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Phd Thesis J. RIGI Department of Anthropology and Sociology 2 I PhD Thesis J. RIGI Department of Anthropology and Sociology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London COPING WITH THE CHAOS (BARDAK ): Chaos, Networking, Sexualised Strategies and Ethnic Tensions, in Almaty, Kazakhsatan 1 ProQuest Number: 11015840 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11015840 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ■ i y** A «■ ABSTRACT The aim of thesis is to describe and analyse the main elements of the post- Soviet chaos (bardak) in Almaty, Kazakhstan. My focus is the ways in which the dispossessed people understand and react to what they term ‘chaos’ and their own dispossession and the variety of coping strategies they have adopted to survive in the new, harsh economic and political environment. My account draws on 15 months ‘multi-site’ ethnographic fieldwork in Almaty from July 1995 to Oct 1996. What dispossessed describe as ‘chaos’ are the circumstances of their plunder: a situation which they think has been deliberately created by members of the former Soviet elite and a variety of Westerners. It is, I argue, a situation created and exploited by the Kazakhstan state official and others, locally known as ‘the mafia’ (mafiia) as part of their response to the collapse of the USSR, and the new liberal economic policies associated with the new style of ‘global capitalism’. Their response also includes many forms of corruption, and a willingness to use violence against increasingly impoverished majority of the population. I particularly focus on networking and sex work as two important strategies through which the dispossessed cope with the poverty and social insecurity. One finding of considerable importance is that while network-based competition for resources has given a new surge to ethnic tensions in Kazakhstan, such tensions are counterbalanced among the dispossessed by their feeling of belonging to the same Soviet ‘imagined community’(Sovetskii rtarod). Central to such feelings is a strong shared nostalgia for the Soviet era. This nostalgia signals a fear of, and constitute a form of protest against, some elements of post-Soviet change such as the implementation of market economy, widespread prostitution, the presence of foreigners, the emergence of new forms of class differentiation and the prevalence of consumerist culture and the monetisation of life worlds, particularly with respect to sexual relations. The dispossessed not only reject these changes but attribute them to corrupt ‘alien’ evil forces: alien persons, the alien consumerist culture and the ‘wild capitalism’ (diki kapitalism). An examination of the complex responses of dispossessed to these ‘alien’ forces is the theme which unites this dissertation. In particular I document the ways in which both the imagined Soviet community, and those of other imagined ethnic communities are gendered through discourses and practices related to sexuality and marriage. I also describe how the dispossessed, of whatever the ethnic or religious backgrounds, often feel themselves to have far more in common with each other, and with others of the dispossessed throughout the territory of the former USSR, than with their co-ethnics or co-religionists outside this territory. 2 Note on Transliteration I have used the modified Library of Congress Transliteration, used in The Slavonic and East European Review. 3 1 '.DI'IX )I<IAL '.DI'IX NOTH 1 ri «r T »W , ywrw?.'iT</;JTJ,>. *T/:*y.**v»i<<*:^ ,v « v v -•k -x ‘n m v W ^ w v h List of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction and theoretical and historical backgrounds Aims 6 Summary 9 The People and modes of interaction 11 Some comments on the main terms 35 Almaty 57 Kazakhstan 61 Chapter 2: Chaos Introduction 69 Accumulation of wealth in few hands 74 violence 88 Feelings of Loss 96 Conspiracy theory 106 Conclusion 108 Chapter 3: Networking as a strategy of coping with the chaos Introduction 10 9 Reciprocity and Networking as strategies of survival 110 Conclusions Chapter 4: Sexualised strategies Introduction 141 International Business Club 141 Finding a job 143 Finding a sponsor 149 Sex work 156 The Stigma and violence 178 Conclusions 185 Chapter 5: Construction of the alien Introduction 186 The negative constructions of the Soviet “identity” 187 Consumerism as an alien culture 207 Wild capitalism as an element of alien 215 Conclusions 216 Chapter 6: Ethnic Tensions Introduction 218 Kazakhification of the state 218 Contests over urban space 232 Historical homeland The responses