owners and create a reasonable work environment. In this context, aksakals and baibiches have stepped in, helping to resolve and prevent conflicts, engaging in negotiation and mediation of differences with bazaar owners, other traders, and consumers, and building a

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culture and community of trust within their trading areas. Unable to fundamentally transform core power inequalities between traders and owners, they instead participated in the legitimation of domination through the enactment of their roles as bazaar authorities, and the creation of local islands of order within the bazaar. The next chapter reviews the book’s arguments as related to the comparison of order at Dordoi and Osh bazaars, and offers a framework for extending this approach beyond bazaars in Bishkek and Kyrgyzstan before turning to the conclusions and implications for policy and the study of politics and development.

7 LOCAL ORDERS IN POST-SOVIET BAZAARS AND BEYOND

This book began with the premise that national statistics measuring the strength of rule-of-law and property rights protections conceal as much as they reveal. They mask important islands of order within the very countries that fall very low on such rankings. Despite the multiple regime changes, predatory bureaucracy, and fluid nature of economic regulations in Kyrgyzstan—often assumed to be weaknesses and sources of stagnation—bazaars in the country thrived throughout the 1990s and 2000s. Throughout the book, I have illuminated the social and political work of those with stakes at two bazaars in the city’s capital, including traders, owners, and municipal officials, in their confrontation with perceived disorder and chaos at the bazaar. In particular, traders drew on varying experiences and understandings of order as they reappropriated pre-Soviet and Soviet ideas and organizational forms in new market contexts. They created and constituted local governance mechanisms that produced trust, reduced conflicts, mediated disputes, negotiated deals, deliberated problems, and engendered collaboration and protest at the bazaar. In short, instead of presuming such societies and institutions as those in Kyrgyzstan are corrupt, weak, or captured—as so often the case in the postSoviet region—I find they are much more dynamic and orderly than they initially appear. I have thus refocused our attention away from the national context to a more local level and sought to understand order as opposed to chaos and dispossession from the perspective of those associated with work at the bazaar. Three key themes and findings emerge based on the foregoing analysis of Bishkek’s two largest bazaars. First, the historic and geographic particularity of 165

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bazaar location shaped future trajectories. Both bazaars had origins during the Soviet period, Dordoi as a sporadic flea market and Osh as a collective farm market, and both were privatized when the Soviet Union collapsed. Dordoi’s location on the outskirts of the city allowed for a single main owner to buy the land and expand a small bazaar into a regional wholesale bazaar—including parking lots, warehouses, and roads. In contrast, Osh bazaar, in the crowded city center, underwent ad hoc privatization and decentralization, sowing the seeds for struggles among a range of claimants, including Soviet-era cooperative-appointed directors, municipal officials, and new private owners. Traders continued to expand the boundaries of the bazaar on streets and sidewalks, working under dozens of owners. These varying early privatization dynamics created the possibility for relative property stability or contestation in later years. Second, in these different contexts, traders and bazaar owners wrestled with changing understandings of bazaars and trade and drew on their prior ideas and experiences to actively create order in a weak rule-of-law context. At Dordoi bazaar, a small group of older traders, primarily ethnic Russians, most of whom had Soviet education and work experience, established a trade union. It differed from Soviet trade unions in light of the new market context, yet also incorporated Soviet organizational models into the bazaar through the establishment of starshie, or senior leaders of the trading rows. Through the transfer of this governance model to the trade union in a new context, starshie worked with the bazaar owner to curtail venal bureaucratic influence, while simultaneously helping to ensure that traders paid their taxes and abided by the law. They also pressured the owner to put a ceiling on rental fees for land, which all traders paid; and they solved internal problems related to container subletting and other issues, while also building a desired sense of community and trust in the trading rows. In turn, the bazaar owner channeled demands of traders for infrastructure reform and reduction of predation to the municipal level, created a private security team to patrol the bazaar, established an internal system of registering container property, and organized service workers such as janitors and porters. To maintain his role against the backdrop of other authorities competing for control of the bazaar throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the owner adapted to the changing national political environment by shifting institutional affiliations and engaging strategically in protest. The order at Dordoi, then, was a product of ongoing work—if at times contentious—in a changing political and economic context. For traders, it involved the renarration from understandings of trade as dispossession to trade as entrepreneurship, encompassing both rights and responsibilities. Trade for some became associated with honor, legality, and financial independence. For the owner, it involved reframing narratives associating bazaar owners as venal

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oligarchs to one that elevated his role in society as a provider of stable jobs that would feed and clothe families, and educate children, in a corrupt and weak state. In contrast, Osh bazaar lacked such a unified trade union, leaving traders unable to collectively voice their concerns. The ad hoc privatization and decentralization of the bazaar in the 1990s led to dozens of bazaar owners and to the perception of a sprawling disorderly bazaar overflowing onto city streets and sidewalks. Despite politicized, failed attempts to centralize the highly fragmented bazaar, municipal authorities finally succeeded in implementing their vision of order related to the eradication of street traders on the bazaar’s periphery. Officials justified bazaar reconstruction through the creation of the distinction between “legal” and “illegal” traders and owners. Once entities were branded as “illegal,” the city could remove them, while also praising the efforts of the “legal” ones in the bazaar’s privatized core. Despite the significant media focus on the reconstruction and signs of chaos of Osh bazaar, within the different privatized units, a certain order had emerged. Longtime traders at the bazaar, ethnic Kyrgyz originally hailing from the rural regions of the country, carried with them from these regions ideas and experiences related to local informal governance, and became aksakals, or elder authorities, in their trading sections. As did the starshie at Dordoi, they assisted with negotiations, conflict resolution, example setting, and a sense of community and trust that traders sought at the bazaar. Third and finally, while all of these efforts and actions did not fundamentally alter dynamics of property ownership and power relations in society, they reveal the ways in which people strove for order in what was an otherwise unsettled and tumultuous period after independence. Traders of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and regions of the country channeled particular understandings of order and social organization to their new workplaces in Bishkek, making this chaotic and uncertain time palatable. Despite the differing origins of ideas undergirding the organizational and cultural forms of their practices, what unites their efforts is not solely an interest in making profits in a new market economy. They also sought to serve as role models for what they believed to be appropriate and meaningful relationships at the bazaar. In short, people who worked at the bazaar created different instantiations of order in a country with weak rule-of-law institutions.

Other Local Bazaar Orders in Bishkek Such islands of order are not limited to two bazaars in Bishkek. Using the approach advanced in this book, we can investigate other bazaars in the city and country, paying attention to not only the signs of disorder and chaos but also the

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norms and practices of order. We would first look at a bazaar’s geography and ownership structure, and then at the ways in which local actors at the bazaar— for example traders and owners—navigated within a similar national context characterized by weak rule-of-law institutions, corruption, and predation. We would pay particular attention to how the national media and those involved in the bazaar discussed the situation, and also what ideas and experiences shaped their desires and practices related to the creation of order. In this section, I extend this approach to two other bazars in Bishkek, Orto Sai and Madina bazaars, focusing on their geography, ownerships structure, and practices and understandings of order.1 Orto Sai bazaar bears close resemblance to Osh bazaar as a retail marketplace in a different region of the city. It existed during the Soviet period, founded in 1984 as a kolkhoz market governed initially by the Ministry of Trade, until it was transferred to the Consumer Union Cooperatives in 1987, as were all other such markets. In the early 1990s, similar uncertainties originating with the unclear status of this type of property led to opaque decentralization and privatization of the bazaar. Press reports on the bazaar investigated a variety of disorders related to deception of scales, disorganization of goods, lack of infrastructure and sanitary conditions, theft and crime, and ownership struggles.2 By 2007, there were twenty-one official “subjects” of the bazaar, including the original Soviet-era produce and meat pavilions, as well as many other surrounding structures and buildings home to a range of other goods. Many who had previously worked with at the Consumer Union Cooperatives now controlled different portions of the bazaar.3 By the 2000s, at least two small trade unions had been formed in different sections of the bazaar. One started in 2004, and the female Kyrgyz trader who served as the director of that trade union spoke of helping to resolve small problems, providing discounts in fees for poor people, and organizing trips to the mountains and lakes for the traders. In her section, there were seventy-three members out of about 150 traders at the time of the interview in 2006.4 A second, larger, trade union had been founded at the bazaar in the early 2000s. The trade union’s director had been in his position for one year since 2006, having moved his main trading place from Dordoi bazaar to Orto Sai bazaar between 2003 and 2005. This ethnic Russian trader became an active member in Dordoi’s trade union around 2003, during the time of the cash register scandal discussed in chapter 3, and actively helped to barricade and protect Orto Sai bazaar during the 2005 overthrow of the president, along with 200 to 300 other traders keeping watch all day and night. In his section of the bazaar, as of 2006, there were 140 members out of about 300 total sellers in that section of the bazaar.5 These trade union directors did not speak highly of the bazaar owners. One of these directors spoke of the bazaar owner as a monopolist who could unilaterally

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set and raise prices for rental of land. The other director spoke of the owner as lazy in practice, failing to repair leaks and infrastructure. This dim view contrasted with the prevailing attitude at Dordoi bazaar, where even if the interests on certain issues such as rental fees collided, the bazaar owner and administration viewed the trade union with some semblance of legitimacy and worked with, listened to, and brought on the trade union as a partner. At Orto Sai bazaar, the different trade unions appeared to have strained relationships with the owners. While the existence of trade unions and their work at Orto Sai bazaar supports the importance of this organizational form beyond Dordoi bazaar, it also suggests that the owner’s orientation toward the trade union can shape bottom-up, collective possibilities. The second other bazaar in Bishkek I now discuss, Madina bazaar, achieved status as the second-largest wholesale bazaar in the city (after Dordoi), supplying goods related to the country’s apparel production industry: fabrics, sewing machines, accessories, and other sewing-related inputs, most from China. Founded in 1998 on the territory of a former light-industry factory that produced wool and textiles, the bazaar, like Dordoi, has one main private owner, who has built the bazaar since its inception. Also like Dordoi bazaar’s owner, he eventually became a member of parliament in 2010, after many years of seeking office. Traders also founded a trade union to protect their interests, although one important distinguishing feature of this bazaar is the ethnic dimension: the bazaar’s owner is an ethnic Uighur, born near Bishkek. His administration coordinates the employment of Chinese Uighur traders who supply the fabrics, technology, and accessories made in China to Madina bazaar.6 Likely a result of tense relations between ethnic Uighurs and other groups within Kyrgyzstan, and also the strained relations with the Chinese state, unlike for Osh and Dordoi bazaars, little local press coverage exists related to this bazaar.7 Future research could examine the similarities and particularities of this bazaar’s trade union in relation to the one at Dordoi, and more broadly illuminate the Uighur ideas and practices of the traders and owner as they relate to the order that has allowed Medina bazaar to become one of the most important in the country.

Local Bazaar (Dis)order beyond Bishkek Looking beyond Bishkek to the main wholesale bazaar in the south of the country, Karasuu, we see that local efforts to establish order and stability have been punctuated by more overtly violent ownership disputes that have challenged the possibilities for traders to achieve their collective goals at the bazaar.8 I discuss

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the geography, ownership, and attempts to create order at the Karasuu wholesale bazaar over three distinct periods between 1991 and 2010. Karasuu bazaar primarily serves wholesale customers from neighboring Ferghana Valley countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and has its roots as a Soviet kolkhoz marketplace. Like other kolkhoz marketplaces in the country, it underwent opaque and decentralized enclosures prior to 1995. Discourses of disorder related to property struggles and predation prevailed during this time. In 1995, a single main owner centralized control over the bazaar until 2005, and a semblance of order for traders reigned as related to bureaucratic predation. Unlike the stability of ownership at Dordoi, however, Karasuu’s owner was assassinated in 2005 in a violent showdown along with others from his Soviet-era social group of sportsmen turned businessmen, unleashing chaos again, and uncertainty for traders and consumers alike. These three phases will now be discussed in more detail. Karasuu bazaar lies on over fifteen hectares of land, about 22 km from the center of Osh city. During the Soviet period, the town of Karasuu straddled the Kyrgyz and Uzbek Republics, and this market, along with the one in Margilan, became a primary black market site in the 1980s.9 The bazaar increased in popularity and size in the late 1990s when Erkeshtan, a new border post on the Chinese border in eastern Kyrgyzstan, opened and linked Karasuu more directly with transportation routes from China. In 2006, 500 cargo trucks packed with consumer goods from China were estimated to drive from Erkeshtan to Karasuu every month.10 On the demand side, restrictive official Uzbek border and trade policies created a thriving underground trade between foreign consumers mostly from Uzbekistan and traders in Karasuu, Kyrgyzstan. The bazaar also serviced regional traders from other cities in Kyrgyzstan, who bought goods wholesale from this bazaar and resold them in their local retail markets. By 2006, a total of at least three thousand containers existed at the bazaar, although this number was likely higher.11 Some suggest that an additional five thousand people made a living off the bazaar in affiliated services, such as taxis, cafes, and banks, at this time. Official statistics estimated about $150,000 a day in total bazaar turnover in 2005–2006, but this was probably closer to $300,000– 500,000. The number of customers varied according to estimates and seasons, but general figures suggested between ten thousand and up to thirty thousand customers a day.12 After the Soviet Union’s collapse, questions emerged about the bazaar’s property rights. While the Consumer Union de jure owned the bazaar, by 1992, governors and then mayors started to appoint directors.13 In 1995 the bazaar was formally turned over to the Karasuu municipal office with the approval of the Osh region government administration.14 A presidential decree in 1996, however,

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was supposed to give bazaar property back to the Osh Consumer Union.15 Amid these struggles, de facto, over a dozen owners came to control the bazaar. The crucial turning point came in the mid-1990s, when one main individual asserted authority over the entire bazaar, including the thirteen other owners; his name was Bayaman Erkinbaev. Erkinbaev’s social origins differed from the owners of other bazaars heretofore discussed, which included former members of the Soviet-era nomenklatura, professionals in state-led trade and distribution, municipal officials, and even, in one instance, a relative of the presidential family. In contrast, Erkinbaev was trained as a Soviet-era sportsman. As in other post-Soviet regions, Soviet-trained sportsmen and athletes from Kyrgyzstan entered the business of racketeering and protection services as state funding for athletes and sports programs evaporated and as state security services fractured after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Regarded as heroes, role models, and patriots during the Soviet period, many sportsmen and Olympic champions began controlling segments of the new economy as market liberalization and political reform began in the late 1980s, using their discipline, group camaraderie, and physical strength as competitive advantages in a relative state of anarchy.16 Already by the early 1990s, they had gained a reputation for racketeering and protection on streets and in bazaars.17 One interpretation of Bayaman Erkinbaev and other such figures might portray him as a thug or a criminal. Instead, I argue that we should understand how he actively renarrated his role as a legitimate source of authority at the bazaar, similar to ways in which Askar Salymbekov at Dordoi bazaar actively did so with regard to perceptions of post-Soviet oligarchy discussed in chapter 4. Yet in contrast to Salymbekov, he drew on the cultural authority of sport in the region by supporting and hiring young wrestlers. In particular, the Central Asian form of wrestling holds great respect among local people: “Wrestlers (Palvan) are considered not only to have strength but also nobility and a feeling of justice. . . . The authority and influence of palvan attracted young men and especially teenagers. . . . Solidarity with palvan also raised the prestige of these young men among their peers.”18 Bayaman Erkinbaev presided over the Federation of National Wrestling Alysh and directed regional branches of this organization in Osh. In addition, he garnered authority and respect in the south of the country, and mobilized members of this sports organization to provide charity to local people, becoming a local “Robin Hood.”19 Among his contributions to local communities include improvements to a bridge, financing of an electricity transformer and drinking water pipeline, and donations to veterans and teachers.20 This support assisted him in becoming an elected member of parliament between 1995 and 2005.21

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Throughout this decade, Erkinbaev presided over a booming bazaar, one that came to be known throughout the Ferghana Valley as the trading hub of the country’s south. The event that unsettled the governance at Karasuu bazaar from the perspective of traders occurred in 2005 on the day he was assassinated. Bayaman Erkinbaev played an important role in mobilizing and instigating the 2005 overthrow of President Akaev,22 and in the two years after this event, he was one of four sportsmen-turned-businessmen killed in property and powerrelated struggles.23 After his assassination in 2005, the environment at the bazaar dramatically changed. Comments from traders and observers alike indicated that the bazaar became increasingly chaotic, with new “fees” and “bribes” required in this vacuum of authority.24 Trade union members at the bazaar spoke of the disorder, or bespariadok, that emerged after his assassination and the subsequent struggles over control of this bazaar:25 But at that time [during Bayaman], one good side is there was no such besporiadok. There used to be no thieves. They did not allow thieves to enter inside the bazaar. Policemen would not come in and steal. The policemen enter themselves together now with thieves. . . . Ehhh, here there was, though little, poriadok in the time of Bayaman. Here, if you . . . ask the people, they will say, “In Bayaman’s time, though little, there was poriadok.” Now, besporiadok is up to here [pointing to her neck]. . . . In Bayaman’s time all bazarkoms used to obey Bayaman. Now, all thirteen of them make separate politics, now in the bazaar, it turned out to be . . . besporiadok. In her discussion of this period in the Kyrgyz language, this trade union member references the Russian words, poriadok and besporiadok, order and disorder, throughout the discussion.26 Subsequent interviews of trade union members at this bazaar clarified the nature of this besporiadok. As of 2007, the organization had one thousand paying members, each contributing 30 soms a month. They worked on a range of concerns, including the problems with the racketeers and sportsmen collecting “fees” and “fines” at the bazaar. They also sought to equalize the wildly different land rental rates at the bazaar; traders paid anywhere from 700 to 2,500 soms per month to the owners for rent of land, depending on which of the bazaar’s thirteen bazarkoms controlled the land.27 As at Dordoi bazaar, these traders sought a sense of stability and equality at the bazaar, one that regulated the profit-seeking whims of the owners. Karasuu’s absence of centralized leadership and the perceived disorder that ensued at this time serves as a stark contrast to Dordoi bazaar. After 2005, Dordoi

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continued to have a stable main owner, who managed to defend his claims throughout this period, preventing the looting, predation and other ill effects of the absence of authority. In contrast, Karasuu lapsed into disorder from the perspective of traders, who confronted bribes from police in cahoots with criminals, and worked at the whims of the owners. Traders at Karasuu complained of fewer clients because the informal payments to officials disincentivized Uzbek citizens coming across the border to trade at Karasuu. They lamented their relative ineffectiveness as a trade union to achieve their goals. Thus, for traders during this time, understandings of order and disorder were intimately intertwined with the existence of a central authority who could govern the bazaar on multiple levels; Bayaman Erkinbaev kept government bureaucrats in check and he managed the many owners of the fragmented territory. While one might associate this type of order as a form of violence-based domination, in light of the positive cultural associations with Central Asian wrestling and the benefits he provided to traders, Erkinbaev appears to be more of a protector, one who achieved the difficult task of allowing traders to conduct their businesses without interference from state officials in a way that proved at least stable and just, although not ideal. We learn from this bazaar’s trajectory that the social origins of the owners matter. The bazaar’s relative internal stability between 2005 and 2015 confirms the existence of Soviet-era sportsmen controlling key economic and political positions in the new post-Soviet market and state context. However, they were not universally reviled, as might be presumed, and they contributed significantly to the top-down creation of poriadok. However, unlike bazaar owners from the nomenklatura and other Soviet professional occupations, their tenure proved limited. With the end of the Akaev era, a struggle involving bazaar owners with alleged ties to organized crime networks led to a violent reconfiguration of their power base.28 One might ask at this point why nomenklatura-businessmen prior to 2010 were not violently eliminated the way that sportsman-businessmen were amid similar political openings for property redistribution. One hypothesis is that there exists a tacit “red line” that has not been crossed to this day in Kyrgyzstan: nomenklatura-MPs and others with such status and authority cannot be physically eliminated (they can be pressured, however) without causing national scandal. The assassination of others from outside the sportsman-businessman group would violate unwritten bargains that have been constructed and legitimated over the past two decades. This overview of (dis)order at Karasuu bazaar underscores the importance of beginning with the historic specificity of the bazaar as a Soviet-era kolkhoz market and retracing the dynamics of the bazaar’s enclosure in the 1990s. Attention to narratives of traders and struggles among owners reveals a particularly

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heightened salience of the distinction between order and disorder, poriadok and besporiadok, in 2005, specifically in relation to bureaucratic predation, rental politics of the many owners, and ownership struggles over land. The work of a trade union initiated by Kyrgyz traders in the 2000s confirms the salience of local forms of collective organizing at the bazaar, however, their ineffectiveness especially after 2005 points to the perils of the absence of an overarching authority— whether in the form of a bazaar owner or a municipal government—that could prevent predation and address the claims of traders.

Local Bazaar Orders in the Post-Soviet Region and Beyond The possibility of islands of order at bazaars beyond Kyrgyzstan exists, although the nature and form of such an order differs based on the particular historic, cultural, and political contexts. We can first usefully extend my approach examining the origins and creation of order at bazaars to other post-Soviet countries. Bazaars mushroomed in the 1990s throughout the region, with some growing to be home to tens of thousands of traders. While coming from very different preSoviet cultural and historic contexts, traders and others working at bazaars experienced a similar seventy-year Soviet past and faced common challenges resulting from the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. They battled mafia and bureaucratic predation. They wrestled with opaque or contested ownership dynamics.29 And, unlike in Kyrgyzstan where most traders were citizens of Kyrgyzstan, other post-Soviet countries witnessed an increase in the number of traders with foreign citizenship status including from Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and China. As a result of these migration trends, bazaars in these countries have become known as “ethnic marketplaces” in the recent academic Russian-language literature on bazaars.30 These bazaars have thus become intertwined with migration and citizenship politics more explicitly.31 Municipal efforts to modernize and civilize Osh bazaar in Bishkek parallel approaches taken by other governments. In this section, I discuss examples from Russia. In the capital city of Moscow, government authorities have engaged in aggressive and concerted efforts to curb shuttle trade and close down marketplaces since the 2000s.32 For example, between 1998 and 2004, the number of bazaars in Moscow alone decreased from 240 to 75. Retail chain stores quickly filled their place as primary sources of higher quality goods.33 These changes were preceded by legislation and government policies intended to curtail or close bazaars. In one example of the type of legislation implemented, beginning in 2006 and with final legislation in 2013, bazaars had to be renovated

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so they would be enclosed, thus changing their infrastructure and governance. Local governments implemented this new legislation in a way that shut down the Slavyanskii marketplace in Krasnoyarsk, for example, leading to a built structure with people paying “market rates” for trading places. While many traders protested this closure, and defied calls to leave even after electricity was shut off in the winter of 2013/2014, by January the police had driven out all remaining traders.34 By the late 2000s, famous marketplaces in Moscow, such as Cherkizovsky, home to about 100,000 traders in the 2000s, had been demolished.35 These more recent changes follow earlier initiatives by political authorities in the country to remake central urban shopping complexes in historically important buildings and structures to demonstrate the “profitability and stability of the regime.”36 Marketplaces, however, did continue to be the source for cheaper-quality goods servicing lower classes of the Russian population. As of 2007 in Russia, 6,000 marketplaces employing 1.2 million people still remained.37 Thus, in addition to the destruction and change, I argue that investigating the local orders that traders and others at the bazaar produced throughout the 1990s and 2000s will help us understand not only the logic of their continued vibrancy and stability, but also the nature and forms of order that coexist within changing contexts. As with my analysis of bazaars in Kyrgyzstan, we would look in Russia at their location, ownership structure, and the sociopolitical work and meanings people associate with life at the bazaar. The example of the Udelnaya marketplace in St. Petersburg provides such a case.38 About 1,500 to 2,000 vendors worked there every day as of 2003. Similar to other post-Soviet bazaars, problems with the police demanding bribes or confiscating goods predominated in the mid-1990s. In its initial years in independent Russia, the legal status of the bazaar proved unclear: it was neither a kolkhoz marketplace during the Soviet period nor a bigger periodic flea market on the outskirts of town. Instead, it was located in the city center near a railway station, and had emerged in the early 1990s as a place where pensioners and homeless would sell goods in a new market economy. A more established nearby marketplace had electricity, a roof, and stalls; this one did not. Vendors sought an end to the continual harassment and confrontation with the police. After visiting multiple levels of authorities including political officials, seventy-two of them, led by a middle-aged Russian vendor, Luba, united and got the market registered as “club for pensioners.” This allowed traders to come together at the space; they did not, however, pay formal taxes or have trading licenses, since it was not a formal trading place. To work around this situation, Luba, who ultimately became director of the market, collected money from traders, and then distributed it to pay for cleaning and other sanitary conditions at the bazaar, in addition to bribes to the local police.

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While traders appreciated the absence of police presence, Luba had to “continually reassert her legitimacy both in her role as negotiator for the market with local authorities and as collector of a form of rent from the vendors.”39 While traders resented these payments—arguing that it is not a “real” marketplace with conditions, infrastructure, and benefits—she and the administration argued that they needed to be able to pay for cleaning of the bazaar and for bribes to officials. Luba has also hired a couple of former KGB officials to patrol the bazaar for illegal commodities and other such transgressions, so that police have no pretext or cause to enter the bazaar. The social dynamics are also different at this bazaar due to so many elderly vendors and consumers. While the children of these vendors disapprove of their parents selling or buying goods at this bazaar, the vendors themselves do not frequent the bazaar solely to engage in economic transactions. Instead it a social place, a meeting point and resting spot that provides comfort and relaxation for those of this generation. Vendors see their role at the marketplace as intertwined with economic survival, social relationships, and morality, not with profits from the sale of foreign-made commodities. Many vendors sell homemade goods or second-hand goods of sentimental value. As one vendor stated, “The market is generally an interesting little world . . . with its own rituals, customs, idiosyncrasies, problems, and all kinds of other stuff. . . . Nobody’s saying that they [municipal officials] need to help, [traders] formed themselves, and organized themselves. It’s just the police chase, you could say, the police chase their own people . . . the poorest and the most defenseless. . . . It’s not right.”40 Those working in this marketplace have created an orderly place free from bureaucratic predation and full of friendships and camaraderie—despite the tensions that underlie it. This example in Russia reveals the sociopolitical work of traders and others in a weak post-Soviet rule-of-law environment. It suggests that we would benefit from more research on the varieties of order throughout this region. To date, an increasingly robust literature has focused on national and municipal government efforts to “modernize” and “civilize” these urban bazaars. In addition to research on Kyrgyzstan and Russia discussed thus far, we have analyses of other such reform efforts in Tbilisi, Georgia, for example, revealing the ways in which municipal governments’ understandings of fiscal order (tax collection), physical order (modern buildings and infrastructure), and investment order (need to climb global foreign investment rankings)41 led to the ban of some bazaars and the requirement for cash registers in those remaining.42 City officials also banned such petty traders from the remaining public spaces, and traders sought to resist these efforts through protest, disobedience, and other subversive measures and institutionalized mobilizations, capturing media headlines throughout the 2000s.43

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Yet private bazaars such as Lilo (later renamed Lilo Mall), featured in Vogue magazine, for example, continue to operate on the outskirts of Tbilisi.44 We have little research to date on how this bazaar has adapted during this time, and the organizational and institutional forms that govern it. More research on this bazaar, for example, as well as others that continue to thrive in urban and outlying regions in countries as diverse as Ukraine and Kazakhstan, would help to illuminate how traders find ways to create local islands of order.45 This analysis of the relevant post-Soviet literature suggests people associated bazaars faced similar structural effects related to the Soviet Union’s collapse, including the breakdown to different degrees of state capacity and authority, and the privatization of bazaar land. In outlying regions bazaars often expanded and thrived as wholesale regional hubs, governed by different arrangements among private owners, traders, and state authorities. In city centers, marketplaces increasingly became privatized, although scattered throughout municipal streets and public land, unleashing tensions as municipal and national governments pushed to modernize, attract capital, redistribute property, and relegate traders and bazaars to the outskirts of cities. In some ways, then, urban bazaars in the post-Soviet region began to experience the fate of those in other countries around the world as diverse as Mexico, Philippines, Turkey, and India, where the core tension lies between informal street traders and other urban vendors who seek the right to work and provide for their families, and government officials who seek to regulate, eliminate, curtail, or tax them. The literature in these contexts is framed around the plight of vendors and traders as municipal officials seek to modernize, bring in investment, and clean up urban spaces, at times acting independently, and at other times through associations, unions, and other organizations. We have learned of tactics employed by vendors as forms of resistance, adaptation, and negotiation.46 Yet what is particular about the post-Soviet experience is that bazaars and marketplaces are often privately owned, and this book has investigated the understandings, challenges, and possibilities that people on the ground act on to create order in this particular context. While the private nature of bazaar land ownership adds an additional layer of complexity in this region, there are signs that the enclosure of bazaars and streets is not specific to Eurasia. For example, dynamics similar to those surrounding Osh bazaar in Kyrgyzstan are visible at marketplaces in Caracas, Venezuela.47 There, in the 1980s and 1990s, the tens of thousands of street traders in this metropolitan area confronted a host of “uncoordinated policies by different state agencies,” with the goals of clearing, harassment, and relocation, depending on the case and time period, in the name of restoring “law, order, sanitation, and health.”48 When President Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, he reversed these attempts and

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protected the status of vendors by allowing them to populate the streets and plazas throughout the city. Yet simultaneously, over the last two decades, public space has been partially privatized: “The street, as a commodity, is traded; some bits are bought and sold, for the right to use and consume that space, but it cannot be privatized completely nor will full rights to own it be transferred from the state. The practice of informal negotiation allows space to be distributed, with the law remaining formal in its prohibition [of privatization].”49 As in the case of Osh bazaar in Bishkek, in Caracas, bribes that traders pay to government officials have decreased as private quasi-owners—in this case called block coordinators or street vendor leaders— stepped in representing the traders. Block leaders have ambiguous relationships with state authorities, although they appear to be in a position to informally negotiate between traders and the state. In effect, street traders increasingly buy or rent space from these private authorities, despite proclamations of the right to public space. These coordinators and leaders “claim to protect the vendors’ rights” and their “right to work” on public spaces, while in effect a private system of rent collection has been created.50 This case, as with the others discussed in this book, suggests perhaps most clearly the importance of future research to understand traders’ perspectives on these relationships and their role in shaping the process of ordering this new market environment. While at any given time, relationships in these privatized or quasi-privatized spaces might seem coopted, given the dynamic nature of these processes, the situation could change. This book’s core analytic and conceptual contribution suggests that we shift the focus in national contexts understood to be corrupt and weak to the emergence of local orders. This chapter has extended the analysis of such order at bazaars in Bishkek to others in the country, the post-Soviet region, and the world more generally. In understanding the people, their ideas, and the practices they engage in attempts to create order, we can view bazaars as not only economically dynamic and thriving spaces, or as places where people simply survive in challenging socioeconomic contexts, but in addition as spaces where people invested in the bazaar create and maintain a certain sense of stability through rules, norms, practices, and meaning in their work environment. In Kyrgyzstan, the post-Soviet region, and beyond, then, order can be produced through different combinations of individual experience and action translated into a variety organizational forms, with the precise actors and processes varying depending on the particular historical, cultural, and political environment.

