Constructing the ‘rural other’ in post-soviet Bishkek: ‘host’ and ‘migrant’ perspectives

Abstract

This article takes as its focus post-Soviet Bishkek and explores the arrival to the city of a Kyrgyz migrant population and the perceptions of and reactions to this migrant population on the side of long-term residents (predominantly ethnic Kyrgyz [Russian-speaking], ethnic Russian, and other Russian-speaking communities). The article explores the way migrants are constructed and represented in the language of long-term residents. The data reveals an anti-migration discourse on the side of the long-term residents as the migrants are identified as culturally (e.g. not ‘urban’); linguistically (e.g. Kyrgyz speaking having poor Russian); and behaviourally (e.g. uncivilised) as not being part of their past, present or future vision of Bishkek. The article looks also at the ways in which migrants themselves perceive their position in Bishkek. Their narratives highlight the diversity present amongst the migrant population, and demonstrate a counter-representation of themselves and their place within a changing city, which in its very pragmatism and realism, contests the simplistic representation favoured by the long-term residents. The article reveals important insights into emerging notions of both urban identity and Kyrgyz identity in the post-Soviet period, where linguistic and ethnic boundaries become blurred and moveable and new categories of inclusion and exclusion are constructed.

В центре внимания данной cтатьи – миграция киргизов из разных чаcтей Киргизcкой реcпублики в cтолицу, город Бишкек, и отношение к этим мигрантам cо cтороны cтарожилов города (это так называемые городcкие, руcскоязычные киргизы, а также cобcтвенно руcские и предcтавители других руcскоязычных этничеcких групп). Для авторов оcобенно важно показать, как cитуация вокруг мигрантов и cами мигранты предcтавлены в диcкурcе cтарожилов. Анализ cобранных эмпиричеcких материалов cвидетельcтвует о том, что этот диcкурc ноcит анти-мигрантcкий характер: ‘приезжие’ видятcя как люди, не принадлежащие ни прошлому, ни наcтоящему, ни будущему города, поcкольку они ‘другие’ культурно (не городcкие), лингвиcтичеcки (в оcновном киргизоязычные и плохо говорят по-руcски) и c точки зрения поведенчеcких моделей (‘нецивилизованные’)

В cтатье также уделяетcя важное внимание тому, как cами мигранты видят cвою жизнь в городе. Их нарративы показывают, как разнородны мигранты и траектории их адаптации к городcким уcловиям, хотя вcё это воcпринимаетcя cтарожилами в едином ключе. Прагматично-реалиcтичная картина выживания и поcтепенного ‘движения вверх’ cтавит под cомнение упрощённые предcтавления cтарожилов о ‘приезжих’. Авторы также выявляют важные грани cобcтвенно городcкой и киргизcкой идентичноcти в поcтcоветcкий период, когда этничеcкие и языковые границы раcплываютcя, уcтупая меcто новым формам cоциального иcключения и адаптации.

Keywords:

• Kyrgyzstan
• Bishkek
• migration
• long-term resident
• urban change
• mutual perceptions

Notes on contributors

Moya Flynn is Senior Lecturer in Central and East European Studies at the University of Glasgow. Her previous research has explored the return migration of Russians to the Russian Federation in the 1990s and the Russian ‘diaspora’ in Uzbekistan. Her current research concerns urban identities and community relations in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and contemporary movements of migrants from Central Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union to Scotland, and their experiences of social security and settlement.

Natalya Kosmarskaya is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow). She has published extensively on Russian-speakers’ position in the New Independent States (especially those of Central Asia); diaspora formation in the NIS, and, more generally, adaptation of immigrant communities and conceptualization of their position under different ethnic/social milieus. Her current research concerns urban transformations in Central Asia and perception of international migration and migrants in the big cities of Russia.

Notes

1. The numbers of migrants are hard to estimate due to the lack of a strict system of registration from the end of the 1980s. Schmidt and Sagynbaeva (2008, p. 117) discuss the difficulty of quantifying the scale of internal migration to Bishkek and adopt a much more qualitative, case study approach to investigating the nature of migration patterns in contemporary Kyrgyzstan. See footnote 10 for a discussion of the ‘new settlements’ around Bishkek where migrant populations are resident, and some estimation of their number and corresponding size of their populations.

