Putting it here as Kommersant reported Russia did parallel imports of electronics like smart phones and gaming consoles.
Analysts suspect that they came from the Central Asian countries under the Eurasian Economic Union.
In the name of being honest
Foreign Policy: Central Asia Faces a Russian Migrant Crisis: As men flee Putin’s draft, Russia’s neighbors struggle to cope.
Since Putin’s announcement of Russia’s first military mobilization since World War II on Sept. 21, hundreds of thousands of Russian men have left the country to avoid being drafted to fight in Ukraine. The former Soviet republics of Central Asia quickly emerged as a primary destination for Russian draft dodgers looking for the nearest safe, affordable, and legal exit out of Russia. With airfares skyrocketing, Russian men have been rushing to Russia’s southern border, since they can enter Kazakhstan visa-free with only their internal passports—a mandatory ID issued to all citizens—in hand, sometimes moving farther south to Kyrgyzstan, which has the same policy. That’s a lifeline for the estimated 70 percent of Russian citizens who are not in possession of a passport for international travel.
According to Kazakh officials, more than 100,000 Russian citizens, and possibly as many as 200,000, have crossed over into Kazakhstan since the start of mobilization, many of whom have continued farther south into neighboring Kyrgyzstan. As citizens of a member state in the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Russians enjoy the right to work and reside in both countries, like other EEU members, on the condition that they register their arrival with local migration authorities. Once released, registration statistics should provide a better picture of the scale of this exodus, but it is already clear that Central Asia is confronted with an unanticipated Russia migration crisis.
Long perceived as a buffer zone, post-Soviet Central Asia received significant amounts of military equipment, aid, and training from the international community in order to contain the threat of a mass exodus of refugees from Afghanistan. None of this assistance, however, could have prepared the region for this unprecedented influx of people from its former colonial and imperial center.
The first wave of Russians moving abroad after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February referred to themselves as relokanty—a term borrowed from the tech industry in reference to employees relocated abroad by their companies. Aside from political dissidents, most of those who left in the first six months of the war had the social capital and financial resources for a relatively smooth and orderly relocation of their families and businesses abroad to places such as Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, and—to a lesser degree—Central Asia.
Kyrgyzstan welcomed almost 30,000 Russian citizens in the six months leading up to mobilization. Some gained residency in Kyrgyzstan with the sole purpose of opening a bank account to circumvent Western sanctions, while others set up shop in the country on a more permanent basis. Seeing the large number of tech workers among Russian exiles, the Kyrgyz government was quick to launch a special Digital Nomad program that allows Russian programmers and IT specialists to stay in the country without registering or having to obtain a work permit.
The face of Russian exile is changing. Unlike their relatively well-off peers in the tech industry, many of the recently arrived draft dodgers are in more precarious financial situations. Hailing from smaller cities in Siberia, the Urals, and the Russian Far East, some of these young men crossed into Kazakhstan on foot with little more than a suitcase and a lack of transferrable skills or experience..
Central Asian states have kept their borders open to Russian draft dodgers since the start of mobilization, with Kazakhstan’s interior minister assuring Russians fleeing conscription that they would not be extradited to Russia. In Kazakh cities close to the Russian border, volunteers are distributing food and drink to recently arrived Russians as movie theaters, mosques, and gymnasiums have been turned into makeshift sleeping quarters. Finding temporary accommodation has become a struggle across Central Asia, with hotels, hostels, and guesthouses booked out for weeks ahead.
Many of Central Asia’s cities are already on the brink of a housing crisis with unscrupulous landlords doubling—and sometimes tripling—rental prices overnight. In Almaty and Bishkek, public discontent is rising, with reports of local tenants being forced from their apartments to make way for desperate Russians willing to pay more than double the average local monthly salary in rent.
The situation is particularly tense in Kyrgyzstan—a country still recovering from the violence and destruction caused by clashes with Tajikistan along the countries’ border that ended just a day before Putin’s mobilization decree. Before the latest surge in migrants from Russia, Kyrgyzstan’s major cities were already struggling to provide temporary accommodation to the thousands of residents displaced by the conflict. To make matters worse, many of the Kyrgyz migrants returning to the country, after spending several years in Russia, are relocating to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s largest city, putting additional strain on an already saturated housing market.
Russian exiles are having to rely on the hospitality of a Central Asian population that has greatly suffered from stigmatization, racism, and discrimination under the pejorative label of “migrants” within Russian society. In a region where hospitality toward visitors is perceived as part of the national character, Russian émigrés have encountered a welcome reception. At the same time, there is palpable sense of anger and schadenfreude among some Central Asians at having to assist their former colonial oppressors. In Bishkek and Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, local activists and mutual aid groups have therefore placed an emphasis on organizing cultural sensitivity trainings and public lectures on the history of Russian imperialism and Soviet hegemony in the region. These initiatives aim to push Russians to think critically about their country’s past and help undo some of the prejudices toward Central Asia that have been so prevalent in Russian society.