Conclusion

RETHINKING POLICY, POLITICS, AND DEVELOPMENT

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the perceived failure of structural adjustment and shock therapy programs coincided with an institutional turn in development thinking. Recognizing that these programs were implemented absent states with capacity to guarantee social welfare and ease the dislocations unleashed by rapid privatization and marketization, economists and new institutional economist–inspired social scientists turned to focusing on the importance of “getting institutions right.”1 According to this logic, policymakers and governments needed to help strengthen state institutions that define and guarantee property rights and impartially resolve conflicts and disputes as crucial foundations of market creation and liberalization. A significant subset of the economic development literature has analyzed the role of the World Bank and other international organizations in working to improve governance, by which is meant “the quality and effectiveness of state institutions”—acknowledging that the nature and form of the institutions can vary depending on the context.2 In this book, I have offered an alternative to such teleological perspectives on the primacy of formal rule-of-law institutions that dominates the development literature. In the same way that some political scientists have called into question linear and functionalist perspectives on transitions from authoritarianism to democracy,3 I have argued for a view of rule-of-law institutions as not necessarily moving from weaker to stronger, or from informal to formal. Rather, people on the ground work individually and collectively to create meaningful work environments in inauspicious contexts and, in the process, create and mobilize 179

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organizations and institutions based on prior ideas and experiences, and adapt and imbue them with moral authority over time. We should thus shift the focus from international development discourses to how individuals understand and create order against the backdrop of massive socioeconomic collapse and change. By identifying the changing meanings and practices of bazaar trade in a market context, and how actors adapted and maneuvered by recomposing organizations, we see the constant political struggle and negotiation drawing on existing ideas and experiences that constitutes order in this society. As I have demonstrated, this approach can be fruitfully extended beyond Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, and the post-Soviet region.

Bazaars as Springs: Development from Below In this book’s introduction, Tatiana spoke of Dordoi bazaar, where she worked, as a spring that feeds and gives life to an entire river. Many traders who worked in bazaars used the capital, knowledge, and networks they had forged at the bazaar to start other businesses in the service sector such as cafés, restaurants, and salons. In addition, they also started small apparel-producing shops. The manufacturing industry is traditionally associated in the contemporary era with active state guidance and foreign direct investment; this book’s focus on local islands of order, however, can help us understand how such an industry could emerge in a country often pegged as predatory and corrupt. The conventional relationship in mainstream development literature presumes that secure property rights leads to increased foreign direct investment; in contrast, the inability to freely gain access to private property and to protect it once acquired can impede economic development by limiting incentives for investment and business expansion.4 Yet China’s growth in the 1980s and 1990s illuminated how economic growth occurred in the absence of formal institutions such as state-guaranteed private property rights but in the presence of alternative forms of property stability.5 Furthermore, over time, the Chinese state and ruling party played a significant role in guiding economic development in a strategic and purposeful way, combining leadership direction, institution building, and flexibility as the country attracted significant foreign direct investment (FDI) and legalized private enterprise.6 The rapid industrial development across sectors helped to catapult China firmly into middle-income BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) status. Unlike China, Kyrgyzstan remains among the poorest countries in the world, with FDI scarce, circumscribed largely to mining and extractive industries, such as gold. Yet the focus on indicators such as FDI and security of property rights

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as a necessary indicator of success may mask more than it reveals in the case of Kyrgyzstan; these indicators miss the ways in which bazaar orders became a crucial foundation for the burgeoning quasi-underground manufacturing industry in the country. The many locals who started apparel shops had experience either in the textile sector during the Soviet period, or in trade at Dordoi and other bazaars in the 1990s.7 Those who had experience in the bazaars utilized their knowledge of the demands of consumers in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia, the process through which trade and sales operate via bazaars, and the possibilities for acquiring inputs (fabrics, accessories, and machines), primarily from China, at local bazaars. Dordoi bazaar grew initially as a re-export hub of foreign-made goods, but rapidly also allowed for domestic capital accumulation and a stable sales point for clothing “Made in Kyrgyzstan” to consumers in Eurasia.8 The work and efforts of Tatiana in her trading row, the trade union more generally, and the owner of the bazaar facilitated this relative stability.9 In short, Kyrgyzstan’s apparel manufacturing sector grew dramatically throughout the 1990s and 2000s in the absence of foreign direct investment and intentional state guidance, an outcome that contravenes mainstream literature on possibilities for development in the lower income (non-BRIC) developing world.10 Thus, the fact that we do not see strong rule-of-law indicators or FDI at the national level does not imply that sectoral growth possibilities, including manufacturing, are foreclosed. Instead, this study of islands of order at Kyrgyzstan’s bazaars can help us to see how they contributed to the ability of former Soviet industrial workers and more recent bazaar traders to reconstitute production in an otherwise deindustrialized region.11

Policy Implications: (Not) Seeing Like an Aid Agency This book has privileged the understandings of local business actors and their practices over the many international development agencies working in the country. Yet, international development agencies and non-governmental organizations have been operating in the country since the 1990s. In this section, I investigate the international development apparatus as a “high modernist” regime that seeks to make legible and change local practices. Despite their good intentions, we see how policies and directives initiated from above disrupt and clash with local understandings, practices, and experiences.12 Specifically, I examine two international development initiatives impacting bazaar actors in Kyrgyzstan: tax policy and parliamentary strengthening

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programs. These two examples put in sharp relief the disjuncture between how international development agencies understand development as it relates to bazaars and how actors on the ground view and experience these same goals and policies. In short, attempts to implement reforms in both of these arenas bumped up against local institutions, power dynamics, and political battles that have rendered such efforts unsuccessful.13

Taxation at the Bazaar As traders proliferated along with the number and size of bazaars throughout the 1990s, international organizations by the 2000s recommended asserting control over this new market activity throughout Eurasia, focusing on the state’s extractive obligations in taxing this type of economic activity. For example, in the realm of customs taxation, the IMF suggested as early as 1998 that the persistence of shuttle trade in the region resulted from tax advantages for this type of trade.14 The diagnosis of the problem, according to the IMF, was that the fiscal intake of the state was too low and the remedy was to increase revenue collection at the borders. International organizations also recommended national governments change the tax code in the early 2000s as it applied to small businesses. In 1996, the government adopted a simplified combined license/tax, called the patent, in Kyrgyzstan.15 In the economics literature, this is known as a presumptive tax, or a simplified tax regime; traders work at bazaars as “physical persons” and not legal entities, and they pay taxes based on presumed turnover, not actual turnover. International advisors recommended this type of system to the new economies in the region as a compromise to allow the government to receive some tax revenue from a very large, fragmented sector. The mix of tax policies in Kyrgyzstan, along with other new post-Soviet countries such as Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Georgia, came to form a broad template for tax reform for the region, known as (this is not a joke), the “Tax Code of the Republic of Taxastan: A Hypothetical Tax Law.” Prepared by the IMF Legal Department as of September 29, 2000, and currently available on the IMF website,16 this exemplar for the “Transition Republic of Taxastan” represents efforts to create templates and standards from which countries could develop their own tax laws. Yet, by 2003, the presumptive system of taxation had become a problem from the IMF’s perspective as it related to fiscal revenue generation. Government leaders in the region, including in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, responded to the challenges they faced in extracting taxes by requiring the use of cash registers at bazaars. In Kyrgyzstan, officials sought to reign in what they labeled the “unofficial economy” and tax traders based on actual profits so that the salaries of government workers (teachers, doctors, and police) could be increased.17

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Traders in Kyrgyzstan contested the state’s categorization of their work as part of the “informal economy” and viewed themselves as abiding by the law and paying many different fees, including the state’s existing patent. The multiday protests in 2003 spearheaded by the Dordoi trade union including the closure of main bazaars throughout the city—discussed in chapter 3—resulted in the withdrawal of this effort to install cash registers. Looking through the lens of state officials, Bakyt, a seasoned political analyst, explained the regulatory challenges of implementing cash registers at the bazaar: Bakyt: We have a patent that costs, for example, five dollars today. That is, you buy a patent that costs five dollars. Your turnover in a day, for example, is $100, yes. Here [in Kyrgyzstan], to control [or monitor] makes no sense. That is, they, in order to, for example, to force a businessmen not to take a patent but to switch to using a cash register for greater control—that means you need to monitor them. It requires someone to sit as a tax inspector and record how much he [the businessman] is selling and say, “Sorry, dear, your turnover considerably exceeds, yes, the reasonable limits for you to have paid only five dollars.” But as soon as the tax inspector will arrive, that seller will not sell anything. He will simply sit there, maybe even go somewhere else. That is, he will fake it—“I don’t have any buyers, what will I do? Nobody comes to me!” You know? Interviewer: Yes. Bakyt: And imagine Dordoi market, where there are about thirty to forty thousand containers, yes? Interviewer: Yes. Bakyt: That is, people sit in each container. You can’t even find enough tax inspectors to carry out control in each of them. Therefore, they accept some kind of minimum [the patent].18 Seen from this perspective, tax collection of this type requires bureaucratic control, organization, and capacity that the Kyrgyzstani state does not possess. Interestingly, subsequent IMF reports make only short references, if any, to the failed attempts and politics of the 2003 cash register efforts, although they more explicitly declared the presumptive patent tax system to risk “lacking stability and transparency,” especially against the backdrop of “increasingly powerful small business lobbies” and “evasion and avoidance techniques by larger businesses.”19 Indeed, larger businesses would register with the patent as a way of evading taxes, and even smaller businesspeople would evade, hide or give a bribe instead of pay the full amount. Yet at the same time, this report mentions the efforts of the US funded international aid agency, USAID, in supporting efforts to expand the

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patent system to other sectors, “in order to decrease the costs of small business compliance with the tax system.”20 Indeed, by 2006, this patent system applied to the apparel sector, such that producers paid taxes based on how many sewing machines they had, and not the volume, value, or profits of their production. The key problem, then, proved not to be formalizing the informal economy but rather implementing and enforcing the tax system, which requires significant state authority and capacity.21 Part of the story of the creation of islands of order at bazaars, such as Dordoi, is that work of the traders via the trade union in collaboration with the bazaar’s owner resulted in a powerful lobbying force that sought to protect its own financial interests by rejecting state efforts to increase fiscal revenue by requiring cash registers at the bazaar. But the other important part of the story is that the challenges they faced in the 1990s with bureaucratic predation and a venal state apparatus (that is, bureaucratic officials) led them to seek to mold and shape the state’s presence in a way that allowed them some stability and predictability in their work. Specifically, by curtailing predation while encouraging payment of the patent, they have sought to imbue a sense of honor and dignity to a form of labor that has become a flashpoint for broader political and social unrest throughout the world. Take the example of a fruit and vegetable trader, Mohamed Bouazizi, who captured headlines in Tunisia, unleashing revolution not only in that country, but across the Middle East. Bouazizi faced repeated harassment by officials, including a disputed run-in on December 17, 2010, with a female government official in the municipal space in which he had parked his cart. He doused himself with flammable liquid, ultimately dying of self-immolation.22 In this context, “Suicide was one way in which an unarmed person creates his own death as an act of deliberate self-harm, a political manifesto to highlight a political demand and to underline the social fragility it implies.”23 This event in an outlying region of Tunisia sparked protests and ultimately led to the overthrow of the twenty-threeyear rule of President Ben Ali the next month.24 We do not have to travel far from Kyrgyzstan to see a similar response to state pressure on traders and others in society. Almost a decade earlier, a trader in Khorezm Oblast, in Uzbekistan, similarly doused himself in gasoline next to the tax inspection building. This forty-year-old man used fire to turn himself into a human torch on November 12, 2002, in response to massive increases in import taxes. After having had his goods confiscated three times, and after having been arrested and beaten for protesting these policies, he set himself on fire.25 A journalist report at the time described the state policies that led to these events, including a ministerial decree in May ordering 90 and 50 percent increases for taxes on industrial and food products, respectively. The order also required certification and use of tax registers. By September, markets were virtually empty and

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trader protests had begun; the IMF recommended decreasing rates, which were then set at 70 and 40 percent, respectively.26 In Uzbekistan, these policies were carried forth over the 2000s despite protests and suicides. In Kyrgyzstan, such attempts have been halted in their tracks. From the perspective of traders in Kyrgyzstan, by 2015 the main problem was not related to the state-dictated patent policy, but rather to rental fees for privately owned land. As an assistant to a member of parliament recounted that summer, politicians including his boss were receiving volumes of letters from traders around the country complaining of these high fees charged by private landowners, and the inability for them to survive in a depressed economic environment. The Western sanctions on Russia because of events in Ukraine, the decline of the Russian economy because of low oil prices to which the Kyrgyzstani economy is tied, and the entrance of the country into the Russian-led customs union all precipitated what many have experienced as a much more somber trading environment that may become the new status quo. The problem for them did not relate to taxation or predation; rather the problem had become the inability of the state to regulate the legal—but largely unconstrained—collection of rental fees by owners.

Parliamentary Strengthening Programs In a second recent example, foreign aid from various governments and institutions has sought to strengthen the rule of law in Kyrgyzstan, operating with the premise that corruption in the legal and judicial system inhibits market growth and development. Some of these programs seek to support lawyers and judges.27 Other programs attempt to strengthen parliament, such as the Kyrgyzstan Parliamentary Strengthening Program (KPSP), jointly funded by U.S. and U.K. development agencies.28 These programs have facilitated study tours of MPs to different countries around the world, worked to create capacity in the governing apparatus by providing trainings on legislative processes, and held public forums and policy seminars, among other projects. Yet because of the structural challenges and complexities of the system, foreign interventions often do not get at the root problem, and in effect perpetuate legal ambiguities, which bazaar owners seek parliamentary status to negotiate. As a former government bureaucrat and political analyst, Azamat, explains about the proliferation of foreign-inspired laws and legislation in the country: The majority of the conflicts come from international organizations, including USAID. Because they both start projects, write laws. . . . And they begin to lobby. Well, they lobbied and lobbied well and the deputies

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accepted it, yes. They accept the law, but it turns out that it conflicts with other norms. . . . Thus, it happens that we have these clashes. They were trying to resolve them when they implemented a so-called package vote. That is, if you initiate some kind of legal standards, you accordingly must look at all the other laws that require changes, what kinds of changes you need to make to them. . . . [But] here, well, it’s basically not working. . . . In principle, these conflicts occur due to other deputies, groups of interests. Sometimes these conflicts also benefit them. We saw earlier in the book how such conflicting legislation can be an opportunity for deputies and others to negotiate possibilities, including ignoring legislation. Azamat continued to give the background that led to this context: Azamat: You see, we have such a big problem—we have laws that are from Soviet times. Interviewer: Yes. Azamat: [Then] there are laws that were adopted in the time of Akaev, now it’s already the time of 2010. . . . There are different [laws] from 10,000 to 50,000 [of them], and among them there is no vision. Therefore, in order to start we must know what we have today. That is, we need a large classification [of what we have]. This work was planned to be done through the OSCE. But then when they looked at it, it was a very expensive project, yes. That is, to gather people to examine all the legislation, the whole legislative array of Kyrgyzstan, what works, what doesn’t work, etc. . . . Why don’t we do it? That is the question. This needs to be done. It is necessary to raise the [financial] resources, to look, to interest people in the respective conditions— to . . . fix our laws. That is, if the Americans [were to] recognize this, then we also need to accept this “de facto.” . . . Everyone only focuses on that which they are interested in, for example, human rights. And for everything else, nothing happens.29 Indeed, a report written for USAID in 2011 about the Parliamentary Strengthening Program (KPSP) confirmed these challenges: “The whole legislative drafting process agenda seems somewhat chaotic. . . . Laws are poorly drafted, with the language and definitions unclear and inconsistent. Laws are often filed with last minute additions and deletions, and they frequently conflict with one another or fail to serve the purposes intended.”30 In sum, the problem with targeting specific laws and initiatives for revision and making documentation more transparent is that this conceptualization of the problem does not address the historically shaped, structural challenges in

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the legislative system. Most fundamentally, the parliamentary strengthening program—as the title indicates—presupposes that “weaknesses” of processes should be “strengthened.” As Order at the Bazaar has argued, we should shift our attention to the ways in which parliamentary status and actions allow for negotiation, signal authority, and become used by its MPs in counterintuitive ways—including to avoid laws or to negotiate their application—in light of these bigger structural ambiguities and contradictions. Both of these examples demonstrate the ways in which international aid efforts isolate and make technocratic particular problems, such as increasing tax collection via technology (cash registers) or strengthening law-making via trainings (education), thus divorcing them from political and historic context.31 In the case of the former, the effort backfired completely after significant political protest and action, rooted in the changing understandings of bazaars and trade, and the emergence of trade unions and politically powerful owners capable of defending their islands of order against a state widely perceived as corrupt and failing to serve its citizens. In the case of the latter, despite its many successes, the apolitical rendering of this project masked the importance of the political effort that MPs, including some bazaar owners, expend not only to get into parliament but also to navigate within and through the institution to achieve their goals.

Local Practices, Desires, and Moralities in the Study of Development These two examples are not meant to encourage us to give up on internationalled development initiatives, but rather to take seriously local desires for development and the efforts people on the ground make in pursuit of their goals.32 I suggest that we listen to the ways people articulate and frame problems, view and use institutions, and navigate the social, political and power dynamics surrounding them.33 Indeed, some international non-governmental organizations have begun to adopt this approach and recognize these local practices and institutions in Kyrgyzstan, for example, recent policy work that references the Dordoi trade union34 and other reformist labor movements in the country.35 At its core, such an approach entails a more explicit shift away from predominant development thinking premised on national models of growth and core neoclassical economic assumptions that “operate at a fairly low level of resolution” in disciplines such as sociology and political science.36 One specific way to address this challenge is to relax rationalist and neoclassical assumptions such as self-interest that predominate in a strand of comparative politics, political economy, and development literatures.37 Instead of circumscribing the development

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problem as one solely related to weak state-based property rights and legal institutions, itself a rather thin conception in the Geertzian sense38 of the challenges related to market creation and order, we can look—as I have done—at how people on the ground confront and wrestle with problems they face, and create their own stable spaces and meaningful work environments.39 This not only allows for a fuller understanding of the norms, rules, practices, organizations, and beliefs that go into such a process; it helps us “unearth and examine the legitimations that are offered”—or as I might rephrase, that are created and mobilized—“for familiar economic institutions and their effects.”40 Such an endeavor might also more explicitly seek, in the words of Andrew Schrank, “an alternative approach that treats the subordination of self-interest to norms of fairness, trust, and cooperation in the short run as the sine qua non of increasing returns and growth over the long run.”41 We have seen in this book how some people seek meaning in their work and strive for an order that does not only or solely involve short-term profit and gain but also embodies values such as justice, fairness, honesty, and stability in everyday life. We see these values being articulated and institutionalized in varying ways in new market contexts, not liquidated in the process of the expansion of global forces of marketization and capitalism.42 Such a turn has significant implications for how we view the world and study it. When I began thinking about this project in the early 2000s, the prevailing conventional wisdom at the World Bank and other development institutions revolved around the need to build institutions for markets so that markets could work properly in the aftermath of decades of failed development initiatives.43 Over a decade later, in 2015, the annual World Development Report title read Mind, Society, and Behavior. The premise of this report is that people are not generally self-interested, rational actors, a core premise of much of the neoclassical economist literature. Instead, the report finds that people think “automatically,” “socially,” and using “mental models.”44 Moving away from “economic man” assumptions that presume that people operate in rational and self-interested ways, the report suggests that we should instead be studying “human factors,” or how individuals interact in social and institutional settings, which proves “more complex than is often recognized.”45 Indeed, as I have argued, studying the complex interaction of individuals and their understandings and experiences reveals that some adapt, reshape, and reappropriate organizations in a new market context and have gained considerable legitimate authority, often in local, fragmented contexts. In this way, people’s actions are not “automatic,” as presumed in this report and literature. Instead, I find that people do act deliberatively—that is, with effort, reflection, and based on reason, with recognition of the structural dynamics and power inequalities in which they are a part.46

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We see such effortful sociopolitical work to create order by those often viewed as the objects of foreign interventions in many different contexts characterized by corruption, predation, and conflict. For example, local understandings of development and the role of witchcraft in corrupt Kenya illuminate how people “work to construct moral and social order out of conflict and to bring powerful exogenous forces under control for the social good.”47 Or in Afghanistan, a variety of local and foreign individuals and groups in a small village in the north of the country engage in deliberate strategies that govern “masterly inaction” and lead to stability and order in a country otherwise plagued by decades-long violence.48 And finally, the twenty-one-million-person city of Karachi, Pakistan, usually pegged as “chaotic” or “ungovernable” by the media, in fact exhibits “order of a kind—patterns of domination, rituals of interaction, forms of arbitration—in Karachi’s ‘continuous civil war.’”49 Such attention to order in weak rule-of-law contexts and conflict-ridden places suggests that we move from the national level to become more attuned to individuals inhabiting spaces at different scales—whether in bazaars, villages, or cities—to see complex patterns and possibilities for order. While violence and domination are often present, and coercion and cooptation possible, people do reflect, deliberate, and act to create order despite these conditions. In view of this, we should be careful not to view order as automatic, as spontaneously generated, as stagnation, as the absence of politics, or as somehow locked in by deep culturally embedded understandings, fear, or institutional path dependencies. Instead, order has meaning to people on the ground, shaped and inscribed by their past experiences and current environment, and serves as the foundation for action as people seek to create meaningful lives in otherwise chaotic and corrupt states.

Acknowledgments

The origins of this book are difficult to pinpoint but likely have their roots in my multicultural upbringing and opportunities to travel internationally in Western Europe and East Asia with my family growing up. I continued exploring the world as an undergraduate, including studying abroad in Berlin and Moscow and interning for an NGO in Tbilisi. My first job out of college as a research assistant at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C., motivated me to continue to study and travel in Eurasia. Thank you to my mentors at Brookings, Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, for deepening my understanding of the region and inspiring me to go back to graduate school. The intellectual and empirical foundations for this book coalesced in the political science department at the University of California, Berkeley. There, George Breslauer, Steven Vogel, Edward Walker, and Jason Wittenberg, in addition to Victoria Bonnell in sociology, provided crucial guidance for this project. Each gave me insightful feedback at various stages of the process and I am grateful to them all for their support throughout the years. The Berkeley Program on Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, under the auspices of Edward Walker, offered initial summer research funding for the project, in addition to participation in other projects and multidisciplinary seminars; I am thankful that I had this intellectually stimulating second home outside the department. Primary funding for this research came from a U.S. State Department Title VIII research grant administered through the William Davidson Institute (S-LMAQM-00-H-0146); a one-month visiting fellowship in 2006 at the Institute for Public Policy, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan; a Dean’s Normative Time fellowship from the University of California, Berkeley; and research funds from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I am also grateful for the year I spent at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute as a Title VIII–supported research scholar in 2010–2011. My fellow travelers at UC Berkeley and other institutions have made my journey a rich and fulfilling one: Neil Abrams, Boris Barkanov, Naazneen Barma, Margaret Boittin, Aisalkyn Botoeva, Jennifer Brass, Jennifer Bussell, Rebecca Chen, Jennifer Dixon, Thad Dunning, Christine Evans, Jordan Gans-Morse, Els de Graauw, Rebecca Hamlin, Roselyn Hsueh, Martha Johnson, Elif Kale, Alisher Khamidov, Anaita Khudanazar, Jody LaPorte, Amy Lerman, Ben Loring, Danielle Lussier, David Montgomery, Zhanara Nauruzbaeva, Mike Nelson, Ely Ratner, 191

192

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Shawn Salmon, Tobias Schulze-Cleven, Madeleine Reeves, Robin Turner, and Susanne Wengle. Thank you for all of the conversations and inspiration along the way—whether about political economy and development, Central Asia and post-Soviet societies, comparative politics and methodology, or the practicalities of travel, research, and living in the region. I presented portions of this material at Georgetown University (Nava’i-Nalle Annual Lecture in Central Asian Studies 2014); University of Washington, in Seattle (Treadgold Annual Lecturer in 2012); George Mason University (political science department in 2012); and the U.S. State Department (in 2011). These opportunities allowed me to develop and refine core components of the book, and I very much appreciate the opportunity to have given these talks. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Five College area, I have been thrilled to be part of a vibrant intellectual community in political science and in Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies. I have learned so much from conversations with the following people about this book, as well as broader topics in comparative politics, political economy, methods, and the region: Amel Ahmed, Audrey Altstadt, Sergey Glebov, Stephen Jones, Lauren McCarthy, Timothy Pachirat, Frederic Schaffer, Nick Xenos, and Kevin Young. Lauren Woodard helped tremendously in the final research, translations, and preparation of the book, and conversations with other graduate students over the years have contributed to the sharpening of the book’s final form and content. Most important, in Central Asia, many traders, assistants, translators, colleagues, and friends went out of their way to help and support me, beginning with my first trip in the mid-2000s. They made this book possible. I extend particular thanks to the following people, listed by first name: Aliya, Aman, Anastasia, Babur, Bekjan, Dildora, Gulzira, and Nurshat. Over the years, conversations with Mehrigiul Ablezova, Shairbek Juraev, Emil Nasritdinov, Medet Tiulegenov, and Kyialbek Toksonbaev have propelled this project forward, and Aisalkyn Botoeva and her parents have provided many insights as well as hospitality and kindness throughout this process. Selections of the material in this book were previously published as “Securing Property in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan” in Post-Soviet Affairs 24, no. 2 (April–June 2008): 149–76, and I thank George Breslauer for his comments and assistance in bringing that article to fruition. Roger Haydon and two insightful anonymous reviewers at Cornell University Press offered sharp and thoughtful comments on the manuscript. In addition, I extend particular thanks to others who have commented on the manuscript in recent years: Aisalkyn Botoeva, Timothy Pachirat, Scott Radnitz, Rudy Sil, Fred Schaffer, and Susanne Wengle. This book is dedicated to my family. My parents encouraged me to seize opportunities in life to create my own path—and I admittedly chose one they

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would have never imagined. Brent Durbin has been there for me with his boundless patience, love, and encouragement over the last decade, and I could not have done it without him. Finally, while the intellectual seeds of this book were planted in graduate school, they blossomed after Amelia Miko and Naomi Alexis arrived into this world. While you two do not yet know it, your smiles, creativity, and spontaneity inspired this manuscript and saw it to fruition.

Research Appendix

The research encounters preceding the chapters of this book speak to how I came to the research topic, how I pursued particular questions, and how my own positionality and observations shaped the book’s content. This research appendix contains additional details on three dimensions: how I engaged in participant observation, library work, and interviews.1 I pay specific attention on all fronts to my own language possibilities and constraints. I observed, conversed, and learned about everyday life and the world of bazaars through the Russian language. I conducted interviews and read texts in the Russian language on my own, with a couple of exceptions. For Kyrgyzlanguage articles and interviews, I worked with local assistants to conduct interviews and translate both interviews and articles directly into English. All of the names of those interviewed for the book and referenced in newspaper texts have been changed to protect the anonymity of the respondents, with the exception of the bazaar owner discussed in chapter 4 and other officials in chapter 5. In these cases, I analyzed their own words and statements in public interviews given to the media.

Participant Observation Conducting research in Central Asia can be challenging. As the research encounters throughout the book detailed, not only did it take some time for me to identify a research project and path forward in light of political violence in the region, it also took time to become situated in the language, meanings, and practices of everyday life, including at the bazaar. Access to certain types of data proved insurmountable. For example, one of the goals of my first preliminary research trip in summer 2005 was to collect basic statistics on the number of bazaars in the country over time, as well as their date of founding, ownership structure, and relative size. Yet aside from the data presented in the figures in chapter 2, which I found buried in Russian-language government statistical publications, the other information proved fragmented, unreliable, or nonexistent. When written letters and other queries to members of local statistical and government offices did not lead to insights, I abandoned these efforts and decided to concentrate on newspaper articles, interviews, and observation of bazaars throughout the country. 195

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In my next research trips in spring and fall 2006 and summer 2007, I spent time at different bazaars throughout the region, including in Bishkek (Dordoi, Osh bazaar, Orto Sai, Madina), in the Osh region (Osh bazaar and Karasuu), in Almaty (Green bazaar, Barakholka, and the car bazaar), and in other cities throughout the region such as Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan and Taraz, Kazakhstan. Throughout these travels, I realized that individuals say seemingly contradictory things in the same conversation and have very different perspectives on certain issues despite their similar vantage points, for example as traders at a bazaar.2 Yet it was precisely making sense of these contradictions and ambiguities, and being open to multiple avenues and processes for engagement, that created the possibilities for this book’s findings. I spent days at these bazaars, talked with traders, and observed the dynamism of bazaar life, as I discussed in the book’s earlier research encounters. This ethnographic sensibility3 focused on the experiences and understandings of people involved with the bazaar helped me to identify the relevant research questions that frame the book and differs from a narrative ethnography, for example, which might have been based on my long-term work as a trader at a bazaar,4 or my work as a foreign scholar activist engaged in participatory action research with traders to define and assert their rights.5 Such approaches likely would have yielded more detail about how traders interacted with producers and suppliers of goods, the nuances of finances, profit, and debt, and a deeper understanding of the social fabric at the bazaar. Yet my goal differed. I sought to understand the bazaar not only from the vantage point of a single trader or subset of traders; instead, I sought to situate the bazaar in a broader context of property-related power inequalities differentiating traders and owners, and then to investigate more specifically the organizational forms and practices that governed the bazaar given this structural setting. For this reason, after having observed and read about over a dozen bazaars, I focused on a deeper analysis of two bazaars in one country and one city, Dordoi and Osh bazaars, with other bazaars serving as comparative referents in chapter 7. In recent years, as I was rewriting and reworking the manuscript around the argument of varieties of order, and the creation of islands of order, I came to realize that my observations and notes of interviews with traders between 2005 and 2007 could not convey the depth of meaning, examples, and valence that a recorded interview could provide. This was especially the case for traders who only spoke (or preferred to speak) in Kyrgyz. Thus, as discussed in the last part of this appendix below in more depth, I focused my research in 2015–2016 on training assistants to conduct and translate additional recorded interviews in the Russian and Kyrgyz languages. At this point in the research process, as the researcher, I was much more distant from traders than I had been in earlier stages

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of research; however, having written out, processed, and synthesized previously gathered newspaper articles, interviews, and observations, I was more aware of the context traders were operating in and could thus effectively train others to conduct interviews on my behalf in my last trip to Bishkek in 2015.

