AUCA Magazine Spring 2013

American University of Central Asia

Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

AUCA Magazine March 2013

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

What Students think I am?

What Girls think I am?

What Businessmen think I am?

What Housewives think I am?

What Boys think I am?

What i really am!

Whatever people think about us, we support you and your endeavours G

and

Z

CONTENTS 04 Editor’s Note 05 Letter From The President

Beginnings 14 AUCA 22 Kyrgyz Republic 30 Esen Rysbekov

University Update 06 Markus Kaiser 07 TSPC Conference 08 Partner of the Year 09 OCA Book Forum 09 Diversity Week

AUCA Spotlight 33 Назгуль Насиева 34 Хулиганы на Морозе 35 Rumsfeld Fellow: Zarina Chekirbaeva 39 Back Page: Anthropology ‘10

AUCA Magazine American University of Central Asia, founded in 1993, is dedicated to educating leaders for the democratic transformation of the region. It is the most dynamic and student-empowering education available, and is the only university in Central Asia with the authority to grant degrees accredited in the United States. AUCA equips its graduates with the knowledge and skills necessary to solve problems and open doors in this rapidly changing and developing region and the world beyond...

Publication team Editor-in-Chief: Sven Stafford Copy Editors: Nick Robbins, Svetlana Jacquesson Contributors: Natali Anarbaeva Altynai Sydykova Nick Robbins Dinara Orozbaeva Sven Stafford

Pictures: AUCA Archives Aaron Choi Emil Akhmatbekov

Design and Layout: Aaron Choi Emil Akhmatbekov

On the cover: "Beginnigs" by Emil Akhmatbekov

You may send your correspondence and subscription inquiries to: AUCA Magazine | American University of Central Asia, 205 Abdymomunov St., Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic 720040 | Tel./Fax: (996 312) 66-45-64, E-mail: magazine@mail.auca.kg, www.auca.kg

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AUCA Magazine | March 2013

Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

editor’s note

As AUCA begins the celebration of its 20th Anniversary we bring you stories of “Beginnings”. As we reflect on the success that AUCA has had as a university over the course of 2013, we also want to refresh and renew the vision and mission of the university as it was set out in 1993. Through events such as TEDxAUCA (May 18th), and new programs such as Environmental Management and Sustainable Development, we hope to inspire a new generation of ideas, creativity, and adventure.

In this issue we reconnect to three stories at their beginnings: one about a country, one about a university, and one about an individual journey. Through each story we get to learn a little more about where we live, where we work and study, and the talented people with which we have walked the halls. In doing this, we also get the chance to think about our own stories and our own beginnings, and how a random phone call, application submitted, or chance encounter may have caused us to change course, or reinforce our conviction in our current path.

The first time I came to Central Asia I did so because the Peace Corps gave me a choice between Kazakhstan and Ukraine, and I did not think that Ukraine was as cool. That was in early 2006, and now I have spent the majority of the last 7 years in Central Asia just because I thought that Kazakhstan offered a more exotic location and commensurate street cred.

Even an hour of research might have dispelled me of the notion that Kazakhstan was somehow more exotic than Ukraine. On the other hand, too much research might have convinced me that if I really wanted an exotic experience, I should have taken another year of language, as my recruiter suggested I do, and then gone off to Africa or South America. Armed with my illusions however, I took a leap, went to Kazakhstan, and sincerely believe that it changed my life for the better.

Sincerely, Sven Stafford Editor-In-Chief

Mark Twain said, “Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.” In the Information Age too much access to reality can be crippling. Camila Sharshekeeva, the inspiring founder of AUCA, would find it much harder to start a new, idealistic university today. Her idea for a corruption-free university has produced thousands of inspired alumni, many of whom are taking their own naïve ideas and putting them out into the real world.

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I hope that you are motivated by the stories in this issue to go out and start something new. It is beginnings that breathe brightness into the mind and body, and allow us to pursue new dreams fearlessly.

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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President's Column

Universities love beginnings, and AUCA is no exception. We are pretty good with middles also, while ends are the most difficult. That is one reason why universities tend just to add on to what they have, rather than look carefully at what works and what doesn’t and close things down as new things open. As a young institution, however, AUCA can be excused for doing more opening and experimenting than closing, for we are still very much trying to figure out what works best in our Central Asian context, what works less well and what doesn’t work at all.

Andrew B. Wachtel President

This experimental spirit is what is behind our newest educational experiment at the undergraduate level, the degree in liberal arts and sciences. For many years, we have been frustrated by the Ministry of Education’s insistence on standard major programs across all Kyrgyz universities, which limits our ability to provide innovative and important programs of concentration for our students and often ensures that although AUCA offers a wide variety of choice, students cannot take full advantage of it. The liberal arts program, under which students are admitted to the university as a whole rather than to a departmental major program, gives us significantly more flexibility, and we are taking full advantage of that to provide an array of new concentrations to our students, including ecology and sustainable development, human rights, mathematical modeling, and integrated marketing communications. True to form, we are not closing all our existing programs, but we do hope that as the liberal arts major catches on and students realize that they are better off with more flexibility and that they make a better choice of concentration if they have had a chance to sample a wider variety of programs before they choose, we will eventually migrate most if not all of our existing programs over to the new model.

We are also undertaking a new direction in graduate education, opening an MA in Central Asian Studies, our first academic Master’s program (we have had the professional MBA program for many years, of course). Led by the director of the Central Asian Studies Institute Svetlana Jacquesson, this program is the first in the world to provide a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary look at Central Asia, giving courses in anthropology, economics, history, languages, politics, and sociology.

And of course, there is the construction project. Those of us who are involved in it on a day-to-day basis may think that it will always remain a middle, but there is no doubt that with each day we closer to an end and a beginning; the end of our life in our current main building and the beginning of a new era (that is likely to start in the summer of 2014) in our purpose-built building in southwest Bishkek. Finishing the campus is a personal goal of mine, and I hope that our alumni, students, and partners will join me in supporting its completion (www.auca.kg/en/brick). We are working on plans to hold commencement on the building site this June, and if we can pull it off it will be the first AUCA event on the new campus to which we can invite our entire community of students, parents, faculty, staff and alumni.

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by Sven Stafford

Markus Kaiser Markus Kaiser is a Visiting Professor in the European Studies department, and has been coming to Central Asia since 1994. We caught up with him to talk about how the region has changed, and what keeps bringing him back.

Markus Kaiser took the reverse silk route to Central Asia. A trip to Peshawar, Pakistan, while an undergraduate, introduced him to Afghan refugees of Tajik and Uzbek ethnicity. That trip started what would become an almost 20-year affair with Central Asia, a trip that now finds Professor Kaiser as a visiting professor to AUCA’s European Studies department, as well as a service provider to the OSCE Academy.

Kaiser has been coming to the region since 1994, when he was a graduate student at the Free University of Berlin completing research on migration as a result of interethnic conflicts in the region. And although there are several researchers today studying the conflicts and resulting impacts of April/June 2010, those researchers are encountering a different world than the 1994 Central Asia that welcomed Kaiser.

“The biggest difference is that in 1994 everyone was still so hopeful,” Kaiser said. Hope exists, but Kaiser says that it is a hope tempered by the reality of intransigent governments, development creep, and unrealistic expectations. This change also depends on each country. Kaiser now finds the Kyrgyz Republic the easiest of the Central Asian republics to live in, due to its relatively unobtrusive government, and genial international community.

Kaiser came to AUCA in January of 2010, but had heard of the university and its students prior to arriving. As a co-director of the Center for German and European Studies at the St. Petersburg State University in Russia, Kaiser reviewed several AUCA graduate applications to programs sponsored

by DAAD, a German international exchange organization.

Now in his third year as a visiting professor, I asked him about his impressions of the European Studies program and what he would like to see from AUCA in the future.

“Most students take European Studies because they want to learn the languages, and usually they are very successful at doing this.” The department requires French or German as a second language, and many of the students are also able to spend some time in Europe during their studies.

One weakness is this minimal amount of time in Europe. “A classical European Studies program involves a lot of comparative, empirical research, which is not possible from Central Asia. Therefore we tend to focus here on the European relationship to Central Asia or interregional comparison,” Kaiser said.

Kaiser’s research also focuses on the relationships in

Eurasia, specifically focusing on transnationalization and migration, globalization of knowledge, development studies, and countries in transition. Kaiser said that since he was an undergraduate he was more interested in the micro level movements in society, the economy, and culture. This can be seen in several of his publications, which tend to focus on small groups actions to extrapolate larger meaning. One example is his 2005 publication out of his PhD research on cross-border traders as transformers, looking at how economic restructuring was impacting other areas of society.

The relationship between the EU, its member countries, and the Central Asian states has developed slowly over the past 20 years, but Kaiser thinks that it remains a strategic interest for the Europeans because of its proximity to Afghanistan, China, and Russia. The EU is also interested in migration and human trafficking issues, as well as developing its ‘neighborhood’. The EU mission, UN mission, OSCE, and embassies as well as offices of development agencies are also key employers of AUCA European Studies graduates, who often have the opportunity to continue their graduate studies in Europe as well.

