Aytrau, Kazakhstan

February, 2006

Pictures from Atyrau, Kazakhstan

What does it take to steal the hope out of someone - or an entire people?

Kazakhstan became part of Russia during the communist revolution of 1918. They remained part of the USSR until the recent break up. During that time it was used as a backwater and dumping ground by Russia, home to chemical plants, refineries, and the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. An anthrax factory lies to the north, abandoned when the money ran out. The land and climate are brutal; hot dry and buggy in the summer, bitterly cold and dry in the winter. The Caspian Sea, to the south offers saltwater, but no beautiful beaches, and no route for commerce. Other than massive amounts of oil and gas there is not much to go there for. In the past its value was purely geographical; the route from the orient to the rest of civilization brought huge amounts of trade along the famed Silk Road, just 20 kilometers to the north.

Aytrau is the only sizeable city (population of 265,000) on the north end of the Caspian.

On the streets, people are dressed fashionably, walking to work or waiting for a bus. Their homes, on the other hand, resemble an urban slum; some are uniform row houses without personality, while others are dilapidated skeletons of their former selves. All have sheet metal fences surrounding them to keep thieves and vandals out.

Many houses don’t have running water, so in the morning you will see people carrying buckets to the corner hydrant, or down to the river, even at 4 degrees F. Some don’t have electricity. Many city streets are not paved, so they are packed snow and ice in the winter, and rutted to the axle in the thaw. I understand the clay soil sticks to everything.

No one has trash service. Every hundred meters, or so there is a trash barrel, where people dump household waste. There are often one or two dogs sniffing through the garbage, trying to make a living. They behave like a wild dogs, curious, but not friendly, and they are generally ignored, even when they bark all night.

The lifestyle is not that different from ours; many two-income families, and a desire for a better life for themselves and their children. They would all like to get out, to go to the USA, but they can’t.

Most don’t have cars, so there is a booming business in taxis. Every wide spot as ten or twenty taxis waiting to zip you to the other side of town. Thankfully, this reduces the traffic congestion. Rules of the road don’t seem to exist. Everyone pretty much does what they want. Lanes aren’t marked so turning lanes and parking areas are as you make them. The rule I did see, at round a bouts, didn’t make sense, you must yield to the car coming into the circle. Fortunately the roundabouts are wide, so if someone is waiting for an entering car, you can pull up on his right and go as soon as the car passes, before the car that’s waiting.

I know the people want to succeed in their personal lives, by their dress, by going to work in the pre-dawn hours, but there is, or has been something in their system that has failed them. Looks to me like it misses the connection between the desire to succeed personally, and making that desire serve the public good. An expat on the plane told me a depressing story of how the high-rise apartments being built throughout the city may never be finished. She said the token work crew shows up for a few hours every day but works little. Without the connection of private and public gain the work ethic is impossible to develop. Truth is that this is a society in transition. The recent change from hand-me-down socialist system to oil boom capitalism has brought new investment and opportunities to this society, and they are capable of making the change. Better jobs will clean up the living conditions and, hopefully, public programs will improve the services, security and utilities. There are no guarantees. The least bit of corruption, in local police, courts, land ownership, or government can defeat a people, making it impossible to gain success through work and skill. Global corporations are as bad as governments at manipulating the rules to their advantage, because they have no one to report to, except their stockholders. What stronger drive is there than the desire to make your work count and leave something for your children; and what can possibly be worse than having that taken away by an oppressive system?

Fortunately, or not, there is an even poorer country to the south, Uzbekistan. Similar to Kazakhstan, but without natural resources, Uzbekis are rushing across the border to find work. They get the menial labor jobs and little respect, but make much more, and benefit the community much more, than they would in their earthen hut back at home. Much like Mexicans in the US, they fill a void in the society that serves both well.

With a rich and varied history, Kazakhstan is in a poor place now. Open to resource mining, to satisfy the developed world’s thirst, it is fortunate to have what we want. Will it be able to convert this to make a vibrant society where fairness, culture and productivity combine to make a durable community of shared values?

But right now the problems are immediate. How many Mozarts and Einsteins do we loose in their youth to malaria or diarrhea, or struggle to find enough food for their families, with no chance to realize, or even recognize, their potential? I think of this when I remember the men and women, waiting at the side of the street in the bitter pre-dawn for the company van to come.