Library Resources and Keyword “Bazaar” Kyrgyzstan’s national library, colloquially known as Leninka, sits facing Soviet Street, encompassing an entire block in the city center. I entered the library for the first time in 2005 not knowing what to expect. Would there be any publications from the last twenty to thirty years on bazaars? How would I find them? What would they say? I already had a hunch from previous experience in the region that electronic files and computer catalogues would not be available or helpful. After checking my bag in the dank basement and paying my daily user fee on the first floor, I proceeded to the second floor. The card catalog room—small, bright, and filled with a variety of vigorous and exotic-looking houseplants of all sizes—held wooden catalogs filled with paper cards, each with a bibliographic source written on it. The catalogs were divided between Russian-language and Kyrgyz-language sources. After trying numerous keywords to no avail, to my great surprise, both in the Russian- and Kyrgyz-language card catalogs, the term “bazaar” had been entered. I am grateful to the library employees in Bishkek who created and maintained the keyword “bazaar” at Leninka over the past quarter century. I began by flipping through each Russian-language entry under keyword “bazaar,” beginning in the early 1990s, writing out the full citation in my notebook. The vast majority were newspaper articles. My research assistants from the American University of Central Asia, based in Bishkek, did the same for the Kyrgyz-language entries. From there, we took a quick walk to a nearby building that held newspaper archives. There, after paying a nominal fee for paper request slips, and filling out each one with the precise newspaper title and citation information, we would submit them—five at a time—to the worker behind the desk—almost always a woman. We waited ten to twenty minutes to receive five bundles of newspapers containing days and sometimes weeks of issues of a particular title. After locating the article within each bundle, we marked each with a sticky note, brought the pile to the separate photocopy desk, and provided another nominal sum for the library staff member to photocopy the requested article. I read and translated relevant portions of the Russian-language articles. For the Kyrgyz-language ones, I hired trilingual students and graduates of the American University of Central Asia through advertisements posted on the university listserv.

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RESEARCH APPENDIX

Students were chosen based on experience and qualifications. I interviewed each student and gave the final group one sample article in Kyrgyz—the same article—to translate into English. Based on the different phrases and interpretations I received, we discussed the translation process, and agreed to flag idioms and important or confusing words and phrases in the footnotes of the translation. In this way, over the years, I compiled dozens of articles in Russian and Kyrgyz about many dimensions of bazaars in the country from the early 1990s to 2015. By 2015, digital cameras helped with the photocopying step of the process. Many articles were general stories about the difficulties and challenges in trade in the 1990s usually focusing on one of the country’s bazaars, some of which appeared in chapter 2. Other articles contained interviews with bazaar owners such as Salymbekov that form the foundation of chapter 4. One final group of articles provided details of property struggles and political dynamics surrounding specific bazaars. These articles—the result of a relatively open, competitive and free press, especially in the 1990s and 2000s—provided the foundation for the analysis in chapter 5 on understandings of chaos, disorder, and order at Osh bazaar from the municipality’s perspective. While often quite freely discussing these issues, others related to ethnic tensions, for example, both before ethnic riots in the south of the country in 2010 and after, were not printed. For that reason, none of the dozens of articles I collected in the library are about bazaars such as Madina, where an ethnic Uighur is director and many Uighurs trade. Below is a summary of the newspapers referenced in this book (in alphabetical order based on time period and language of print).

Russian-Language Newspapers From Soviet Period, Kyrgyz SSR Leninskii Put' Kommsomoletz Kirgizii Sovetskaia Kirgiziia

Russian-Language Newspapers in Independent Kyrgyzstan Agym Delo No. Belyi Parakhod Bishkek Press Club MSN #One Magazine Respublica

RESEARCH APPENDIX

199

Rynok Kapitalov Slovo Kyrgyzstana Verchnyii Bishkek Zhany Ordo

Kyrgyz-Language Newspapers in Independent Kyrgyzstan Aalam Asaba Erkin Too Kutbilim Kyrgyz Rukhu Kyrgyz Tuusu Osh Janyrygy Respublica Zaman Kyrgyzstan

Interviewing Analysts and Bazaar Traders My field research trips between 2005 and 2007 involved primarily unrecorded interviews with analysts, including journalists, NGO workers, and traders. The interviews with journalists, NGO workers, and international aid subcontractors and analysts provided the foundation for my knowledge of a variety of contexts in which this research is situated: the political landscape, the business environment, and changing social dynamics. I conducted these interviews, most in the Russian language.The main goal of interviews with traders at this time involved understanding their personal histories, how they became involved in trade, how the trade worked, and what they thought about bazaars and trade amidst this changing context. I did not record most of these interviews out of the perception that traders would be less forthcoming being recorded. However there were a couple of exceptions when Kazakh or Kyrgyz speaking assistants were with me and respondents spoke in those languages. In those cases, I asked respondents if I could record them since I did not speak the language and wanted to review the conversation with my assistant at a later time. The conversation with people in Taraz (in Kazakh) featured in chapter 2, and the Karasuu trade union representatives (in Kyrgyz) in chapter 7, are two examples of these instances. Most traders I interviewed in these years were either randomly accosted at bazaars, or introduced via personal connection. For the latter, they included parents of students at the American University of Central Asia who worked at bazaars, or other friends and relatives of those interviewed in other sectors such as NGOs or journalists.

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I learned in this period that, indeed, any questions related to taxes and finances provoked suspicion, either out of fear that talking with me would result in the problem with authorities, or out of fear that their business secrets or advantages would be revealed. Over time, in fact, the interesting questions revolved around the meaning of bazaars and trade for people over time, how they understood order at the bazaar, and what they saw as their role (or not) in creating order. Framed in this way, traders could volunteer finance-related information but did not have to. The second round of trader interviews were conducted in 2015–2016 primarily by assistants based in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Unlike earlier interviews, these were recorded and transcribed by the assistants. My initial research—including reading of newspaper articles and interviews—revealed references to the problems traders faced at the bazaar, and differing understandings of disorder and order. Without transcripts of interviews, I could not engage in more detailed and nuanced analyses of the very different ways in which a range of relevant actors articulated and understood order (poriadok) and related concepts, beyond what was reported in the press.6 These transcripts allow me to analyze these understandings more thoroughly, and give voice to those in the region through their own language.7 Interviewers were asked to begin by discussing the personal backgrounds of the traders, including their past professional experience, how they came to the bazaar, and what they do at the bazaar. They were then asked about broader societal understandings of bazaars and trade in the past and in the present, and then they were asked a series of questions related to order at the bazaar, including what order meant to them, whether there was order at the bazaar, who disrupts order at the bazaar, and how order at the bazaar can be improved. Interviewers were instructed to ask follow-up questions prompting elaboration and press for examples.8 Issues of ethnicity, class, and religion emerged from these conversations as traders mentioned them. This interviewing strategy adopts the premise that the way we ask about issues related to ethnicity in particular “determines the results that we discover,”9 such that studies too often presuppose or presume the nature or salience of ethnicity in the direct questions they ask about ethnicity. I asked common interview questions to traders about their Soviet training, understandings of bazaars and trade, and how they saw their experiences and understandings unfold and change. Without specifically mentioning ethnicity, class, or religion, in certain cases, these categories were articulated as important to people. This approach allows for the salience of such categories to be validated while also recognizing that they are contingent, malleable, and part of a “fluid and contested process that only has meaning in concrete contexts.”10

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The starshie at Dordoi and aksakals at Osh were asked the same set of questions as the traders. In addition, they were asked about their own understanding of how and when they came to their status, what they do in their positions, and the successes and challenges they face in these roles. As before, all interviewers were graduates of the American University of Central Asia and all had experience interviewing and doing social science research. One female assistant was bilingual in Russian and English, and the other two assistants (one male and one female) were trilingual in Russian, English, and Kyrgyz. About half of these interviews were conducted in the Kyrgyz language, and the other half in the Russian language. I read and translated the Russian language interviews myself and as needed, with the research assistance of a graduate student at UMass Amherst. The Kyrgyz language interviews were translated by those who conducted them as well as other translators more experienced in Kyrgyz-English translation. Translators paid attention to the meaning of the conversation, as well as the particular words used for order, disorder, and other such keywords. At Dordoi bazaar, most interviews were conducted in the Russian language by myself or assistants, although a few of the younger ethnic Kyrgyz traders preferred the Kyrgyz language. The four starshie or senior leaders of the trade union were chosen in the following way: Beginning at the first row of the bazaar, and also at the last, the first two starshie who were present at each end were interviewed. The other traders were randomly chosen and represent a range of ethnicity (Uzbek, Russian, and Kyrgyz) and age (older and younger). These interviews are analyzed primarily in chapter 3, as well as chapters 2 and 4. At Dordoi, where clients from Russia and other Eurasian countries spoke Russian, Russian was the primary language of commerce. Yet over the last decade since I began this research, there has been a considerable change in particular at the other bazaars in the city. Younger traders who have grown up with little memory of the Soviet period and no formal education in Russian studies or the Russian language began to work as traders in greater numbers. For them, Kyrgyz is their main language. Thus, at retail bazaars such as Osh bazaar, most traders spoke Kyrgyz. For this reason, the two research assistants fluent in Kyrgyz conducted all additional interviews at this bazaar. To find the four aksakals at Osh bazaar, the strategy was different than at Dordoi. Aksakals were identified based on traders who mentioned them in interviews, and then via word of mouth among traders. The other traders were approached by a combination of random selection and personal connections of interviewers; one of the research assistants, for example, had family members and friends who worked at the bazaar. These connections proved invaluable, because they allowed for more open and trusting conversations. These interviews are analyzed primarily in chapter 6, as well as chapter 2.

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Interviewing bazaar owners themselves proved challenging; instead, I chose to analyze the many interviews they gave to the press and supplement this analysis with the perspectives of two prominent political consultants and analysts in the region, both of whom are featured in chapter 4 and the conclusion. Both Russianspeaking ethnic Kyrgyz analysts were recommended by other political scientists at AUCA. I was also aware of the publications of one of them, who contributed frequently to the Institute of Public Policy’s (IPP) website, where I was based for one month in 2006. This analyst commented on politics and parliamentary life in the country and had personal experience working in the administration of the country’s first president, Askar Akaev. At the time of the interview in 2015, the IPP had in the preceding months closed its doors, and he was involved in a range of consulting projects with foreign governments and donor organizations related to the themes of government reform, anti-corruption, and regional security. The second analyst is a private consultant for foreign-funded projects, including the World Bank and the Kyrgyz branch of the Canadian-based association working to fight corruption in the country. Table A below summarizes all interviews referenced in the book in chronological order.

Representative, Ministry of Trade and

Analyst, Eurasia Foundation

Analyst, Investment Roundtable

Director, Institute for Regional Studies

Representative, Zamandash

Trader

Vadim Radaev, Higher School of

6/10/05

6/14/05

6/15/05

6/20/05

7/12/05

7/18/05

Analyst, AKI Press

Director, trade union

Consultant, Ferghana Young Lawyers Assn

Analyst, PRAGMA

Analyst, Eurasia Foundation

Former security worker

Trader

Trader

Administrator

Deputy director

Director, trade union

Representative, Lenin region of Bishkek

4/7/06

4/13/06

4/13/06

4/14/06

4/15/06

4/20/06

4/25/06

5/6/06

5/23/06

5/24/06

11/9/06

11/13/06

city Dpt of Trade and Entrepreneurship

Analyst, CASE

4/6/06

Economics

Director, trade union

6/10/05

Development

Owner, clothing store

6/8/05

TITLE

Interviews referenced

6/5/05

DATE

TABLE A.

Bishkek

Alamudin, Bishkek

Osh bazaar, Bishkek

Kudaibergen, Bishkek

Karavan, Taraz

Al Farabi, Almaty

Dordoi, Bishkek

Osh

Osh

Karasuu

Karasuu, Karasuu

Bishkek

Bishkek

Moscow

Moscow

Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

BAZAAR (IF RELEVANT) CITY

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kazakh

Kazakh

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Tajik

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

ETHNICITY

M

F

M

M

F

F

M

M

M

M

F

M

M

M

M

M

F

M

F

M

M

M

GENDER

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Kyrgyz

Russian

Russian

Russian & English

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian and English

Russian

Russian

Russian

INTERVIEW LANGUAGE

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author and RA

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

INTERVIEWER

(Continued)

BOOK NAME

Owner, beverage store

Trader

Analyst and entrepreneur (interviews and

11/23/06

11/28/06

April 2007,

Representative, Shoro

Analyst, NDI

Analyst, BISNIS

Currency exchanger

Member, Union of Entrepreneurs and

7/8/07

7/10/07

7/11/07

7/12/07

7/12/07

Employee, Dordoi Association

Analyst, Bishkek Business Club

Administrator

Administrators

Traders

Administrator

Trader

Former businessperson

Journalist

Representative, USAID

Representative, USAID

Vice director, trade union

7/13/07

7/17/07

7/19/07

7/20/07

7/26/07

7/27/07

8/2/07

8/3/07

8/7/07

7/25/13

7/29/13

8/1/13

Employees

Journalist (written correspondence)

July 2007

written correspondence)

Director, trade union

March 2008

Director, trade union

11/14/06

TITLE

11/14/06

DATE

TABLE A. (Continued)

Dordoi, Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Karasuu, Osh

Karasuu, Karasuu

Komfort, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Orto Sai, Bishkek

Madina, Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Bishkek

Orto Sai, Bishkek

Orto Sai, Bishkek

BAZAAR (IF RELEVANT) CITY

Russian

Kyrgyz

America n

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Kyrgyz

ETHNICITY

F

M

M

M

M

F

M

F

M&F

M

M

M

M

F

M

M

M

F

M

F

M

M

F

GENDER

Russian

English

English

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian & English

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

INTERVIEW LANGUAGE

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

Author

INTERVIEWER

BOOK NAME

Scholar from Kyrgyzstan

Trader

Trader (starshie)

Trader (starshie)

Trader (starshie)

Trader (starshie)

Analyst

Trader

Trader

Trader

Trader

Businessperson and activist

Analyst

Café worker, former street trader

Trader

Trader

Trader

Trader

Trader

Trader

Trader (aksakal)

Trader (aksakal)

Trader (aksakal)

Trader

Trader

Trader (baibiche)

2/21/14

5/13/15

5/13/15

5/13/15

5/13/15

5/13/15

5/14/15

5/15/15

5/15/15

5/18/15

5/18/15

5/19/15

5/19/15

6/8/15

8/26/15

8/26/15

8/26/15

8/29/15

9/10/15

3/30/16

3/31/16

4/1/16

4/1/16

4/2/16

4/2/16

4/3/16

Osh, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Bishkek

Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Osh, Bishkek

Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Dordoi, Bishkek

Washington, DC

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Uzbek

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Russian

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Korean

Korean

Mix

Ukrainian

Russian

Kyrgyz

F

F

F

M

M

F

M

F

M

F

M

M

F

M

M

F

M

M

F

M

M

F

F

F

F

M

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz & Russian

Russian

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Russian

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Russian

Russian

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Kyrgyz

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

Russian

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

RA

Author

Author

RA

RA

RA

RA

Author

RA

Author

Author

RA

Author

Author

Aiman

Almagul

Gulzat

Medet

Begaly

Bermet

Taalai

Svetlana

Salim

Nazgul

Azim

Kanat

Ainura

Azamat

Nadia

Adyl

Almaz

Aigul

Bakyt

Dmitri

Tatiana

Zarina

Olena

Olga

Notes

INTRODUCTION

1. George Gavrilis, The Dynamics of Interstate Boundaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 2. See, for example, the Index of Economic Freedom Property Rights Indicator, compiled by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, in which Kyrgyzstan scored 139th out of 186 countries in 2014; Kyrgyzstan’s general ranking has gotten worse over the past decade. The country scored similarly poorly on the Freedom House “Nation in Transit” index over the course of the 2000s on judicial independence (between 5.25 and 6.0) and corruption (between 6.0 and 6.5), with a 7.0 being the worst possible score. In one final example, according to a joint World Bank–EBRD survey in 1999, when business owners were asked “To what degree do you agree that the legal system will uphold contract and property rights?” almost 70% of the businesses responded that they tended to disagree, disagree in most cases, or strongly disagree. 3. For more on the creation of unreliable national statistics, including gross domestic product (GDP), in the African context, see Morten Jerven, Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2013). For more on the origins of the global norm of national accounting standards, and the adoption of these standards by post-Communist countries after the Soviet Union’s collapse, see Yoshiko Herrera, Mirrors of the Economy: National Accounts and International Norms in Russia and Beyond (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010). For the rise, implications and challenges associated with increasing reliance on economic and governance indicators, see Alexander Cooley and Jack Snyder, eds., Ranking the World: Grading States as a Tool of Global Governance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). CHAPTER 1 . VARIETIES OF ORDER IN A NEW MARKET CONTEXT

1. While the geographic boundaries demarcating Central Asia as a region are contested, a common understanding of the region includes the five former Central Asian Republics of the Soviet Union—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—plus Afghanistan and western China. This corresponds to the historic understanding of Central Asia, sometimes termed also “Central Eurasia” and “Inner Asia” (including Mongolia). Many of the authors who work on this region referenced in this book circumscribe their cases and analysis to the five post-Soviet Central Asian countries. 2. Kumar Bekbolotov and Shairbek Juraev, “The Dangers of Property Redistribution?,” Kyrgyzstan Brief, no. 2 (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan: Institute for Public Policy, December 2005– January 2006); International Crisis Group, “Kyrgyzstan: A Faltering State,” Asia Report, no. 109 (Bishkek/Brussels, December 16, 2005). 3. Interview with Cholpon Djakupova, “Navernoe, oppozitsionery dolzhny zanimat'sia melkim biznesom. Imet' krupnyi biznes—slozhno i opasno” [Probably, oppositionists should only have small businesses. To have big business—difficult and dangerous], Bishkek Press Club, April 29, 2008.

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4. Joel Hellman, “Russia’s Transition to a Market Economy: A Permanent Redistribution?,” in Russia after the Fall, ed. Andrew Kuchins and Joel Hellman (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002), 93–109. 5. Hernando De Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (New York: Basic Books, 2003); Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York: Crown Business, 2013). 6. “Kyrgyzstan’s Colossal Dordoi Bazaar: A Time of Opportunity and Change,” Eurasianet, October 21, 2015. 7. Alexander Cooley, Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008). 8. Jennifer N. Brass, “Djibouti’s Unusual Resource Curse,” Journal of Modern African Studies 46, no. 4 (December 2008): 523–45. For the impact of foreign aid and militaryrelated inflows into Kyrgyzstan on power and political relations, see Eric McGlinchey, Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). 9. For a discussion on manufacturing, see Andrew Barnes, Owning Russia: The Struggle over Factories, Farms, and Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006); Clifford G. Gaddy and Barry William Ickes, Russia’s Virtual Economy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2002); about agriculture, see Jessica Allina-Pisano, The Post-Soviet Potemkin Village: Politics and Property Rights in the Black Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); about banking, see Juliet Johnson, A Fistful of Rubles: The Rise and Fall of the Russian Banking System (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000); about natural resources, see Erica Weinthal and Pauline Jones Luong, Oil Is Not a Curse: Ownership Structure and Institutions in Soviet Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Book-length exceptions on trade include Caroline Humphrey, The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism, Culture and Society after Socialism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002); Pernille Hohnen, A Market out of Place? Remaking Economic, Social, and Symbolic Boundaries in Post-Communist Lithuania (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). 10. Data for development assistance (current $US) and remittances (current $US) from World Bank World Development Indicators; data for gold from UN Comtrade Database; bazaar data are estimated totals as published in Bartlomiej Kaminski and Saumya Mitra, Borderless Bazaars and Regional Integration in Central Asia: Emerging Patterns of Trade and Cross-Border Cooperation (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2012), 4. 11. Under the Soviet system governed by socialist laws prohibiting the resale of goods (speculation), private traders existed underground in what became known in the literature as part of the “second economy” or “shadow economy.” This phenomenon has been the subject of extensive study, including the ways in which the second or shadow economy was not separate from the socialist economy, but rather coexisted with it. See Gregory Grossman, “Sub-Rosa Privatization and Marketization in the USSR,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 507 (1990): 44–52; Gregory Grossman, “Subverted Sovereignty: The Historic Role of the Soviet Underground,” in The Tunnel at the End of the Light: Privatization, Business Networks, and Economic Transformation in Russia, ed. Stephen S. Cohen, Andrew Schwartz, and John Zysman, A BRIE/Kriesky Forum Project 100 (University of California, Berkeley, 1998). 12. Kaminski and Mitra, Borderless Bazaars, 8. 13. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776). 14. Alexander I. Ageev, Mikhail V. Gratchev, and Robert D. Hisrich, “Entrepreneurship in the Soviet Union and Post-Socialist Russia,” Small Business Economics 7, no. 5 (October 1995): 365–76; Humphrey, The Unmaking of Soviet Life.

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15. “Poverty Shock: The Impact of Rapid Economic Change on the Women of the Kyrgyz Republic,” in When Things Fall Apart: The Study of Poverty in the Former Soviet Union, 1993–1999, ed. N. Dudwick, E. Gomart, A. Marc, and K. Kuehnast (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2002). See also Michael Burawoy, “Transition without Transformation: Russia’s Involutionary Road to Capitalism,” East European Politics and Societies 15, no. 2 (2001): 269–90. 16. Sean Roberts, “The Companion Guide for the Video Documentary Waiting for Uighurstan,” (Los Angeles, CA: Center for Visual Anthropology, USC, 1996): 54. See also David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1990). 17. Steven Kent Vogel, Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998); Richard Snyder, Politics after Neoliberalism: Reregulation in Mexico (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 18. Kiren Chaudhry, “The Myths of the Market and the Common History of Late Developers,” Politics and Society 21, no. 3 (September 1993): 245–74. 19. Vadim Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002); Alena V. Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006). 20. Caroline Humphrey, “Traders, Disorder and Citizenship Regimes in Provincial Russia,” in Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World, ed. Katherine Verdery and Michael Buroway (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 22. 21. Timothy Frye, “Private Protection in Russia and Poland,” American Journal of Political Science 46, no. 3 (July 1, 2002): 572–84. 22. Natal'ia Fakhrus, “Barakhol'nye Ostapy Bendery” [The Ostap Benders of Barakholka], Vechernii Almaty, January 24, 2000. 23. V. Tokombaeva, “Odin bazaar I sorok razboinikov” [One bazaar and forty bandits], Vechernii Bishkek, November 22, 2000, 7. 24. Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs; Gavin Slade, “No Country for Made Men: The Decline of the Mafia in Post-Soviet Georgia,” Law and Society Review 46, no. 3 (September 1, 2012): 623–49. 25. Kathryn Hendley, Peter Murrell, and Randi Ryterman, “Law, Relationships and Private Enforcement: Transactional Strategies of Russian Enterprises,” Europe-Asia Studies 52, no. 4 (June 1, 2000): 627–56. 26. Jordan Gans-Morse, “Threats to Property Rights in Russia: From Private Coercion to State Aggression,” Post-Soviet Affairs 28, no. 3 (July 1, 2012): 263–95; Stanislav Markus, Property, Predation, and Protection: Piranha Capitalism in Russia and Ukraine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 27. Sally N. Cummings and Ole Nørgaard, “Conceptualising State Capacity: Comparing Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan,” Political Studies 52, no. 4 (December 1, 2004): 685–708. 28. For selections from a variety of perspectives on this approach to markets as institutions, see Naazneen H. Barma and Steven K. Vogel, eds., The Political Economy Reader: Markets as Institutions (New York: Routledge, 2007). 29. Patrik Aspers, Markets (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2011), 10. He argues (17) that there also has to be clarity regarding what is traded and the value of the offer for a market to be ordered. This book focuses on the institutional framework and does not consider these two additional pillars of market order. 30. Those aware of Kyrgyzstan’s proclaimed potential in the 1990s as an “island of democracy” in a sea of authoritarian Central Asian neighbors will recognize the play in this “island of order” metaphor. In his sociologically inspired primer of markets, Aspers in

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Markets (17–18) uses the phrase in his discussion of the ways in which economists often presuppose an unambiguous, certain order that governs markets, when in fact in times of “financial havoc,” the context is ambiguous and the problem of order has not been normalized or solved. 31. Barnes, Owning Russia. 32. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001). 33. Rebecca Neaera Abers and Margaret E. Keck, Practical Authority: Agency and Institutional Change in Brazilian Water Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). They define “practical authority” as “the problem solving capabilities and recognition from key decision makers that allow them to influence public or private behaviors” (6). 34. I draw on research in the creative syncretism tradition, which unites pragmatist thought and constructivist perspectives in social theory. This experiential, actor-centered approach to the study of politics and institutions shifts the focus from viewing people as being constrained by rules, to instead investigating the meanings and practices associated with the way they live through rules and selectively use and adapt organizations and institutions to effect change. See Gerald Berk and Dennis Galvan, “How People Experience and Change Institutions: A Field Guide to Creative Syncretism,” Theory and Society 38, no. 6 (July 31, 2009): 543–80; Rudra Sil, “The Fluidity of Labor Politics in Postcommunist Transitions: Rethinking the Narrative of Russian Labor Quiescence,” in Political Creativity: Reconfiguring Institutional Order and Change, ed. Gerald Berk, Dennis C. Galvan, and Victoria Hattam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 188–208; and Dennis Galvan and Rudra Sil, eds., Reconfiguring Institutions Across Time and Space: Syncretic Responses to Challenges of Political and Economic Transformation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 35. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Iván Szelenyi, “Weber’s Theory of Domination and Post-Communist Capitalisms,” Theory and Society 45, no. 1 (December 9, 2015): 1–24. While Szelenyi is interested in characterizing domination and legitimacy at the national or state level, I pose this main question at the local level. 36. Berk and Galvan, “How People Experience,” 554. For political economy work along these lines on the United States and Europe, see Gary Herrigel, Manufacturing Possibilities: Creative Action and Industrial Recomposition in the United States, Germany, and Japan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); Michael Piore and Charles Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities For Prosperity (New York: Basic Books, 1986). 37. Dennis C. Galvan, The State Must Be Our Master of Fire: How Peasants Craft Culturally Sustainable Development in Senegal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 4. For another example involving property rights in Botswana, see Ato Kwamena Onoma, “Animating Institutional Skeletons: the Contributions of Subaltern Resistance to the Reinforcement of Land Boards in Botswana,” in Berk, Galvan, and Hattam, Political Creativity. For a historical example, see Rudra Sil’s analysis of a legitimate, syncretist approach to modernization in postwar Japan, in which institution builders “selectively draw upon familiar ideals and portable templates in making the design and purpose of new modern institutions intelligible and worthy of commitment in the eyes of subordinates,” thus not only successfully achieving modernization goals, but also providing people with “a familiar, secure, and meaningful environment in which to carry out their tasks.” Managing “Modernity:” Work, Community, and Authority in Late-Industrializing Japan and Russia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 283. 38. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); Lisa Wedeen, Ambiguities of

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Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999). 39. John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1982). 40. For examples from Russia, India, China, and Latin American countries, see Susanne Wengle and Michael Rasell, “The Monetisation of L’goty: Changing Patterns of Welfare Politics and Provision in Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies 60, no. 5 (July 1, 2008): 739–56; Rina Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Lily L. Tsai, Accountability without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Jean Grugel and Pía Riggirozzi, “Post-neoliberalism in Latin America: Rebuilding and Reclaiming the State after Crisis,” Development and Change 43, no. 1 (January 1, 2012): 1–21. 41. Judith Beyer, “Customizations of Law: Courts of Elders (Aksakal Courts) in Rural and Urban Kyrgyzstan,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 38, no. 1 (May 1, 2015): 57. Drawing on a rich social, cultural, and anthropological literature, Beyer calls this process “customization,” or the “cultural technique by which actors frame and eventually come to perceive cultural norms, values, and practices as their own.” 42. While the disciplinary focus on theoretical “puzzles” can sidetrack scholars from identifying important questions related to the ways in which everyday people identify and address “problems,” I do not think the two goals are mutually incompatible. Paying attention to real-world problems and challenges can illuminate theoretical and disciplinary puzzles. It is problematic when “puzzles” drive research agendas and become divorced from “problems” or understandings of people on the ground. Jillian Schwedler, “Puzzle,” Newsletter of the American Political Science Association Organized Section for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 11, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 27–30. 43. Julie Hemment, “Nashi, Youth Voluntarism, and Potemkin NGOs: Making Sense of Civil Society in Post-Soviet Russia,” Slavic Review 71, no. 2 (July 1, 2012): 234–60. 44. Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “The Imperialism of Categories: Situating Knowledge in a Globalizing World,” Perspectives on Politics 3, no. 1 (March 2005): 5–14. According to Rudolph (12), situated knowledge “is committed to the validity and significance of local knowledge— to the way peoples understand their histories, social processes, and worldviews.” 45. Richard Snyder, “Scaling Down: The Subnational Comparative Method,” Studies in Comparative International Development 36, no. 1 (March 2001): 93–110. 46. Erica S. Simmons and Nicholas Rush Smith, “The Case for Comparative Ethnography,” Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 13, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 14. 47. Edward Schatz, “Interpretation, Causality, and Family Resemblances,” Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 13, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 24. While ethnography’s focus on deep, contextual meaning has its place, I believe we can also make causal claims that take seriously intersubjective understandings. See also Ludvig Norman, “Interpretive Process Tracing and Causal Explanations,” Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 13, no. 2 (Fall 2015): 4–9. 48. In the south of the country, a significant minority of ethnic Uzbeks speak Uzbek. Other languages spoken by minorities include Uighur. 49. For more on the politics of language in Central Asia and Kyrgyzstan specifically, see William Fierman, “Identity, Symbolism, and the Politics of Language in Central Asia,” Europe-Asia Studies 61, no. 7 (September 1, 2009): 1207–28; Eugene Huskey, “The Politics of Language in Kyrgyzstan,” Nationalities Papers 23, no. 3 (September 1, 1995): 549–72; Abdykadyr Orusbaev, Arto Mustajoki, and Ekaterina Protassova, “Multilingualism, Russian Language, and Education in Kyrgyzstan,” International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 11, nos. 3–4 (July 1, 2008): 476–500.

