The Interim Country (PAL) - Transcript
Chemodan Films in collaboration with Media4Democracy (Geneva) presents 'The Interim Country' - A film about Kyrgyzstan
Directed by Thomas Lahusen, Gulzat Egemberdieva, André Loersch,
Narrated by Eugene Huskey
Music by Dorozhka
Voice-over
A nation perched at the roof of the world, Kyrgyzstan has been on the periphery of empires for more than 2000 years.
Persians, Arabs, Chinese, Mongols, and Russians have all left their imprint on this Central Asian land.
Cut loose from the Soviet Union after the collapse of communism in 1991 independent Kyrgyzstan is now struggling to create a new national identity from the complex mix of peoples and faiths.
Well into the 20th century, Kyrgyzstan was largely a nomadic society.
In the summer, Kyrgyz shepherds drove their flocks into high mountain valleys and then retreated to the lowlands for the winter.
The Soviet era began to change this way of life.
Russians, Ukrainians, and Germans moved to Kyrgyzstan to live alongside
Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Dungans and other indigenous Central Asian peoples.
At the same time, Soviet campaigns for industrialization and secularization challenged Kyrgyzstan's traditional values of pastoralism and Islam.
The result was a landscape filled with Soviet, Muslim, and Orthodox symbols.
The distinct cultural markers of ethnic and religious communities are part of the tapestry of everyday life in Kyrgyzstan.
An Uzbek woman in the bazaar in Osh and a Kyrgyz man on horseback in the mountains represent identifiable types.
But the ethnic Kyrgyz themselves are also deeply divided, by region, village, and clan.
Separated by towering mountains that are impassable in the winter, northern and southern Kyrgyz have nurtured distinct identities.
Different sources of cultural influence--Russian in the north, and Uzbek in the south have impeded the development of a single and indivisible Kyrgyz nation.
Yet residents of Kyrgyzstan have been loath to admit the challenges they face in overcoming ethnic and regional divisions.
Many pretend that Soviet-era harmony still reigns. In fact, nostalgia for the Soviet era is a common sentiment.
Intertitle: Village of Ichke Suu, Issyk Kul Region
Dialogue in Kyrgyz (subtitles)
I was working as a school teacher when the Soviet Union dissolved.
Then, I didn't understand anything,
I thought that everything would be the same.
Would it be this or that way, I was still getting my previous salary.
After this, my brother Kubat created a farm made of 15 families, we farmed all this land together.
Life showed that, with time, my income got smaller and smaller.
Not like before, I had to count for myself, I had to separate from this group.
I worked with Russians, Dungans, Uzbeks
It was good working with them.
They were correct, honest and they taught me to be like them.
I am grateful to them.
They were wonderful.
music: Dzerzhinsky Bulvarym
Voice-over
For some Soviet citizens, especially those in lands with histories of statehood and cultural ties to Europe, the USSR was a prison of nations.
The residents of Central Asian republics like Kyrgyzstan had a far more positive view of 00:04:24:10 the Soviet experience.
Soviet rule brought literacy, universal healthcare, and modern industry and communications to what had been a poor and isolated corner of Asia.
After WWII, street scenes in the capital of Bishkek revealed architecture and fashion that resembled those in Russian cities.
In many respects, Bishkek was a Russian city: over two-thirds of its inhabitants were ethnic Russians by the 1960s.
But russification was only part of the story of Soviet Kyrgyzstan.
By granting Kyrgyzstan the status of a republic, Soviet rule gave the Kyrgyz for the first time in history a fixed territory and an official 00:05:05:06 identity.
This national identity followed citizens through their lives, from birth certificate and passport to university application and work documents.
Moscow may have called the tune politically, but it permitted each of the 15 republics to maintain its own national institutions and national elite.
Kyrgyzstan was therefore a state-in-waiting.
When the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, Kyrgyzstan emerged as an independent country with all the formal trappings of statehood.