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Interview with

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University update

As for AUCA as a whole, graduate study is one area where Kaiser would like to see AUCA become stronger. “I also teach at the OSCE Academy, which is masters level, and I enjoy that work very much. It would be great to do masters or Ph.D. advising at AUCA, and I hope that those programs will be developed,” said Kaiser. “The liberal arts is a very important and worthwhile endeavor for students from Central Asia taking into account the catastrophic situation in school education especially in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and AUCA plays an important role in providing it.”

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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University Update

tspc

by Natali Anarbaeva

conference

On November 30, 2012, AUCA’s Tian Shan Policy Center (TSPC) and Kyrgyz National Agrarian University (KNAU) hosted the Conference on Food Security and Land Resources under a Changing Climate – Issues of Adaptation. The Conference took place at the newly refurbished Science Library at KNAU. This conference convened as part of a series of conferences in Kyrgyzstan to discuss key issues related to Kyrgyzstan’s strategic development of responses to climate change, to identify gaps in research, policy, and action, and to provide recommendations to government agencies and policy-makers at the International Conference “Mountains and Climate”, which was held on December 11, 2012.

Experts modeling climate change have revealed that Kyrgyzstan is experiencing increases in average temperatures and variability in weather that is leading to more seasonal drought, storms, and floods, among other hazards. Within the next seven years, there is expected an additional increase in temperature of 2 degrees centigrade. This is likely to magnify problems in declining crop yields, livestock raising, and food security throughout the country. There are a number of activities being undertaken by government agencies, international and nongovernmental organizations,

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and academic researchers and institutes to better study and identify responses to the challenges faced

by Kyrgyz agricultural communities.

However, much of the research is new and activities have generally not been shared or coordinated to ensure maximum support to agricultural communities and businesses at risk. Most people engaged in farming and pastoral activities remain unaware of and vulnerable to the serious predicted climate change.

They do not have all of the resources, tools, or support programs that could help them to build resilience and manage the risks.

The TSPC-Agrarian National University Conference brought together experts from academia, international organizations such as FAO, World Food Program, UNDP, and KR officials including the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Dyikanbay Kenzhebaev, and First Secretary of the International Organizations and Security Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Madina Karabaeva, to share current research and some of the model practices and lessons being developed at the international level and which are now being piloted in Kyrgyzstan to improve management of climate risks and community adaptation.

The Conference was opened by the Rector of Kyrgyz National Agrar-

ian University Rysbek Nurgaziev and TSPC Deputy Director Michelle Leighton. Participants discussed the most critical research and data needs considering the programmatic, data collection and policy gaps in Kyrgyzstan. It adopted a set of recommendations for policy-makers to develop a more strategic set of actions, which was delivered to the government and National Academy of Sciences at the December 11th Mountains and Climate Conference.

The participants also noted that the 18th Conference of the Parties (COP18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is being held now in Doha, Qatar, and Kyrgyzstan is participating. Unlike many countries, the Kyrgyz Republic has not developed a national adaptation program of action or strategic plan that has received the input of all stakeholders in the country. The recommendations of this conference were incorporated into the new climate change adaptation planning undertaken in Kyrgyzstan, and incorporated into the December 11, National Academy of Sciences meeting.

The program of the conference, presentations, research papers, recommendations, and list of participants are posted on TSPC’s website: www.auca.kg/en/tspc.

Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

University Update

AUCA wins Super Info

Partner of the Year Award In 2012 American University of Central Asia was awarded the honor of best partner in the Kyrgyz Republic by Super Info News Group.

“Super Info” is a bestselling newspaper, and since 2006, it has held an awards ceremony to honor the Kyrgyz men and women that make headlines during the year. This year’s concert took place from December 7-8, and marked the tenth anniversary of the newspaper.

Nominees were selected by online voting at www.super.kg. The final jury included AUCA PR Director Dinara Orozbaeva and other representatives of show-business, culture, sport and some companies. Together they picked winners for the following categories: “Super Singer”, “Super Group”, “Super song 2012”, “Super Man”, “Super Charmer”, “Super Debut “, “Super Group “, “Super Couple”, “Super Artist of the Year “, “Super Music Video”, “Super Comedian “, “Super Film”, “Super Actor”, “Super Actress “, “Super TV Actor”, and “Super Athlete”.

Samat Guronov Regional director of “Beeline”

Salkyn Ibraimova Associate Vice-president for Administrative Affairs

It’s great that we won.

We have only been working with the newspaper six months, but we have really created a great partnership with them, and really appreciate their work ethic and professionalism. I would also like to thank the rest of the PR staff for their hard work over the past year.

The concert was great and the organizers did a good job. Hopefully this concert will continue to grow over the next ten years.

It was great to be on the Jury for this event. I was able to get to know the Kyrgyz Group “Choro”, and to judge the beauty contest with all of our stunning Kyrgyz women. We have also worked with “Super Info” over the past two years, and are always impressed with the reach of their publication. It was also great to see AUCA win, as I finished my MBA there a couple years ago, and always like to see my Alma Mater do well.

AUCA has never won an award like this before. I have worked at four universities previously, and none of them comes close to AUCA. It is great to finally be recognized for that, especially by “Super Info”, which is read by most of the young people here. I hope that the people reading about the award will start to think about AUCA as a possibility for them, and not just a place where only the elite can send their children.

Burul Ismailova Editor-in-chief of “Super Info”

AUCA really stood out this year, not only among universities, but among all other partners. I would like to especially thank Dinara for working so tirelessly to increase the reach of AUCA around the country. Dinara is one of the most fair-minded and unbiased people I know, so it was also a no-brainer to invite her to be on the Jury.

www.auca.kg

Dinara Orozbaeva Director of the PR Office

The awards are determined from multiple surveys, and also from data collected on the Super Info website on the number of hits and sharing among users. AUCA really stood out in these categories this year. Most of Super Infor’s users are young people, and of course they are interested in opportunities that can change their lives. Their parents are also very interested to learn about AUCA and the different programs being offered. Many of them call and ask about curriculum and what it is like for students there. Of course, they are directed to the university, but it is a testament to the attractiveness of an outstanding education. - Super Info Editors

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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University Update

New TSPC

Project

The Tian Shan Policy Center (TSPC, http://auca.kg/eng/tspc/), a think tank within the American University of Central Asia (AUCA), is now implementing its new project, “Protecting the Rights of Kyrgyz Migrants: Utilizing Policy Analysis, Public Outreach, and Stakeholder Dialogue to Mobilize Action toward Reform, 2012-2014”. This work is proceeding within the framework of TSPC’s activities on migration and social protection.

The project aims to raise awareness and foster dialogue to develop new strategies and more effective policies to protect Kyrgyz labor migrants and their families.

With the support of the Open Society Foundations, TSPC is conducting research and analysis on international standards and best practices that can help to promote more robust government and stakeholder consideration of a comprehensive national migration policy. As part of this project, TSPC also plans to create an Internet-platform for an Information Management Centre on Migrants’ Human Rights Protection.

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To launch its investigation, TSPC published a Briefing Document on critical issues of migration from Kyrgyzstan to the Russian Federation (available for review in English and Russian at http://auca.kg/en/ migration_projects/). The Briefing Document reviews the current situation of Kyrgyz migration processes, describes challenges, and raises key issues for research. It received input from experts in a number of organizations, including UN Women (Kazakhstan), FIDH (France), Migration Research Center (Russia), Human Rights Watch (USA), and Anti-Discrimination Center Memorial (Russia). The report was distributed among identified experts in preparation for a Research Workshop.

TSPC convened the Research Workshop with the participation of leading experts from research centers and international organizations dealing with labor migration. The goal of the workshop was to gather the most up-to-date information, identify gaps in protection of labor migrants, and prioritize a number of important spheres for prospective research.

Based on the results of the Research Workshop, TSPC developed a follow-up report reflecting all the issues identified by participants in the course of discussions and clarified a new research agenda. The report is now published on TSPC’s website in English and Russian. It has been distributed among stakeholders in Kyrgyzstan and partners in Central Asian countries and the Russian Federation (http://auca.kg/en/migration_projects/).

In 2013, based on the results of the focused scientific research, TSPC will convene further workshops and promote additional interaction and dialogue among all stakeholders on approaches to improved migration policies.

For more information, please, contact Ainura Asamidinova, Program Manager, Migration and Social Protection, at asamidinova_a@mail. auca.kg. Tian Shan Policy Center specializes on research and analysis of the effective public policies for the communities of the Central Asia.

Open central asian book forum &

literature festival

Chairman of the literary forum, Marina Bahmanova, announced the winners, including AUCA International and Comparative Politics professor Jomart Ormonbekov in the category

of Journalism for his blog, Hedonist (http://www.ormonti.com).

The Illustration prize was won

by Aigul Hakimzhanova (KZ), for her illustration of the Kazakh folk tale “Keregulu Kendebay Ata”, while second place went to Kyrgyzstani Jumgalbek Beishembaev for his drawings of “Mother Deer”, inspired by a Chingiz Aitmatov story “Er Tumshuk”.

There were also awards for Best Translation, won by Zina Garayev (KG) for Sultan Raeva’s “Weeping

Queen”, and Best Literary Work, won

by Galina Long (UZ), author of “Gods from the Middle of the Earth”. It was in this category that AUCA Dean of Students, Nikolay Shulgin, took third place for his collection of anecdotes and short stories, “One Hundred Shovels”.

The winners of the Best Literary Work competition were invited to the London Book Fair in 2013, and awarded the opportunity to have their books published by Hertforshire Press.