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50. In the Uzbek language, the similar concept is tarbiya, from Arabic, that “refers to a person’s upbringing, training, and discipline and that has a moral and religious connotation.” See Morgan Y. Liu, Under Solomon’s Throne: Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), 113. 51. Author observation of trade union forum, April 7, 2006, Bishkek. 52. Natalia Timirbaeva, “Na puti ot bazara k rynku” [On the way from bazaar to market], MSN, no. 26, April 11, 2008, 11. 53. Author interview with analyst at the Eurasia Foundation, April 15, 2006, Osh, Kyrgyzstan. The phrase in Russian is “Pochemu my ne razvivaemsia? Potomu chto tseny u nas rynochnye i otnosheniya bazarnye.” 54. In Kyrgyz, the phrase is “Baldary bar bazar; baldary zhok mazar.” 55. Zh. Aliev, “Bazardagy bazaar” [Bazaar (disorder) at the bazaar], Kyrgyz Rukhu, July 9–15, 1997, 7. 56. I borrow the form of similar encounters that bookend each chapter in Noah Coburn’s Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). This is an attempt to “write in” throughout the book the evolution of observations and decisions that I made that shape the form and content of this book, and serves as a form of “credibility as an interpreter of the social and political by revealing (rather than concealing) how her interactions developed and observations occurred.” Schatz, “Interpretation, Causality, and Family Resemblances,” 27. Research trajectories in the form of personal reflections by the authors also precede each chapter of the volume edited by Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2006). 57. Jeffrey C. Isaac, “For a More Public Political Science,” Perspectives on Politics 13, no. 2 (June 2015): 269–83. 58. Berk and Galvan, “How People Experience and Change Institutions,” 554. 59. Jason Wittenberg, “Conceptualizing Historical Legacies,” East European Politics and Societies 29, no. 2 (May 1, 2015): 373. 60. Ibid., 366. 61. For a review of Communist, or Leninist, legacy research over the past two decades, see Jody LaPorte and Danielle N. Lussier, “What Is the Leninist Legacy? Assessing Twenty Years of Scholarship,” Slavic Review 70, no. 3 (2011): 637–54. 62. For another example of bricolage in the post-Communist context, see David Stark and Laszlo Bruszt, Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 63. Gretchen Helmke and Steve Levitsky, “Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda,” Perspectives on Politics 2, no. 4 (2004): 730, 727. 64. For an elaborated critique of the conceptual and empirical challenges in disaggregating the informal and the formal in Central Asia, see Rico Isaacs, “Neopatrimonialism and Beyond: Reassessing the Formal and Informal in the Study of Central Asian Politics,” Contemporary Politics 20, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 229–45. For the ways in which the formal and the informal are intertwined in U.S. and Japanese contexts, and a critique of development interventions that seek to transpose, promote, and/or elevate the former at the expense of the latter, see Frank Upham, “Mythmaking in the Rule of Law Orthodoxy,” Rule of Law Series (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2002). 65. John McMillan and Christopher Woodruff, “Private Order under Dysfunctional Public Order,” Michigan Law Review 98, no. 8 (2000): 2421–58. 66. For a study that investigates the bottom-up actions of Russian business in protecting property rights from a predatory, bureaucratic state, see Stanislav Markus, “Capitalists of All Russia, Unite! Business Mobilization Under Debilitated Dirigisme,” Polity

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39, no.3 (2007): 277–304; Stanislav Markus, “Secure Property as a Bottom-Up Process: Firms, Stakeholders, and Predators in Weak States,” World Politics 64, no. 2 (April 2012): 242–77. For a study that considers informal practices as well as the political networks and connections that allow for informal finance when state options are absent, see Kellee S. Tsai, Back-Alley Banking: Private Entrepreneurs in China (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002). 67. For more on spontaneous order perspectives in both economics and sociology, see Aspers, Markets. In short, “Sociologists focus on order as a result of value or of social structure, and refer to, for example, moral order, whereas economists focus on equilibria, which emerge in evolutionary processes” (9–10). I concur with his view that “the complex phenomena of the modern market cannot be understood as a process of rational and atomized actors attaining their ends. The study of history and anthropology reveals the social and symbolic dimensions of exchange that tie actors together and create order” (55). See also 154. 68. For an overview of the distinction between predatory and developmental states, see Peter B. Evans, “Predatory, Developmental, and Other Apparatuses: A Comparative Political Economy Perspective on the Third World State,” Sociological Forum 4, no. 4 (December 1, 1989): 561–87. For more on developmental states, see Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982); Alice H. Amsden, The Rise of the Rest: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); Robert Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). 69. Evans, “Predatory, Developmental, and Other Apparatuses.” See also Peter B. Evans, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State, and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). 70. Steffen Hertog, Princes, Brokers, and Bureaucrats: Oil and the State in Saudi Arabia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010). 71. Susanne A. Wengle, Post-Soviet Power: State-Led Development and Russia’s Marketization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 72. Scott Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010); Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 73. Johan Engvall, “Kyrgyzstan: Anatomy of a State,” Problems of Post-Communism 54, no. 4 (2007): 33–45. See Richard Joseph for more on prebendalism in Africa. Richard A. Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 74. For recent critical approaches to the debates about strong vs. weak states, see Madeleine Reeves, Border Work: Spatial Lives of the State in Rural Central Asia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014); Madeleine Reeves, Johan Rasanayagam, and Judith Beyer, eds., Ethnographies of the State in Central Asia: Performing Politics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013). Their work follows broader literature on rethinking the “state” pioneered by Timothy Mitchell, among others. Timothy Mitchell, “The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and Their Critics,” American Political Science Review 85, no. 1 (March 1991): 77–96. 75. Margaret Levi, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); Mancur Olson, “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development,” American Political Science Review 87, no. 3 (September 1993): 567–76. 76. We can see these logics and associated practices if, according to Sayer, “we make the nature of economic motivations an empirical question” (80). He understands the moral

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economy to embody “norms and sentiments regarding the responsibilities and rights of individuals and institutions with respect to others. These norms and sentiments go beyond matters of justice and equality to conceptions of the good: for example, regarding needs and the ends of economic activity” (79). Andrew Sayer, “Moral Economy and Political Economy,” Studies in Political Economy 61, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 79–103. See also Andrew Sayer, “Moral Economy as Critique,” New Political Economy 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2007): 261–70; Thomas Clay Arnold, “Rethinking Moral Economy,” American Political Science Review 95, no. 1 (March 2001): 85–95. 77. Susanne A. Wengle, Post-Soviet Power: State-Led Development and Russia’s Marketization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 78. For example, McGlinchey in Chaos, Violence, Dynasty analyzes the region’s authoritarian regimes, contrasting Kazakhstan’s “dynasty” and Uzbekistan’s “violence” with Kyrgyzstan’s “chaos.” 79. John Heathershaw and Nick Megoran, “Contesting Danger: A New Agenda for Policy and Scholarship on Central Asia,” International Affairs 87, no. 3 (May 1, 2011): 589–612. See also Central Asian Survey 24, no. 1, for a special issue, “Discourses of Danger in Central Asia.” CHAPTER 2. CHANGING MEANINGS OF BAZAAR TRADE IN CENTRAL ASIA

1. All photos in this book were taken by the author. 2. Kathleen Kuehnast, “Ethnographic Encounters in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan: Dilemmas of Gender, Poverty, and the Cold War,” in Fieldwork Dilemmas: Anthropologists in Postsocialist States, ed. Hermine G. DeSoto and Nora Dudwick (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), 100–18. 3. For an exposition of similar such encounters in 1990s Uzbekistan, see Russell Zanca, “Intruder in Uzbekistan: Walking the Line between Community Needs and Anthropological Desiderata,” in Fieldwork Dilemmas, ed. DeSoto and Dudwick, 153–71. 4. Zinaida Sorokina, “Ne bazar a pozor” [Not bazaar but dishonor], Vechernii Bishkek, no. 11, January 24, 2011, 9. 5. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, ethnic Kyrgyz totaled 52% of the population, Uzbeks 13%, and Russians 26%. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, many ethnic Russians left. As of 1999, the ethnic distribution was as follows: 64% Kyrgyz, 14% Uzbek, and 13% Russian. By 2009, the totals were: 71% Kyrgyz, 14% Uzbek, and 8% Russian. For the purposes of this book, Kyrgyz and Kazakh nomadic traditions and understandings of bazaars and trade—given shared Soviet history—are similar and comparable. This chapter also includes interviews with ethnic Kazakh residents in Taraz and Almaty, Kazakhstan, who share very similar histories, orientations, and experiences to those of the ethnic Kyrgyz. 6. There is a vast literature on ethnicities in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Central Asia, primarily focused on the Soviet creation of ethnic categories and groups in the 1920s and 1930s and the emergence of ethnic conflicts and disputes in the later Soviet and post-Soviet periods. This chapter and the book more generally draw on an approach to studying ethnicity that lets ethnicity emerge (or not) as an important factor or category on its own in conversations with people, instead of directly asking about ethnicity. See the research appendix for more details. 7. Sources for figures 2.1 and 2.2 include: State Statistical Agency of the Kyrgyz SSR, Narodnoe Khoziaistvo Kirgizskoi SSR v 1989 godu: Stat. ezhegodnik (Frunze: Goskomstat KirgSSR, 1991); National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic, Statisticheskii Ezhegodnik Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki, Chast II (Bishkek: Natsional'nyi statisticheskii Komitet Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki, 1996, 1997); National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic, Kyrgyzstan v tsifrakh: Statisticheskii sbornik (Bishkek: Natsional'nyi statisticheskii

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komitet kyrgyzskoi respubliki, 1999, 2000, 2004); National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic, Potrebitel'skii Rynok Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki (Bishkek: Natsional'nyi statisticheskii komitet kyrgyzskoi respubliki, 2001–2005). 8. Because of the difficulty in quantifying bazaar turnover for lack of cash registers and accounting information, these data likely underestimate bazaar turnover, which would make the difference between bazaar and store turnover even starker. 9. In addition to the main Soviet-era store (Tsum), others include Beta Stores, Dordoi Plaza, Caravan, and the Vefa Center. The main supermarket chain, Narodnyi, has expanded to over a dozen retail outlets in Bishkek, but it is the only major chain in the country to speak of. See Artyom Zozulinsky, “Kyrgyzstan: Retail Market—Focus on Bishkek,” Bisnis Report, October 2007. 10. V. Anikin, “Bazar—istochnik dokhodov i . . . patronazha” [Bazaar—a source of income and . . . patronage], Slovo Kyrgyzstana, October 10, 1996, 9. 11. M. Steven Fish, “The Determinants of Economic Reform in the Post-Communist World,” East European Politics and Societies 12, no. 1 (December 1, 1997): 31–78. 12. Keith Darden, Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals: The Formation of International Institutions among the Post-Soviet States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). For a general discussion of the variation in economic performance and policy trajectories in Central Asia, see Richard Pomfret, The Central Asian Economies Since Independence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). 13. Regine A. Spector, “The Transformation of Askar Akaev, President of Kyrgyzstan,” Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Working Paper Series, Spring 2004; Darden, Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals; Gregory Gleason, The Central Asian States: Discovering Independence (Boulder: Westview Press, 1997). 14. In addition to the economic reforms already discussed, important initiatives promoted independent civil society, including media freedom and a liberal environment for non-governmental organizations to operate. 15. Anders Aslund, “Economic Reform after the Revolution in the Kyrgyz Republic,” Democratizatsiya 13, no. 4 (2005): 471. 16. For an overview of these changes over the past three decades, see Gary Gereffi, The New Offshoring of Jobs and Global Development (Geneva: ILO, December 2005). 17. Paul Holtom, “Small-Scale Cross-Border Trading in Kaliningrad’s Borderlands,” in The Kaliningrad Challenge: Options and Recommendations, ed. Hanne-M. Birckenbach and Christian Wellmann (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2003), 152–68. 18. For a discussion of other types of traders in Russia, see Caroline Humphrey, The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism, Culture and Society after Socialism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002), chapter 4, “Traders, Disorder, and Citizenship Regimes in Provincial Russia,” 69–98. For another conceptualization of trade networks in Eurasia, see Bartlomiej Kaminski and Saumya Mitra, Borderless Bazaars and Regional Integration in Central Asia: Emerging Patterns of Trade and Cross-Border Cooperation (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2012). 19. Evgeniy Nurabaev, “Russkaia ruletka dlia Kyrgyzskikh chelnokov” [Russian roulette for Kyrgyz shuttle traders], Rynok Kapitalov 6, no. 44 (June 2002): 46–47; Grigorii Deviatov, “Chelnok v more” [Shuttle trader in the sea], Vechernii Bishkek, August 8, 1997. 20. Armin Bauer et al., Women and Gender Relations: The Kyrgyz Republic in Transition (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 1997), 67. 21. Markhamat Khasanova, “Kazakhstan: Foreign Trade Policy,” in Central Asia: The Challenges of Independence, ed. Boris Rumer and Stanislav Zhukov (Armonk, N.Y.: ME Sharpe, 1998), 180–85. Based on interviews with traders in Kyrgyzstan, the process and evolution was similar to that of Kazakhstan in this period; I have not found broad-based survey data in Kyrgyzstan to confirm this, however.

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22. Oksana Semeniak,” Igry bez pravil: Chelnochniy biznes v Kyrgyzstane nakhoditsia na grani razoreniia [Game without rights: Shuttle trade business in Kyrgyzstan on the verge of collapse], Vechernii Bishkek, December 4, 2001. 23. Author interview with trader at Dordoi bazaar, November 28, 2006, Bishkek. 24. Edgar Feige, “Underground Economies in Transition: Noncompliance and Institutional Change,” in Underground Economies in Transition: Unrecorded Activity, Tax Evasion, Corruption, and Organized Crime, ed. Edgar Feige and Katarina Ott (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1999), 11–28. The rise of shuttle trade and bazaars in Kyrgyzstan is not unique to Central Asia; from Moscow to Kiev, from Tashkent to Tbilisi, bazaars, kiosks, and shops displayed the wares of shuttle traders. Initially, people would bring goods or manufactures from the home country abroad to sell and, using hard currency from these sales, buy other consumer goods such as clothes or shoes to bring home with them. Humphrey, Unmaking of Soviet Life, 88. Another body of work details the informal and at times illicit dimension of these trade networks; for example, gasoline, cigarettes, and other types of smuggling in Eastern Europe between Ukraine, Poland, and Kaliningrad. Krystyna Iglicka, “The Economics of Petty Trade on the Eastern Polish Border,” in The Challenge of East-West Migration for Poland, ed. Krystyna Iglicka and Keith Sword (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 120–44; Holtom, “Small-Scale Cross-Border Trading.” 25. This would correspond to much less than one euro for either transport option to Kyrgyzstan. Semeniak, “Igry bez pravil.” As of 1996, the minimum amount for the import of one kilogram of goods was four euros in Russia. See Natalia Gurushina, “New Customs Duties for Shuttle Traders,” OMRI Daily Digest, July 24, 1996. 26. Khasanova, “Kazakhstan: Foreign Trade Policy,”183. In 2006, traders in Kazakhstan confirmed that they paid about $3.25 per kilogram for customs from China, not including delivery charges to the bazaar. 27. Bartłomiej Kaminski and Gaël Raballand, “Entrepôt for Chinese Consumer Goods in Central Asia: The Puzzle of Re-Exports through Kyrgyz Bazaars,” Eurasian Geography and Economics 50, no. 5 (September 1, 2009): 585. The formal regulation is #976, December 31, 2004. 28. Roman Mogilevskii, “Trends and Patterns in Foreign Trade of Central Asian Countries,” Working Paper No. 1, University of Central Asia, Graduate School of Development, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 2012, 38. 29. K. Osmonalieva, “Biznes mamlekettik saiasatka koz karandy” [Business depends on government politics], Erkin Too, no. 71, September 6, 2000, 11. 30. In the 1990s, imports to Kyrgyzstan’s bazaars came from Turkey, South Asia, Europe, and China. By the early 2000s, the share of imports to Kyrgyzstan’s bazaars from China totaled 50%, and by 2007, this number totaled over 90%. Kaminski and Raballand, “Entrepôt for Chinese Consumer Goods,” 589. 31. Ibid., 588; Nick Megoran, Gaël Raballand, and Jérôme Bouyjou, “Performance, Representation and the Economics of Border Control in Uzbekistan,” Geopolitics 10 (2005): 712–40. 32. Michael Burawoy, “Transition without Transformation: Russia’s Involutionary Road to Capitalism,” East European Politics and Societies 15, no. 2 (2001): 269–90. 33. “Transition Report 1999: Ten Years of Transition,” European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, 1999. In this time period, countries such as Kazakhstan and Armenia also experienced dramatic industrial declines. Other countries such as Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan also experienced declines, although not as great as Kyrgyzstan’s. And a final group of countries, including Russia and Belarus, did not experience significant industrial declines as percentage of total GDP. For an explanation for why valuesubtracting firms and industrial enterprises kept running, see David Woodruff, Money Unmade: Barter and the Fate of Russian Capitalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,

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1999). In short, businesses worked with local governments to convince key supplies such as Gazprom (the state energy company) and UES (the state electricity company) to accept payments in kind to prevent bankruptcy. 34. Mekhlis Suleimonov and Peter Oram, “Trends in Feed, Livestock Production, and Rangelands during the Transition Period in Three Central Asian Countries,” Food Policy 25, no. 6 (December 2000): 681–700. Another article states that four-fifths of the country’s ten million sheep died in the early years of the transition. Aslund, “Economic Reform after the Revolution,” 470. 35. Kathleen Kuehnast, “Poverty Shock: The Impact of Rapid Economic Change on the Women of the Kyrgyz Republic,” in When Things Fall Apart: Qualitative Studies of Poverty in the Former Soviet Union, ed. Nora Dudwick et al. (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2003), 33–55. 36. Olga Shevchenko, Crisis and the Everyday in Postsocialist Moscow (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008); Jessica Allina-Pisano, The Post-Soviet Potemkin Village: Politics and Property Rights in the Black Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 37. Kathleen Kuehnast and Nora Dudwick, Better a Hundred Friends than a Hundred Rubles? Social Networks in Transition—the Kyrgyz Republic, World Bank Working Paper no. 39 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2004), 1–5. 38. “Transition Report 1999: Ten Years of Transition,” European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, 1999. 39. V. Pavlova, “Optom ili v roznitsu?” [Wholesale or retail?], Leninskii Put', November 1, 1990, 2. 40. Sean Roberts, “The Companion Guide for the Video Documentary Waiting for Uighurstan,” (PhD diss., University of Southern California, 1996), 51. 41. A Rasul, “Oigo salgan Osh bazary” [Osh Bazaar that brings troubled thoughts], Zaman Kyrgyzstan, no. 15, April 14, 1995, 8. For another example of a press article interviewing traders, see “‘Nurzat’ kichi bazary” [‘Nurzat’ small bazaar], Erkin Too, April 23, 1999, 5. 42. “‘Nurzat’ kichi bazary” 43. Author interview with trader at Al Farabi bazaar, April 25, 2006, Almaty, Kazakhstan. 44. Approximately $4/day at that time. 45. Kathleen Kuehnast, “Ethnographic Encounters in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan: Dilemmas of Gender, Poverty, and the Cold War,” in Fieldwork Dilemmas: Anthropologists in Postsocialist States, ed. Hermine G. DeSoto and Nora Dudwick (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000): 100–18. Women in the Kyrgyz Republic held more scientific research positions compared to other Muslim Central Asian women. 46. Cynthia Werner, “Feminizing the New Silk Road: Women Traders in Rural Kazakhstan,” in Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition: Nation Building, Economic Survival, and Civic Activism, ed. Kathleen Kuehnast and Carol Nechemias (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2004), 106; Gül Berna Özcan, “Djamila’s Journey from Kolkhoz to Bazaar: Female Entrepreneurs in Kyrgyzstan,” in Enterprising Women in Transition Economies, ed. Friederike Welter et al. (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishers, 2006), 93–118; Gül Berna Özcan, Building States and Markets: Enterprise Development in Central Asia (New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), see chapter 5, “The Gendered Economy,” 122–45. 47. Bauer et al., Women and Gender Relations. 48. Susan Brin Hyatt, “What Was Neoliberalism and What Comes Next? The Transformation of Citizenship in the Law-and-Order State,” in Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power, ed. Cris Shore, Susan Wright, Davide Pero (New York: Berghahn Books, 2011): 117.

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49. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776). 50. Trade as a profession or occupation has also been viewed as dishonorable in other parts of the world and other social contexts at different times. For an example from Congo, see Janet MacGaffey and Remy Bazenguissa-Ganga, Congo-Paris: Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 10. 51. “Bazarkom—Asan,” [Bazaar director—Asan], Erkin Too, no. 22–23, February 14, 1996, 6. 52. Elizabeth E. Bacon, Central Asians under Russian Rule: A Study in Culture Change (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966), 202. 53. Ibid., 65–66. Precursors to the Uzbeks, the Sogdians gained “their greatest renown not as rulers but as intrepid merchants upon the Silk Road, controllers of the trade routes from Byzantium to China.” Franz Grenet, “Old Samarkand: Nexus of the Ancient World,” Archeology Odyssey (September/October 2003): 33. Note that the Sogdians were culturally Iranian, speaking an Iranian language and practicing Zoaroastrianism. Such commercial interaction continued both well before and long after the peak of the long-distance caravan trade across Central Asia dwindled in the 1500s and 1600s. Morris Rossabi, “The ‘Decline’ of the Central Asian Caravan Trade,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750, ed. James D. Tracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 351–70; Bacon, Central Asians under Russian Rule, 65–66. 54. Nancy Lubin, Labour and Nationality in Soviet Central Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984): 152–53. 55. Ibid., 166. 56. Ibid., 194. 57. For more on the history and distinctions between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks with regard to business, monetary affairs, and trade, see Nasritdinov and O’Connor, “Social Texture.” See also Morgan Y. Liu, Under Solomon’s Throne: Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), 29–30. 58. Kathleen Collins, Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 120 and fn. 68; Author interview with former resident in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, and consultant, April 28, 2011, Washington, D.C. Ethnic Kyrgyz, meanwhile, dominated in local government administrations at the city and oblast level. 59. Other groups such as ethnic Chechens also had distain for trade, instead touting their traditions as horsemen and farmers. However, like the ethnic Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, the Chechens also quickly built up shuttle trade businesses out of necessity and Grozny became a booming bazaar in the early 1990s. Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 131–32. 60. Ian Murray Matley, “Industrialization,” in Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance: A Historical Overview, ed. Edward Allworth, 3rd ed. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994), 323–24. 61. Annette Meakin, In Russian Turkestan (New York: Charles Scribner and Sons, 1915), 225. The relationship between nomadic Kyrgyz and settled Uzbeks (Sarts), however, was not always amicable and peaceful, as Meakin continues to describe in that chapter. 62. Bekbai Alykulov, “Rynok—meenet, doolot . . .” [Market—labor, wealth . . .], Kyrgyz Tuusu, May 23, 1995, 2. For more on the role of the Dungans, as well as Uighurs, in Central Asian trade and cross-border dynamics, see Marlene Laurelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, “Cross-border Minorities as Cultural and Economic Mediators between China and Central Asia,” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 7, no. 1 (2009): 93–119. 63. “Chynar bazaryna kosh kelinizder” [Welcome to Chynar bazaar], Zaman Kyrgyzstan, no. 6, February 10, 1995, 2. 64. Kyrgyz proverb, Bazary zhakyn baiybait, as cited in Bekbai Alykulov, “Dordoi— baba urpagy” [Dordoi—descendants], Kyrgyz Tuusu, April 3–5, 2001, 12.

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65. “All Roads Lead to the Bazaar,” Kutbilim 36, November 30, 1994, 6. 66. Bolotbek Tashtanaliev, “Reforma—saiasii önöktük emes. Al—adamdyn tagdyry” [Reform is not a political campaign, it is an individual’s destiny], Erkin Too, September 30, 1998, 10–11. 67. Alykulov, “Dordoi—baba urpagy.” 68. This discussion in the following paragraphs on the ethnic segmentation of marketplaces in Kyrgyzstan draws on the following works: Emil Nasritdinov and Kevin O’Connor, “Social Texture of the Central Asian Commercial Terrain,” International Journal of Humanities 4, no. 5 (2006): 121–34; Emil Nasritdinov and Kevin O’Connor, “Globalization as Fuel, Ethnicity as Engine: How Markets Reactivate Local Culture,” in Imagined Identities: Identity Formation in the Age of Globalization, ed. Gonul Pultar (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014), 207–24. 69. Britta Korth, Language Attitudes towards Kyrgyz and Russian: Discourse, Education and Policy in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan (Bern: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2005). Beginning in 1958 under the Soviet period, language instruction was not determined by ethnicity, and members of other ethnicities, for example, Kyrgyz, could attend Russian schools. Especially in urban areas such as Bishkek, Russian became the main language of education, with all higher education institutions by the 1980s operating in Russian (93–97). For more on the relative prestige of Russian and Kyrgyz language schools in urban and rural areas, see 215–19. 70. For more on the Central Asian colonial experience in comparative perspective, see Adeeb Khalid, “Backwardness and the Quest for Civilization: Early Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Slavic Review 65, no. 2 (2006): 231–51. 71. Ibid., 85–86. 72. There are, of course, exceptions to these broad trends—for example, I met ethnic Kyrgyz who managed to become successful wholesale traders at Dordoi of higher-value goods such as clothing or electronics and ethnic Russians who traded small lower-value items at local bazaars in Bishkek or surrounding cities. 73. For a discussion of the mixed emotions, beliefs, and debates among Uzbek women and men in the mid-1990s regarding shuttle trade and bazaar labor, see Marianne Kamp, “Gender Ideals and Income Realities: Discourses about Labor and Gender in Uzbekistan,” Nationalities Papers 33, no. 3 (2005): 407–22. 74. Liu, Under Solomon’s Throne, 31. 75. RA interview with Salim, Dordoi bazaar, August 29, 2015, Bishkek. 76. RA interview with Svetlana, Dordoi bazaar, September 10, 2015, Bishkek. 77. Author interview, Karavan bazaar, May 6, 2006, Taraz, Kazakhstan. 78. RA interview with Almaz, Osh bazaar, May 15, 2015, Bishkek. 79. For an analysis of how one Kyrgyz mountain dweller critically viewed the perceived success of another Kyrgyz shop owner in the village because the latter reinvested his profits instead of supporting family and friends, and a broader analysis of differing perceptions of well-being and contentedness in this new market context, see David W. Montgomery, “Relations Made over Tea: Reflections on a Meaningful Life in a Central Asian Mountain Village,” Central Asian Survey 32, no. 4 (December 1, 2013): 475–86. 80. A study of two women—a mother and her daughter—in Bulgaria confirms this finding but with a twist. The daughter grew up integrated into Soviet state institutions and in a “work ethic grounded in state production”; for her, trading embodied shame. In contrast, her mother did not have such state affiliations and instead viewed their postSocialist market activity as a source of pride, especially as she sold goods made herself, given her previous work experience at an agricultural cooperative. Deema Kaneff, “The Shame and Pride of Market Activity: Morality, Identity and Trading in Postsocialist Rural

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Bulgaria,” in Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism, ed. Ruth Mandel and Caroline Humphrey (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 33–51. 81. Andrew Sayer, “Moral Economy as Critique,” New Political Economy 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2007): 261–70. CHAPTER 3 . ORGANIZING COLLECTIVELY AT DORDOI BAZAAR

1. Author interview with NGO Zamandash representative, June 20, 2005, Bishkek. 2. Gerald Berk and Dennis Galvan, “How People Experience and Change Institutions: A Field Guide to Creative Syncretism,” Theory and Society 38, no. 6 (July 31, 2009): 543–80. 3. For an overview of the decline in union activity since the 1980s in many countries around the world, see Michael Wallerstein and Bruce Western, “Unions in Decline? What Has Changed and Why,” Annual Review of Political Science 3, no. 1 (2000): 355–77. Exceptions to this trend do exist, for example, Sebastián Etchemendy and Ruth Berins Collier, “Down but Not Out: Union Resurgence and Segmented Neocorporatism in Argentina (2003–2007),” Politics and Society 35, no. 3 (September 1, 2007): 363–401. 4. Vadim Borisov and Simon Clarke, “The Rise and Fall of Social Partnership in Postsocialist Europe: The Commonwealth of Independent States,” Industrial Relations Journal 37, no. 6 (November 1, 2006): 628. 5. Rudra Sil, “The Fluidity of Labor Politics in Postcommunist Transitions: Rethinking the Narrative of Russian Labor Quiescence,” in Political Creativity: Reconfiguring Institutional Order and Change, ed. Gerald Berk, Dennis C. Galvan, and Victoria Hattam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 188–208. 6. Ibid., 208. I do not focus on the ability Soviet-era unions to adapt in the postSoviet context. For examples of such an analysis see Sue Davis, Trade Unions in Russia and Ukraine, 1985–95 (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001). For a comparison of Soviet and Chinese unions in era of liberalization (Soviet after 1991 and Chinese after 1978), see Calvin Chen and Rudra Sil, “Communist Legacies, Postcommunist Transformations, and the Fate of Organized Labor in Russia and China,” Studies in Comparative International Development 41, no. 2 (June 1, 2006): 62–87. 7. “List of Starshie at the Bazaar,” Dordoi Adakho 5, no. 9 (August 2006): 12. 8. Furthermore, a survey in 2007 revealed that about 25% of Dordoi traders were of Russian or Slavic origin. See Emil Nasritdinov and Kevin O’Connor, “Social Texture of the Central Asian Commercial Terrain,” International Journal of Humanities 4, no. 5 (2006): 121–34. 9. One study confirms that the ethnic Russians at Dordoi bazaar “used their knowledge to construct a new identity as a trader through legitimizing and institutionalizing its informal character.” I similarly find that a subset of ethnic Russians drove the process of creating a trade union at Dordoi bazaar; I argue, however, that they sought to renarrate their role not as traders (which were often perceived as informal economic actors) but rather as law-abiding entrepreneurs, as I show later in this chapter. They then drew on this discourse to legitimize their role as trade union members and leaders, and make demands on the state, the bazaar administration, and other actors to create and realized their understandings of order at the bazaar. See Emil Nasritdinov and Kevin O’Connor, “Globalization as Fuel, Ethnicity as Engine: How Markets Reactivate Local Culture,” in Imagined Identities: Identity Formation in the Age of Globalization, ed. Gonul Pultar (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014), 207–24. 10. Interviews with these four starshie were conducted in Russian on May 13, 2015, in Bishkek. The author conducted interviews with Zarina and Tatiana, and the RA conducted interviews with Olena and Dmitri.