These included a constitution, a parliament, and a president inherited from the Soviet era.
The first months of independence were a heady time for leaders in the Kyrgyz White House.
Optimism reigned; the new state joined the UN and opened embassies abroad. But the honeymoon was short-lived.
The discipline of Soviet-era politics was over; bitter feuds inspired by personal and regional jealousies set in.
With little to sell to the outside world, the country's president, Askar Akaev, tried pitching the image of Kyrgyzstan as the Switzerland of Asia.
The new nation, like its young offspring, faced an uncertain future.
Sustaining the Soviet ideal of a friendship of nations was difficult in the rush to redistribute property and power.
Official rhetoric emphasized respect for all ethnic groups, but as power passed into the hands of the ethnic Kyrgyz, they used it to solidify their control government jobs and to revive Kyrgyz language and culture at the expense of Russian.
Accelerating this de-russification was the out-migration of European residents and the higher birth rates of Kyrgyz.
Ninety percent of the German population left Kyrgyzstan; more than two thirds of Russians departed the country, as their jobs in heavy industry disappeared.
But the exodus was only due in part to the absence of economic opportunities.
Overnight, Russians went from being the core nation of the USSR to a vulnerable ethnic 00:07:26:20 minority in a distant land.
Intertitle: Kyrgyzstan, June 2009.
Music: Smeshnoi chelovek (kids rondo)
Intertitle: Bishkek, 2 May 2010.
Voice-over
On April 7, 2010, the people of Kyrgyzstan took to the streets.
The crowds were protesting dramatic increases in fuel and utility rates and the corruption 00:08:36:08 and nepotism of President Bakiyev's government.
Unlike in 2005, when the previous president resigned in the face of mass protests, the Bakiyev regime ordered snipers to fire into the crowd.
Man before the presidential gates (subtitles of Kyrgyz)
Hey brothers!
Hey, we havent done anything wrong!
Its true. What are you doing?
Why are you doing this?
See here, they film us for the news.
We are of the same blood!
Well, go ahead, shoot!
We are of the same blood, what are you doing?
Dont shoot! We havent done anything to you.
We are not from China.
We too have a hard time, do understand! They film us here.
They show us on TV, on the news. We are all kin.
How many people have been killed over there!
Man before the presidential gates, speaks in Kyrgyz (subtitled)
This crook, Zhanysh Bakiyev, was shooting an automatic rifle.
Look here: A mother is crying.
These crooks here killed their children with automatic rifles.
And the police are not guilty, the poor guys. They used rubber bullets. And these crooks were using real guns.
Woman before the gate, speaks in Kyrgyz (subtitled)
I am Gulmira, the wife of Almazbek Abdrazakov.
For 4 years my husband was a member of the Atambayev/Tekebayev party.
He died in a shooting, and I am left with 3 children in a rented apartment.
My 7-month-old daughter does not know fatherly love. May Bakiyev feel such grief too.
My husband was not just the breadwinner for our family, he took care of his parents, of all the relatives.
He was the only support for his father.
Woman with little girl, speaks in Kyrgyz (subtitled)
Say Bakiyev! Say it!
Bakiyev! What happened?
What did Bakiyev do to your father?
They shot daddy
Say it again!
Voice-over
The result was the death of 85 persons, , the storming of the White House, and the flight 00:11:10:20 of the Bakiyev family abroad.
An Interim Government of former opposition leaders stepped into the power vacuum.
They needed to revive a flagging economy; to restore popular faith in government; and to assure Kyrgyz from the south that the northern-led revolt in April would not be used to settle regional scores.
Complicating these tasks was a lack of unity within the ruling collective and the resistance of forces tied to the Bakiev regime.
Man in the crowd, speaks in Russian (subtitled) You cant, cant treat the people like that.
If he had come out at that moment and at least said something to the people, maybe all this wouldnt have happened.
But he hid in there, sitting pretty, and sent out snipers to shoot at the people. This is outrageous.