2. The article is based on empirical data, gathered during fieldwork carried out in 2008 and 2011 in the city of Bishkek. The fieldwork was carried out as part of a collaborative project ‘Exploring Urban Identities and Community Relations in post-Soviet Central Asia’ (Leverhulme Trust Ref: F/00179/AK).

3. The term ‘Russians’ is used in the article not in the narrow ethnic, but in the broader sociocultural sense.

4. Figures from 2009, taken from unpublished census materials gained from informants in Bishkek. It is important to note that the character of urban settlement in Bishkek changed as a result of the outmigration of ‘Russians’ and other Russophones in the 1990s; however, this was in a quantitative rather than qualitative sense (see also Schroeder, 2010, p. 455). The flats left empty due to out-migration were primarily bought by urban Kyrgyz, by those Russians who remained in the city, and by Russians who had come to Bishkek from other towns and rural areas of Kyrgyzstan. Thus the population of the micro-regions of Bishkek remained ‘mixed’ although Russians were now often in the minority. In the ‘new settlements’ on the outskirts of Bishkek, the population is primarily made up of Kyrgyz from other regions of the country. Only a small minority of these new migrants eventually manage to buy property in Bishkek, or perhaps rent an apartment in the city.

5. For a more detailed analysis see Kosmarskaya (2006, pp. 190–198). In terms of language, although the last Soviet census of 1989 indicated that over 98% of Kyrgyz considered Kyrgyz their ‘native language’, many of them particularly in urban areas had very limited capabilities in it (Fierman, 2012, p. 1082).

6. Schroeder (2010) shows in his later research how, despite ethnic and other differences, Kyrgyz and Russian ‘long-term inhabitants’ of Bishkek (in his case young people) moved to co-identify as ‘urbans’ in opposition to newly arrived Kyrgyz migrants.

7. The migrants were mainly from Naryn and Talas region which had particularly difficult economic and climatic conditions. Southern Kyrgyz migrants primarily settled in Osh; one of the reasons for the bloody events in 1990 (see Brusina, 1995, p. 99, 102; Alymbaeva, 2008, pp. 71–72).

8. One of the driving forces of the Tulip Revolution was the rapid decline in living conditions in the South, which contributed to the sharp increase in migration from the South to Bishkek, and to Russia and Kazakhstan.

9. For a detailed overview of these waves of migration see Flynn and Kosmarskaya (2012, pp. 455–459); Kostyukova (1994).

10. Estimates of the number of ‘new settlements’ vary. At the start of the 1990s, they numbered 17 (Timirbaev, 2007, p. 1); towards the end of the 2000s, 41–47 (Alymbaeva, 2008, p. 67). Following the April 2010 events, there was talk of 50 settlements with populations of about 150,000 – 300,000 (Orlova, 2010, p. 1; Sanghera & Satybaldieva, 2012, p. 98).

11. The seizure of land began in the late Soviet period. The word ‘samozakhvat’ (self-seizure) appeared in everyday language in Kyrgyzstan at the end of the 1980s. Initially the movement occurred with the appearance of Meskhetian Turk refugees from Ferghana, who came to Frunze where many relatives and fellow Meskhetian Turks lived. They erected tents on empty areas of land in the south-western outlying districts of the capital. In response, Kyrgyz people, living in Frunze and in nearby villages, began to seize land on outlying state and collective farms (Timirbaev, 2007, p. 1). For a measured and sensitive discussion of the reasons for ‘land seizures' and their legal, political and social roots and implications see Sanghera and Satybaldieva (2012); Sanghera et al. (2012). In particular, see Sanghera (2010) for a discussion of the land seizures which followed the April 2010 uprisings, which explores their roots in poverty and social inequality.

12. For a description of the situation in Ulan-Ude, see Humphrey (2007, pp. 183, 199–200).

13. Countries across the Soviet Union had already experienced powerful internal population movements but this was as a result of mass industrialisation and urbanisation, particularly following Second World War.

14. By long-term resident, we mean a person who was born in the city of Frunze, who lived there during the Soviet period, and is still resident in what is now Bishkek.

15. For a fuller analysis of the anti-migration discourse which exists amongst long-term residents and a deconstruction of this discourse see Flynn and Kosmarskaya (2012). As the present article also includes migrant perspectives, the analysis of the anti-migration discourse amongst long-term residents cannot be covered in so much detail.