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11. Alex Pravda and Blair A. Ruble, eds., Trade Unions in Communist States (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1986); Craig Littler and Gill Palmer, “Communist and Capitalist Trade Unionism: Comparisons and Contrasts,” in Trade Unions in Communist States, ed. Alex Pravda and Blair Ruble (Boston: Unwin Hyman), 253–72. 12. Blair A. Ruble, Soviet Trade Unions: Their Development in the 1970s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 117, 139–44. 13. Emil Nasritdinov, Yelena Gareyeva, and Tatiana Efremenko, “How Small Kitchens Become Smaller: Social Life of Soviet Micro-Districts in Bishkek,” in Unbounded: On the Interior and Interiority, ed. Dolly Daou, D. J. Huppatz, and Dinh Quoc Phuong, (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 129–48. 14. Steven E. Harris, Communism on Tomorrow Street: Mass Housing and Everyday Life after Stalin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), 205. 15. Ibid., 195. 16. Economic Commission for Europe, “Country Profiles on Housing Sector: Russian Federation” (New York: United Nations, 2004), 86. 17. A. Nadyrbekova, “Dordoi bazarynyn atkaruuchu direktoru Amanbai Kaipov, ‘Yntymak bolso bardyk maseleler chechilet,’” [Acting director of “Dordoi” Amanbai Kaipov: “Unity is the solution to all problems”], Aalam, October 10, 2003, 3. The World Bank estimates that the annual sales turnover at Dordoi is upwards of $3 billion. See table 11 in Bartlomiej Kaminski and Saumya Mitra, Skeins of Silk: Borderless Bazaars and Border Trade in Central Asia” (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2010), 65. 18. L. Saralaeva, “Dordoi—Eto Zhizn'!” [Dordoi—it’s life!], Delo No., no. 30, November 23, 2011, 9–10. 19. Author interview with analyst at the Investment Roundtable, June 14, 2005, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 20. Author interview with analyst at the Bishkek Business Club, July 17, 2007, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 21. “Nadezhnaia zashita ‘Dordoia: interv'iu s predsedatelem profsoiuznogo kommiteta rynka ‘Dordoi’’” [Trustworthy defense of Dordoi: Interview with the director of the trade union committee of marketplace Dordoi], Veshch magazine, no. 1. Date unlisted, likely early 2000s, around 2003 or 2004. 22. “Zhizn' rynka?” [Life of the marketplace?], Dordoi Adakho 2, no. 6 (March–April 2006): 19. 23. Author interview with trade union director, Dordoi bazaar, June 10, 2005, Bishkek. 24. Bartlomiej Kaminski and Saumya Mitra, Borderless Bazaars and Regional Integration in Central Asia: Emerging Patterns of Trade and Cross-Border Cooperation (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2012), 68–69. 25. Author interview with owner of a niche boutique with clothing imported from Turkey, June 5, 2005, Bishkek; author interview with owner of a store selling drinks near Osh bazaar, November 23, 2006, Bishkek; author interview with analyst at the Eurasia Foundation, June 10, 2005, Bishkek. 26. For an insightful analysis of the looting and destruction of supermarkets in particular after these events in 2005, and the broader cultural, class, and symbolic meaning of supermarkets in contrast to bazaars in society, see Aisalkyn Botoeva, “Contentious Discourses Surrounding Supermarkets in Post-Soviet Bishkek,” Anthropology of East Europe Review 24, no. 2 (2006): 44–53. For a more general analysis of looting and details in a specific case in Argentina, see Javier Auyero, Routine Politics and Violence in Argentina: The Gray Zone of State Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 27. The author witnessed businesses in the city center close up their shops (and physically take goods out of them for safe keeping) on multiple occasions in 2006 against the backdrop of pre-announced political demonstrations, discussed further in chapter 4.

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28. Nadyrbekova, “Dordoi bazarynyn atkaruuchu direktoru.” 29. This amount decreased from 10% in prior years. Author interview with trade union vice director, Dordoi bazaar, August 1, 2013, Bishkek. 30. Ibid. 31. Andrei Oreshkin, “Dordoi Durdom!” [Dordoi madhouse!], MSN, no. 32, August 12, 2011, 5. 32. Author interview with currency exchange worker, July 12, 2007, Bishkek. 33. Author interview with director of trade union, Dordoi bazaar, June 10, 2005, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 34. This event made English-language regional news reports. See Bruce Pannier, “Market Traders Register Their Complaints over New Regulations in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan,” RFE/RL, October 4, 2003; Natalia Domagalskaia et al., “Kyrgyzstan: Fury over Sales Tax,” IWPR, no. 240, October 10, 2003. 35. Author interview with trade union vice director, Dordoi bazaar, August 1, 2013, Bishkek. Multiple starshie also mentioned this policy issue in their interviews. 36. Saralaeva, “Dordoi—Eto Zhizn!” See also author interview with director of trade union, Dordoi bazaar, June 10, 2005, Bishkek. 37. Saralaeva, “Dordoi—Eto Zhizn!” 38. The article also suggests that eight thousand still do not work with a patent and instead pay bribes to bureaucrats, although this number is difficult to confirm or verify. See A. Shaikeeva, “Dordoidun kapchygy ken, birok” [Dordoi’s pocket is wide, but], Erkin Too, no. 89, October 9, 2012, 13. While this is a sizeable number, the work of the trade union suggests that this number would be even higher in the absence of their activism and efforts. 39. “Zhizn' rynka?” 40. Author observation of trade union forum, April 7, 2006, Bishkek. 41. “Zhizn' rynka?” 42. In the case of Karasuu wholesale bazaar in the south of the country, they came from South Korea in the 1990s with parts and materials for the Daewoo car factory, a joint venture between Uzbekistan and South Korea, to assemble cars for the local Ferghana Valley clientele. They were then resold to other local businessmen and entrepreneurs instead of making the long journey back empty. Author interview with former businessman at Karasuu bazaar, August 3, 2007, Osh, Kyrgyzstan. For more on the origins and history of shipping containers, see Marc Levinson, The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). 43. As the bazaar owner explained in a 1998 interview, the government’s Committee for State Security began to blame the administration for selling stolen containers, so “in order to avoid the headache we just decided to provide a place for the container.” This implies that the container ownership in the bazaar is highly fragmented and decentralized while bazaar land ownership is more centralized. Bolotbek Tashtanaliev, “Reforma-Saiasii önöktük emes. Al-adamdyn tagdyry” [Reform is not a political campaign, it is an individual’s destiny], Erkin Too, September 30, 1998, 10–11. 44. Sorokina, “Ia sozdal ‘Dordoi’—eto tysiachi rabochikh mest” [I founded Dordoi—it is thousands of trading places], Vechernii Bishkek, January 28, 1998, 5. 45. Elkeeva, “Dordoi bazaryn,” Zaman Kyrgyzstan, no. 23, June 20, 2008, 4. 46. Author interview with trade union vice director, Dordoi bazaar, August 1, 2013, Bishkek. 47. Scott Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010); Amanda E. Wooden, “Another Way of Saying Enough: Environmental Concern and Popular Mobilization in Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs 29, no. 4 (July 1, 2013): 314–53.

NOTES TO PAGES 70–79

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48. Author interview with businessman and activist, Orto Sai bazaar, May 19, 2015, Bishkek. 49. Nasritdinov and O’Connor, “Globalization as Fuel.” 50. Eugen Weber, Peasants Into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870– 1914 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976). 51. Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union, Culture and Society after Socialism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005). For a more critical account about how Central Asians experienced these movements, see Jeff Sahadeo, “Druzhba Narodov or Second-Class Citizenship? Soviet Asian Migrants in a Post-Colonial World,” Central Asian Survey 26, no. 4 (December 1, 2007): 559–79. 52. Norbert Elias, Power and Civility (New York: Pantheon, 1982), 231. 53. William L. F. Felstiner, Richard L. Abel, and Austin Sarat, “The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming,” Law and Society Review 15, no. 3/4 (January 1, 1980): 631–54. 54. Saralaeva, “Dordoi—Eto Zhizn!” 55. Simon Clarke and Sarah Ashwin, Russian Trade Unions and Industrial Relations in Transition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 263. See also Chen and Sil, “Communist Legacies.” 56. Morgan Liu found that older ethnic Uzbek traders in Osh, Kyrgyzstan recalled a sense of trust in pre-Soviet and early Soviet times that allowed people to leave goods unattended, but that the Soviet system had eroded these norms, and today “dishonest profiteering” had become the norm. See Under Solomon’s Throne: Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2012): 32. 57. RA interview with Svetlana, September 10, 2015, Dordoi bazaar, Bishkek. 58. Other ethnic Russian female traders with similar Soviet-era experiences in production held similar orientations to that of Svetlana. Olga, for example, described the trying nature of her early years in the mid-1990s as a shuttle trader and the bespredel, or lawlessness, of the time. While such bespredel emerged after the ousters of Presidents Akaev and Bakiev, she characterized the current problem for her as the absence of a true kollektiv and the slow trading environment. She did, however, acknowledge the variety of work the trade union engaged in—including that she always read the trade union newsletters—although she herself was also not a member. Author interview with Olga, May 13, 2015, Dordoi bazaar, Bishkek. 59. RA interview with Salim, Dordoi bazaar, August 29, 2015, Bishkek. 60. “Zhizn' rynka?” 61. RA interview with Almagul, Dordoi bazaar, April 2, 2016, Bishkek. 62. Other younger ethnic Kyrgyz traders—also trained initially in other professions— similarly described the challenging nature of the trade. Some, however, like Gulzat, a forty-three-year-old trained medic who began trading at Dordoi in 2012, more forcefully lamented the relative absence of the government’s ability to control and regulate bazaar and container owners. RA interview with Gulzat, April 2, 2016, Dordoi bazaar, Bishkek. 63. See also Aditi Kapoor, “The SEWA Way: Shaping Another Future for Informal Labour,” Futures, Transformative Initiatives, 39, no. 5 (June 2007): 554–68. Kapoor has an eleven-point chart illuminating the differences between traditional trade unions and what he calls “alternative” ones uniting informal workers, drawing on SEWA’s experiences. 64. Littler and Palmer, “Communist and Capitalist Trade Unionism,” 253. 65. Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

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CHAPTER 4 . ADAPTING TO BAZAAR OWNERSHIP THROUGH DIPLOMACY

1. My research in Almaty, Kazakhstan, is published as “Bazaar Politics: The Fate of Marketplaces in Kazakhstan,” Problems of Post-Communism 55, no. 6 (November 1, 2008): 42–53. 2. For more on these November events and their implications, see Regine A. Spector, “The Anti-Revolutionary Toolkit,” CACI Analyst, December 13, 2006. 3. Mancur Olson, “Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development,” American Political Science Review 87, no. 3 (September 1993): 567–76. 4. For the logics of patronage and oligarchy, see respectively Scott Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2010); Jeffrey A. Winters, Oligarchy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 5. Margaret Levi, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 6. Neil Fligstein, “Markets as Politics: A Political-Cultural Approach to Market Institutions,” American Sociological Review 61, no. 4 (1996): 656–73. 7. Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 17. 8. Z. Sorokina, “Ia sozdal ‘Dordoi’—eto tysiachi rabochikh mest” [I founded Dordoi— it is thousands of working places], Vechernii Bishkek, January 28, 1998, 5. 9. “Bazary Baidyn—eli bai” [A place with many markets, will have rich people], Kyrgyz Tuusu, August 8, 1995, 3. 10. Ibid. 11. A. Nadyrbekova, “Dordoi bazarynyn atkaruuchu direktoru Amanbai Kaipov, ‘Yntymak bolso bardyk maseleler chechilet’” [Acting director of “Dordoi” Amanbai Kaipov: “Unity is solution to all problems”], Aalam, no. 68, October 10, 2003, 3. See also Boris Petric, Where Are All Our Sheep? Kyrgyzstan, A Global Political Arena (New York: Berghahn Books, 2015), 97–98. 12. Bolotbek Tashtanaliev, “Reforma-Saiasii önöktük emes. Al-adamdyn tagdyry [Reform is not a political campaign. It is an individual’s destiny], Erkin Too, September 30, 1998, 10–11. 13. “Askar Salymbekov,” interview in #One Magazine, February 5, 2012. 14. Sh. Shukurov, “Dordoidyn chöbörösü” [Dordoi’s decendants], Kyrgyz Tuusu, March 27–30, 1998, 7. 15. Author interview with analyst at the National Democratic Institute, July 10, 2007, Bishkek. 16. Petric, in Where Are All Our Sheep?, identifies a third business partner, Alisher Sabirov, an ethnic Uzbek citizen from the south of the country who served in the Ministry of Interior during the Soviet period. Petric argues that these strategically chosen business partners also served as important allies and protectors of his business in this period (96). 17. Stephen White and Olga Kryshtanovskaya, “From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian Elite,” Europe-Asia Studies 48, no. 5 (1996): 711–33; David E. Hoffman, The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia (New York: Public Affairs, 2002); Victoria Bonnell, “Russia’s New Entrepreneurs,” in Russia in a New Century: Stability or Disorder, ed. Victoria Bonnell and George Breslauer (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), 175–200; G. M. Derluguian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World System Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 155. 18. Many other examples confirm the importance of Soviet-era connections in acquiring land for bazaar founding. A construction and tool bazaar in Bishkek—Komfort—was founded in 1996 on empty land next to a Soviet-era state-run construction store of the same name. After the USSR collapsed, a member of the oblast consumer union of Chui region during the Soviet period used his status to buy the land next to the store for a low

NOTES TO PAGES 88–94

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price. As of 2007, the bazaar had 250 trading spaces and about two thousand daily visitors, while the store languished. Author interview with administrator at Komfort bazaar, July 27, 2007, Bishkek. 19. One exception as discussed in chapter 5 was a part of the central retail bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, which was privatized by a relative of the Akaev family in 1998 and controlled by him until Akaev’s ouster in 2005. 20. Barbara and Azamat Junisbai, “The Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan: A Case Study in Economic Liberalization, Intraelite Cleavage, and Political Opposition,” Demokratizatsiya 13, no. 3 (2005): 373–92; Peter Rutland, “Putin and the Oligarchs,” Putin’s Russia, ed. Stephen Wegren, 3rd ed. (Lanham, M.D.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2009). 21. One journalist in Kyrgyzstan details “white” and “black” types of “raiders”: Ulugbek Babkulov, “Zhurnalistskoe rassledovanie: ‘belye’ nachinaiut I proigryvaiut” [Journalistic investigation: ‘whites’ begin and lose], Voice of Freedom website, May 28, 2008. For more details on this process in Russia, see Alena V. Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006); Stanislav Markus, Property, Predation, and Protection: Piranha Capitalism in Russia and Ukraine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 22. “Askar Salymbekov,” #One Magazine. 23. See for example, Stanislav Markus, “Secure Property as a Bottom-Up Process: Firms, Stakeholders, and Predators in Weak States,” World Politics 64, no. 2 (April 2012): 242–77. 24. “Askar Salymbekov,” #One Magazine. 25. L. Saralaeva, “Dordoi—Eto Zhizn'!” [Dordoi—it’s life!], Delo No., no. 30, November 23, 2011, 9–10. 26. For an analysis that includes the perceptions surrounding the legitimacy of property ownership in Russia, see Timothy Frye, “Original Sin, Good Works, and Property Rights in Russia,” World Politics 58, no. 4 (July 2006): 479–504. 27. T. Kalysbekov, “Dordoidun Barmaktai bolup semirgen chymyndary” [Blubbery flies of “Dordoi” . . . Dordoi’s flies are as big as thumbs], Kyrgyz Tuusu, June 12, 1997, 2. 28. Another example of this widespread perception that the bazaar owners do not improve conditions for the traders or work on their behalf is represented by this excerpt of an article about a bazaar in the southern city of Osh, Kyrgyzstan: “The bazaar director, J. Orozaliev, has not brought changes to the bazaar yet, even though he has been in the position for 6–7 years. Most of the sellers say that it cannot go on like this.” Ermekbay Segizbaev, “The One with a Messy Bazaar Won’t Get Rich,” Osh Janyrygy, September 2, 2005. 29. Esengul Kubat, “Dordoi bazardyn kan tamyryby?” [Is it “Dordoi” bazaar’s veins?], Aalam, no. 8, March 3–9, 1999, 1, 5. 30. Author interview with trader at Dordoi bazaar, July 26, 2007, Bishkek. 31. In contrast, he remained very private about numbers, such as number of containers he owned, profits at the bazaar, and other such “business secrets.” 32. Sorokina, “Ia sozdal ‘Dordoi’”; V. Anikin, “Bazar—istochnik dokhodov I . . . patronship” [Bazaar—a source of income and . . . patronage], Slovo Kyrgyzstana, October 10, 1996, 9. 33. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1944). 34. Tashtanaliev, “Reforma-Saiasii önöktük emes.” 35. Ibid. 36. Author interview with Olga, Dordoi bazaar, May 13, 2015, Bishkek. 37. For details on the President Akaev’s family business, see Regine A. Spector, “Securing Property in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs 24, no. 2 (April 1, 2008): 149–76.

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38. Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 39. Tashtanaliev, “Reforma-Saiasii önöktük emes.” 40. For more details on which Akaev relatives and friends got which assets, see Kathleen Collins, Clan Politics and Regime Transition in Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006): 245–48. 41. Petric, Where Are All Our Sheep?, 97. 42. Tashtanaliev, “Reforma-Saiasii oenoektuk emes.” 43. David Lewis, “Kyrgyzstan,” in Donnacha O-Beachain and Abel Polese, The Colour Revolutions in Former Soviet Republics (New York: Routledge, 2010), 50. See also “Kyrgyzstan: Electoral Manipulation in Central Asia,” in Electoral System Design: The New International IDEA Handbook (IDEA, Stockholm, 2008), 54–56. 44. Kubat, “Dordoi bazardyn kan tamyryby.” 45. For more on this “lame duck” phenomenon, see Hale, Patronal Politics. 46. Shukurov, “Dordoidyn chöbörösü.” 47. Boris-Mathieu Petric, “Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan or the Birth of a Globalized Protectorate,” Central Asian Survey 24, no. 3 (September 2005): 324. 48. Author’s written correspondence with Bishkek journalist, July 2007, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. 49. Allen D. Hicken, “How Do Rules and Institutions Encourage Vote Buying?” in Frederic Charles Schaffer, Elections for Sale: The Causes and Consequences of Vote Buying (Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2007). Much of this literature derives from a Western context in which strong party systems exist, which is not the case in some contexts such as the post-Soviet region. 50. This contrasts with first-wave democracies, where SMD systems have resulted in more balanced party systems because states and parties existed prior to the introduction of electoral competition. Sarah Birch, “Single-Member District Electoral Systems and Democratic Transition,” Electoral Studies 24 (2005): 283. 51. Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy; Scott Radnitz, “Color of Money: Privatization, Economic Dispersion, and the Post-Soviet ‘Revolutions,’” Comparative Politics 42, no. 2 (2010): 127–46. 52. Confirmed with author interview with journalist, August 7, 2007, Bishkek. 53. Petric, Where Are All Our Sheep?, 102, 135–36. 54. The author analyzed his monetary contributions between 2001 and 2006 as detailed on his company’s website in 2009. Additional references to his relations and charitable giving have been documented in the press. “Bazary Baidyn—eli bai”; Tashtanaliev, “Reforma-Saiasii önöktük emes”; Bekbai Alykulov, “Dordoi—baba urpagy” [Dordoi— descendants], Kyrgyz Tuusu, April 3–5, 2001, 12. 55. Author interview with former security worker at Dordoi bazaar, April 20, 2006, Bishkek, 56. Author interview with analyst at BISNIS, July 11, 2007, Bishkek. 57. Ernis Asek uulu, “Maksim Bakiev, biznesmen, syn presidenta KR: o sem'e, ob ottse, o biznese i politike” [Maksim Bakiev, businessman, son of the president: about family, father, business, and politics], Agym, February 16, 2007. 58. Sergei Kozhemiakin, “Interview with K. Baibolov,” Belyi Parakhod, April 9, 2007. 59. Author interview with director of Institute for Regional Studies, June 15, 2005, Bishkek. 60. Four MPs, all with backgrounds in Soviet-era sports and links to criminal networks, were assassinated between 2005 and 2007. 61. Shairbek Juraev, “Top-Level Resignations and the Murder of Akmatbaev: Implications for Kyrgyz Politics,” Institute for Public Policy, May 2007.

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62. Author interview with member of Union of Entrepreneurs and Employees, July 12, 2007, Bishkek; also author interview with CASE analyst, April 6, 2006, Bishkek. 63. My arrival in Bishkek in November 2006 coincided with one of these protests, which allowed me to observe and discuss the dynamics of the protests in real time. See the research encounter note at the beginning of this chapter. 64. Kozhemiakin, “Interview with K. Baibolov.” 65. Bruce Pannier, “Kyrgyzstan: President’s Family Ties Invite Unflattering Comparisons,” RFE/RL, September 21, 2006. Another press story from 2007 quoted signs held by protesters, including: “We are against the usurpation of power by one person,” “We are against the seizure of the property of the ruling family,” “We are against the pressure on private business and the media.” 66. Alisher Khamidov, “Kyrgyzstan’s Unfinished Revolution,” China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly 4, no. 4 (2006): 39–43. 67. Markus, “Secure Property.” 68. Albert Hirshman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970). 69. A conventional “exit” strategy is exemplified by MP and Dordoi bazaar co-owner Kubatbek Baibolov. He chose to leave the business and political arena by 2008. Baibolov spearheaded opposition protests in November 2006 and later in April 2007. Around this time, he was threatened by the Bakiev regime and allegedly sold or transferred at least a portion of his assets to Kazakhstan and to other holdings outside the country. He also physically moved his family to Kazakhstan. In January 2008, he made his official exit from Kyrgyzstani politics official by announcing that his “children and grandchildren are more valuable than political predilections. . . . I do not want to be involved in this dirt anymore, I do not want to worry about them.” January 17, 2008, “Kubatbek I Nurzhamal Baibolovy zaiavliaiut o svoem vykhode iz politiki” [Kubatbek and Nurzhamal Baibolov announce their exit from politics], tazar.kg. It is important to note that after Bakiev’s ouster in 2010, he reentered the political scene, further strengthening the argument that any particular strategy—even exit—is temporary and open to change in Kyrgyzstan’s fluid context. 70. Omurbek Babanov, a wealthy and prominent businessman eventually chose loyalty to the Bakiev regime, after lurching among three major political orientations in four short years. As a highly successful Akaev-era businessman prior to 2005, he became a leading opposition member after 2005. By 2008, he fully supported the Bakiev administration. Originally from Talas, Kyrgyzstan, Babanov worked through the 1990s as a representative for Kazakhstan’s state oil and gas company in Kyrgyzstan. He held numerous other positions in the oil, gas and cotton sector in Kyrgyzstan prior to 2005, and succeeded in part because of his strong ties to the Akaev family via Akaev’s son. In the aftermath of Akaev’s ouster, Babanov became a vocal leader of opposition protests. Yet by 2008 he had forged a new compromise with the Bakiev regime and in January 2009, he was appointed deputy prime minister. See “Background on Omurbek Babanov,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 17, 2012. 71. Foundation for Tolerance International, Weekly Bulletin, issue 67, review of April 12–18, 2007, published on April 19. 72. “Kyrgyzstan’s Colossal Dordoi Bazaar: A Time of Opportunity and Change,” Eurasianet, October 21, 2015. The article states: “During the Bakiyev period, the Dordoi Association was elbowed into selling off its banking arm, Dos Credos, for a pittance. Many business owners were similarly expropriated by the Bakiyev family and the elites that surrounded it at the time.” 73. Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy. 74. Author written correspondence with Bishkek journalist, July 2007.

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75. Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 3, as cited in Paul Hutchcroft, “Oligarchs and Cronies in the Philippine State: The Politics of Patrimonial Plunder,” World Politics 43 (April 1991): 442–43. 76. The family plays an important role in Kyrgyz society. Askar Salymbekov, in fact, chose “Dordoi” as the company’s names because it was his great grandfather’s name, who had nine sons, one of whom was Salymbek. In turn, Salymbek had four sons, one of whom was Askar. See Alykulov, “Dordoi—baba urpagy.” By the late 1990s, their family’s holdings included multiple bazaars, malls, movie theaters, hotels, soccer teams, vodka and furniture production companies, and banks. See website, www.dordoi.kg, accessed January 2007. The importance of Salymbekov family relatives at this time in different roles in the business was confirmed by a Dordoi Association employee, July 13, 2007, Bishkek. 77. In the parliament at this time, about fifteen to twenty were opposition figures, about twenty to thirty were pro-Bakiev, and about fifty were sitting on the fence the entire time. Interview with journalist, August 7, 2007, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Prior to this, in the 2000 to 2005 parliament, between thirty and forty out of a total of 105 were sitting on the fence, neither for nor against the regime. Author interview with analyst at the National Democratic Institute, July 10, 2007, Bishkek. 78. Barbara Junisbai, “Improbable but Potentially Pivotal Oppositions: Privatization, Capitalists, and Political Contestation in the Post-Soviet Autocracies,” Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 4 (December 2012): 891–916. 79. Johan Engvall, “Kyrgyzstan: Anatomy of a State,” Problems of Post-Communism 54, no. 4 (2007): 33–45. Positions such as head of the tax police, the customs office, ministry of finance, and other government-appointed positions at the regional level were particularly lucrative. 80. In fact, over the past two decades, multiple businessmen-MPs have been stripped of their MP status and assets. Examples include MPs Usenov and Vorobiev under President Akaev. 81. Author interview with Bakyt conducted on May 14, 2015, and author interview with Azamat conducted May 19, 2015, both in Bishkek in the Russian language. 82. Joel Hellman, “Winner Takes All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions,” World Politics 52, no. 2 (1998): 203–34. 83. Recall the previous chapter’s discussion on attempts to install cash registers at bazaars and see the conclusion of this book for more on policy issues. 84. The author is grateful for a conversation with Medet Tiulegenov at the American University of Central Asia for helping to crystalize this point. 85. This was the 2009 Law on Normative Legal Acts (Zakon o normativnykh pravovykh aktakh 2009 goda). According to this legislation, the ranking of legal authority had the following hierarchy: constitution (constitutional law governs judges, elections, and normative acts); codex; zakon (laws passed by parliament); ukaz (issued by president, who controls national security and defense (including the GKNB) and also committees such as the Committee for Religious Affairs); postanovlenie and prikaz (issued by ministries); and raspolozhenie (issued by departments such as agencies, inspections, funds, and services). Nothing at the lower levels should contradict the constitution, the codex, or the laws. 86. “Outreach, Transparency and Public Participation in the Kyrgyzstan Parliament,” USAID, June 29, 2007. Report produced for review by the USAID by the Kyrgyzstan Parliamentary Strengthening Project, Management Systems International, 23. 87. Written correspondence with Bishkek journalist, July 2007, Bishkek. 88. For more on kompromat, see Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works. 89. In addition to discussions with Azamat and Bakyt, this was also confirmed by two interviews by the author with representatives from USAID, July 25, 2013, and July 29, 2013, in Bishkek.