of non-Kazakhs 268 Conclusions 271 Conclusions 2 7 4 References 282 5 1 INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUNDS The Aims: A young Kazakh man: The life stinks here. Everybody has become a Raskol'nikov without his conscience. He killed an old woman but went mad for that. In Kazakhstan today you can kill a person for $100 in the morning and in the evening drink the money with a prostitute in a restaurant without having any regret. You will sleep without nightmares. The next day you are prepared to kill again anybody for $100. This is our life. It is not only what our elite and mafia do but everybody has the same mentality. Our people (nash narod) are starving but they are building their villas in Medeoi , buying their Mercedes and spending money on prostitutes in restaurants . A young Kazakh woman: Before, in the Soviet time, there were moral limitsmoral’naia ( planka) and the authorities looked after (nabludali) them. There were high moral standards moral’naia( vershina granitsa) and the party took care (sledila) of them. You understand, there existed a moral codemoral’nyi ( kodeks), which was observed well. People were truthfulliudi ( byli pravii’nye). They were brought up in a good way. But today people have become like savage animals dikie( zhivotnhye). They behave according to the law of the jungle pozakonu( dzhunglei). Everybody who is strong sil’nyi( ), hits , rapes, murders and robs, everybody else who is weak(s/abye). These two young Kazakhs describe above vividly aspects of what people called chaos (bardak).Two other descriptions are given by two Russians: a young Russian woman and an unemployed Russian worker in the following events: It was ten o'clock on a summer evening. I stopped writing notes to prepare something to eat, but I had nothing in the kitchen. Then, I decided to go out and buy something from a kiosk. As I stepped out from my house I saw a tall blond-haired woman under the spotlight of a car which was moving very slowly behind her. The woman seemed to be bewildered as hounded game. First, she rushed in the direction the car was pursuing her, but feeling that the car was pursuing her she turned to the right towards the street, then paused for a moment and looked towards me. By now, I was a few yards from her. Seeing me, she ran towards me, kissed me, then took my arm and said: "Please help me. These men are pursuing me, they want to take me by force. Please pretend that you are my husband." Then without waiting for my answer, she 1 A rich suburb in Almaty. 6 dragged me with herself under the shadow of a nearby tree. I turned my back to the car, because if they knew I was a foreigner they might stop the car to pick a fight with me. Fortunately, they s' passed by. The woman was on her way to visit a friend. She told me that a moment before our encounter when she was walking along the street , three Kazakh men in the car had 'invited' her into the car. But she had refused and turned into the yard hoping that the men would let her go . But the car had turned into the yard and pursued her. I told the woman: "If you remember these men's faces let us report them to the police. I am your witness." She answered: It is useless. This is Kazakhstan. There is no order (net poriadka ), it is chaos everywhere (vezde bardak). These men are Mafioso. Who will defend a poor (bednuiu) woman against them? The woman used the word chaos (Bardak ) to describe the current situation in Kazakhstan and the word poor/dispossessed ( bednuiu) to situate herself. In the same way most people I met in Kazakhsan used the word chaos to describe the post -soviet change and the word dispossessed to situate themselves vis-a- vis such a change. A Russian worker gave another illustration of chaos by interpreting the following event: In the 9th of October 1996, Aleksaner Petreovich Terletskii, a 56 year old Russian worker poured a bottle of petrol over himself, and set light to himself and burned to death in front of the office of the Belgian multi-national company Traktebel. The event received high coverage in the Russian speaking media and great attention in my neighbourhood. The man was working as a driver in one of the Almaty, energy stations which were bought by the Belgian multi-national, Traktebel. Somebody had stolen his wallet, which contained his driver license and his salary. He said to a colleague that he would go to the police station to make a report. After making the report he went to his job, but was told by by the manager of the station that he was sacked for leaving his work without permission.
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