What kind of a ruler, what kind of a president is he then, for Petes sake!
Woman in the crowd, speaks in Kyrgyz (subtitled)
It was all started by Akayev, he must be laughing aloud over there.
Intertitle: Interview with Askar Akayev, the first President of Kyrgyzstan. Moscow, 17 00:12:16:09 May 2010.
Askar Akayev, speaks in Russian (subtitled)
Well, personally, I support this interim government because Kyrgyzstan doesnt have any other government, though with many members of the interim government, I developed, in 2005, not-so-easy relationships since all of them, as you know, were old reliable comrades-in-arms of Bakiyev in his coup of 24 March 2005.
And then, for the first 3 years, they were preoccupied exclusively with the distribution of power, with the division of property, they didnt think of the people.
They betrayed the hopes of the people, since the March revolution in the Western understanding, the Tulip revolution, as it was colorfully called, went under the slogan More democracy.
But as a result, were destroyed all the sprouts of democracy that had been grown in the first 15 years of the sovereign, independent Kyrgyzstan.
Voice-over A few days after power in the country changed hands, a scramble began on the outskirts of Bishkek for land that could be used to construct illegal housing.
Young man, speaks in Kyrgyz (subtitled)
We just went and entered the house of Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov. I havent broken anything, I am just telling you I was there.
Well, his house is like in the movies.
There is an MTV show, Teen Cribs. This was just like that program.
He has all kinds of stuff, watches, gold, food.
The fridge is stocked up with all kinds of juice, all natural, yogurt-shmogurt for his children, and if you could only see his childrens toys
They found 5 swords in his house, a Winchester automatic rifle.
Another man, speaks in Kyrgyz (subtitled):
I just want to say
The Kyrgyz people are not a herd of sheep.
But we had a sheep for president! It turns out the president was a sheep. But the people are not sheep.
The president did not have the brains that the people have.
I dont know if the next president will have brains or not.
Voice-over:
On April 10, 2010, in the village of Mayevka near Bishkek, illegal efforts to redistribute property took on an interethnic character.
Many residents of Turkish descent became victims of these events. Five people died.
Woman, speaks in Russian (subtitled):
So they went into our houses, taking all they wanted -- gold, money, valuable things.
They were shedding off their clothes, putting on ours, as we looked on.
And then they began to set our houses on fire.
Then they ran around the streets, shouting, screaming -- these bandits or marauders or whatever they are.
The Kyrgiz locals helped many of us saying that these houses are not Turkish, but Kyrgyz houses.
Woman, speaks in Russian (subtitled):
In 5 or 6 years, well have the same story, the same situation here.
They are already used to this way of life. Its in their blood. Its that kind of people.
The same thing will happen again.
We are over 50, we dont care. But the childrenwhat did they see?
Theyve seen nothing good, they have to live on.
Man, speaks in Russian (subtitled):
The Kyrgyzthey are not all bad, no!
They are normal. Its just that somebody got them drunk, or drugged, or whatever.
They were all drunk.
When some were arrested, a bouquet of drugs was found with them.
Russian Adventist preacher (subtitled):
There have been believers here for a long time already.
The people who came here, to Kyrgyzstan, they have always had to work hard and to coexist peacefully with other nationalities.
Here, on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, we have different nationalities - Turks, Kabardino-Balkars, Russians, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Gypsies
The conditions here make people live in friendship, and there have never been any conflict situations.
Former President Askar Akayev:
Today I can state with pride that our concept, Kyrgyzstan is our common home proclaimed in the early 1990s
and supported with real efforts, has yielded good results.
Voice-over:
Summer 2008. A visit with Meskhetian Turks in the village of Prigorodnyi on the outskirts of Bishkek.
Stalin had deported the Meskhetian Turks from southern Georgia to the Central Asian 00:17:18:03 republics in 1944.
Interviewer, speaks in Russian (subtitled):
In the Soviet times, among you, the Turks in Prigorodnyi, were there any communists?