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90. Author email correspondence with Bishkek-based analyst and entrepreneur, April 2007. 91. Author written correspondence with Bishkek journalist, July 2007, Bishkek. 92. Saralaeva, “Dordoi—Eto Zhizn'!” 93. One analyst reported that about twenty of the deputies (30%)—as of 2006—had direct or indirect ties to the bazaars in the country. Author interview with analyst at AKI Press, April 7, 2006, Bishkek. Those whom I have determined include (with MP sessions 1995, 2000, 2005, or 2007 in parentheses): Kubatbek Baibolov (1995, 2000, 2005); Askar Salymbekov (2005, 2007); Mamytbai Salymbekov (2005); Bayaman Erkinbaev (1995, 2000, 2005 until assassinated); Jyrgalbek Surabaldiev (2000, 2005 until assassinated); Askarbek Shadiev (2000, 2005, 2007); Alisher Sabirov (1995, 2000, 2005, 2007); Janysh Kudaibergenov (2007); Melis Myrzakmatov (2007); Ibragim Junusov (2007); Arapbai Tolonov (1995, 2000, 2005, 2007). 94. Saralaeva, “Dordoi—Eto Zhizn'!” 95. RA interview with Salim, Dordoi bazaar, August 29, 2015, Bishkek. 96. Author interview with representative from Shoro company, July 8, 2007, Bishkek. The founders, the Ergemberdiev brothers, initially sold kymys, and in the mid-1990s they bought the territory of the former Soviet-era milk factory and expanded to produce multiple national drinks (Shoro and Maksim) and bottled water (Legenda). 97. Author email correspondence with Bishkek-based entrepreneur, March 2008. In English. 98. In addition to those at Dordoi bazaar, the leader of the trade union at Alamudin bazaar, taken over by Salymbekov’s association as of the late 1990s, stated confidently that if she ever has any problems, she could go to Salymbekov herself, personally, and ask for his help in resolving them. Author interview, November 9, 2006, Bishkek. 99. Conversation with resident from Naryn, Kyrgyzstan, on a U.S. governmentsponsored program, spring 2010, Washington, D.C. 100. James C. Scott, “Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia,” American Political Science Review 66, no. 1 (March 1972): 91–113; Author interview with scholar from Kyrgyzstan, February 21, 2014, Washington, D.C. 101. Author interview with businessman and activist, May 19, 2015, Bishkek. 102. “Kyrgyz authorities based on the family contract,” Delo No. December 20, 2012. 103. Author interview with analyst at the Bishkek Business Club, July 17, 2007, Bishkek. 104. Galina Luneva, “Dordoi—shkola biznesa” [Dordoi—school of business], Slovo Kyrgyzstan no. 134, December 9, 2011, 4. 105. Yoshinori Nishizaki, Political Authority and Provincial Identity in Thailand: The Making of Banharn-Buri (Ithaca, N.Y: Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2011), 19. 106. Ibid., 13. 107. John F. Padgett and Christopher K. Ansell, “Robust Action and the Rise of the Medici, 1400–1434,” American Journal of Sociology 98, no. 6 (May 1, 1993): 1262. 108. Ibid. This point was confirmed by multiple analysts, including author interview with NDI analyst, July 10, 2007, Bishkek. CHAPTER 5 . CENTRALIZING TO MODERNIZE AT OSH BAZAAR

1. Author interview with deputy director of Osh bazaar, May 24, 2006, Bishkek. 2. John Cross and Alfonso Morales, eds. Street Entrepreneurs: People, Place, and Politics in Local and Global Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2007). 3. John C. Cross and Marina Karides, “Capitalism, Modernity and the ‘Appropriate’ Use of Space,” in Street Entrepreneurs, ed. Cross and Morales, 19–35. 4. Francis Musoni, “Operation Murambatsvina and the Politics of Street Vendors in Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 36, no. 2 (June 1, 2010): 301–17.

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5. John Cross, Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); B. Lynne Milgram, “Unsettling Urban Marketplace Redevelopment in Baguio City, Philippines,” Economic Anthropology 2, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 30; B. Lynne Milgram, “Reconfiguring Space, Mobilizing Livelihood Street Vending, Legality, and Work in the Philippines,” Journal of Developing Societies 27, no. 3–4 (September 1, 2011): 263. 6. Susanne A. Wengle, Post-Soviet Power: State-Led Development and Russia’s Marketization (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 7. Yuri Gruzdov and Nadezhda Popova, “Zolotye dni padenlia” [The golden day of the fall of urban civilization], MSN, no. 13, April 1, 2011, 3. 8. Zh. Aliev, “Bazardagy bazaar” [Bazaar (disorder) at the bazaar], Kyrgyz Rukhu, July 9–15, 1997, 7. 9. A. Rasul, “Oigo salgan Osh bazary” [Osh Bazaar that brings troubled thoughts], Zaman Kyrgyzstan, April 14, 1995, no. 15, 8. 10. Natalia Timirbaeva, “Na puti ot bazara k rynku” [On the way from bazaar to market], MSN, no. 26, April 11, 2008, 11. 11. S. Maksutova, “Osh bazary: baardygy ele zhaiyndaby?” [Osh bazaar: Is everything all right?] Aalam, no. 2.1, January 1996, 1, 8. 12. Not all bazaars had their origins as kolkhoz markets; the case of Dordoi bazaar discussed earlier in this book is located on largely empty land in the outskirts of the city. Other bazaars throughout the post-Soviet region arose in spaces that served other functions during the Soviet period, such as warehouses, factories, or stadiums. For example, Luzhniki, a stadium in Moscow, became home to a huge bazaar with up to 100,000 visitors on some days in the mid-1990s. Similarly, in another example, the Warsaw Stadium in Poland, formerly a sports center, mutated into to a huge marketplace in the late 1980s. See Dmitry Khrapovitsky, “Bazaar at Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow,” Izvestia, July 14, 1993, 5, as reported in the Current Digest of Post-Soviet Press 45, no. 28 (August 11, 1993); Keith Sword, “Cross-Border Suitcase Trade and the Role of Foreigners in Polish Informal Markets,” in The Challenge of East-West Migration for Poland, ed. Krystyna Iglicka and Keith Sword (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 145–67. 13. Julie Hessler, “A Postwar Perestroika? Toward a History of Private Enterprise in the USSR,” Slavic Review 57, no. 3 (October 1, 1998): 520–21. 14. Naum Jasny, The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR: Plans and Performance (Stanford: Stanford University Press) 1949, 385. See also chapter 6, “Kolkhoz Market,” in KarlEugen Waedekin, The Private Sector in Soviet Agriculture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 127–80. 15. Julie Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 334–35. 16. Marshall I. Goldman, “Retailing in the Soviet Union,” Journal of Marketing 24, no. 4 (April 1960): 10. For more details on the structure of Soviet trade as it developed in the 1950s, see Marshall I. Goldman, “The Marketing Structure in the Soviet Union,” Journal of Marketing 25, no. 5 (July 1961): 7–14. 17. Henry W. Ware, “The Collective Farm Peasant Market,” Journal of Farm Economics 32, no. 2 (May 1950): 299–306. 18. Various guidelines and decrees at the national and republican level in the mid1960s provide the basis for the regulation of these markets. See Waedekin, The Private Sector in Soviet Agriculture, 130, footnote 7; Goldman, “Retailing in the Soviet Union,” 9–15; Krutyi, R. C. Spravochnik Rabotnika Kolkhoznogo Rynka [Guide for the workers of kolkhoz markets], 2nd ed. (Urozhai, 1991). 19. Light industrial consumer goods were also in extreme deficit especially by the end of the Soviet period. For the logic of these deficits as related to the militarization of the

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Soviet economy, see Clifford G. Gaddy, The Price of the Past: Russia’s Struggle with the Legacy of a Militarized Economy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1996). 20. Andrew Barnes, Owning Russia: The Struggle over Factories, Farms, and Power (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006), chapter 2, “The Tangled Web They Wove: Property before 1985” and chapter 3, “Let the Games Begin: 1985–1991,” 20–67. He discusses laws on individual labor activity and state enterprises, and the creation of cooperative enterprises in food and consumer goods, which led to huge opportunities for decentralization and local participation, and the abolition of the superministry of agriculture and food. 21. For details of these surveys across regions of the Soviet Union, see Mark Rhodes, “Food Supply in the USSR,” RFE/RL Research 3, no. 41 (October 11, 1991): 11–16. 22. Zh. M. Malabaev, Bishkek: Stolitsa Kyrgyzstana [Bishkek: Capital of Kyrgyzstan] (Bishkek: Erkin-Too, 2001), 42–45. 23. Serguei Alex. Oushakine, “‘Against the Cult of Things’: On Soviet Productivism, Storage Economy, and Commodities with No Destination,” Russian Review 73, no. 2 (April 1, 2014): 198–23. 24. E. Kasymova, “Optovaia Torgovlia: Puti Reorganizatsii” [Wholesale trade: Paths to reorganization], Kommsomoletz Kirgizii, March 22, 1989, 5. 25. V. Pavlova, “Optom ili v Roznitsu?” [Wholesale or retail?], Leninskii Put', November 1, 1990, 2. 26. A. Adamovskii, “Nuzhen veshchevoi rynok” [We need an apparel marketplace], Sovetskaia Kirgiziia, November 14, 1987, 3. 27. Decree from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kirgizia and the Council of Ministers of the Kyrgyz SSR, “Ob initsiative riada khoziaistv i organizatsii potrebitel'skoi kooperatsii respubliki po stroitel'stvu magazinov v gor. Frunze dlia prodazhi sel'sko-khoziaistvennoi produktsii” [On the initiative in the sphere of economics and organization of consumer cooperatives in the country to build stores in the city of Frunze for the sale of agricultural products], October 14, 1982. 28. For more on cooperatives, see Victoria E. Bonnell, “Russia’s New Entrepreneurs,” in Russia in the New Century: Stability or Disorder?, ed. Victoria E. Bonnell and George W. Breslauer (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 175–200; Barnes, Owning Russia, 43–67. 29. World Bank, “The Kyrgyz Republic: Agricultural Sector Review,” World Bank Report no. 12989, May 17, 1995, 1. 30. Decree from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kirgizia and the Council of Ministers of the Kyrgyz SSR, “O zadachakh po vypolneniiu postanovleniia Ts.K. KPSS i Sovieta Ministrov SSSR ot 26 Fevralia 1987 goda no. 265 'O merakh po uluchsheniiu raboty kolkhoznykh rynkov” [On the objective of fulfilling the decree from the Ts.K. KPSS and Council of Ministers of the SSSR from February 26, 1987, no. 265 “On the measures to increase the work of kolkhoz markets”], May 5, 1987. On file with author. 31. For an elaboration of this political decentralization and the powers of regional officials, see Pauline Jones-Luong, Institutional Change and Political Continuity in PostSoviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions, and Pacts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 32. Author interview with official from the Ministry of Trade and Development, June 8, 2005, Bishkek. 33. A. Kaparov, “G. Kuznetsovdun Teskeri Toktomu” [Unsuitable law by G. Kuznetsov], Kyrgyz Tuusu, June 13, 1995, 3; M. Sivasheva, “Akimizatsiia” [Akimazation], ResPublica, July 4, 1995, 2. 34. “Fond Skazal—peredat'! i koe-shto zabyl . . .” [Fund said ‘transfer’—but has forgotten something . . .], Slovo Kyrgyzstana, June 22, 1995, 3. This was a decree on April 17, 1995, by the Fund of State Property (GosFondImushchestva) “On the transfer of rights from the kolkhoz markets to the city administration.”

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35. Olga Kaganova, Abdirasul Akmatov, and Charles Undeland, “Introducing More Transparent and Efficient Land Management in Post-Socialist Cities: Lessons from Kyrgyzstan,” International Journal of Strategic Property Management 12, no. 3 (September 1, 2008): 162, 164. 36. “Kto khoziain na bazare?” [Who is the owner of the bazaar?], Respublica, August 8, 1995, 3. 37. U. Daiyrbekov, “Chökpöilü” [Let’s not sink], Kyrgyz Tuusu, September 10, 1994, 2. 38. T. Temirov, “Kooperatsiiada özgörüülör köp bolot” [There will be many changes in cooperatives], Kyrgyz Tuusu, November 23, 1995, 1. 39. “Rynok Shartyna ylaiyk kaira tuzulot” [The market will be reestablished], Kyrgyz Tuusu, March 7, 1996, 1; “Komissiia Kuramy Toluktaldy” [The composition of the committee is completed], Kyrgyz Tuusu, March 12, 1996, 1. Just two days after this March 4 decree, certain members of the Kyrgyz Consumer Union rejected this decree and held a meeting in order to make an alternative decision. President Akaev responded one day later invalidating their decree, and as a compromise, added an additional group of people to the commission, presumably to appease their interests. 40. S. Aidarbek, “Kerek-zharak . . . kerek” [Consumer . . . needed], Zaman Kyrgyzstan, March 15, 1996, 1, 4. 41. Author interview with administrators at Orto Sai bazaar, July 20, 2007, Bishkek. 42. Abdinazar Mamasharipov, “He Wins by Stealing,” Asaba, no. 32, June 4, 1999, 7. 43. Barnes, Owning Russia. 44. As the transitions across post-Communist Eastern Europe demonstrated, privatization outcomes have been structured by a variety of privatization regimes, or “paths of extrication” from the Soviet system. David Stark and Laszlo Bruszt, Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). In the Kyrgyz Republic, the Bureau of Technical Inventory (BTI) as well as local government-based architectural offices had records of urban land, including houses and apartments. The Land Engineering/Management offices documented stateowned rural land. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, a 1998 law in Kyrgyzstan consolidated the bureaucracies and offices into the unified GosRegister (State Agency for Registration of Rights to Immoveable Property), which had the responsibility to register real property. See H. A. L. Dekker, Property Regimes in Transition. Land Reform, Food Security, and Economic Development: A Case Study in the Kyrgyz Republic (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing, 2003), 52–54. 45. Katherine Verdery, “Fuzzy Property: Rights, Power, and Identity in Transylvania’s Decollectivization,” in Uncertain Transition: Ethnographies of Change in the Postsocialist World, ed. Katherine Verdery and Michael Burawoy (Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1999). 46. Gruzdov and Popova, “Zolotye dni padenlia.” 47. Entry on “Alaarchinskii Kolkhoznyi Rynok,” Frunze Entsiklopediia, 1984, Frunze, USSR, 81; Entry on “Oshskii bazar,” Frunze Entsiklopediia, 1984, Frunze, USSR, 195. 48. Malabaev, Bishkek: Stolitsa Kyrgyzstana. 49. Rasul, “Oigo salgan Osh bazary.” 50. Ibid. 51. B. Tumonbaeva, “Osh bazardyn on-solu” [The truth about the Osh bazaar], Respublica, December 2–8, 1997. See also Aliev, “Bazardagy bazaar.” 52. He appealed to the court system for justice multiple times over many years—to no avail until 1999. For more details about this case, see B. Bukesheva, “Bazarno-Sudebnyi Bespredel” [Bazaar-Legal mayhem], Respublica, December 2–8, 1997. 53. Aliev, “Bazardagy bazaar.” 54. Another critical newspaper, Respublica, also quoted a statement with this same woman: “I have many children. I want to understand [the director], but he does not want

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to understand me. I didn’t want any scandals. Most of the objects of Osh bazaar that are beneficial to the public were “prikhvatizatsiya” [reference to prikhvat—unfair grabbing or capture of resources]. Why? Nobody knows. Who has given him rights to do whatever he wants with the bazaar’s pavilions that would being benefit to the state? . . . Those who haven’t worked at the bazaar got nice big pavilions. How about people like me? To get rid of people who worked here for many years he gave them spots in far places of the bazaar, or simply fired them.” Tumonbaeva, “Osh bazardyn on-solu.” 55. B. Shamshiev, “Bazardan chykkan chatak” [The quarrel that started at the bazaar], ResPublica, March 24–30, 1998, 1. 56. Rasul, “Oigo salgan Osh bazary.” 57. Tumonbaeva, “Osh bazardyn on-solu.” 58. This person was allegedly involved in unofficially selling off some of the kolkhoz market land very cheaply to a range of people often in the absence of clear laws about the status of cooperative property. He reportedly had good connections with the Akaev family. Author interview with representative from PRAGMA, April 14, 2006, Osh. 59. Regine A. Spector, “Securing Property in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs 24, no. 2 (April 1, 2008): 149–76. 60. K. Osmonaliev, “Miting Emneden Chykty?” [Where did the protest come from?], Kyrgyz Tuusu, May 1–3, 2001, 11. He worked in various positions, including the deputy director of Naryn Oblast Consumer Union, leader of Kyrgyz shoes trade warehouse, and representative of Talas Regional Consumer Union. Beginning in 1992, he became chairman of the Kyrgyz Clothes Joint Stock Company. 61. Bekbai Alykulov, “Patriot boluu—yiyk parzybyz” [It’s our big responsibility to be patriots], Kyrgyz Tuusu, February 14–17, 2003, 9. 62. Ibid. 63. Resolution of the Panel of Judges on administrative and economic case of the Supreme Court of the Kyrgyz Republic, case no. AC—002147/05.B1, form no. FCS, review proceeding no. 07–000260/06.AC, dated December 1, 2006, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. On file with author. 64. For example, the Bishkek mayor announced Decree #237 on April 28, 2000, on clearing out trash in certain areas of the bazaar that other companies claimed ownership of. Or in another example, a government commission in 2001 was supposed to empty a part of the bazaar occupied by a private company, but continued to work. Alykulov, “Patriot boluu—yiyk parzybyz.” 65. Kenzhe Osmonalieva, “Kozhoiun kop zherde biilik alsyz” [Power is weak when there are many masters], Agym, June 4, 2004, 15. 66. Ibid. 67. Author interview with deputy director of Osh bazaar, May 24, 2006, Bishkek. 68. Alykulov, “Patriot boluu—yiyk parzybyz.” 69. Osmonalieva, “Kozhoiun kop zherde biilik alsyz.” 70. Spector, “Securing Property.” 71. Author interview with deputy director of Osh bazaar, May 24, 2006, Bishkek. 72. Author interview with representative of the Department of Trade and Entrepreneurship, Lenin region, Bishkek city, November 13, 2006, Bishkek. 73. Zinaida Sorokina, “Navesti poriadok vokrug Oshskogo rynka trebuiut ne tol'ko pokupateli, no i prodavtsy” [Sellers and buyers demand order around Osh bazaar], Vechernii Bishkek, October 7, 2005. 74. Author interview with deputy director of Osh bazaar, May 24, 2006, Bishkek. 75. Author interview with representative of the department of trade and entrepreneurship, Lenin region, Bishkek city, November 13, 2006, Bishkek. 76. Sorokina, “Navesti poriadok.”

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77. Doku Baiarstan, “‘Osh bazaryn’ kimder, kantip ‘basyp’ alyshkan?” [Who and how was Osh bazaar “seized”?], Zhany Ordo, April 26, 2007. 78. Timirbaeva, “Na puti ot bazara k rynku.” 79. For an example of these processes drawing on James Scott’s Seeing Like a State and as it relates to Kazakhstan’s attempts to civilize and modernize bazaars in Almaty, see Regine A. Spector, “Bazaar Politics: The Fate of Marketplaces in Kazakhstan,” Problems of Post-Communism 55, no. 6 (November 1, 2008): 42–53. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). 80. Chynara Asanova, “Oshskii Rynok” [Osh Marketplace], Slovo Kyrgyzstan, no. 10, January 26, 2011, 4. 81. Dmitry Ashcheulov, “Demontazh prekratit” [Stop, dismantle, temporarily], Slovo Kyrgyzstana no. 6, January 18, 2011, 9. 82. Zinaida Sorokina, “Ne bazar a pozor” [Not bazaar but dishonor], Vechernii Bishkek, no. 11, January 24, 2011, 9. 83. Irina Kovshova, “Vziatie Oshkogo Rynka” [Taking Osh bazaar], Vechernii Bishkek, November 13, 2012, 8. 84. Asanova, “Oshskii Rynok.” 85. Ibid. 86. Ashcheulov, “Demontazh prekratit.” 87. Gruzdov and Popova, “Zolotye dni padenlia.” 88. Ibid. 89. Baiysbek Moldoshev, “Eldin uulu Kamchybek” [People’s son Kamchybek], Kyrgyz Tuusu, February 2, 1995, 4. 90. Sorokina, “Ne bazar a pozor.” The material in this paragraph comes from this article. 91. Ilda Lindell, “Introduction: the changing politics of informality—collective organizing, alliances and scales of engagement,” in Africa’s Informal Workers: Collective Agency, Alliances and Transnational Organizing in Urban Africa, ed. Ilda Lindell (London: Zed Books, 2010), 9. CHAPTER 6 . BECOMING TRADING ELDERS AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES

1. One notable exception is the Kyial section of Osh bazaar, which does formally have a trade union. Kyial was founded during the Soviet era as a design center and had a trade union affiliated with it. Given its physical location as part of Osh bazaar, the Kyial building continues to be home of the design center and in addition now includes an associate minibazaar, one of the many units of the sprawling bazaar. For more on the history of Kyial, see Aisalkyn Botoeva and Regine A. Spector, “Sewing to Satisfaction: Craft-Based Entrepreneurs in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan,” Central Asian Survey 32, no. 4 (December 1, 2013): 487–500. 2. Judith Beyer, “Revitalisation, Invention, and Continued Existence of the Kyrgyz Aksakal Courts: Listening to Pluralistic Accounts of History,” Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law 38, no. 53–54 (January 1, 2006): 159. The next four paragraphs recounting how this aksakal institution survived throughout the Soviet period are based on Beyer’s findings in this article. 3. Ibid., 162. 4. Ibid., 145. 5. Ibid., 153. 6. Judith Beyer, “Customizations of Law: Courts of Elders (Aksakal Courts) in Rural and Urban Kyrgyzstan,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 38, no. 1 (May 1, 2015): 55–56. 7. These elders also played an important role among ethnic Uzbeks in the south of the country in governing traditional neighborhoods. See Morgan Y. Liu, Under Solomon’s

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Throne: Uzbek Visions of Renewal in Osh (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), chapter 4. 8. Judith Beyer, “‘There Is This Law . . .’ Performing the State in the Kyrgyz Courts of Elders,” in Ethnographies of the State in Central Asia: Performing Politics, ed. Madeleine Reeves, Johan Rasanayagam, and Judith Beyer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 99–123. 9. RA interview with Medet, Osh bazaar, April 1, 2016, Bishkek. 10. During the interview in the Kyrgyz language, he interspersed the Russian words in this part of the conversation for law-abiding (zakonoposlushnyi) and citizen (grazhdanin). 11. RA interview with Begaly, Osh bazaar, April 1, 2016, Bishkek. 12. For more on the diversity of everyday Islamic practices and orientations in Kyrgyzstan, see David Montgomery, “Namaz, Wishing Trees, and Vodka: The Diversity of Everyday Religious Life in Central Asia,” in Everyday Life in Central Asia: Past and Present, ed. Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 355–71. 13. Beyer, “Customizations of Law.” 14. Ilhan Sahin, Nomads and Nomadism, NIHU Program Islamic Area Studies (Tokyo: Tokyo Press, 2013), 64. 15. Ibid., 66–67. 16. Ibid., 70–71. 17. RA interview with Aiman, Osh bazaar, April 3, 2016, Bishkek. 18. RA interview with Bermet, Osh bazaar, March 31, 2016, Bishkek. 19. RA interview with Almaz, Osh bazaar, May 15, 2015, Bishkek. 20. RA interview with Adyl, Osh bazaar, May 18, 2015, Bishkek. 21. RA interview with Nadia, Osh bazaar, May 18, 2015, Bishkek. 22. RA interview with Aigul, Osh bazaar, May 15, 2015, Bishkek. 23. A social and cultural theory framework in future research could elucidate why individuals with similar Soviet educations and professional experiences, as well as similar post-Soviet trading experiences, have different interpretations of order and their role in its creation and maintenance—in other words, why some become aksakals and most do not. For one example of such an analysis that focuses on the different ways in which return migrants to Kazakhstan process their experiences in the United States and reassimilate (or not), see Douglas W. Blum, The Social Process of Globalization: Return Migration and Cultural Change in Kazakhstan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 24. Madeleine Reeves, “Black Work, Green Money: Remittances, Ritual, and Domestic Economies in Southern Kyrgyzstan,” Slavic Review 71, no. 1 (April 1, 2012): 108–34. 25. RA interview with Taalai, Osh bazaar, March 30, 2016, Bishkek. 26. RA interview with Kanat, Osh bazaar, August 26, 2015, Bishkek. 27. Kanat’s friend Azim, forty years old, also from Jalalabad, expressed very similar ideas and understandings related to order. He himself started trading seeds in Osh at a young age, and he stated emphatically, “I wished to become a seller since my childhood,” a statement not expressed by older traders. RA interview with Azim, Osh bazaar, August 26, 2015, Bishkek. 28. RA interview with Nazgul, Osh bazaar, August 26, 2015, Bishkek. 29. RA interview with Ainura, Osh bazaar, June 8, 2015, Bishkek. 30. Francis Musoni, “Operation Murambatsvina and the Politics of Street Vendors in Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 36, no. 2 (June 1, 2010): 301–17. 31. Asef Bayat, “Globalization and the Politics of Informals in the Global South,” in Urban Informality: Transnational Perspectives from the Middle East, Latin America, and South Asia, ed. Ananya Roy and Nezar AlSayyad (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2003), 79–102. 32. Scott Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010); Amanda E. Wooden, “Another

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Way of Saying Enough: Environmental Concern and Popular Mobilization in Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs 29, no. 4 (July 1, 2013): 314–53. 33. Britta Korth, Language Attitudes towards Kyrgyz and Russian: Discourse, Education, and Policy in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan (Bern: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2005), 164. 34. Ibid., 104. 35. Rina Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 36. William L. F. Felstiner, Richard L. Abel, and Austin Sarat, “The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming,” Law and Society Review 15, no. 3/4 (January 1, 1980): 631–54. 37. Joldon Kutmanaliev, “Public and Communal Spaces and Their Relation to the Spatial Dynamics of Ethnic Riots: Violence and Non-Violence in the City of Osh,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35, no. 7/8 (June 25, 2015): 472. CHAPTER 7 . LOCAL ORDERS IN POST-SOVIET BAZAARS AND BEYOND

1. I focus in particular on the presence and role of trade unions. Future research could investigate the presence and work of aksakals or other organizational forms at these and other bazaars. 2. T. Kalysbekov, “Kyzyl kulak Orto Sai” [Red-eared Orto Sai], Kyrgyz Tuusu, June 24–25, 2007, 4; “Bailykty oilobogon bazarkom” [The bazaar director who doesn’t think of wealth], Kyrgyz Tuusu, July 25–27, 2000, 7; Mamat Raimzhanov and Abdymanap Amirakulov, “Orto-sai bazary” [Orto-sai bazaar], Erkin Too, June 14, 2000, 6. 3. Author interview with three Soviet-era employees of the bazaar, Orto Sai bazaar, July 20, 2007, Bishkek. The conversation included two females who described the history, and one male, who spoke less but was very critical of the bazaar’s privatization history. He spoke of the “prikhvatizatsia”—implying to grab—and how bureaucrats constantly pilfered from traders. He inserted his perspective that the economy is “null” now, which is why everyone is trading. 4. Author interview with trade union director, part of Orto Sai bazaar, November 14, 2006, Bishkek. 5. Author interview with trade union director, part of Orto Sai bazaar, November 14, 2006, Bishkek. 6. Author interview with bazaar administrator, Madina bazaar, July 19, 2007, Bishkek. 7. For more on these tensions and broader dynamics between China and Central Asia in the English-language media, see Cristina Maza, “Kyrgyzstan’s Uighurs Cautious, Still Fear Chinese Influence,” EurasiaNet, November 25, 2014; Marlene Laurelle and Sebastien Peyrouse, The Chinese Question in Central Asia: Domestic Order, Social Change, and the Chinese Factor (London: Hurst, 2012). See especially chapter 7, “New Mediators.” 8. Other challenges related to periods of declining or stymied trade flows resulting from border closures with Uzbekistan have received significant attention. Nick Megoran, “The Critical Geopolitics of the Uzbekistan–Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley Boundary Dispute, 1999–2000,” Political Geography 23, no. 6 (August 2004): 731–64; Nick Megoran, “For Ethnography in Political Geography: Experiencing and Re-Imagining Ferghana Valley Boundary Closures,” Political Geography 25, no. 6 (August 2006): 622–40. 9. For more interviews from people who worked in the bazaar during this period, see Michael Angermann, “Zwischen ‘Autozug’ und ‘Drahzeilacht’” (master’s thesis, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 2006), 65. 10. Author interview with trade analyst at Pragma, April 14, 2006, Osh, Kyrgyzstan. 11. Ibid. Another source claimed 5,000–6,000 containers. Author interview with director of Karasuu trade union, April 13, 2006, Karasuu.

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12. Angermann, “Zwischen ‘Autozug’ und ‘Drahzeilacht,’” 66–72; author interview with lawyer and consultant of the Ferghana Valley Lawyers, Karasuu, Kyrgyzstan, April 13, 2006. 13. Author interview with analyst at PRAGMA, April 14, 2006, Osh, Kyrgyzstan. 14. Karasuu is part of Osh region, or oblast, one of seven oblasts in the country. 15. “Bir zhumada zheti kun bolso-biz toguz kun ishteibiz” [If there are seven days in a week, we work all nine days], Erkin Too, March 29, 1997, 6; “Karassu Bazaar,” Asaba, November, 21, 2000, 5. 16. Vadim Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002). 17. For an ethnographic accounting of the role of such individuals and mafias more generally in bazaars in Vladivostok, Russia, see Tobias Holzlehner, “Shadow Networks: Border Economies, Informal Markets, and Organized Crime in Vladivostok and the Russian Far East” (Ph.D. diss., University of Alaska, Fairbanks, August 2006). 18. Azamat Temirkulov, “Informal Actors and Institutions in Mobilization: The Periphery in the ‘Tulip Revolution,’” Central Asian Survey 27, no. 3–4 (2008): 317–35. Palvan means wrestler and kuresh is the traditional Central Asian wrestling style. 19. Ibid., 324. 20. These include the Kyshtut municipality, which include Sogment and Carbak villages. C. Bichsel, Conflict Transformation in Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2009): 92–94. 21. For more details on his background and political relations with President Akaev, see Regine A. Spector, “Securing Property in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs 24, no. 2 (April 1, 2008): 149–76. 22. For details on his role in mobilizing protesters against President Akaev, see Scott Radnitz, Weapons of the Wealthy: Predatory Regimes and Elite-Led Protests in Central Asia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010): 151–52; Alisher Khamidov, “Kyrgyzstan’s Revolutionary Youth: Between State and Opposition,” SAIS Review 26, no. 2 (SummerFall 2006): 90. 23. In addition to Erkinbaev, another one of these four was sportsman turned businessman. Jyrgalbek Surabaldiev founded a new spare car parts bazaar on the outskirts of Bishkek in the mid-1990s. Before the construction of the bazaar, the empty land was being used as a de facto garbage dump. After ten years of growth and business development, by 2005, the bazaar allowed 1,500–2,000 traders and other service workers to provide for their families, importing every imaginable spare part from China, UAE, Russia, Germany, Iran, and Turkey. By 2006, the bazaar held between 800 and 1,000 containers that housed the traders’ “shops”; about 1,000–1,200 cars entered the bazaar area every day, bringing shoppers to browse or buy. Like Erkinbaev, Surabaldiev came from a network of sportsmen, serving as a trainer and teacher of judo during the 1980s, as well as for other sports teams in Bishkek. Beginning in 1993, he became director of the country’s youth school for the training of Olympic-level judo athletes, and later the head of the country’s Federation of Judo. Also like Erkinbaev, he was a member of parliament and was assassinated in broad daylight in summer 2005 on Akaev’s ouster after he had played a similar mobilizing role in the earlier events preceding his overthrow; unlike Erkinbaev, however, he mobilized in support of Akaev. While the reasons remain officially unclear, analysts believe that both of their deaths were tied to politics and property struggles. Author interview with administrator at Kudaibergen bazaar, May 23, 2006, Bishkek. 24. “The Battle for a Kyrgyz Bazaar: Fighting over the Spoils of Revolution,” Times Central Asia, July 18, 2005. 25. Author interview with director of Karasuu trade union, April 13, 2006, Karasuu.