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Kyrgyzstani authors, including two AUCA professors, took home 5 prizes in a literary competition held in junction with the Open Central Asia Book Forum & Literature Festival, which was held for the first time from November 25-26, 2012, and hosted

by AUCA.

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University Update

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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AUCA Spotlight

Diversity Week Diversity Week 2013 kicked off the 20th Anniversary celebration for AUCA. The events started on Monday with a visit from U.S. Ambassador Pamela Spratlen, who came to give a talk on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the 50th anniversary of his “I Have a Dream” speech. Ambassador Spratlen spoke to over 100 students from several universities, and answered questions on MLK and his dream.

charged with coming up with culturally distinct tellings of the movie “Madagascar”, and Flash Mob Day, where delegations went around Bishkek filming themselves doing impromptu coordinated dances.

This year AUCA also decided to expand Diversity Week to include other universities, embassies, and AUCA alumni. This was most visible on Food Day, which featured not only 15 student delegations, but also 10 delegations from outside the university, including the embassies of the U.S., China, Turkey, Germany, France, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Russia, as well as two Alumni-owned restaurants, and a group from the Manas Transit Center.

Diversity Week came to a close on Friday at the Diversity Week Concert at the National Opera and Ballet Theater, which featured over 25 performances from students and professionals representing their nationalities through dance, song, and story telling.

Other days included Fairy Tale Day, where student delegations were

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AUCA Spotlight

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Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

There were six women, two chairs, and a table. It was the spring of 1993 at the home of one of the faculty of the Kyrgyz National State University, and after one and a half years of independence, an idea was brewing for a new kind of university. The women thought there should be a university that, above all, was free of the corruption that had been endemic in the Soviet Union and showed no sign of stopping. One of the women was an English instructor who had spent some time in Britain, had some idea of what a Western education was, and had an abundance of energy and initiative. By the autumn of 1993 she turned this conversation into a reality, and a new American University was born.

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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Beginnings

Camilla Sharshekeeva, the founder of AUCA and current rector of Plato University of Management and Design, took AUCA from her kitchen table to one of the most respected institutions in the region in little under a decade. However, that success would have been hard to predict in 1993, as 40-odd students enrolled at the Kyrgyz American Faculty (KAF) established under the Kyrgyz State National University (KSNU), with Camilla as the dean.

Camilla never did anything without engaging on all fronts, which would pay dividends for KAF throughout its early existence. Early in 1993, at a meeting of potential investors for the former Soviet Republics in St. Louis organized by the United States Information Agency (USIA), Roza Otunbaeva (future president and friend to Camilla) met with several business leaders, as well as Robert Hampton, then dean of the business school at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln (UNL). Roza Otunbaeva mentioned KAF and the interesting projects going on in

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Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

Beginnings

Kyrgyzstan, and helped to convince Robert to make the trip out.

He and his colleagues arrived on the second commercial flight ever from Frankfurt to Almaty, and took a car across the border to Bishkek.

Over the next ten days, and periodically until 1996, faculty from UNL helped to implement one of the first business curricula focused on Western practices. The same team also developed the first Western economic textbook used at Moscow State University. UNL would help to develop grants for computers, books, faculty and student exchange, and their work with the Russians helped to legitimize in the minds of many people the project and curriculum being offered at KAF. Growing Pains KAF opened the same year as the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavonic University and the International University of Kyrgyzstan, though the latter were opened with much more pomp, fanfare, and government support. KAF was a ground-up experiment resting on the shoulders of one person. It began with only two majors, one in Business, and one in English Philology.

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The next step was to figure out just what it meant to be a Kyrgyz-American faculty. Certainly it was more than simply having education without corruption. Before the end of the first semester, however, the name alone would prove advantageous. In December of 1993, Al Gore, then Vice President of the United States, visited the Central Asian countries. In an attempt to show the progress being made in the Kyrgyz Republic, KAF was put on the itinerary for Gore’s visit to Bishkek, and that meeting would lead to KAF’s first grant, a $500,000 IREX project to buy computers and provide faculty support.

KAF almost did not survive long enough to receive the money.

In the spring of 1994 $15,000 was lost in a fraudulent investment, putting the new program in jeopardy. Tuition had originally been set at $500, but had to be raised to $724 in the second year just to be

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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Beginnings

see the administration of the grant, and help implement the programs it was meant to support. John was recommended for the job, and Camilla agreed to work with him. His first memory of that grant is driving up to Almaty to buy computers for the university, because at that time you could not get such a large number of computers in Bishkek.

Offense and Praise

able to pay the faculty. Fortunately the families saw the value in the education that was being provided, and KAF was able to operate for a second year.

KAF was surviving, and 1994 would provide another chance encounter to propel the new faculty forward. That fall John Clark, a Fulbright Scholar assigned to Osh State University, arrived in Kyrgyzstan in September only to find out that the university would not be operating for the first couple months because all the students (girls too!) had been called out to harvest the cotton crop.

On his second day in country, the US Embassy PAO, Bruce McGowen, suggested that John meet Camilla

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Sharshekeeva, who he said was running an interesting project at KSNU. John worked at KAF for two weeks in the fall of 1994. KAF was then being run out of the top two floors of the current Jorguku Kenesh, and when I talked with John about this experience, he said that what he loved about it was the energy of the students, and the feeling among the faculty that they were on to something special with this new faculty.

He eventually did travel to Osh for his Fulbright, but his history with KAF was just beginning.

In 1995 the grant from IREX came through. As part of that grant the US government required that a Resident Advisor be in place to over-

In the spring of 1996, KAF was still a part of KSNU, had three classes of students, and was moving along quite nicely. An international conference was also planned, and the rector of KSNU, Dr. Sovietbek Toktomyshev, offered space for the main event. When it came time for the conference to begin, the rector was placed as the 4th speaker behind some ambassadors and guests.

So offended was Dr. Toktomyshev at being placed 4th that he wrote an order calling for an investigation into the Faculty. This made Camilla start thinking about independence.

Later in the spring of 1996, the intention to form an American University in Kyrgyzstan (AUK) was born. There were some problems.

One was that KAF was scheduled to leave the Parliament building and needed a new home. Second, if it was to become independent, it would need friends in high places to do so.

Fortunately, the leadership of AUK,

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Beginnings

In almost every press event held at the old KAF, professors, administrators, and students were all sure to thank the president for supporting such a valuable new form of education. Thanks in large part to this praise, AUK was given the Children’s Library in Dubovy Park. There was loud objection to the library being converted into a university, but President Akayev pushed it through and AUK had a home.

AUK still started a week late in the fall of 1996, mostly due to the fact that extensive renovations were needed, including a floor that had fallen in. The group that started that fall was also the first group to benefit from systematic use of need-based financial aid. John Clark realized that by lowering the price for some students, not only would students from less fortunate families be able to get a quality education, but also create a diverse student body and take full advantage of the talented faculty. Since 1996, AUCA, through its own aid and donor support, has given over $30 million in scholarships.

There was still the problem, however, of the university not having a license from the MoE. This was even more pressing because the first

group of students, who began studying in 1993, were set to graduate in May 1997. Again the relationship with President Akayev paid off, as he convinced the MoE to grant state diplomas to the AUK graduates. That spring, the first class of 38 students graduated.

Sustaining Success The university was on its way to becoming one of the best universities in the region. Camilla and John worked together to figure out just what it meant to offer an “American” education. AUK became one of the first universities in the region to offer electives, a novelty for both students and professors, who had been used to strict curricula passed down from the administration. AUK also worked with professors and students to open up class sessions to discussion, allowing students to be involved in the learning process.

AUK also received a boost to its reputation when 8 out of 16 scholarships for Kyrgyzstani students of any university to study in the United States, sponsored by the U.S. government but selected by a committee of state university and government officials, went to AUK students.

Camilla and John also worked to expand the university. In 1997 Camilla traveled to Washington, D.C., and by hook and crook, man-

aged to get herself a meeting with Al Gore’s staff, which secured continued funding for AUK, and led to then First Lady Hilary Clinton’s visit to the university in the fall of 1997. Camilla also met George Soros that summer when Akaev took her to meet him in New York, and who then took up an interest in the project.

In the spring of 1998, AUK was outgrowing its small home in the former children’s library, and was looking for more space. The Akayev administration again stepped in, and awarded AUK its current home, the former headquarters of the Kyrgyz Soviet. To get the building ready for use, George Soros gave $300,000 for the renovation and university operating costs.

The contributions from the Kyrgyz Government, Mr. Soros, and the US Government, all helped pave the way for AUK to develop into AUCA and the leading institution it is today.

However, not enough can be said about its first two leaders, Camilla Sharshekeeva and John Clark. Their energy and collaboration over the first 5 years of the university’s existence provided the vision for what truly excellent education could do for the people of the Kyrgyz Republic, and the university will forever be a testament to their hard work and dedication; and to six women, two chairs, and a table.

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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while not making many friends at KSNU, did make one powerful friend in Kyrgyz President Akayev.

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Fall 1993 - The Kyrgyz American Faculty (KAF) opens within the Kyrgyz State National University (KSNU), an arrangement that would last until 1996.

1997 - Camila Sharshekeeva, KAF Founder, travels to Washington DC, and through pure diligence gets a meeting with the Vice President’s office, and in doing so secures funding for an independent university.