The third man from the left, speaks in Russian (subtitled):
I am a communist.
The second man, pointing at him (subtitled):
Here is a communist.
The first man (subtitled):
There were many
A whole lot of us were communists. We are this kind of people
The second man (subtitled):
Communists, Komsomol members
The first man (subtitled):
if we are driven away from someplace, lets say the Kyrgyz have driven us away from here today.
Weve moved, we dont think about the fact that we were driven away.
Tomorrow we start to lay the foundation for a new house.
This is the kind of people we are.
The second man (subtitled):
We work hard.
The third man (subtitled):
I was a Young Pioneer, a Komsomolets, a Communist, took part in a Komsomol Congress, in a Party Congress, took part in everything.
Interviewer (subtitled):
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, what did you feel?
The first man (subtitled):
A very big disaster, a great disaster.
Many people had lost their savings in the state banks, they couldnt get it.
People were saving for the old age, for their funerals.
They lost it.
Then, again, 200 Russian rubles were exchanged for 1 Kyrgyz som.
People were brought to their knees.
The second man (subtitled):
They didnt even give that in full.
The first man (subtitled):
Yes, it was terrible.
It wasnt democracy, it was fascism.
True fascism. And it is still fascism, to this day.
Voice-over:
A visit with Germans in Prigorodnyi. Summer of 2008.
Woman speaks in German and Russian (subtitled):
Here are our cucumbers.
Intertitle:
The Germans were deported in 1941-42 from the Volga area.
Subtitle:
Here we are growing cabbage.
Here we have a place for the cows.
We have three cows.
We have enough work.
We are happy with what we have.
What to do if not to work? We would go crazy.
And so we work and work, and our soul is content, and everything is good.
Yes, yes, this is so.
I am not deceiving you, you see in my soul, in my eyes that I am not telling lies.
I tell everything as it is. The way it is here. There is no nationality problem on the streets, neither with children nor with adults.
You simply go along the street and say hello to everyone.
Here everyone knows everyone how can you pass by without saying hello?
This never happens.
We all love and respect each other.
Yes, I am telling you exactly.
Yes. I am telling you the truth.
I can sign it with my blood.
It makes me very happy that people have not yet lost everything, that people still have some respect for each otherit makes me very happy.
It is true. I am very glad and grateful that they havent lost everything yet. This is how it is.
Voice-over:
Interview with Bakyt Alymbekov, Deputy Interior Minister, May 4, 2010.
Interviewer, speaks Russian (subtitled):
You mentioned the events at Mayevka.
These events were reported in the media of the whole world, practically.
Much was said about the possibility of a mass ethnic conflict in this republic.
What is your view? Is there a real threat of an interethnic conflict in Kyrgyzstan today?
Minister Alymbekov, speaks Russian (subtitled):
The main goals of the organizers of the land invasion are not related to interethnic issues.
Their primary goal is to capture land plots.
The mass riots that happened in Mayevka do not have an interethnic character in any way, they are acts of hooliganism and they have a purely domestic character.
Naturally, their interests lie in capturing plots of land.
They dont have any other interest.
We were meeting with representatives of the Turkish diaspora yesterday, we explained it to them, and they understood it too.
There is nothing interethnic hereneither against the Turkish-speakers nor against the Russian-speakers, no such interethnic character.
music: Choor.
Voice-over:
In May 2010, followers of the deposed president launched an uprising in the Jalal-Abad region of the south.
Unable to rely on the local law enforcement, the interim government turned to the ethnic 00:22:24:24 Uzbeks for assistance.
Their involvement added an interethnic dimension to what had been largely a north-south 00:22:31:05 conflict.
The stage was now set for a repeat of the violence between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks that had 00:22:40:12 broken out in 1990 in the south of Kyryzstan.
Intertitle:
Bazaar in Osh, 14 May 2010.
