Kyrgyzstan and emigration

                                                                          Bishkek train station, Spring 2009


     The Independent has a sobering piece today about emigration and Kyrgyzstan.  Titled "Kyrgyzstan:  Where have all the men gone?" the article explores a problem experienced in many post-Soviet countries: demographic problems worsened by economically-driven emigration.  An excerpt:

The country is ranked in the United Nations' poverty index below Equatorial Guinea and Guyana. Its per capita GDP of $951 for its population of 5,200,000 is comparable to Haiti or Chad. But between 2004 and 2008, about 800,000 Kyrgyz men, and increasingly women, scratched together the $100 to $500 required to make the journey from Kyrgyzstan's agricultural hinterland to work in often wretched conditions on building sites, tobacco farms and sweatshops from St Petersburg to Siberia.

With up to 90 per cent of migrants working illegally in their host country, the true figure could be higher. Although at least 80,000 have returned because of the downturn, most remain abroad, either unwilling or unable to return. The exodus of the most economically active tranche of the population means Kyrgyzstan is now probably the third most remittance-reliant nation, said to be after the Philippines and Nepal. The annual sum sent home by the country's diaspora rose from $481m in 2004 to $1.2bn in 2008, accounting for 27 per cent of GDP. Put another way, a third of Kyrgyz households are reliant on money earned outside the country. Women such as Kaken, who have become the guardians of fading tradition, see hardly any of this money. The British charity Help Age International, set up by Help the Aged and Age Concern, has conducted studies on their problems, amid evidence that remittances make up less than 5 per cent of the income of the "ultra-poor" in places much like Temir Kanat or the nearby town of Bokonbaevo. 

     I also met a few young people in Kyrgyzstan who saw leaving the country as the only viable option, even if it meant living and working illegally in another country.  When a girl I knew asked for my advice about working illegally in the U.S., I told her that if did so, she wouldn't be able to leave without getting caught.  She said she was ready for it.  "I have 3 uncles who work in Chicago," she said.  "They live well."  Another girl from southern Kyrgyzstan studying in Bishkek told me that her mother worked at a supermarket in Moscow to put her and her brother through school.  


     The article also has a collection of photographs, of which this and this I like the most.  And of course I couldn't miss the chance the plug David's Kyrgyzstan photos.