1997 - Due to the growth of KAF, and a social faux pas, a new American University of Kyrgyzstan (AUK) is formed with support from the United States government and the Open Society Foundations.

2002 - In order to recognize the expanding mission of the university, AUK is renamed the American University of Central Asia (AUCA).

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AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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2011 - AUCA becomes the first university in Central Asia to award degrees accredited in the United States (Middle States) through its partnership with Bard College.

2013 - AUCA celebrates its 20th anniversary since its founding in 1993. 1,200 students are enrolled in 12 major disciplines, and the university is widely recognized as the best in the Kyrgyz Republic and one of the best in Central Asia.

www.auca.kg

2008 - AUCA partners with Bard College, a leading liberal arts institution in the United States.

A significant emphasis is placed on teaching in the English language.

2014 - AUCA opens a new campus in Bishkek and a new chapter in its history as it becomes the first university in the region to go green. The new campus is supported by a state of the art geothermal heating and cooling system.

xcellence timeline AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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“War on war”. P. Chusovitin

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creating

Kyrgyzstan

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Beginnings

On March 8, 1917, disgruntled factory workers in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) walked down the frigid city streets in protest of poor working conditions.

In the proceeding days what began as a simple demonstration swelled up into a massive revolution that led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II on the fifteenth of March, marking the end of monarchical rule and the beginning of a new government driven by socialism, later known as the Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution had made its indelible print in history.

Just one year later the Bolsheviks—the radically left party at the time led by Vladimir Lenin—made a successful grab for power on November 6-7, 1918, overthrowing the Provisional Government and becoming the sole ruling party of Russia and its Soviet Republics until 1991. What followed the Bolshevik’s rise to power was a sweeping overhaul of the political, economic, social and cultural system of Russia proper and its semi-autonomous regions in the south, namely Turkestan and Trans-Caspia, from which the Soviet Republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, were born. The formation of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic (KSSR) begins before the Russian revolution and ends in 1936, when it becomes a full member of the USSR. Events in 1918 Central Asia were as chaotic as those in Russia.

The Bolsheviks in Tashkent, Turkestan took sole power of the city just two days after having done so in Russia. Like in Russia the Bolsheviks gained control by force, this time with the help of a local Russian rifle regiment, and replaced the local Provisional Government by November 14. Shortly thereafter the Council of People’s Commissar’s in Russia signed the “Declaration of the Rights of Peoples of Russia” which proclaimed the equality of all people inside Russian territory.

Furthermore, the proclamation supported the “free development of

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“Building a New World“. R. Rukavshinkov and A. Mosiichuk national minorities and ethnic groups inhabiting the territory of Russia”, and, ostensibly, their right to “free self-determination...separation and the formation of an independent state.”

One month later the Bolsheviks made another appeal to Russia’s Muslims. Signed by both Lenin and Stalin, the “Appeal to the Moslems of Russia and the East” expressed a powerful and unifying message: “Moslems of Russia, Tartars of the Volga and the Crimea, Kirghiz, and Sarts of Siberia and Turkestan, Turks and Tartars of Transcaucasia, Chechens and Mountaineers of the Caucasus-all those whose mosques and chapels have been destroyed, whose beliefs and customs have been trampled under foot by the tsars and oppressors of Russia!... Throw off these ravishers and enslavers of your country…Moslems of Russia!...

Moslems of the East!” In these troublesome times the Bolsheviks needed to garner all the support they could get, and Russia’s Muslims—who made up a large portion of the “toiling mass” once oppressed by the Russian Empire—were seen as a massive pool of likely revolutionaries.

Part of Lenin’s theory of nationalism was a gamble since it contradicted his hard-line socialist beliefs. Nationalism expresses nationalistic categories that cut vertically through class, while Marxism categorizes society in groups of classes which cut horizontally across nationalities. Lenin recognized the reality that nationalist groups had

One such group whom the Soviet government recognized and later gave autonomy to (albeit under Soviet auspices) was the Kyrgyz, who in 1924 earned the right to form the Kara-Kirghiz autonomous region. (The Bolsheviks had continued the Russian Empire’s tradition of calling all Kyrgyz “KaraKirghiz” and Kazakh “Kyrgyz”).

This autonomous region would be upgraded to the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic (KSSR) as a fullfledged republic in 1936.

In order to describe events leading up to the establishment of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Republic (KASR) (1924) we must turn back in time to 1916, one year before the February Revolution took place: a year which witnessed a bloody uprising of Kyrgyz against the Russian Empire. Since the mid-19th century Russia had led several successful conquests into Central Asia and expanded its territory. As Russian hegemony began to move southward, so too did Russians themselves, who began to colonize the region. While legally all land taken from locals and given to Russian settlers was supposed to be compensated for, Russian authorities usually did not abide by this rule, and the large swaths of land necessary for Kyrgyz (and Kazakh) nomads to raise livestock and put to pasture their animals began to dwindle. By 1917 there were nearly 3 million Russian settlers in Turkestan. All of this proved to be a source of tension for the Kyrgyz.

Another source of tension sprung from a policy of military conscription which the Tsar implemented in 1916. Up until that point all Central Asian Muslims had been exempt from service in

the First World War. This policy change, combined with the rising frustration due to land requisition, led to an uprising which exploded across Turkestan in 1916. Russian casualties are estimated at around 3-4,000, with the heaviest losses in the Issyk-Kul region. (For instance, in Pishpek 20 Russians were killed.) The Kyrgyz losses were much higher and casualty estimates range from 100250,000, the majority of which occurred during the Kyrgyz’s flight to China following the unrest.

The Kyrgyz uprising had an important effect on the establishment of a national Kyrgyz identity, says Aminat Chokobaeva, a former alumna of AUCA and current PhD student at Australian National University whose research concerns the 1916 uprising. According to her, there is one common argument which tries to establish a link between 1916 and 1924 by centering on the claim that the creation of the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Republic was due, in part, to a feeling of guilt the Soviet elite felt for the damages the Kyrgyz suffered as a consequence of the unrest. While Aminat Chokobaeva is doubtful of this claim, she nevertheless writes that it is true that some of the first Soviet-Kyrgyz leaders in the KASR had come from those regions which saw the heaviest fighting, specifically Chuy, Naryn and Issik-Kyl oblasts (known collectively as “Semirechie” at that time). The first ethnic Kyrgyz head of the Soviet Kyrgyz government (who was later executed on charges of nationalism), Yusup Abdrakhmanov, came from Semirechie.

There are several other reasons which point to a link between 1916 and 1924. The aggression, she writes, was primarily anti-Russian and rooted in the recent history of the Empire’s colonialism and discrimination against the Kyrgyz. She also notes that the uprising had a “degree of organization and cohesion [and that] the leadership was

well defined and...consisted of traditional elites”. Ultimately it was “fight for survival of an indigenous group discriminated on the basis of their (non-Slavic) ethnicity and occupation as nomads”, she writes. The tumult was thus an expression of a hardening Kyrgyz nationalism which emerged as a consequence of the Russian Empire’s discriminating policies.

The Bolsheviks, however, often fared no better than the Empire which preceded them, and their platform of soviet imperialism, and not Russian imperialism, met with friction amongst the Muslim communities of Central Asia. When a group of prominent Muslims founded the Kokand Autonomous Government (KAG) and declared Turkistan and autonomous government based on sharia, the Bolsheviks saw it as a threat to the revolution. The Tashkent Soviet argued that the KAG had been formed on a class basis (bourgeois) and not as a nationalist movement based on the desire of the proletariat masses.

As a consequence it had no right to succeed and was declared an enemy of the revolution. Within two months the city of Kokand was sacked by Bolshevik forces and the counter-revolutionary government was obliterated. Around 14,000 residents died in the fighting.

Another blow to the Bolshevik’s claim to power came from an ever-growing group of fundamentalist Muslim fighters known as the basmachi, an Islamic reactionary movement based in the Ferghana Valley. The basmachi came from a fundamental hatred for the Bolsheviks, whom the fighters reviled for the destruction of traditional Islamic culture. The basmachi openly expressed jihad, or holy war against the Soviets, and in the Ferghana Valley the fighters referred to themselves as “an army of Islam”. Some of the basmachi were Kyrgyz and strove unsuccessfully to resist incorporation into the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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emerged under the Old Russian Empire as a consequence of its expansion and thus supported selfdetermination and even succession for these groups. Keeping this in mind, Lenin still hoped that soviet policies would in time persuade all nationalities to voluntarily come together to strive for the proletariat cause of socialism.

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Beginnings

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Beginnings

“Red Song”. D. Skultory and I. Kalinini

Republic (ASSR).

In order to help combat this anti-revolutionary threat the Red Army needed to recruit those who knew local languages. This resulted in the formation of the Kara-Kyrgyz (Kyrgyz) Division and the Tatar Brigade, of which had a combined force of around 25,000 indigenous Turkestanis. Even as early as 1923 Bolsheviks had fractured the unity of the Kyrgyz kurbashi (basmachi leaders) and killed many other prominent leaders. One major achievement of the Soviets was to convince influential Kyrgyz kurbashi to disband their units, hand over their arms and cease all resistance in return for amnesty.

The basmachi movement eventually petered out in 1926 but revived again during collectivization in the thirties.