Interviewer, speaks Russian (subtitled):
May I ask you about your relations with the Kyrgyz?
Uzbek man, speaks in Russian (subtitled):
We have good relations with the Kyrgyz.
We have everything.
Plants and factories are working.
The salaries are excellent.
Everybody lives well.
We have no hard feelings.
The weather is beautiful, too, yes?
The climate is great.
(Typewriter on screen): On the night of June 10-11, 2010, clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz began in the city of Osh.
(Typewriter on screen): For five days, private residences, schools and shops were looted and set on fire. Men, women and children were killed.
(Typewriter on screen): In an interview to the Russian newspaper Kommersant published on June 18, 2010, the head of the interim government Roza Otunbaeva announced that as many as 2,000 people may have died as a result of these events.
(Typewriter on screen): According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, some 400,000 people were forced to leave their homes.
(Typewriter on screen): According to the UN reports of June 18 and June 20, in the towns of Osh, Jalal-Abad, and Bazar-Korgon
(Typewriter on screen): 2,677 buildings were completely destroyed and 166 seriously damaged.
Subtitles of the graffiti:
We are poor Russians
Kyrgyz! Dont touch
Old man with a photo (subtitled):
People are helping us, looking everywhere.
They drained this canal, looked there.
They looked in another canal, too, in military areas
We are looking everywhere, cant find him.
The clean-up
they are looking everywhere.
Voice-over:
Raya Kadyrova, president of the Foundation for International Tolerance.
Raya Kadyrova, speaks Russian (subtitled):
The story of this ethnic conflict has shown, unfortunately, that the law-enforcement agents at some point took sides according to their ethnicity, and behaved not as balanced, non biased persons who do not take sidesthey behaved exactly either as Uzbeks or as Kyrgyz.
For me, the most terrifying thing is how the relations between the two historically close ethnic groups have broken up, how, on both sides of the Uzbek-Kyrgyz divide,
a lot of young people have appeared who say that from now on, until the end of their lives they will devote themselves to killing representatives of the other ethnic group.
As a conflict resolution expert, I have great difficulty finding the right steps cautious, delicate, careful to teach these two brotherly peoples how to build a new life together. Because this is our homelandwe have no place to go.
music Dorozhka
End credits roll:
Produced by Thomas Lahusen, André Loersch, Sergei Kapterev
Cinematography: Thomas Lahusen (DOP, Alexander Gershtein, André Loersch
Edited by Thomas Lahusen, Gulzat Egemberdieva
Subtitles Thomas Lahusen
Translation: Gulzat Egemberdieva, Sergey Dobrynin
Sergei Kapterev
Documentary footage
Obshchii vid goroda Osh
Kinoletopis, 1929.
Natsionalnaia politika Lenina-Stalina pobezhdaet
Kirgizskaia ASSR, 1934.
Po Kirgizstanu, Soiuzkinokhronika, 1936.
Frunze. Dobro pozhalovat, 1965.
Navstrechu 50-letiia Velikogo Oktiabria
Sovetskaia Kirgiziia, No. 5, 1967.
Bishkek, 6-7 April 2010.
Anonymous cameramen
Still Photographs
André Loersch
Music: Dorozhka
Performed by Samara Toktakunova
Dzerzhinskii bulvarym
Performed by Aisha Bazarbayeva
Smeshnoi chelovek
Performed by a kindergarten teacher in the village of Prigorodnyi, Kyrgyzstan, 2009.
Choor, by Ordo Sahna, Kyrgyzstan, 2000.
Financial Support
Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada
University of Toronto
We thank for their support
The Central State Archive for Film and Photographic Documents of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan
The Film Art Research Institute (Moscow)
Special thanks
Jane Abray
Rob Austin
Omurbek Egemberdiev
Kenneth Mills
Igor Prasolov
and all our Kyrgyzstani friends and colleagues who wished to remain anonymous
© Chemodan Films
Media4Democracy, 2011
Credits end
Film ends