16. Oshskie is often used interchangeably with Southerners (yuzhanie) although there are three Southern regions with three different ‘capitals’.

17. This issue is complicated due to the violent confrontations which occurred in Osh between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in 1989 and which were repeated in June 2010. In-depth analysis of this issue lies beyond the scope of this article. Faranda and Nolle (2003, pp. 184–185) explored the ethno-cultural distance between ethnic Kyrgyz, ethnic Russians and ethnic Uzbeks and showed that the least preferred partner for contact (key out group), for both Russians and Kyrgyz in Kyrgyzstan were Uzbeks. In the South of the country Kyrgyz held a much more positive attitude towards Uzbeks than Kyrgyz in the North or East, or in Bishkek.

18. For a more detailed discussion of this association of southern migrants with Uzbeks, and its consequences, see Flynn and Kosmarskaya (2012, pp. 461–462). In her study of ‘new settlements’ in Bishkek, Alymbaeva also identifies the tendency amongst ‘Northern’ Kyrgyz migrants to identify ‘Southern’ migrants as being more related to Uzbeks than to Kyrgyz (2006, p. 89).

19. Interestingly ‘ponaekhali’ was found to be one of the most common terms used with reference to migrants from the Caucasus and Central Asia coming to Moscow and Leningrad in the late Soviet period. As Ulinich (cited in Sahadeo, 2012, p. 348) suggests the word means ‘they arrived over a period of time, in large enough masses to be an annoyance’.

20. Interestingly the use of these terms is hardly found amongst Kyrgyz politicians, who tend to stress the unity and completeness of the whole of the Kyrgyz nation, avoiding the ‘north’-‘south’ division. However, such terms can be found in the Kyrgyzstani media, particularly in articles relating to the capital.

21. The generalisations are in many ways far from reality: most people from the South in recent years have moved not to Bishkek, but beyond Kyrgyzstan – in the first instance to Russia; ‘self-seizures’ are far from the most widespread means of receiving land for construction; and the ‘new settlements’ are diverse in terms of how well they are built, the social status of residents, and also in their social make up.

22. Each interview extract is followed by the gender, ethnicity, date of birth, educational status and profession of the respondents – this reflects sociodemographic data collected during the course of the field research.

23. ‘Kul'turnost’ and ‘beskul'turye’ are difficult to translate and the phrases ‘culturedness’ and ‘lack of culture’ does not completely encompass their meaning. The idea of ‘kul'turnost’ that was prevalent in the Soviet period had a wide scope including characteristics related to work ethics, political engagement, personal cleanliness and intellectual self-improvement (see Kelly, 2002, p. 575).

24. Schroeder (2010, p. 456) adds that the term ‘myrk’ is given primarily to recent migrants who are finding it hard to adjust to urban life, but that with time migrants may integrate more into city life, and avoid such stigmatisation.

25. See for example Kim (2011), a journalist and part of the Russian-speaking community (herself Korean) living in Bishkek, who describes the reasons for her enmity towards ‘myrki’.

26. In reality, there is no visible competition between migrants and long-term residents in terms of employment. More recent migrants in particular mainly find employment in low-skilled, low-paid sectors. Those migrants achieving higher status employment, are not visible to the receiving population.

27. The use of the term tribalism, in Russian ‘traibalizm’, is interesting, as it can imply or allege corruption, not only clan cohesion or kin identification (Gullette cited in Beyer, 2011, p. 455).

28. Officially in Kyrgyzstan, the amended 2010 constitution states that Kyrgyz is the state language, but that Russian is ‘used as an official language’. Russian is a compulsory school subject and Russian medium schools and classes are widespread (see Fierman, 2012, pp. 1083–1084 for more detail).

29. Nasritdinov suggests that the ability to speak Russian raises the personal status of a migrant and allows avoidance of discrimination in various areas of communication with official structures (p. 15). Similarly Kurbanova, in her study of rural youth in Bishkek, includes insights from a young rural migrant who stated that ‘I felt discrimination with regards to language. If you speak Russian well, you are modernised’ (2011, p. 33).

30. In their case study of a new settlement on the outskirts of Bishkek, Sanghera and Satybaldieva (2012) observed how migrants felt ‘ashamed’ to venture into the city due to the reaction of long-term, ‘middle-class’ residents (p. 104).

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust, under Grant no. [F/00179/AK].