“Marx and Engles”. A. Golvachev

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The Bolsheviks faced an even greater peril starting in late spring of 1918. Reactionary forces had collected under the command of former tsarist military leaders with the aim of putting down the

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Beginnings

Bolshevik revolution. They became known as the “White Army”. In response the Bolsheviks mustered their own forces under the banner of the “Red Army”. The vicious civil war that ensued lasted for another four years, until 1922.

The Central Asian theatre of the Civil War covered the regions of Turkestan and Trans-Caspia, and the Whites had for a time made great headway, founding the Kazakh Autonomous Region near Orenburg under the command of General Alexander Dutov. Dutov had also managed to sabotage the railroad connecting Tashkent with Moscow, cutting off supplies and communications from the Bolsheviks in Turkestan.

Indigenous peoples, as evidenced above, were neither wholly against nor wholly for the revolution during the civil war (as was the case with the reactionary basmachi or the local revolutionaries fighting for the Red Army). The Kyrgyz were one such group divided. In the memoirs of Captain Brun, a Danish statesman who found himself trapped in Turkestan for two years during the revolution and civil war, modern day readers can find a personal account of the Kyrgyz as fighters and victims alike of the Bolshevik cause. Recollecting his near death experience after being arrested by the Bolsheviks and put into a jail cell in Tashkent, Brun vividly wrote:

“Kurmandjan Datka”.

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“We were roused in the middle of the night by several people coming in. Among them was a young man hardly more than twenty, clad in what had once been a white linen smock, now bloodstained and filthy all over. He was escorted by four armed Kirghiz.

He called the names of the two prisoners; they were led out, and the next moment we hear shots in the yard. Hall [Brun’s friend] and I stood at the window watching the Kirghiz busily digging holes in the ground near the big wall. Was this scene to be repeated in another short while?”

The Kyrgyz here acted as executioners for the Tashkent revolutionaries. However, in another chapter of his memoirs, Brun finds himself stuffed into a cell with two-hundred other anti-revolutionary Kyrgyz who, having been caught with weapons, now awaited execution, as opposed to dishing it out. The revolution had no doubt spawned vicious divisions.

The endgame saw a Red Army victory over its White opponent. The White forces made a number of political blunders which alienated local

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Beginnings

Muslims, including the Kyrgyz. The tsarist commander Admiral Kolchak, for example, declared himself the supreme commander of the Whites and vowed to re-establish the glory of the Russian empire, and began a policy of forced conscription for Kazakh-Kyrgyz fighters. The Red Army exploited this weakness and managed to persuade many former Kyrgyz and Kazakh reactionary fighters to fight for the Red Army. This strategy was primarily overseen by Mikhail Frunze, commander of the Turkestani Front of the Red Army. After some years Frunze would manage to liberate Turkestan from White forces as well as a majority of the Basmachi.

By the mid-20s the Bolsheviks had by and large overcome their two greatest challenges to power—the Basmachi and the White Army. Thus began Moscow’s task of carving out new nations from Central Asia. One important condition of a nation, according to Stalin, was that they were to have a common language.

In regards to Kyrgyz, the Soviet authorities had already standardized their language by 1922. Dilip Hiro, author of the book Inside Central Asia, claims that this strategy was meant to isolate nationalities and discourage any attempts of PanTurkism, a movement which bogged down Bolshevik progress in the initial years of the revolution.

Even at the very start of the 1920’s there was an attempt to establish the Mountain Kyrgyz Republic. Although the conceptual republic had the blessings of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ATSSR), infighting amongst national Kyrgyz elites prevented its formation.

Instead, the First All-Turkmen Congress of Soviets (VTsIK) convened in 1924 and granted the Kara-Kirghiz the “the right to secede from the composition of the ATSSR and to form the Kara-Kirghiz autonomous region within the composition of the RSFSR [Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic].” By 1926 this region was upgraded to the Kyrgyz

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Mikhail Frunze, commander of the Turkestani Front of the Red Army.

Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KASSR). Pishpek, its capital at the time, was renamed Frunze, in honor of the civil war general.

But the government of the newly minted KASSR already had a troubled past that would portend internal party conflict and a period of zero tolerance to nonconformity to Moscow authority. In 1925, a group of thirty soviet-Kyrgyz authorities—sometimes called “the Thirty”— wrote a letter of complaint to the Central Asian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party expressing their dissatisfaction with how party business was conducted. These thirty “dissenters” were removed from their positions and expelled from party. Other purges—in the form of termination of party membership—had taken place amongst soviet Kyrgyz as early as 1919 and from 1922-3. In1933 there were nearly 20,000 party members in the KASSR, but by 1935 that number dropped to 6,385 as it became easier to fall out of favor with Moscow. This was an ominous sign of the impending terror of the Great Purges (1937-39), during which vast numbers of old party members were accused—often falsely—of counter revolutionary crimes and executed.

Towards the end of the 1920’s Central Asia was steadily but surely coming under Moscow’s control, but there was still major work to be

The second option was the only option for Stalin, and it would prove disastrous for the Kyrgyz. Collective farms, or kolkhozes, were introduced into the RSFSR. Soviet authorities forcefully requisitioned grain and mandated that all agrarian workers join collective farms. At the same time, there was a campaign to rid all “kulaks” (known in Central Asia as bais, beks, begs, or manabs) from Central Asia and elsewhere.

Kulaks, which in the singular means “fist” in Russian, were considered capitalist farmers and therefore barriers to collectivization and the anti-capitalistic goals of the RSFSR. In Central Asia the rapid pace of collectivism collided with the slower, more traditional life of people there. One of the hardest hit groups of the new policy were the nomadic Kyrgyz of the KASSR, since this new policy demanded that they put all their herds together on a state-collective. Some Kyrgyz responded to this by choosing to slaughter their own herds, or drive them over the border into China, instead of obeying Soviet policy. In addition the Kyrgyz were required to move from their millennia-old, traditional nomadic dwellings (such as the yurt) into western-style brick homes, and to become wage-earning employees on a state farm.

The kolkhozes of the KASSR received special attention from one A. Mukhaidzi, who wrote

exhaustively on Soviet progress there in his report “Settling the Nomads in Kirghizia” (1933).

“School building and the struggle against illiteracy”, he wrote, “have greatly improved the cultural level of the kolkhoz members”. At the same time the “age-old Eastern slavery of women” is becoming a thing of “legend”, and women are even involved in social, political and economic matters, he wrote optimistically. A meticulous budget is even provided which details every ruble that will be spent: “School building: 1,838, 005; Scientific research: 118,500; Roads: 544, 308” and so on. Dilip Hiro, whom was quoted earlier, provides his readers with the depiction of the Kyrgyz Voroshilov kolkhoz, a typical collective in the region, which had “2,588 workers…possessed a flour mill, a club, a library, and schools”.

The soviet machine was attempting to rapidly modernize the Kyrgyz and bring them closer in line with its progressive aims.

Due to collectivization Central Asia witnessed the immigration of whole clans from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan into China, Afghanistan and Iran. In Kazakhstan the drive for collectivization was very brutal, leading some experts to conclude that a mass exodus of up to 4.5 million people to other countries occurred, with roughly the same number of casualties during the famine that ensued in the mid1930’s. (Stalin would write in 1939 that any problems caused by collectivization were actually a product of being “dizzy with success”.)

In 1936 the Soviet Government made a silent film clip depicting the triumph of collectivization in the Kyrgyz Autonomous Republic. After the opening caption that “For centuries the natives have led a poorly developed, nomadic existence”, the viewer is shown Kyrgyz life before socialism: A poor family lives in a yurt. The mother, while pushing away her sickly and lethargic child into the dirt beside her, makes

bread on the ground outside, while another woman pounds grain by hand. Soon the yurt and all of the family’s meager belongings are packed onto a bull and the Kyrgyz take off on another aimless, nomadic wander.

Then the next caption appears: “Now the Kirghiz people have the means for a settled life and culture.” The audience sees the transformation from past to present: settlements and western-style dwellings replace the nomadic tent, Kyrgyz sleep on proper beds and even read books and newspapers—one is entitled “Pioneer!”—which are scattered on a desk. There is also a school where both Kyrgyz adults and youth are dressed intelligently, sitting on benches in the grass and taking notes.

The same year the propaganda film touted the successful conversion of the nomadic Kyrgyz to cultured, soviet citizens, the Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was upgraded to a full-fledged member of the Soviet Union. In article VIII of the newly ratified constitution the KASSR became the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic (KSSR).

During Stalin’s era it was by and large loyal to Moscow, due in part to the First Secretary of the Kyrgyz Communist Party (KCP), Turdakan Usubaliyev, who promoted the Russian language in the KSSR and lauded Soviet leadership. In spite of this, it is interesting to note that Usubaliyev continued to promote the role of ethnic Kyrgyz in the economic and political sectors of the republic.

The history of the establishment of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic—from 1916 to 1936—ends on the cusp of the Great Terror and the Second World War. The KSSR preserved its name and place as one of the five republics of Central Asia until the collapse of the USSR, when its title changed to the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, as it is still known today.

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done, particularly in the agricultural sector. To address the next step in soviet policy Stalin gave a speech in 1929 to Marxist students about the advancement of the socialist agricultural system. In Stalin’s mind there were two options: the first option was to use capitalism to enhance the agrarian system of the RSFSR, which, he said, would ultimately lead to the “impoverishment of the peasantry”.