Given the immense suffering of the Ukrainian people at the hands of the Russian military, there is understandably little sympathy globally for Russian draft dodgers fleeing abroad. There has been a reluctance to refer to these exiled Russians as refugees, although the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention is supposed to also cover draft evaders who refuse to commit war crimes and acts of aggression. Regardless of whether they are officially recognized as refugees by certain states, these temporary exiles will soon find themselves in an increasingly precarious situation as repressions in Russia intensify and the mobilization drive continues. While those lucky enough to have professional or family connections abroad will eventually be able to relocate to other countries, many of the youngest and most vulnerable Russian draft dodgers may remain trapped in Central Asia.
This humanitarian crisis in the making will require assistance from the international community, as Central Asian states lack the resources and infrastructure to host indefinitely such a large refugee population. Major international organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration will need to assist local governments in their emergency responses to the Russian migration crisis. While informal networks and mutual aid groups have played an incredibly important role in supporting Russian new arrivals, they are currently at capacity and would benefit from external assistance in terms of providing basic essentials and temporary housing.
With most of the European Union’s eastern border closed off to Russian travelers, EU member states could work toward resettling Russian draft evaders currently in Central Asia. Germany has already expressed a willingness to offer international protection to those fleeing Putin’s forced conscription—an important step in the right direction. With low-to-middle-income countries already hosting most of the world’s refugees, the former Soviet republics of Central Asia cannot be left alone to carry the burden of supporting an exiled population.
In the name of being honest
The government of Tajikistan has issued a statement denying allegations that it's supplying locally licence-built Iranian drones to Russia for the latter's war in Ukraine.
In the name of being honest
Edited by eagleoftheninth on Nov 20th 2022 at 4:20:00 AM
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
In the name of being honest
RFERL: Russia is employing Central Asian migrant workers in occupied Ukrainian cities. Some accounts of note (focusing on Kyrgyzstani citizens):
- A 31-year-old migrant nurse from Osh landed in Russian prison for transporting drugs (probably as an unwitting mule). She asked her family in Kyrgyzstan to send a copy of her diploma, telling them that the authorities offered her a high-paying nursing job. Her family immediately suspected that she would be sent to Ukraine and refused to send the diploma. The woman had previously lost all her money to a housing scam.
- Another Kyrgyz migrant worker interviewed by RFERL said that he'd accepted a job offer to collect dead bodies on the frontline, with a promised pay of 9,000 rubles per day — although his posting to Ukraine was delayed by the deep snow. He mentioned that many other migrant workers accepted the job because they were trapped by debt.
- Yet another migrant worker was employed by a Russian construction company, which sent him on an eight-month stint for reconstruction work in occupied Mariupol. When he tried to cross back to Russia in late February, the border guards refused to let him through and told him that he was on some kind of vague "blacklist", leaving him stranded in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.
- A number of Kyrgyzstani citizens have also been recruited by Wagner out of Russian prisons (remember that migrant workers everywhere live on a knife's edge with regards to border enforcement). At least six are known to have been killed in Ukraine.
In the name of being honest
Kloop.kg interviewed a Pamir Kyrgyz family who resettled from Afghanistan to Naryn, Kyrgyzstan five years ago. Since then, their children have been severely bullied at school for being "Afghans", which soured the family's relationship with the local community who blamed them for their children's "bad behaviour", to the extent where they're looking to move back to Afghanistan despite the current situation.
A few thousand ethnic Kyrgyz people live in the remote Wakhan Corridor in the northeast of the country, living a largely pastoral-nomadic lifestyle with sparse access to healthcare and education. About 5,000 fled to Pakistan during the war in the '80s, most of whom were eventually resettled by the Turkish government to Van Province in Turkey.
More Kyrgyz folks have sought to relocate to Kyrgyzstan after the Taliban takeover, thanks in no small part to the resulting wave of school closures affecting their children (not just the state-mandated ones of girls' schools and coeds, but also through a lack of funding and staff for boys' ones). The Kyrgyz government is struggling to find ways to bring them into the country, though, and evidently they're also having trouble integrating current "returnees" into the wider society.
Meanwhile, it seems that the Bloody January trial in Kazakhstan is approaching its conclusion. Former national security chief Karim Masimov was sentenced to 18 years in prison and confiscation of property for various charges of treason and coup d'etat; his deputy Anwar Sadykulov was sentenced to 16 years and several of their underlings received sentences of varying (but lighter) lengths. One wonders if the timing has anything to do with the recent strikes and protests by the oil industry contract workers employed by QazMunaiGaz in Zhanaozen.
And as usual: Fergana News Agency: Russian regional authorities are expanding recruitment efforts of Central Asian migrant workers into the military, going into mosques to hold recruitment talks and distribute Uzbek and Tajik-language leaflets.