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26. The trade union member continued to recount their desires and attempts to return the bazaar to public authority, to the “people’s hands,” but that these efforts had failed in practice, despite formal documentation that the bazaar had now become a “people’s” or “public” bazaar. She stated that none of their demands had been met. Property struggles among the prior owners erupted after Erkinbaev’s assassination. Author has multiple court cases and documents on file regarding property struggles at Karasuu bazaar that ensued after 2005. 27. Author interview, Karasuu trade union member, August 2, 2007, Karasuu, Kyrgyzstan. 28. Interestingly, however, these deaths did not spell the demise of their influence; family members of these deceased MPs as well as new organized crime ringleaders stepped in for their deceased counterparts, demonstrating again the importance of familial relations in business and politics, and shedding light onto the intergenerational nature of property claims in an uncertain environment. 29. One exception is Uzbekistan, where bazaars or marketplaces are nominally municipal property. 30. Viktor Diatlov and Konstantin Grigorichev, eds., Ethnic Markets in Russia: Space of Bargaining and Place of Meeting (Irkutsk, Russia: Laboratory for Historical and Political Demography of ISU, 2015); Viktor Diatlov, “Ethnic Markets in Post-Soviet Transitional Space: Their Role in Society and the Research Area,” Journal of Siberian Federal University 4 (September 2016): 795–814. 31. Caroline Humphrey, The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism, Culture and Society after Socialism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002). 32. Regarding the shuttle trade, Russian shuttle traders began facing limitations and restrictions as early as 1996 as part of efforts to “civilize” the trade. New rules allowed 35 kg worth of imports per month instead of 50 kg per week, and the value of goods allowed into the country without duties decreased from $2,300 to $530. These amounts were decreased from 200 kg and $10,000 worth of goods allowed to enter the country with each person in 1996. “Putin Tells Turkish Businessmen Shuttle Trade Must be ‘Civilized,’” Itar-Tass, December 6, 2004; Valeria Kochagina, “Shuttle Traders Face Tough New Rules,” Moscow Times, February 27, 2006, 1; Natalia Gurushina, “New Customs Duties for ShuttleTraders,” OMRI Daily Digest, July 24, 1996. While shuttle trade had been curtailed in Russia significantly by 2005, it still did exist; a trader continued to import $10,000 worth of watches from either Dubai or Southeast Asia by traveling to these countries with cash and bringing them through the “nothing to declare” line at Moscow’s main airport. He indicated that only one time did he get caught, but he does pay bribes to customs officials regularly. He admitted that he was one of the few left working this way. Author interview with trader, July 12, 2005, Moscow, Russia. 33. Vadim Radaev, “Competitive Changes on Russian Markets: The Example of Retail Chains,” Problems of Economic Transition 47, no. 6 (October 1, 2004): 66–93. Also interview with Vadim Radaev, Higher School of Economics, July 18, 2005, Moscow, Russia. 34. Mariia Veletski Kamil', “Politika vyzhivaniia: rossiiskie rynki i ikh torgovtsy pered ‘zakonom o roznichnykh rynkakh’ [Politics of survival: Russian markets and their traders under the “law on retail markets”],” in Ethnic Markets in Russia: Space of Bargaining and Place of Meeting, ed. Viktor Diatlov and Konstantin Grigorichev (Irkutsk, Russia: Laboratory for Historical and Political Demography of ISU, 2015), 252–63. 35. Andrew E. Kramer, “Huge Profits Spell Doom for a 400-Acre Market,” New York Times, July 27, 2009; Yuliya Zabyelina, “Costs and Benefits of Informal Economy: Shuttle Trade and Crime at Cherkizovsky Market,” Global Crime 13, no. 2 (May 1, 2012): 95–108. 36. Humphrey, Unmaking of Soviet Life, 196.

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37. Viktor Diatlov, “‘Ethnicheskie rynki’ v sovremennoi Rossii—uskol'zaiushchii ob'ekt issledovatel' skogo vnimaniia’ [“Ethnic markets” in modern Russia—elusive objects of research attention],” in Ethnic Markets in Russia, ed. Diatlov and Grigorichev, 16–40. 38. The material in the following paragraphs on this bazaar is drawn from the research of Oleg Pachenkov and Danielle Berman, “Spaces of Conflict and Camaraderie: The Contradictory Logics of a Postsocialist Flea Market,” in Street Entrepreneurs: People, Place, and Politics in Local and Global Perspective, ed. John Cross and Alfonso Morales (Routledge, 2007), 201–22. 39. Ibid., 207. 40. Ibid., 215. 41. For the World Bank’s summary of Georgia’s successful public sector reforms, see Fighting Corruption in Public Services: Chronicling Georgia’s Reform, Directions in Development: Public Sector Governance (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2012). 42. Samuel Schueth, “Apparatus of Capture: Fiscal State Formation in the Republic of Georgia,” Political Geography 31, no. 3 (March 2012): 133–43. 43. Lela Rekhviashvili, “Marketization and the Public-Private Divide,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 35, no. 7/8 (June 25, 2015): 478–96. These protests were widely reported on the civil.ge independent news website. See also Molly Corso, “Georgia’s Opposition Cashes in on Cash Register Protests,” EurasiaNet, March 9, 2006. The government also increasingly monitored tax collection by hiring consumers as undercover “tax fraud informants” to identify shops and businesses that did not use cash registers and give receipts. Molly Corso, “Georgia: Tbilisi Turns Shoppers into Tax-Fraud Informants,” EurasiaNet, September 28, 2011. 44. Liana Satenstein and Tamuna Karumidze, “At What Price Luxury? On the Hunt for Fast, Fake Fashion in Tbilisi, Georgia,” Vogue, November 13, 2015. 45. For recent research on two bazaars in Ukraine, one in the city center that resembles the politics of Osh bazaar in Bishkek and a container bazaar on the outskirts of Odessa that could be compared to Dordoi bazaar, see Caroline Humphrey and Vera Skvirskaja, “Trading Places: Post-Socialist Container Markets and the City,” Focaal 2009, no. 55 (December 1, 2009): 61–73; Abel Polese and Aleksandr Prigarin, “On the Persistence of Bazaars in the Newly Capitalist World: Reflections from Odessa,” Anthropology of East Europe Review 31, no. 1 (June 3, 2013): 110–36. The 7-km container bazaar has also been featured in the New York Times: Steven Lee Myers, “From Soviet-Era Flea Market to a Giant Makeshift Mall,” New York Times, May 19, 2006. For a perspective on municipal government efforts to close bazaars in Almaty, Kazakhstan, see Regine A. Spector, “Bazaar Politics: The Fate of Marketplaces in Kazakhstan,” Problems of Post-Communism 55, no. 6 (November 1, 2008): 42–53. 46. For India, see Abhayraj Naik, “Wizards at Making Virtue of Necessity: Street Vendors in India,” Socio-Legal Review 11 (2015): 1–60; Sharit K. Bhowmik, “Street Vending in Urban India: The Struggle for Recognition,” in John Cross and Alfonso Morales, Street Entrepreneurs: People, Place, and Politics in Local and Global Perspective (New York: Routledge, 2007): 92–107. For Mexico, see John Cross, Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998). For Zimbabwe, see Francis Musoni, “Operation Murambatsvina and the Politics of Street Vendors in Zimbabwe,” Journal of Southern African Studies 36, no. 2 (June 1, 2010): 301–17. For Philippines, see B. Lynne Milgram, “Reconfiguring Space, Mobilizing Livelihood Street Vending, Legality, and Work in the Philippines,” Journal of Developing Societies 27, no. 3–4 (September 1, 2011): 261–93; and Lynne Milgram, “Unsettling Urban Marketplace Redevelopment in Baguio City, Philippines,” Economic Anthropology 2, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 22–41. For Turkey, see Özlem Öz and Mine Eder, “Rendering Istanbul’s Periodic Bazaars Invisible: Reflections on Urban Transformation and Contested Space,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36, no. 2 (March 1, 2012): 297–314.

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47. Maria Fernanda Garcia-Rincon, “Redefining Rules: A Market for Public Space in Caracas, Venezuela,” in Street Entrepreneurs, ed. Cross and Morales, 36–57. 48. Ibid., 37, 39. 49. Ibid., 45. 50. Ibid., 53. CONCLUSION

1. Thomas Carothers, “The Rule of Law Revival,” Foreign Affairs 77 (1998): 95; Dani Rodrik, “Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank’s Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform,” Journal of Economic Literature 44, no. 4 (December 1, 2006): 973–87. For an alternative perspective on how these reforms in Russia in fact justified and maintained the continuation of provision of Soviet social welfare programs in practice, see Stephen J. Collier, Post-Soviet Social: Neoliberalism, Social Modernity, Biopolitics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). 2. Jennifer N. Brass, “Development Theory,” in Handbook on Theories of Governance, ed. Christopher Ansell and Jacob Torfing (Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar Pub, 2016), 119; see also Dani Rodrik, One Economics, Many Recipes: Globalization, Institutions, and Economic Growth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 3. For examples from Eurasia, see Henry E. Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Eric McGlinchey, Chaos, Violence, Dynasty: Politics and Islam in Central Asia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). For work on historical European and contemporary Egyptian struggles for democracy, see Amel Ahmed, Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice: Engineering Electoral Dominance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Amel Ahmed, “Revolutionary Blind-Spots: The Politics of Electoral System Choice and the Egyptian Transition,” Middle East Law and Governance 3, no. 1–2 (March 25, 2011): 3–12. 4. Douglas North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: Norton, 1981); World Bank, World Development Report: Building Institutions for Markets (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002); Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, “Unbundling Institutions,” Journal of Political Economy 113, no. 5 (2005): 949–995. 5. Donald C. Clarke, “Economic Development and the Rights Hypothesis: The China Problem,” American Journal of Comparative Law 51, no. 1 (2003): 89–111. 6. Yuen Yuen Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2016); Mary Elizabeth Gallagher, Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Doug Guthrie, China and Globalization: Social, Economic, and Political Transformation of Chinese Society (New York: Routledge, 2006); Kellee S. Tsai, “Adaptive Informal Institutions and Endogenous Institutional Change in China,” World Politics 59, no. 1 (2006): 116–41. 7. For more on the highly skilled, trained designers and technical specialists from the Soviet era in the sector today, see Aisalkyn Botoeva and Regine A. Spector, “Sewing to Satisfaction: Craft-Based Entrepreneurs in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan,” Central Asian Survey 32, no. 4 (December 1, 2013): 487–500. Many of the production shops themselves are scattered throughout Bishkek and initially operated below the radar of state officials. 8. Cesare Aspes and Juergen Pack, “Broader Strategy for the Textile and Manufacturing Industry in Kyrgyzstan: 2009–2011, Strength of the Value Chain,” Promotion for Sustainable Development Programme, GTZ, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, November 2009; Artur Aliev, “Textile and Clothing Sector of Kyrgyzstan,” International Trade Center, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, December 2009; Artyom Zozulinsky, “Kyrgyzstan Textiles Market,” United States Embassy, Commercial Section, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, September 2008.

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9. I use “relative” stability to signal that the local sociopolitical work of those involved at the bazaar could not prevent broader structural changes, such as the 2008 recession or the more recent economic downturn tied to global and regional political and economic trends. 10. For more on industrialization and development in the Third World, see Robert Wade, “After the Crisis: Industrial Policy and the Developmental State in Low-Income Countries,” Global Policy 1, no. 2 (2010): 150–61. Multiple scholars and analysts familiar with this sector in Kyrgyzstan argued that precisely the absence of FDI and outside intervention has allowed individual, relatively small shops in the apparel sector to rise, grow, and flourish from the bottom up. 11. For more on the location of production, as opposed to purchase of raw materials and the sale of finished goods at bazaars, and the infrastructural and electricity foundations of the manufacturing process more generally, see Regine A. Spector and Aisalkyn Botoeva, “New Shop Owners in Old Buildings: Spatial Dynamics of the Apparel Sector in Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs, forthcoming. 12. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). For an analysis of how the Almaty municipal and state authorities in Kazakhstan sought to remove and reshape bazaars by first making them legible, see Regine A. Spector, “Bazaar Politics: The Fate of Marketplaces in Kazakhstan,” Problems of Post-Communism 55, no. 6 (November 1, 2008): 42–53. 13. An additional area of international influence that has become intertwined with bazaar trade has been the proliferation of microcredit and other loan programs since the 2000s. While most traders in the 1990s did not have access to these sources of capital, traders since the 2000s have been able to take out loans through these institutions to begin their trade or expand it. 14. Specifically, the IMF concluded: “The most immediate explanation for the persistence of shuttle trade appears to be the tax advantage accorded to such trade at the point of entry of these goods. In the absence of this preferential treatment, import wholesalers would have a substantial cost advantage over shuttle traders for most goods, and the latter would likely be driven out of business. “Shuttle Trade,” Report BOPCOM98/1/3, Prepared by the Statistics Department of International Monetary Fund for the Eleventh Meeting of the IMF Committee on Balance of Payments Statistics in Washington, D.C., October 21–23, 1998, 20. 15. Annex 7 of this report summarizes the types of patent and their costs in Kyrgyzstan: “Investment Climate in the Kyrgyz Republic as Seen by Businesses,” International Finance Corporation, 2013. For more on presumptive taxation in the post-communist region, see Konstatin Pashev, “Presumptive Taxation and the Gray Economy: Lessons from Bulgaria,” Working Paper from the Center of the Study of Democracy, WP 0512/1 En, December 2005. 16. https://www.imf.org/external/np/leg/tlaw/2000/eng/stan.htm 17. Gulnara Toralieva, “Kyrgyzstan: Fury over Sales Tax,” IWPR, October 9, 2003. 18. Interview with Bakyt, May 14, 2015, Bishkek. 19. Michael Engelschalk, “Small Business Taxation in Transition Countries,” Working Paper, World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2006. See also “Kyrgyz Republic: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Progress Report” IMF Country Report No. 04/200, International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C., July 2004, 11. 20. Ibid., 6. 21. Kiren Chaudhry, “The Myths of the Market and the Common History of Late Developers,” Politics and Society 21, no. 3 (September 1993): 245–74. For more details on these tax issues in the region, see IEG Country, Corporate, and Global Evaluation,

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“World Bank Support for Revenue Policy Reform in Eastern Europe and Central Asia,” Document of the World Bank, Report No.: 62994, 21. The report further mentions Dordoi bazaar on p. 23. 22. Elizabeth Day, “The Slap That Sparked a Revolution,” Guardian, May 14, 2011. 23. Mehdi Mabrouk, “A Revolution for Dignity and Freedom: Preliminary Observations on the Social and Cultural Background to the Tunisian Revolution,” Journal of North African Studies 16, no. 4 (December 1, 2011): 629. 24. We can see other such cases throughout the world. In India, two cases of selfimmolation by traders garnered significant attention in 2004 and 2006. In 2004, after the municipal government’s decision to lease out sidewalks to a “local gangster” who charged traders five times as much as local authorities, the leader of a local street vendors union set himself ablaze after negotiations failed. In 2006, a different leader of food vendors also committed an act of self-immolation in front of a crowd after two years of waiting for alternative promised space to trade after their places were retaken for conversion into a garden. See Sharit K. Bhowmik, “Street Vending in Urban India: The Struggle for Recongnition,” in Street Entrepreneurs: People, Place, and Politics in Local and Global Perspective, ed. John Cross and Alfonso Morales (New York: Routledge, 2007), 92–107. 25. Galima Bukharbaeva, “Uzbekistan: Tax Hikes Killing Off Traders,” IWPR, RCA Issue 161, November 15, 2002. 26. Some analysts attribute the stark policy to “a government push to reduce demand for foreign currency before a visit by the IMF.” The IMF closed its office in April 2001, but then after Uzbekistan allowed the United States to use its military air base (Khanabad) to support the campaign in Afghanistan, allegedly, “Washington agreed to help with economic reforms and persuaded the IMF to give the republic another chance.” In this context, the IMF signed an MOA in January 2002 to liberalize its foreign currency market, which would have resulted in $100–300 million in fall 2002 if the reforms were implemented. One World Bank analyst stated: “Although the republic needs this money, it is not as important as IMF recognition and cooperation, which will be a powerful signal to all international financial institutions that Uzbekistan is a nation with a market economy.” Bobomurod Abdullaev, “Uzbekistan: Traders Clash with Police,” IWPR RCA Issue 145, September 10, 2002. For a more thorough summary of these policies and protests in Uzbekistan, see “Uzbekistan: The Andijon Uprising” Asia Briefing No. 38, International Crisis Group, May 25, 2005. 27. For example, the American Bar Association has a Rule of Law Initiative in the region. 28. See the DAI website for information on this program, available at: http://www.dai. com/our-work/projects/kyrgyzstan%E2%80%94parliamentary-strengthening-programkpsp. 29. Interview with Azamat, May 19, 2015, Bishkek. 30. “Assessment of Parliamentary Legislative Drafting Process in the Kyrgyz Republic,” Kyrgyzstan Parliamentary Strengthening Program (KPSP), October 2011, USAID implemented by DAI, 14–15. 31. Arturo Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011); James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). For more on what have been called “transparency devices” initiated by the international development community, see Penny Harvey, Madeleine Reeves, and Evelyn Ruppert, “Anticipating Failure,” Journal of Cultural Economy 6, no. 3 (August 1, 2013): 294–312. 32. Pieter De Vries, “Don’t Compromise Your Desire for Development! A Lacanian/ Deleuzian Rethinking of the Anti-Politics Machine,” Third World Quarterly 28, no. 1 (January 1, 2007): 25–43.

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33. Mary B. Anderson, Dayna Brown, and Isabella Jean, Time to Listen: Hearing People on the Receiving End of International Aid (Cambridge, Mass.: CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, 2012). 34. Pat Horn, “Collective Bargaining in the Informal Economy: Street Vendors,” Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) and the Solidarity Center (Global Labour Programme), January 2014. In one crucial difference, this report investigates street vendors and traders as conceptualized as part of the informal economy. I instead heed to the language that traders themselves use, which in the case of Dordoi bazaar does not include reference to “street traders,” “informal economy workers,” or “unofficial economy.” As chapter 3 has argued, they based their actions and practices on the belief of their work as legal, legitimate, and formal in the sense that they pay the patent tax and abide by state laws, and thus deserve to claim and possess certain rights. 35. For an analysis of a progressive and successful trade union formed in Kyrgyzstan after the Soviet Union’s collapse in a different sector, see the creation of the Union for the Protection of Railway Workers (UPRW) in 2001 under its charismatic founder, Ernis Dokenov. Matthew Naumann and Burul Usmanalieva, “Organising Railway Workers and Land Migrants: Another Side of Civil Society in the Kyrgyz Republic,” INTRAC Central Asia: Social Movements Case Studies, 2008. 36. Andrew Schrank, “Toward a New Economic Sociology of Development,” Sociology of Development 1, no. 2 (June 1, 2015): 247. For a similar critique of political science literature related to Latin American political economy, see William C. Smith et al., “Special Section: Political Economy and the Future of Latin American Politics,” Latin American Politics and Society 56, no. 1 (March 1, 2014): 1–33. This latter piece argues forcefully that “social scientists have done little to generate empirically grounded studies that can help us understand, let alone respond to, Latin America’s transformation” (4). 37. For a review of the “economic turn” in the fields of comparative politics and comparative political economy since the 1970s, see Margaret Levi, “The Economic Turn in Comparative Politics,” Comparative Political Studies 33, no. 6–7 (September 1, 2000): 822–44. 38. Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973). 39. We can and should also investigate local understandings of ownership and private property as parts of broader sociopolitical orders that differ significantly from Western ones, and the ways in which people on the ground adapt, subvert, and reshape Western attempts via international organizations and aid agencies to implement their own visions. For an analysis based in Mongolia, see David Sneath, “Mongolia in the ‘Age of the Market’: Pastoral Land-Use and the Development Discourse,” in Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism, ed. Ruth Mandel and Caroline Humphrey (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 191–210. For two examples from the African continent, for Senegal, see Dennis C. Galvan, The State Must Be Our Master of Fire: How Peasants Craft Culturally Sustainable Development in Senegal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); for Ghana, see Christian Lund, Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 40. Andrew Sayer, “Moral Economy as Critique,” New Political Economy 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2007): 268–69. 41. Schrank, “Toward a New Economic Sociology,” 234. 42. Karl Polanyi argued that the commodification of land and labor threatens local social and cultural organization. “These institutions are disrupted by the very fact that a market economy is foisted upon an entirely differently organized community; labour and land are made into commodities, which again, is only a short formula for the liquidation of every and any cultural institution in an organic society.” Karl Polanyi, Primitive, Archaic, and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi, ed. George Dalton (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1968), 49.

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43. World Bank, World Development Report 2002: Building Institutions for Markets (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 44. The summary goal of the report, stated on page three is as follows: “The title of this Report, Mind, Society, and Behavior, captures the idea that paying attention to how humans think (the processes of mind) and how history and context shape thinking (the influence of society) can improve the design and implementation of development policies and interventions that target human choice and action (behavior). To put it differently, development policy is due for its own redesign based on careful consideration of human factors.” World Bank, World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Publications, 2014). 45. Ibid., 25. 46. For other studies that examine the moral sentiments and deliberations surrounding professionalism and other economic processes in Kyrgyzstan, see Balihar Sanghera and Aibek Ilyasov, “The Social Embeddedness of Professions in Kyrgyzstan: An Investigation into Professionalism, Institutions, and Emotions,” Europe-Asia Studies 60, no. 4 (June 1, 2008): 643–61; Balihar Sanghera and Elmira Satybaldieva, “Moral Sentiments and Economic Practices in Kyrgyzstan: The Internal Embeddedness of a Moral Economy,” Cambridge Journal of Economics 33, no. 5 (September 1, 2009): 921–35. 47. James Howard Smith, Bewitching Development: Witchcraft and the Reinvention of Development in Neoliberal Kenya (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2008), 244. 48. Noah Coburn, Bazaar Politics: Power and Pottery in an Afghan Market Town (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). 49. Laurent Gayer, Karachi: Ordered Disorder and the Struggle for the City (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 7. RESEARCH APPENDIX

1. For two thoughtful overviews of field research challenges, see guest editors Roselyn Hsueh, Francesca Refsum Jensenius, and Akasemi Newsome, “Fieldwork in Political Science: Encountering Challenges and Crafting Solutions,” Political Science and Politics 47, no. 2 (April 2014): 391-417; for a symposium on field research issues related to positionality and identity, see guest editors Candice D. Orgbals and Meg E. Rincker, “Fieldwork, Identities, and Intersectionality: Negotiating Gender, Race, Class, Religion, Nationality, and Age in the Research Field Abroad,” Political Science and Politics 42, no. 2 (April 2009): 287-328. 2. For an example of three different perspectives on the fate of bazaars in Kazakhstan, see Regine A. Spector, “Bazaar Politics: The Fate of Marketplaces in Kazakhstan,” Problems of Post-Communism 55, no. 6 (November 1, 2008): 42–53. See also Madeleine Reeves, Border Work: Spatial Lives of the State in Rural Central Asia, Culture and Society after Socialism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014). 3. Edward Schatz, ed., Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). 4. For an example of this type of ethnography exploring questions of mass industrial violence, power, concealment and “the politics of sight” based on work experience in three different positions in a slaughterhouse, see Timothy Pachirat, Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight, Yale Agrarian Studies Series (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). 5. For this type of research related to women’s rights activism in Russia, see Julie Hemment, Empowering Women in Russia: Activism, Aid, and NGOs (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007). 6. Frederic Charles Schaffer, “Thin Descriptions: The Limits of Survey Research on the Meaning of Democracy,” Polity 46, no. 3 (July 1, 2014): 303–30; Frederic Schaffer, Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide (New York: Routledge, 2015).

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7. Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 8. For more on this type of interviewing, see Frederic Charles Schaffer, “Ordinary Language Interviewing,” in Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the Interpretive Turn, ed. Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe), 150–60. 9. Nick Megoran, “On Researching ‘Ethnic Conflict’: Epistemology, Politics, and a Central Asian Boundary Dispute,” Europe-Asia Studies 59, no. 2 (2007): 260. Megoran addresses this challenge with focus groups on the topic of border disputes to see if and how ethnicity is discussed in relation to kinship, gender, and class. 10. Ibid, 255. For another example of this approach applied to understanding the 2010 ethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan, see Nick Megoran, “Shared Space, Divided Space: Narrating Ethnic Histories of Osh,” Environment and Planning A 45, no. 4 (April 1, 2013): 892–907.

Index

Page numbers followed by letters f, p, and t refer to figures, photos, and tables, respectively. administration, bazaar, 82; aksakals/baibiches and, 143, 147–48; bottom-up creation in Russia, 175–76; media critiques of, 90; trade union and, 56, 57, 58–61, 74, 93 Afghanistan: islands of order in, 189; NATO campaign in, 7, 20 Africa: islands of order in, 189; predatory states in, 18; reconfiguration of bazaars in, 113, 135, 161 Akaev, Aidar, 98 Akaev, Askar, 94; and aksakal courts, 140, 141; business environment under, 6, 159; Dordoi bazaar owners and, 88; economic policies under, 8, 26; family of, businesses acquired by, 88–89, 98, 126–27, 225n19; and parliament, changes in composition of, 95, 105; resolutions regarding kolkhoz markets, 121–22. See also Akaev ouster Akaev ouster: assassinations in aftermath of, 172; competitive parliamentary elections and, 97, 105; looting accompanying, 57, 68, 168; property redistribution in aftermath of, 5, 98, 129; subversive clientelism and, 101 aksakal courts: creation of, 140, 141; women in, 145 aksakals (elders): age of, 142; at bazaars, roles of, 141–44, 147–48, 163; characteristics of, 143, 145, 147; and conflict mediation, 141, 147–48, 156–57; and order at the bazaar, 138, 141, 143, 148, 154, 163–64, 167; at Osh bazaar, 3, 17, 137–38, 140, 147–48, 162, 167; in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 139–40, 162; in pre-Soviet Central Asia, 139; and social order, 163–64; starshie compared to, 53, 54, 138, 167; younger traders compared to, 159 Alamudin bazaar, Bishkek, 229n98 apparel manufacturing, in Kyrgyzstan, 181, 184, 241n10 Babanov, Omurbek, 227n70 baibiches (female elders), 145–48; at Osh bazaar, 3, 146–48, 163 Baibolov, Kubatbek, 87–88, 99, 227n69, 229n93

Bakiev, Kurmanbek, 94; business environment under, 6, 159–60, 227n69; family of, businesses acquired by, 88–89, 98, 99, 227n72; protests against, 83, 98–101, 133 Bakiev, Maksim, 98 Bayat, Asaf, 161 bazaars: bribes paid at, 57, 92, 175–76, 178; in Central Asia, 7–8, 21, 22, 32, 33; disorder associated with, 2, 9, 14–15; dispossession and opportunity associated with, 8, 24, 31–32; emergence in post-Soviet region, 1, 8–9, 174; in Georgia, 176–77; handmade vs. foreign-made goods at, 33–35, 37, 42; as institutions, 10, 11–12, 13; in Kazakhstan, 9, 33–35; literature on, 7–10; location and future trajectories of, 166; mafias at, 8–9, 9–10, 151, 171; as physical spaces, 10–11; questions regarding, 21–22; in Russia, 174, 175–76; Soviet precursors of, 118–19, 230n12 bazaars, in Kyrgyzstan, 6, 21; cash registers at, government attempts to install, 61–62, 182–83; challenges to doing business at, 10, 92–93, 105–6; changing generational and social context at, 163; and collective identity, recreation of, 73–74; economic dynamism of, 1–2, 7, 24; growth in postSoviet era, 25–29, 25f, 26f; imports to, countries of origin for, 29, 41, 169, 216n30; international customers at, 29, 46, 77; as islands of order, 6, 10, 57, 79, 165; leadership at, 3, 11, 17; privatization of, 11, 123, 166, 177; reconstruction of, 113–14, 134–36; Soviet and pre-Soviet organizational forms reappropriated in, 11–12, 16, 17. See also Dordoi bazaar; Karasuu bazaar; Osh bazaar bazaar trade: biases against, 24, 25, 32–33, 36–37, 39, 40, 43, 44, 218n59, 219n80; and capital accumulation, 1, 7, 31, 60, 92, 180, 181; changing understandings of, in Kyrgyzstan, 25, 37–38, 40–41; collapse of social welfare and, 31–32; evolution in Kyrgyzstan, 27–28; as form of dispossession, 31–32, 166; as honorable profession, 247