The second option—“the socialist way”—was to create “collective and state farms” that would utilize advanced farming methods to achieve great success.

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Beginnings

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Beginnings

Start-Up Esen

Starting a business requires taking risk. Nowhere in the world is this action more lauded and celebrated than in the United States, where the small business owner is deified, and Mark Zuckerberg is Pope, Allah, and Ronald McDonald all rolled into one easy-to-use display on your i-Pad. And while people in the United States may tire of their politicians worshiping at the feet of the entrepreneur, people in the developing world have heard the message. The idea of entrepreneurship is America’s biggest export.

Esen Rysbekov (AUCA ’12) is a product of this idea. With neatly cropped black hair, business casual getup, and a smile that would make Ayn Rand blush, Esen looks every bit the self-made man. He has held several jobs since his arrival at AUCA in 2008 including as a program manager at the Central Asian Free Market Institute (CAFMI), AUCA Disco organizer, intern at the Independence Institute in Colorado, and political candidate for the “Life Without Barriers” party in Bishkek. Currently, he is a partner in the video production company Kaarman&Partners, and organizer of Startup Weekend, a gathering

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for young entrepreneurs and local investors.

Esen is motivated to succeed, and has enough energy to have over 3,500 Facebook friends and believe he could sit down with each of them for coffee before noon. We had to reschedule our planned interview by a couple days, but in that period of time I saw Esen at least twice buzzing around the halls of AUCA recruiting students for one event or another.

He says that everyone should be able to work in a job that they enjoy, and entrepreneurship is a path to that.

It is clear that he enjoys what he is doing.

Esen wants to change the culture in the Kyrgyz Republic to embrace entrepreneurship, and he is helping to educate people to make that change a reality.

Through Startup Invest, an offshoot of Startup Weekend, students from around the world get trainings on how to start their own business.

Mostly the trainings encourage students to just participate, to try different ideas until they track on to something they love. The trainings also promote a social agenda, a mix between corporate social responsibility and what Muhammad Yunus would call a social business.

Esen believes that problems equal opportunities, and that any person can be an entrepreneur.

His role models are Emil Umetaliev, the founder of Kyrgyz Concept, the biggest travel and business logistics firm in the country; Aziz Soltobaev (AUCA ’03), the founder of Svetofor.kg, the largest internet store in the country, and Petr Osipov, co-founder of Business Molodost.

All are great entrepreneurs, and Esen is surely one in the making.

Is it possible to create more entrepreneurs like Esen?

Esen’s belief that there is an entrepreneur inside everyone is shared by, essentially, every international organization working in the developing world. And in the battle of ideas, it is the greatest one to come out of the Western world since Michael Jordan. At its best, entrepreneurism can empower women, wean people from the state, and drive economic development. It is also a powerful tool against corrupt governments and regressive ideologies.

There is some inherent irony in international organizations, many funded by governments and staffed

All of the opportunities Esen took advantage of are available not only to students of AUCA, but, in a lesser extent, to students of other universities in the Kyrgyz Republic.

Despite this, not every AUCA student runs off to start his or her own business upon graduation, just as not every Harvard dropout goes on to found Microsoft or Facebook.

What we know from Esen’s experience is that creating an entrepreneur takes great, long-term investment, and a certain je ne sais quoi. We know that we can, and should, try to recreate the conditions that lead to students like Esen becoming entrepreneurs. At the same time, we must also admit that we cannot take a random student, apply the recommended conditions, and expect, on average, to receive an entrepreneur.

If this is true, then the longterm solution for creating more entrepreneurs is to focus on established institutions that support the underpinnings of a free economy and free society. Such institutions have the ability to produce shortterm results (trainings of trainers, sustainability plans, etc.), but also have the added benefit of, once in a while, producing someone useful, like Esen Rysbekov.

Moving Forward The best part about entrepreneurs like Esen is that they create and build on what they have been given. Esen has used his own talent and energy to start his own business and help others to start theirs. At

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by people who have never run a business, that promote entrepreneurship. However, together with the hundreds of NGOs and MFIs dedicated to entrepreneurs, the development community plays a powerful role in demanding that governments accept and promote a free market ideology in return for aid dollars.

Helping to convince people and governments that a free market economy is the best way to prosperity is a moral good, and certainly worth the relatively small amount of money we spend supporting development abroad. However, it is worth looking deeper into stories like Esen’s to tease out the ways in which international organizations can be most useful to the entrepreneurs out there looking for their opportunity.

Looking at Esen again, we know that he learned English and was talented and motivated enough to get into AUCA, despite living in Talas, a region of the Kyrgyz Republic from which less than 5% of the AUCA student body comes. At AUCA he was sponsored by USAID, and his internship in the US was preceded by a semester at AUCA partner Bard College, which was sponsored by Open Society Foundations. Esen has also benefitted from the AUCA network of local alumni who staff much of CAFMI and the “Life Without Barriers” political party, as well as international experts who are brought in for consulting, many times by international organizations.

the inaugural Startup Weekend Bishkek, held this past November in Bishkek, 260 people submitted requests to present their business or idea. Of the 80 individuals selected to participate in the weekend, four projects received funding from investors. The winners included Turan Azimov, a 17-yearold record producer from Osh; Syinat Joldoshova, an AUCA international relations student starting a new delivery service (Веселый Доставщик); Aijana Aidieva, another AUCA student with a lunch delivery service (Апашкин Ланч); and Urmat Isaev, who is starting a photo booth business in Bishkek.

Startup Weekends are held throughout the world, and are sponsored by several companies including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. However, their success relies mostly on the ability of entrepreneurs to produce good ideas, and local investors to take some risk. That Esen was able to match four companies with investors in the Kyrgyz Republic says a lot.

Although the country as a whole ranks a respectable 70th on the World Bank’s Doing Business Index, it is a small landlocked country, which in the same index ranks 173 out of 185 in trading across borders. And despite the preponderance of microfinance, many people are still skeptical of banks, and taking risk in general.

Esen says that this deficit of trust and knowledge is what he wants to focus on over the next couple years with the Startup Invest.

Among the other ideas to come out of Startup Weekend that Esen was excited about were ideas for two factories, one that would produce dried fruit for export, and another that would import garbage and recycle it into construction materials like bricks and tiles. Esen said that although the ideas are good, there is still a long way to go before investors are willing to put up the kind of money required to do serious manufacturing.

Esen has no doubt that these and bigger ideas will find funding in the future. He says that the investment climate is getting gradually better, and that the people he meets with his message of entrepreneurship are just as excited as he is to get started with their businesses.

At the end of the day, it is Esen’s energy and motivation as a part of this new entrepreneurial community that helps move the whole country forward.

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Beginnings

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AUCA Spotlight

пример для подражания

Друзья, прежде чем начать беседу с человеком с большой буквы и с интересной личностью, я бы хотела обратить ваше внимание на одну интересную историю. Однажды слепой человек сидел на ступеньках здания со шляпой возле его ног и табличкой “Я слепой, пожалуйста, помогите”. Один творческий человек проходил мимо и остановился. Он увидел инвалида, у которого было всего лишь несколько монет в шляпе. Он бросил ему пару монет и без его разрешения написал новые слова на табличке. Он оставил ее слепому человеку и ушел. Днем он вернулся и увидел, что шляпа слепого полна монет

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AUCA Magazine | March 2013

и денег. Слепой узнал его по шагам и спросил, не он ли был тот человек, что переписал табличку. Он также хотел узнать, что именно он написал. Тот ответил: “Ничего такого, что было бы неправдой. Я просто написал ее немного по-другому” и ушел, улыбнувшись. Новая надпись на табличке была такая: “Сейчас весна, но я не могу ее увидеть”. Так, внимание всего одного человека и придание более глубокого смысла надписи изменило отношение прохожих к человеку-инвалиду. Мы настолько заняты собой, своими проблемами, повседневной жизнью, что не замечаем и проходим мимо доброты, внимания, и

окружающих нас приятных мелочей. Но есть люди, которые не думают только о себе и стремятся делать добро. Одна из них Назгуль Насиева, наша сегодняшняя гостья. Назгуль Насиева родилась 4 ноября 1972 года в селе Отуз-Адыр Ошской области, Карасууйского района. Когда я была маленькой- мой папа взяв меня на руки говорил: «Когда моя дочь вырастет, будет служить народу, станет известной, сильной личностью», а мама говорила так: «Нет, моя единственная дочь будет образованной, доброй и отзывчивой матерью». Дети растут в любви и заботе тогда, когда в семье властвует согласие и уважение к друг другу. Могу

Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

AUCA Spotlight

сказать что мой характер, начало моей деятельности были сформированы уже в детстве. Я занимаюсь благотворительной деятельностью уже 12 лет, оказываю посильную помощь детским домам, домам для престарелых, гражданам КР отбывающих наказание в исправительных учреждениях. Конечно, это очень трудная работа. Порой думаю, взять бы да и перестать этим заниматься. Но, передумываю и продолжаю помогать. С тех самых пор, провела более 8000 различных телевизионных проектов, спортивных состязаний, конкурсов, игр КВН, концертов. По началу думала, что проведу два-три мероприятия, и на этом закончу, но не тут то было. Не могла отказать помагать людям с тяжёлой судьбой, когда смотрела в их ожидающие глаза. Всё думала, как бы им помочь. В конце концов решила открыть Фонд развития «Ты не один – UNA». Нашей целью является оказание помощи малообеспеченным семьям, сиротам, пожилым людям без присмотра, да и всем