In the name of being honest
Oxus Society: From State Repression to a Warzone: How Pamiris have Ended up on the Frontline in Ukraine. This article explores how the Tajikistani government's crackdown on civil activism and local economy in Gorno-Badakhshan contributed to a large-scale out-migration of ethnic Pamiris, who now make up a disproportionate portion of Tajikistani migrant workers in Russia and (especially) occupied Ukraine.
The last round of crackdown, from late 2021 to mid-2022, threw many Pamiris in jail, destroyed many local businesses and left the locals with little choice but to seek employment in Russia, who in turn has been advertising job postings in occupied parts of Ukraine. Some Central Asian migrant workers reported being kept in unfree conditions and swindled out of their wages; others had colleagues illicitly brought up to the frontline to dig fortifications for Russian forces. Pamiri workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation because of their reluctance (or outright inability) to seek help from the Tajikistani government, let alone return home.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
Forest fires in northeastern Kazakhstan. Around 60000 ha area affected ATM, 14 people dead.
In the name of being honest
Eurasianet: Tajikistan steps up nationalization campaign against Aga Khan operation.
So, a brief backstory: the Aga Khan IV, Karim al-Husseini, is a claimed sayyed (descendant of Muhammad) and the imam of the Nizari Ismaili Shi'a faith — which means that, yes, he's the head of the modern descendants of the medieval Assassins (and his HQ/mansion in France is called the Aiglemont, just for style points). Rather than shivving political rivals, though, the Aga Khan is mostly known for running a philanthropic foundation bankrolled by wealthy adherents of the faith.
The foundation has been instrumental in the development of public infrastructure in Badakhshan since the Soviet collapse felled the wall that separated the local Pamiris from their fellow believers abroad. The Aga Khan himself is credited with mediating multiple conflicts between the Rahmon regime in Dushanbe and the populace of Badakhshan, where native Pamiri "commanders" continued to hold sway after the civil war in the '90s. Over the past decade, though, Rahmon has moved to crack down on Pamiri autonomy, which involves shuttering Ismaili religious centres as well as nationalising schools and other institutions affiliated with the Aga Khan's development work in Badakhshan.
Over the border in Afghanistan, the Nizari Ismaili community mainly revolved around the Naderi family of Baghlan, who also claim descent from Muhammad and had rather antagonistic relations with the Aga Khan in the past. The family patriarch, Sayyed Mansour Naderi, is a serious Long Runner in Afghan national politics: he was a cabinet minister under Zahir Shah in the '60s, then went on to be appointed governor under the Soviet-backed Parcham regime and was given funding to stand up a nominally pro-government armed militia (which played both sides in practice). In the civil war period, the Naderis were mainly allied with fellow regime defector Dostum and contested the encroachment of Jamiat-i-Islami forces into their territory after the fall of the Taliban regime; nevertheless, they remained key players in the post-Taliban order of 2002-2021, holding many senior roles in the Islamic Republic's government.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)
DW has a video of items that are bring brought into Russia through sanctions busting. They're brought in via the stans (aside from Armenia and Georgia).
In the name of being honest
Kazakhstan has announced a plan to build its first nuclear power plant in the Almaty Region. The design will be chosen from a shortlist of Chinese, South Korean, Russian and French pressurised water reactor designs.
Tajik women turn to polygamy for survival
Summarization of article:
1. With high poverty rates, women turn to marriage for financial benefits. Polygamy being widely accepted is another consequence of these poverty rates.
2. Divorced women who marry again become additional wives when they marry a man already with a wife. One woman who was interviewed, Amina, established a salon after becoming a man's second wife.
3. The women who become secondary wives are given limited rights and trying to rectify this legally will cause economic repercussions for Tajikistan.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
3 is backwards. It's in limbo because Tajikistan doesn't want to legalize polygamy, but actually enforcing the law against it would kick the additional wives into poverty.
Goku Black
So uh question. With the implosion of Russias military and now being unable to control and keep in line their neighbours line they used to. Hence why Azberjain seized Nagorno Karabakh easily.
So will Kyrgyzstan vs Tajikistan reerupt now too?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66958727
Swiss prosecutors are now able to deal with Gulnara Karimova now that her dad, Islam Karimov, is no longer in power.
Not to mention that she's being charged for using her family's influence to run an organized crime network. She denies it, but some of her assets in London are being seized.
I know this comes late to , but a little more than a month ago, the Kyrgyzstani-Tajikistani border was reopened.
So, to answer miraculous' question, no (for now).
This post was thumped by the Merciless Hammer of Doom
RFE vid on Central Asian migrants celebrating the end of Eid under tight politsiya security.
Some of the migrants were hesitant to go to the mosque, but decided to do since they're Muslim.
The official number of fatalities on the Kyrgyz side stands at 59 as of today;
no official figures from the Tajik side, but this RFERL article puts the number at 39 dead,
citing an anonymous Tajik government source.
Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)