248

INDEX

bazaar trade (continued) reframing of, 44, 56, 92, 220n9; profits in, 7, 31, 43; Russian government’s policies to curb, 174–75; and social mobility, 7, 31, 60, 92, 106; as survival after Soviet collapse, 7, 8, 30–32, 33, 42, 44; toll on traders, 42–43 Bereket bazaar, Bishkek, 135 Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan: bazaars in, 168–69, 229n98, 237n23; as re-export hub for Chinese-made goods, 1, 29, 181. See also Dordoi bazaar; Osh bazaar Bouazizi, Mohamed, 184 Brazil, 18, 180 bribe(s): bazaar owners/administration and, 92, 175–76; at bazaars in Central Asia, 57; at bazaars in Russia, 175; of customs officials, 238n32; at marketplaces in Venezuela, 178; relative absence at Dordoi bazaar, 55–57, 76, 222n38; trade as alternative to, 43 Bulgaria, views on bazaar trade in, 219n80 businessmen: as MPs, 96–97, 99–100, 101, 102–6, 171, 228n80, 229n93; Soviet-era nomenklatura as, 85–88, 173; Soviet-era sportsmen as, 170, 171, 173 capital accumulation, bazaar trade and, 1, 7, 31, 60, 92, 180, 181 Caracas, Venezuela, marketplaces in, 177–78 caravan trade, in Central Asia, 36, 218n53. See also Silk Roads cargo companies, and traders, 64–65 cash registers: Kyrgyz government’s attempt to install, 61–62, 182–83; use in Uzbekistan, 184–85 Central Asia, 207n1; bazaars in, 7–8, 21, 22, 32, 33; caravan trade in, 36, 218n53. See also specific countries Chavez, Hugo, 177–78 Chechens, attitude toward trade, 218n59 chelnoki (shuttle traders), 27, 29; women as, 31. See also shuttle trade Cherkizovsky bazaar, Moscow, 175 China: economic growth in absence of formal institutions, 180; Kyrgyzstan as re-export hub for goods made in, 29, 169, 170, 216n30; as manufacturing export hub, 27; Salymbekov’s investments in, 107; shuttle traders and exports from, 27–28 collective bargaining: absence in Soviet system, 51; at Dordoi bazaar, 58–59, 78 collective identity, Soviet-era, recreating at the bazaar, 73–74 conflict, order as absence of, 15, 67–68, 71–72 conflict mediation: aksakals and, 141, 147–48, 156–57; starshie and, 64–67, 72, 76

containers, at bazaars: disputes regarding, 65; documentation of ownership of, 93–94; doors on, 77; at Dordoi bazaar, 62, 63p, 65, 78p; double-stacked, 62, 63p; at Karasuu bazaar, 222n42; open, 78p; ownership of, 222n43; sublet market for, 65–67 controllers, at bazaars, 54, 55, 82, 98 cooperative(s): municipal takeover of bazaar land and, 122; Osh bazaar, privatization of bazaar land and, 124, 125–26; in Soviet Union, property held by, 121 corruption: in Kyrgyzstan, 2, 5, 6, 10, 87, 151, 207n2; police, 48, 56, 93, 172, 173, 175–76. See also bribe(s) creative syncretism, 12, 49, 210n34 crime, at bazaars, 48, 60. See also mafias customs policies: in Kazakhstan, 28, 216n26; in Kyrgyzstan, 28; in Russia, 28, 216n25 Datka, Kurmanjan, 146 de Soto, Hernando, 6 disorder: bazaars associated with, 2, 9, 14–15; at Karasuu bazaar, 170, 172, 173, 174; Kyrgyz words for, 14; at Orto Sai bazaar, 168; at Osh bazaar, 113, 115–18, 127, 132, 134, 144, 147, 149, 151, 161; owners blamed for, 154; in present-day Kyrgyzstan, traders on, 68–71; Russian words for, 14 dispossession: bazaar trade as form of, 31–32, 166; post-Soviet market transition and, 8, 24, 29–32, 90–91 Dordoi bazaar, Bishkek: annual sales turnover at, 221n17; bribe-free environment at, 55–57, 76, 222n38; bus terminal at, 47p; and capital accumulation, 1, 180, 181; cash registers at, attempts to install, 61–62; challenges for traders at, 55–57, 90; containers at, 62, 63p, 65, 78p; economic crisis of 2015-2016 and, 80–81; entrance of, 41; ethnic origins of traders at, 39, 75–78, 220n8; infrastructure development at, 58, 86–87, 95; international customers at, 29, 46, 77; Karasuu bazaar compared to, 172–73; location of, 3, 85, 86, 166; Madina bazaar compared to, 169; money exchangers at, 60; order at, 6, 48, 57, 78, 79, 81, 166; origins of name, 228n76; Orto Sai bazaar compared to, 169; Osh bazaar compared to, 13–14, 111, 113, 136, 137, 152, 166; owner of, 3, 82–88, 106–10, 166, 172–73; as re-export hub, 1, 29, 46, 181; rental fees at, 58; Russian economic crisis of 1998 and, 80–81; security at, 57, 93, 97; Soviet-era origins of, 85, 230n12; starshie (senior leaders)

INDEX

at, 3, 17, 50–55, 166; trading row at, 59p; transportation to, 46 Dordoi trade union, 48, 166; and bazaar administration, 56, 57, 58–61, 74, 93; and bazaar owner, 84; and bribe-free environment, 55–57, 76; communitybuilding and social welfare activities of, 73–74, 75, 76; and conflict mediation, 64–67; continuity and legitimacy of, 81; different perspectives on, 74–80; leadership of, 3, 50, 220n9; and order at the bazaar, 78, 81; origins of, 49, 50, 75, 78–79; and patent payments, enforcement of, 62–63; political instability and security measures by, 57; resistance to changes in tax system, 61–62; Soviet-era organizations reappropriated in, 17, 49; ties with government officials, 56. See also starshie Dungans, and bazaar trade, 35, 36, 37, 112 economic development: in China, 180; in Kyrgyzstan, importance of bazaars for, 7, 24; property rights and, 6, 180–81; state’s role in, 18–19, 179–80, 181; in weak rule-of-law context, 2, 4 economic statistics, national-level: for Kyrgyzstan, 2, 5, 6; unreliability of, 2, 20, 165 education, in Soviet era, 38–39, 219n69 elders: in pre-Soviet Central Asia, 139, 234n7. See also aksakals; baibiches; starshie Elias, Norbert, 71 Emgek political party, 107, 108 England, privatization of pastureland in, 11 entrepreneurs: patent payment and, 62; renaming of traders as, 44, 56, 220n9 Erkinbaev, Bayaman, 171–72, 173, 229n93, 237n23 ethnic groups: commodity specialization at bazaars, 35, 38; in Kyrgyzstan, 24–25, 50, 76, 77, 214n5; in leadership positions at Dordoi bazaar, 50; in Soviet Union, 68, 71; and understanding of trade, 25, 35–37. See also specific ethnic groups factory workers, turn to trade in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 11, 41, 151 family, role in Kyrgyz society, 38, 228n76, 238n28 farm markets: in Soviet Union, 1, 11, 25, 35, 118–20. See also kolkhoz markets fees, bazaar: after Kyrgyzstan’s independence, 58, 121, 151–52; in Soviet era, 119, 121 foreign direct investment (FDI): as indicator of economic development, 180–81;

249

manufacturing growth in absence of, 181, 241n10 French national identity, 71 Georgia, bazaars in, 176–77 global capitalism, traders as victims of, 31–32 government officials: predation at bazaars, 10, 55–56; turned traders, 43. See also municipal authorities Grozny, Chechnya, bazaar in, 218n59 Harvey, David, 8 Hirshman, Albert, 100 India: exports from, 41, 46; street traders in, 162, 242n24; urban bazaars in, 177 institutions: absence of formal, economic growth in context of, 180; at bazaars, 10, 11–12, 13; bottom-up creation of, 4, 210n34; community, in Soviet era, 53–54; development programs focused on, alternative to, 4, 179, 188; formal and informal, intertwining of, 17, 212n64; Soviet and pre-Soviet, reappropriation in Kyrgyz bazaars, 11–12, 16, 17 intellectuals, as traders in post-Soviet era, 8, 11, 42, 153 international development agencies: disruptive policies and directives of, 181–87; microcredit provided by, 241n13 International Monetary Fund (IMF): on shuttle trade, 182, 241n14; on taxation, 182, 183, 185, 242n26 interviews, 14, 16, 24, 199–202, 203t–205t Islam: bazaar administration on, 148; and bazaar trade in Central Asia, 41, 144 islands of order, 163, 165; in Kyrgyzstan, 6, 10, 57, 79, 165; and manufacturing growth, 181; metaphor of, 209n30; in Russia, 174, 176; in Venezuela, 178; in weak rule-of-law environments, 2, 13, 20, 165, 166, 167, 174, 176, 178, 179–80, 189 Jalalabad bazaar, privatization of, 123 Japan: businessmen-politicians in, 95; postwar modernization in, 210n37 Karachi, Pakistan, islands of order in, 189 Karasuu bazaar, Kyrgyzstan, 146p, 169–74; containers at, 222n42; disorder at, 170, 172, 173, 174; location of, 170; owners of, 170–72, 173, 238n26; trade union at, 172, 173, 174 Kazakhs, ethnic: and caravan trade in Central Asia, 36; goods sold at Soviet markets, 35;

250

INDEX

Kazakhs, ethnic (continued) in Kyrgyzstan, 214n5; as nomadic people, 8, 35, 36; role in post-Soviet environment, questions regarding, 36; traders, mixed feelings about profession of, 42–43 Kazakhstan: bazaars in, 9, 33–35; border closure with Kyrgyzstan, 80–81; customs policies in, 28, 216n26; ownership of bazaars in, 82; shuttle traders from, 27, 29 Kenya, islands of order in, 189 kolkhoz markets (collective farm markets): in Kyrgyzstan, 121–22, 230n12; legal status in 1990s, 123–24, 168; in Soviet Union, 1, 11, 25, 35, 118–20 Komfort bazaar, Bishkek, 224n18 Koreans, in bazaar trade, 35, 37, 50 Kyrgyz, ethnic: commodities sold by, 35, 38; communal values of, 38; in Dordoi trade union, 77, 78; education in Soviet era, 38–39; entry into bazaar trade, 81; lack of financial experience, 70–71; as nomadic people, 8, 33, 35, 36; at Osh bazaar, 39, 43; as percentage of Kyrgyzstan’s population, 214n5; stigma of trade among, 32–33, 36–37, 42–43; trading possibilities for, new narrative seeking to legitimate, 37–38, 41 Kyrgyz Consumer Union (Potrebsoiuz), 121; ownership of bazaars, 122–23, 170–71 Kyrgyz language, 14, 39, 162 Kyrgyzstan: border closure with Kazakhstan, 80–81; capital flows in, 7; chaos and conflict in, narratives of, 20; colonial history of, 16; corruption in, 2, 5, 6, 10, 87, 207n2; economic liberalization in, 26; economic statistics for, 2, 5, 6; electoral institutions in, 96–97; ethnic groups in, 24–25, 50, 76, 77, 214n5; gold resources of, 7; industrial collapse in, 29–30, 216n33; as “island of democracy,” 209n30; islands of order in, 6, 10, 57, 79, 165; languages spoken in, 14, 38–39, 162, 211n48, 219n69; manufacturing in, 29–30, 180, 181, 216n33; NATO campaign in Afghanistan and, 7, 20; patronage-based system in, 19; political instability in, 2, 5, 6; population of, 5, 24–25, 214n5; privatization in, 11, 26, 95, 123, 177; property redistribution in 2000s, 5, 88–89, 98, 99; property rights in, 5, 6, 207n2; as regional trading hub, 6, 21, 29, 170; shuttle traders in, 27, 28; state’s role in development of, reframing of, 18–19, 179–80, 181; stigmas associated with bazaar trade in, 24, 25, 32–33, 36–37, 39, 40, 43; tariffs and import polices of, 28; transition after Soviet

collapse, 29–32. See also under bazaars; laws; parliament; tax system laws: order in terms of, 15; Russian, aiming to curb bazaar trade, 174–75. See also laws, in Kyrgyzstan; rule of law laws, in Kyrgyzstan: contradictions among, 10, 103, 186; foreign-inspired, criticism of, 185–86; hierarchy of, 103, 228n85 leadership: at bazaars, 3, 11, 17; at Dordoi bazaar, 3, 50–51, 220n9. See also aksakals; baibiches; starshie library research, 197–98 Lilo bazaar, Tbilisi, 177 Luzhniki bazaar, Moscow, 230n12 Madina bazaar, Bishkek, 169 mafias, at bazaars, 9–10, 93, 151, 171 manufacturing: bazaar orders and emergence of, 180, 181; collapse in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 29–30, 216n33; decline in postSoviet region, 7 Medici, Cosimo de’, 110 Mexico, bazaars in, 113, 177 Middle East: democratic uprisings in, event precipitating, 184; quiet encroachment in, 161–62 migration, in post-Soviet era, 31, 174 Mohammed (Prophet), 37, 38, 41 money exchangers, at Dordoi bazaar, 60 moral economy, 213n76 moral suffering, bazaar work and, 42, 43 Moscow, Russia, bazaars in, 174–75, 230n12 municipal authorities: and bazaar reconstruction, 113–14, 131–36, 138, 142, 149, 156, 160–61, 167; claims to bazaar land, 122–23, 170–71; and order at bazaars, 158 Musoni, Francis, 161 Nasritdinov, Emil, 6 neoclassical economic assumptions, shift away from, 187–88 new institutional economics, 84–85 nomenklatura, Soviet, economic wealth in post-Soviet era, 85–88, 173 Omurkulov, Isa, 133, 143, 158 order: aksakals and, 163–64; educational and professional institutions and, 70; local populations’ understanding and creation of, 13, 19, 20; private, studies of, 17–18; Soviet-generated ideas of, 68, 69, 72, 79, 152; spontaneous, theories of, 18, 213n67;

INDEX

in weak rule-of-law environment, creating, 166. See also disorder; islands of order; order, at the bazaar order, at the bazaar: as absence of conflict, 15, 67–68, 71–72; aksakals and, 138, 141, 143, 148, 154, 162, 167; baibiche on, 147; creation of, 3, 10, 11–12, 18, 19; at Dordoi bazaar, 6, 48, 57, 78, 79, 81, 166; in fiscal relations, 62; as lawfulness, 15; municipal authorities and, 158; older traders’ perspectives on, 148–54; at Osh bazaar, attempts to impose, 128, 130–36; ownership regulation and, 15, 85, 172–73; owners’ role in creating, 93–94, 110; in personal environment and relations, 15, 67–68, 71–72, 155; vs. private order, 17–18; sociopolitical work of traders and, 10, 11–12, 13; vs. spontaneous order, 18; street traders’ perspectives on, 161; threat of violence and, 9; traders’ understandings of, 15–16, 48–49, 148–59; younger traders’ perspectives on, 155–59 Orto Sai bazaar, Bishkek, 168–69 Osh bazaar, Bishkek, 112; aksakals at, 3, 17, 137–38, 140, 147–48, 162, 167; Arabinfluenced traders at, 144; baibiches at, 3, 146–48, 163; Caracas marketplaces compared to, 177, 178; centralized control in, attempts to impose, 126–27, 129–30, 131; changes in 2000s, 111–12; construction of, 124; disorder at, 113, 115–18, 127, 132, 134, 144, 147, 149, 151, 161; Dordoi bazaar as source of commodities for, 112; Dordoi bazaar compared to, 13–14, 111, 113, 136, 137, 152, 166; illegal vs. legal traders at, 135, 155–56, 158, 167; Kyial section of, 234n1; Kyrgyz traders at, 39; location of, 3, 111, 113, 166; main entrance of, 115–17, 117p; municipal efforts to modernize, 114, 115, 174; older traders at, 148–54, 162–63; order at, aksakals and, 138, 141, 143, 148, 154, 162, 167; order at, attempts to impose, 128, 130–36; Orto Sai bazaar compared to, 168; owners of, 3, 114–15, 118, 126, 127–30, 131, 132, 134–35, 147, 149, 152, 167; privatization of, 124–26, 127, 135–36, 151, 167; reconstruction after 2010, 131–36, 138, 142, 149, 156, 160–61, 167; rice pavilion at, 114p; street traders along perimeter of, 116p, 130, 131, 159–61; trade union at, desire for, 152–53, 154; younger traders at, 154–59, 162–63 Osh city, ethnic violence in, 163 ownership: container, documentation at Dordoi bazaar, 93–94; local understandings of, 243n39

251

ownership/owner(s), of bazaar land: aksakals and negotiations with, 143–44; assassinations of, 170, 172, 237n23; as barons/stationary bandits, 19, 84–85, 91; challenges for, 89, 92–93, 105–6; vs. container ownership, 222n43; and disorder, blame for, 154; of Dordoi bazaar, 3, 82–88, 106–10, 166, 172–73; emergence in postSoviet era, 11; exit strategies of, 227n69; and infrastructure development, 86–87; as job providers, 91–92; of Karasuu bazaar, 170–72, 173; in Kazakhstan, mystery surrounding, 82; Kyrgyz Consumer Union (Potrebsoiuz) and, 122–23, 170–71; legitimacy of, narratives regarding, 84, 89–90, 91–93, 166–67; media critiques of, 90–91; moral and social drivers of, 19; as MPs, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 105, 106, 115, 229n93; vs. municipal officials, 115; negative stereotypes regarding, 87; new-institutional economist perspective on, 84–85; and order, 15, 85, 93–94, 110, 172–73; of Orto Sai bazaar, 168–69; of Osh bazaar, 3, 114–15, 118, 126, 127–30, 131, 132, 134–35, 147, 149, 152, 167; property redistribution in 2000s and threats to, 89; rational-choice perspective on, 84–85; Soviet-era connections and, 85–86, 173, 224n18; struggles over, in 1990s-2000s, 121–22; traders’ perceptions of, 106–8; and trade unions, 84, 169, 229n98 Pakistan, islands of order in, 189 parliament, of Kyrgyzstan: Akaev presidency and changes in, 95, 105; assassination of members of, 170, 172, 237n23; businessmen in, 96–97, 99–100, 101, 102–6, 171, 228n80, 229n93; immunity from government prosecution, 104–5; international development agencies and, 185–87; laws passed by, 103; ministerial appointments by, 104; negative views of, 94–95; on reconstruction of Osh bazaar, 134 participant observation, 14, 16, 22, 23–24, 195–97 patent (combined license/tax system), 28–29, 56, 182; aksakals and payment of, 142, 143; vs. cash-register taxation, 183; government attempts to replace, 61, 103; international development agencies’ efforts to reform, 182–84; street traders’ avoidance of, 130; traders’ views on, 154, 158; trade union and payment of, 62–63, 166 pensioners, at bazaars, 175, 176

252

INDEX

Philippines, bazaars in, 113, 177 Poland, bazaars in, 230n12 Polanyi, Karl, 11, 243n42 police, and racketeering at bazaars, 48, 56, 93, 172, 173, 175–76 poverty, in Kyrgyzstan, 5, 30 presumptive tax, 182. See also patent private order, 17–18 private property: local understandings of, 243n39. See also ownership; property rights privatization: of bazaar land, 11, 123, 166, 177; of common pastureland, in eighteenthcentury England, 11; early dynamics of, and property stability or contestation, 166; of Karasuu bazaar, 170, 171; in Kyrgyzstan, after independence, 11, 26, 95, 123, 177; of Orto Sai bazaar, 168; of Osh bazaar, 124–26, 127, 135–36, 151, 167; in post-Soviet region, 9, 11, 85–88, 177, 232n44. See also property redistribution profits: bazaar trade and, 7, 31, 43; shuttle trade and, 27; vs. spiritual values, traders on, 43 property redistribution: assassinations accompanying, 172, 173; businessmen-MPs’ resistance to, 99–100, 104–5; in Kyrgyzstan, in 2000s, 5, 88–89, 98, 99, 129; in postSoviet region, 5 property rights: and economic development, 6, 180–81; and foreign direct investment, 180; intergenerational nature of claims to, 238n28; in Kyrgyzstan, 5, 6, 207n2 protest(s): businessmen-MPs and, 99–100, 101; against cash registers at bazaars, 61, 62, 183; negative associations among traders, 67; and ouster of Kyrgyz presidents, 57, 68; against President Bakiev, 83, 98–101; vs. quiet encroachment, 161–62; against reconstruction of Osh bazaar, 133–34; Salymbekov’s decision to remain on sidelines of, 83, 97, 98, 99, 100 racketeering. See mafias; police rational-choice economics, 84–85 rental fees, at bazaars, 58, 151–52 rest days, traders’ desire for, 60, 149, 150–51 Ruble, Blair A., 52 rule of law, international development organizations on, 185–86 rule-of-law context, weak: bazaar trade in, 12–13; economic development in, 2, 4; islands of order in, 2, 13, 20, 166, 167, 174, 176, 178, 179–80, 189; in Kyrgyzstan,

5, 207n2; manufacturing in, emergence of, 180; property redistribution resulting from, 5 Russia, post-Soviet: bazaars in, 174–76, 230n12; bazaar trade in, policies to curb, 174–75, 238n32; customs policies in, 28, 216n25; developmentalist islands in, 18; economic situation in, impact on Kyrgyzstan, 185; economic strategies in, 26, 115; mafia decline in, 10; shuttle traders from, 29, 238n32; trade unions in, 72–73 Russian language, in Kyrgyzstan, 14, 38–39, 219n69 Russians, ethnic: at Dordoi bazaar, 39, 41–42, 50, 75, 78, 220n8, 220n9; education in Soviet era, 38–39; goods sold at Soviet markets, 35; historical association with trade, 38; in Kyrgyzstan, 50, 214n5; transition out of bazaar work, 81 Salymbekov, Askar, 82–88, 106–10; background of, 85–88; balancing of economic wealth and political power, 94, 96, 100, 105; challenges for, 92–93, 105–6, 110; and construction of Dordoi bazaar, 86–87; critical perspectives on, 107–8; and Emgek political party, 107, 108; Erkinbaev compared to, 171; family of, political and economic power of, 101, 102, 108, 228n76; as governor of Naryn region, 94, 95, 96; international investments of, 107; intuition and experience of, 89; as member of parliament, 96, 97, 98, 101, 102, 105, 109, 229n93; narrative legitimating role of, 84, 89–90, 91–93, 107, 108; as oligarch/baron, 84–85; and order at Dordoi bazaar, 93–94, 110; partners of, 87–88, 224n16, 227n69; and political protests, decision to remain on sidelines of, 83, 97, 98, 99, 100; property redistribution in 2000s and threats to holdings of, 89; social capital accumulated by, 97–98; success at defending and growing Dordoi bazaar, 89, 108–9; traders’ perceptions of, 106–7, 108; trade unions and, 84, 229n98; wealth accumulation by, 95, 96 Salymbekov, Mamytbai, 229n93 Saudi Arabia, 18 Schrank, Andrew, 188 security, at Dordoi bazaar, 57, 93, 97 Senegal, land pawning system in, 12 Shambetov, Askar, 126–29, 233n60

INDEX

shame, trade associated with, 8, 39, 41, 44, 60, 219n80 shuttle trade, in post-Soviet region, 21, 27, 216n24; bags used for, 22, 23p; Bishkek as re-export hub in, 29; Chechens and, 218n59; IMF on, 182, 241n14; Kyrgyz policies on, 28; profits in, 27; Russian policies on, 238n32; women in, 31 Silk Roads, and bazaars in Central Asia, 7–8, 21, 32 Slavic traders, 50, 81, 220n8 social mobility, bazaar trade and, 7, 31, 60, 92, 106 social networks: Salymbekov and, 97–98; value in Kyrgyz society, 38 social welfare: aksakals and, 142; baibiches and, 147; collapse of, and rise of private trade, 31–32; Dordoi bazaar owner’s claims regarding, 92; Dordoi trade union and, 73–74, 75, 76 Sogdians, 218n53 South Korea: containers from, 222n42; as manufacturing export hub, 27 Soviet elites, acquisition of economic wealth in 1990s, 85–88, 170, 171, 224n18 Soviet Union: consumer good shortages in, 118, 120; farm markets (kolkhoz markets) in, 1, 11, 25, 35, 118–19; and order, idea of, 68, 69, 72, 79, 152; shadow economy in, 208n11; state stores in, 25, 35, 215n9; stigmas associated with trade in, 25, 37, 39, 40, 43, 44; tolerance in, 68, 71; trade in, 25, 35–36; trade unions in, 51–52, 72 Soviet Union, collapse of: changing perceptions of trade after, 37–38; and emergence of bazaars, 1, 8–9, 174; and industrial declines, 29–30, 216n33; market transition and dispossession after, 8, 24, 29–32, 90–91; migration after, 31, 174; privatization after, 9, 11, 85–88; trade as survival after, 7, 8, 30–32 speculators, traders perceived as, 33, 37, 40, 44 spontaneous order, theories of, 18, 213n67 sportsmen, Soviet-era, as businessmen in post-Soviet era, 170, 171, 173, 237n23 starshie (senior leaders), at Dordoi bazaar, 3, 17, 50–51, 166; aksakals compared to, 53, 54, 138, 167; characteristics of, 71, 74; and collective identity, 73–74; and conflict mediation, 64–67, 72, 76; election of, 52–53; ethnicity of, 50; on money exchangers, 60; and order, 81; and patent payments, 62, 166; and rental fee negotiations, 58;

253

responsibilities of, 54–55, 62, 72, 77; Sovietera experiences of, 17, 51, 53–54, 71 state: developmental, 18; and economic development, reframing of traditional conceptualization of, 18–19, 179–80, 181; and growth of bazaar trade in Kyrgyzstan, 26–29; predatory, 18, 20; pressure on traders, extreme acts in response to, 184, 242n24; role of, traders on, 69–71; shrinking of, in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 32. See also government officials; rule of law stationary bandits: bazaar owners as, 19, 84–85, 91; theories of, 19 stores: vs. bazaars, in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 26, 26f, 215n9; state-run, in Soviet Union, 25, 35, 215n9 St. Petersburg, Russia, bazaar in, 175–76 street traders: in Caracas, Venezuela, 178; self-immolation by, 184, 242n24 street traders, at Osh bazaar, 116p, 130, 131, 159–61; and disorder, 144; vs. “legal” traders, 135, 155–56, 158; paths to becoming, 159–60; reconstruction and, 133–34, 135, 136, 138, 142, 160–61 suitcase trade. See shuttle trade Surabaldiev, Jyrgalbek, 237n23 survival, bazaar trade as, 7, 8, 30–32, 33, 42, 44 Tajiks: historical association with trade, 8; shuttle traders, 29, 170 tax system, for traders in Kyrgyzstan, 28–29, 56; government’s attempt to change, 28–29, 56; international organizations’ recommendations regarding, 182–84, 185; problem of implementation and enforcement of, 183, 184. See also patent tax system, for traders in Uzbekistan, 184–85, 242n26 Tbilisi, Georgia, bazaars in, 176–77 teachers, turn to trade in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 11, 42 trade: in Soviet Union, 25, 35–36. See also bazaar trade; shuttle trade trader(s): conflict avoidance by, 67–68, 71–72; critical Marxist perspective on, 44–45; encounters and conversations with, 23–24; as entrepreneurs, renaming of, 44, 56, 220n9; with foreign citizenship status, 174; generational differences among, 44, 69, 70, 141, 147; in global south, 24; illegal (informal) vs. legal, 135, 155–56, 158, 167; Islam among, 144; Kazakh, 35, 42–43; Kyrgyz, 35, 38, 42–43; legal and tax advantages in

254

INDEX

trader(s) (continued) Kyrgyzstan, 28; liberal market perspective on, 44; vs. municipal authorities, 113–14; older, perspectives of, 3, 148–54, 162–63; and order at bazaars, creation of, 3, 10, 11–12, 19; patent paid by, 28–29, 56; paths to becoming, 39–44, 49, 141, 159–60; pensioners as, 175, 176; problems encountered by, 13, 49; protests against bazaar reconstruction, 133–34; protests against cash registers, 61, 62, 183; Russian, 35, 41–42; sociopolitical work of, 176; Soviet-era experiences of, 11, 41, 51, 151, 153; in Soviet period, 35, 208n11; state pressure on, extreme acts in response to, 184, 242n24; understandings of order, 3, 15–16, 48–49, 148–59; Uzbek, 35, 39–41; as victims of global capitalism, 31–32; as victims of rapid economic liberalization, 8; women, 31, 41–43, 145–48, 151–54; younger, baibiche on, 147; younger, perspectives of, 154–59, 162–63. See also street traders trade union(s): at bazaars, 11, 49, 79; changing understanding of, 72; global decline of, 49; at Karasuu bazaar, 172, 173, 174; at Madina bazaar, 169; at Orto Sai bazaar, 168–69; at Osh bazaar, 152–53, 154, 234n1; and owners of bazaar land, 84, 169; in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 4, 17; in post-Soviet region, 49; in post-Soviet Russia, 72–73; Sovietera, 51–52, 72; traditional vs. alternative, 223n63. See also Dordoi trade union Tunisia, street traders in, 184 Turkey, and bazaar trade, 27, 41, 73, 177 Udelnaya marketplace, St. Petersburg, 175–76 Uighur language, in Kyrgyzstan, 211n48 Uighurs: at Madina bazaar, 169; produce sold by, 112

Ukraine, bazaars in, 239n45 Ukrainians, goods sold at Soviet markets, 35 unemployment, in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, 30–31 USAID, work in Kyrgyzstan, 183–84, 185 Usenov, Daniyar, 130–31 Uzbekistan: agriculture and trade in, 36; Andijon events of 2005 in, 22; cities associated with Silk Road trade in, 8, 21; economic policies in post-Soviet era, 26; exploratory trip to, 21; taxation of traders in, 184–85, 242n26; traders from, in Kyrgyzstan, 29, 170 Uzbek language, in Kyrgyzstan, 211n48 Uzbeks, ethnic: at Dordoi bazaar, 39–41, 75; elders among, 234n7; goods sold at Soviet markets, 35; historical association with trade, 8, 35–36, 38, 39; in Kyrgyzstan, 76, 77, 214n5 Venezuela, marketplaces in, 177–78 Weber, Eugen, 71 Weber, Max, 101 wholesale trade: bazaars for, 169, 170; emergence of, 27; ethnic groups and, 39 women: in aksakal courts, 145; dislocations of 1990s and, 8, 31; informal leaders, 163; shuttle traders, 31; traders, 31, 41–43, 145–48, 151–54. See also baibiches World Bank: on bazaars in Central Asia, 7–8; and institutional turn in development thinking, 179, 188; Mind, Society, and Behavior report, 188, 244n44 World Trade Organization (WTO), 26 Zimbabwe, bazaars in, 113, 135, 161