July 25, 2004

The geopolitical Rubik's cube

Khojand, Tajikistan

I thought I might catch the train from Khojand across the border to Uzbekistan. Think again. The trains are one of many victims of the break-up of the Soviet Union. Once the train lines just crossed provincial borders, now they cross international ones. That's just too difficult so they've mostly stopped.

All around the Fergana Valley, my current location, the borders are crazily knotted. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan all come together here. As I take a car to the Uzbek border the road briefly crosses into Kyrgyzstan, before returning to Tajikistan again. Within each country are bizarre enclaves of another. Islands cut off from their homeland. Complete cities have been placed in the wrong country. Osh, in Kyrgyzstan, is predominantly Uzbek, and Samarkand and Bukhara, jewels in Uzbekistan's crown, more properly belong to Tajikistan.

(If you look on the map of Kyrgyzstan you'll see two empty spots near Batken that look like lakes. They're actually enclaves of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.)

There effectively were no borders until Stalin's time. Then they started creating new regions and drew the lines for reasons of political control, rather than ethnic cohesion. But at least in Soviet times people were reasonably free to cross the borders. Now, with extensive mutual distrust amongst the new countries, freedom of movement has been severely curtailed. Uzbekistan suspects Tajikistan of hiding separatists. Uzbek border guards recently killed two people in Kazakstan who they suspected of smuggling. Tajikistan is known as one of the world's major drug smuggling arteries. And Turkmenistan doesn't want to talk to anyone.

New roads and railway lines are frantically being built to skirt the borders of neighbouring countries but for many people the difficulties they now face in moving around the region are enough for them to harken back wishfully for the days of communism, when at least they were one country. The simple practicalities of day-to-day living outweigh any considerations of nationalism.

Posted by David at July 25, 2004 06:09 PM