A Colorful Cast Calls Kyrgyzstan Home

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Meeting my landlord for the first time in Bishkek, I casually mentioned the latest protest -- a picket organized by Rysbek, a self-proclaimed Kyrgyz Robin Hood who had invited 300 athletes to set up yurts at the foot of a large Lenin statue across from parliament. Rysbek's brother, a parliament member, had been killed the week before on a prison visit, and Rysbek blamed Prime Minister Feliks Kulov. The crowd called for President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to fire Kulov, aided by loudspeakers and a pre-recorded rally cry.

My landlord did not take the matter lightly.

"Yes, it is a very bad situation," said Volodya gravely as he entered my apartment, accompanied by his well-mannered son, Sasha, whom I had always dealt with before.

"This place is a real mess. There's going to be a civil war!" Volodya continued, adjusting the camouflage cap over his pink brow. "We're selling the apartment. I'm too old to leave, but my son deserves a better life -- an apartment in Rostov."

Sasha remained silent, and avoided eye contact. I had mistakenly assumed he was ethnic Russian, but he's a Cossack. I have only met one other Cossack, on a train near Semipalatinsk. Over shots of vodka and stories of the first atomic bomb, he had blithely termed himself a fascist, adding that he didn't like outsiders like me.

Sasha and Volodya were friendlier. I liked them. I wanted to stay in their apartment, the legacy of a departing Peace Corps volunteer. There is a housing squeeze in the city, and a good landlord is a find.

Their fear was familiar. Like most expats who want to feel local, I habitually chat up cab drivers. Non-Kyrygz cabbies invariably tell me the country's falling apart, Soviet times were better, or that villagers are infiltrating the city and Kirgizia will soon resemble Africa.

While I am a trained anthropologist and shun racial stereotypes, I must note that ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and other relative newcomers are far more steeped in political cynicism than are Kyrgyz nationals. Tens of thousands of ethnic Germans, displaced here by Stalin after World War II, left as soon as Kyrgyzstan became independent.

Since this year's March Revolution, the Russian Consulate here has issued record numbers of visas.

After a week, Rysbek went home to Issyk-Kul, and Sasha halted his emigration. But the taxi drivers still complain, and recent moves to ban Russian as an official language have not been well received by Russophones, regardless of their ethnicity.

Bishkek feels like a city caught between a coup and a revolution.

Ethan Wilensky-Lanford is a freelance journalist in Central Asia.