талантливым детям, обеспечение их питанием, жильём, одеждой, образованием, работой. Это наши первые написанные проекты. При проведении благотворительных акций, я никогда ни у кого не просила материальной помощи. По большей части я и мои друзья, как в пословице «с миру по нитке – голому рубаха», помогаем друг другу и продвигаем наше дело вперёд. Сегодня мне не очень сложно. Много людей примыкнули к нашему делу, и мы стали большой дружной командой. Среди нас даже есть бизнесмены. Я получаю удовольствие от каждого начатого дела. Мы создали ансамбль «Достук» в доме для престарелых, участниками которого являются талантливые жители этого же дома. Мы построили для них сцену, парикмахерскую, по праздникам они выступают со своими танцевальными номерами и песнями перед гостями. Бывают и очень грустные дни. Когда я вижу как уходят из жизни пожилые или очень больные люди, молю бога чтобы он

не оставил меня одну в этом мире. Поэтому надо придавать большое значение словам «пусть всегда будут родные и близкие люди у каждого человека». Я не создаю для себя кумиров и не не зарюсь ни на чью работу, считаю, что моё дело это просто гуманное обязательство. Я очень благодарна моему супругу за его поддержку и понимание. Он всегда радуется и грустит вместе со мной. Все члены моей семьи очень добрые, сын и дочь помогают мне упаковывать подарки для детей из детдомов и радуются тому что дети обрадуются этим подаркам. Счастье это если твоя помощь оказывается нуждающимся, значит ты кому то нужен, значит тебя всегда кто то ждёт, ты самый честный, добрый, счастливый ЧЕЛОВЕК на свете! На сегодняшний день Назгуль Насиева вырастила учеников-патритов которые безустанно занимаются благотворительность тем самым облегчая труд -я не побоюсь сказать, великой женщины . Друзья-живя не забывайте творить добро!

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

AUCA Spotlight

«Хулиганы на морозе»

Зимние игры с участием Эндрю Вахтеля и звезд Кыргызстана

В Американском университете в Центральной Азии за последние месяцы прошло несколько незабываемых и интересных событий. В ноябре состоялось «Посвящение в студенты АУЦА», а январская «Ярмарка народов», посвященная 20-летию вуза прошла с участием диаспор Ассамблеи народа Кыргызстана, которые подключились к студентам АУЦА при подготовке финального концерта. Также Американскому университету в Центральной Азии была вручена премия как лучшему из лучших среди надежных партнеров – лидирующих и процветающих компаний Кыргызстана по версии газеты «Супер инфо». Жизнь АУЦА насыщена акциями, олимпиадами, проектами и разными событиями, которые просто невозможно перечислить в одной статье. Одним из таких мероприятий является участие президента АУЦА Эндрю Вахтеля в проекте ОТРК «Зимние игры со звездами» («Чилденин чилтендери»). В рамках этого

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проекта участники соревнуются в зимних видах спорта на одной из горнолыжных баз Кыргызстана. Идея запустить на телевидении подобную передачу принадлежит спортивному комментатору ОТРК Кубану Атабекову. «Хотелось создать что-то веселое и захватывающее. Для большего интереса решили пригласить знаменитостей. Конечно, не могу сказать, что все сразу согласились. Некоторые отказывались, говорили, что это опасно. Но, тем не менее, многие соглашались», - рассказал Атабеков. Соревнования проводятся не только по зимним видам спорта, но и летним. Напомним, что Эндрю Вахтель также участвовал в летней серии проекта 2012 года, а его команда заняла в финале второе место. В «Чилденин чилтендери» приняли участие 36 человек, которых поделили на четыре команды. Соревнования проходили по трем видам спорта: катание на лыжах, на санях, а также перетягивание каната.

Съемки грандиозного спортивного праздника проходили до самого вечера. Было видно, как всем тяжело соревноваться в такой холод, но в то же время это было интересно и весело. Помните в детстве это радостное возбуждение, когда, проснувшись, вдруг обнаруживаешь, что все вокруг белым-бело? Как не радоваться, когда выходишь на свежий воздух в зимний солнечный день? Вот и все радовались от души. Интересные и известные личности Кыргызстана сошлись в зрелищном и бескомпромиссном состязании силы, мастерства и воли к победе. Как бы ни сильна была воля других команд к победе, но по итогам первых двух туров выиграла команда Эндрю Вахтеля, и на сегодняшний день она лидирует! Организаторы планируют снять финальную серию на следующей неделе. Болейте за команду нашего президента Эндрю Вахтеля! Не пропустите! Фотограф Самат Мусабеков

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ALUmni Spotlight

Rumsfeld

Fellowship Experience

The Rumsfeld Fellowship program is one of the four major projects developed by the Rumsfeld Foundation, a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization created by Donald Rumsfeld and his wife Joyce in 2007 and supported with their personal funds. Since the fall of 2008 the Foundation has partnered with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to establish the Central Asia-Caucasus Young Leaders fellowship program. This program brings a small group of young, competitively-selected political and business leaders from the region to Washington, DC twice a year for six weeks of orientation, high-level meetings and independent research. Since its inaugural session in the fall of 2008 the program has already brought 72 young leaders from ten countries to the United States. The program’s credibility and popularity has grown enormously both in Central Asia and in the United States, and last fall the Rumsfeld Foundation made the decision to increase the number of fellows to 10 per year. decided to invite two fellows each from Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, leaving Tajikistan and Uzbekistan without any representatives. Ermek Niyazov (AUCA ’98) and I were honored to be selected for the program.

The 2012 group included experts with backgrounds in law, policy research, civil society, mining, information technologies, food production and public service. Each brought enormous expertise, knowledge and skills to the table from their respective fields. The program introduced us to the inner workings of U.S. foreign, military, and economic

policy. The program gave us access to current and former U.S. administrators, Congressmen, judges, businessmen, media, academics and many more. All of it provided us with a much different experience than those we had gained through the media in our home countries.

www.auca.kg

The first time I heard about the Rumsfeld Fellowship Program was in the summer of 2012 from friends who happened to be alumni of previous years.

They recommended me to David Soumbadze, the director of the program, and he sent a letter encouraging me to apply (new participants in the program have to be recommended by alumni).

I knew that the program was highly competitive, but I began the application process anyway.

Usually the program selects only one fellow per country, but in 2012 the selection committee, led by Mr. and Mrs. Rumsfeld,

The list of arranged meetings was impressive. Our group met with: former President George W. Bush and former Vice-President Richard Cheney; Christopher Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (and former U.S. Senator from Connecticut, 1980-2011);

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ALUmni Spotlight

Corp. (former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and Department of Defense spokesmen under Secretary Rumsfeld); Joyce Rumsfeld, Director of the Rumsfeld Foundation, and many more prominent representatives of public service, civil society and business sector.

Admiral Edmund Giambastiani, a member of the Board of Directors of Boeing and Mitre Corporation former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 20052007; Elaine Chao, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, 20012009; William Cohen, former Secretary of Defense & President of the Cohen Group; Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, President of Gryphon Partners (former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, 2003-2005; Iraq, 2005-2007; and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, 20072009); Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter; James Woolsey, former CIA Director; General Peter Pace, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State; George Will and Dr. Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize-

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winning American newspaper columnists; Ambassador John O’Keefe, Executive Director of the Open World Leadership Center; Richard Choppa, former CEO of American Online and owner of NHL’s Washington Capitals, NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s Washington Mystics, and Verizon Center, Ted Leonsis, and current Director of International Business Development at Boeing Company; Noel Thompson, CEO of Thompson Global LP hedge fund based in NYC; Nancy Killefer, Senior Director of the Washington, DC office of McKinsey & Compan; Thomas Meurer, Senior Vice President and Director of Hunt Oil Consolidated, Inc.; Greg Saunders, Director for International Affairs in BP Washington, DC office; Mickey Levy, Chief Economist at Bank of America Corp.; Lawrence Di Rita, spokesmen for Bank of America

The story of each guest made me reflect on my own life and professional goals by shedding light on the challenges and possibilities of the future. I was amused and surprised by the humility and modesty of almost every public official we met. We shared with General Peter Pace that public officials of his rank usually act arrogant, are difficult to approach and, for the most part, feel that they are above the law back in our respective countries. To which General Pace said that, “the office title is temporary, it comes and goes as you finish serving and you still have to remain a human being at the end of your service.” What he said was so simple yet so powerful. I wondered why our officials are literally obsessed with power, big titles, and the comfort and luxury that come with it. They are both arrogant and ignorant, thinking that the world owes them more power. One must ask: how much power does an official need to actually serve the people and the land they are fortunate enough to preside over?

The Rumsfeld Fellowship Program is also partnered with the Open World Program to give participants experience in local policy making outside of Washington, D.C. Our group was divided between Phoenix (Arizona) and Tulsa (Oklahoma). I travelled to Tulsa as the program in Tulsa had a specific focus on economic development at the local level, and the relationship between local government and small and medium enterprises. We were placed in host families during our stay which reminded me a lot of my high school exchange year in the U.S. In addition

We spoke with the Commissioner of the Tulsa County Commission to discuss its goals, responsibilities, and the role of the media in promoting accountable government. We also spoke with the Tulsa Metro Chamber to learn how it advocates for Tulsa’s business community and its role in the economic development of the city.

Most importantly, we met with Tulsa’s Mayor Dewey Bartlett.

According to Mayor Bartlett, who has personal ties to the business community, the main reason why he ran for office was that he felt it was the ideal time to contribute to the development of the city.

He has been in public office for a few years and plans to go back to business upon completing his term. Having a mayor with a background in business brought in a fresh look at business opportunities in Tulsa. Among the city’s most notable achievements was its ability to attract big companies to create more jobs and lower the unemployment rate, expand available opportunities and resources, and improve infrastructure.

impressed by his humility and his clear and objective thinking about world politics. When someone in the audience asked about whether or not China was a growing threat to the U.S., he simply responded that “if we (USA) treat China as an enemy, they will become one,” which can be equally applied to other growing world economies.

To one of the questions from the audience concerning what movie portrays the work of CIA the closest, Mr. Gates responded that out of all the movies he watched, “Argo”, a new movie by Ben Affleck, was the closest. Upon returning to Washington D.C., it was immediately checked off from my “must watch movies” list, and I enjoyed it a lot!

It was quite impressive to hear about the mayor’s willingness to transfer power to other potential candidates who also sincerely care about the prosperity and development of their own community. Again it took me back to the reality of public service in Kyrgyzstan. How naive it may sound that, while listening to the Mayor speak, I truly hoped that the next generation of public servants will adopt values such as these and understand the true purpose of being public servants.

The highlight of our program was a meeting with former President George Bush in Dallas, Texas, where he currently lives and works. To my surprise, the meeting was very casual, and he was sincere, open and honest in his responses. He talked briefly about his term as president, U.S. politics and the role of the U.S. in geopolitics. I asked if there were places where he over-promised or under-delivered during his presidency, and he responded by focusing on social security issues in the country, though I had hoped to get a bigger and broader response covering U.S. and global politics. As I sat on his right side I couldn’t help but think that this man partly contributed to the shape of today’s world, regardless of whether his decisions were popular or unpopular. Maybe I am over-exaggerating but there was a whole aura around him, the aura of internal power and strong energy. Having asked what the formula of a successful leader is, he responded that, “It is important for a leader to know what he doesn’t know and surround himself with capable people.”

One of the best surprises of the fellowship was a talk by former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who was in Tulsa at the same time we were. I was highly

During my time in the U.S. I got to experience the U.S. Presidential elections and was there when Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast. Both of these

events gave me a different and deeper understanding American politics. The Presidential elections demonstrated how a true democracy should function when two candidates receive equal opportunities to defend their positions in front of the whole nation on domestic and foreign policy. It demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate for all to see.

We watched the vote count from a bar, but were more impressed with how people, the next day, just went about their business.

Hurricane Sandy, which hit about a week before the election, also gave us a chance to see U.S. governments, local, state, and federal, prepare for and respond to a crisis. The hurricane caused enormous damage, but I personally witnessed how effectively the government prepared people before it hit, and how it dealt with the consequences following the storm. It was amazing how many resources were mobilized in such a short period of time, how there was a chain of command that held, and truly amazing that there were not more deaths as a result.

Of course two pages are not enough to put into writing the emotions, aspirations, knowledge, and experience I received during this program. Nor do these pages fully reflect how much my perspective on said issues has changed, and how this further affects my future path in life. I would like to use this opportunity to express my appreciation to former Secretary Rumsfeld and his wife Joyce for giving us this incredible opportunity, and for the whole team at the Rumsfeld Foundation and the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies for their amazing support and for making this program so unique!

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

www.auca.kg

to the cultural program, our host organization, Tulsa Global Alliance, planned meetings with members of the Tulsa City Council to show how it deals with the needs of local citizens.

Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

ALUmni Spotlight

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Gifts and Grants 2013 Friends of AUCA John and Joan Von Leesen Erol Torun Mary Schweitzer Bill and Ingrid Stafford Martha Merrill Ellen Hurwitz Helen Smith Sharon Bailey Gulnara Dreier Madeleine Reeves Hersh Chadha Henry Myerberg John Couper Andrew Wachtel Gail Kendel Emita Hill Mary Ford Nancy Seurrier Seth Fearey Bridget Morris Frank and Sallie Pullano Board of Trustees Jomart Otorbaev Jonathan Becker Almas Chukin Stanislav Karpovich William Newton-Smith Matt Nimetz Aijan Chynybaeva Alumni Nazira Beishenalieva Kamila Muslimova Lilia Muslimova Vyacheslav Akimenko Temerlan Moldogaziev Alan Niazi Aziz Soltobaev Alina Djumakulova Kumar Bekbolotov Sanjar Tursaliev Rinat Aksianov Nazgul Cholponbaeva Ermek Niyazov Rustam Niyazov Melis Turgunbaev Amina Hirani Mamatkhalil Razaev Sayora Mussakhunova Corporate Partners Mina Group Kumtor Operating Company Ayu Ltd. Bank of Asia

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AUCA Magazine | March 2013

Summer Language School AUCA’s 8-week summer program, in collaboration with Bard College (USA) and the Central Asian Studies Institute, gives you a full academic year of language study, cultural and language immersion, and plenty of opportunities to enjoy the unspoiled nature of Central Asia. Bishkek is one of the friendliest places to learn Russian, and is one of the most diverse cities in the region, with large local populations of Tajik, Uzbek, Afghan, Uighur, and, of course, Kyrgyz. Additionally, students from the United States, Europe, and Asia trust AUCA to deliver high quality courses and an incredible experience.

Languages Offered Russian Kyrgyz Tajik

Uzbek Dari Uighur

Program advantages • • • •

All Professors are Native Speakers Excursions and Adventures Included Student Peer Conversation Groups Intro to Central Asia Class

SLS COORDINATOR: DINA LUKYANOVA EMAIL: summer@mail.auca.kg PHONE (USA): +1 845 790 0882 PHONE (KG): +996 312 661 119 ext. 248 WWW.AUCA.KG/EN/SLS

Cholpon Zhanadylova Social Anthropologist, Filmmaker, Scriptwriter

Aibek Kerimaliev Aizada Davletova - Program

Director at the Lincoln Center in Balykchi, Kyrgyz Republic.

Ainur Sydykova

concerns documentary films and photography. I want to bring visual anthropology to Central Asia and to hopefully teach a course in the Anthropology Department of AUCA druing the next academic year.

Also, one of my biggest dreams is to contribute to the development of filmmaking in the Kyrgyz Republic. I already have a good understanding of film, having studied at the New York Film Academy in New York City. All of my education and experience has given me the desire to start changing the world around me!

and Travel students. She also works as a Work and Travel Loan Program Manager for the Arzuw Foundation, which provides assistance to students from Turkmenistan. Anna is affiliated with the Davis Center for Russian and European Studies at Harvard.

- Lives in Bishkek and works for JV Lahmeyer International Group of Independent Engineers (Geneva).

Alina Myagkih - Works at OAO Planet Earth as a speacialist on Nuclear Security

Alina Tsoy - Lives in Tokyo,

Diana Boronbaeva -

Japan.

Anna Marupova - Earned her MA from Central European University in Sociology and Social Anthropology. Anna then moved to Cap Cod, Massachusetts with her husband James Poplasky, where she founded Cape Cod Summer Citizens, an organization that provides housing/ health/safety/and guidance to Work

Currently works at Manas Airport in Bishkek.

Marina Stemilo - Lives and

works in Moscow as a manager at GMC Translation Service.

Meerim Kyrdyrova -

Currently a manager at the Hyatt Hotel in Bishkek.

Nataliya Chemayeva

- Received her MA from Indiana University in Bloomington in Archaeology in Social Context.

Mirlan Tynybekov Sevara Yuldasheva Munara Melisbek Kyzy Nazia Sharify

www.auca.kg

Right after I graduated in June, 2010, I was hired by a very prestigious international organization called HelpAge International. I was employed as an expert on the lives of elderly people in Kyrgyzstan, on which I researched for my AUCA thesis. Later I worked primarily as a researcher at the “Rural Development Fund”, a respectable, local non-profit.

For more than a year I worked at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on two projects: the first concerned regional development and the second support for local business. This was a highly competitive position, but because of my knowledge of socio-cultural anthropology and my strong analytical research skills that I gained from the Anthropology Department at AUCA, I was able to do the work.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the entire professional staff of the Anthropology Department. The following professors are truly dedicated to their work: Cholpon Turdalieva, Cholpon Chotaeva, Aida Abdykanova, Ruslan Rahimov, Aigerim Dyikanbaeva, Mukram Toktogulova and, of course, my thesis advisor Emil Nasritdinov, who still inspires and supports me.

Currently I am doing something a bit different and following my childhood passion of filmmaking.

You might ask yourself: “How do anthropology and filmmaking go together?” To some it might be a surprise that there is a huge branch of anthropology called Visual Anthropology, which

Published by American University of Central Asia | Bishkek | Kyrgyz Republic

Catching Up With: Anthropology ’10

Mirlan Tynybekov askar murataliev meerim kydyrova Bermet Albanova

AUCA Magazine | March 2013

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AUCA Magazine | March 2013