Via NewEurasia

If this isn’t enough a teaser, nothing is:

I just had the most terrifying experience of my life. I’m going to let you know so you can get a small picture of what it is like where I live. And I am only letting you know because I am now out of the conflict.

Go to Chris’ post for the rest.

Mr. Ardaq Adilet made a number of comments criticizing the article and these have been complied into a special report sent out by the Kazakhstan Embassy to the US. I always have trouble finding where they post the Embassy newsletter online but the text is basically the same as in Ardaq’s comments on the Huffington post article.

Interestingly at the same time, I discovered this press release from the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE about Zhovtis stating that:

In his report to Joao Soares, the President of the OSCE Parliamentary, Mr. Mecacci, the Assembly’s rapporteur on human dimension issues, also said that this case raises serious questions about the respect for the individual to receive a fair trial in Kazakhstan. Mr. Zhovtis has been subjected too long to a sentence he does not deserve, he reported, adding that the Kazakh OSCE Chairmanship has a special responsibility, like all previous OSCE chairs, to make sure that the OSCE commitments in the field of human dimension are respected….Mr. Mecacci also expressed his disappointment that the press release issued immediately after last week’s visit was not published on the OSCE website on instructions from the Kazakh Chairmanship.

So that is one point that cannot be denied easily. Kazakhstan did try to block the report from the website, and rather than explain why, they seem to be putting out reports that say, “Well it ended up on the website anyway so why are you bothering us about it?”

The interim government also asked Kazakhstan – where Bakiyev is believed to be hiding – to extradite his son Murat Bakiyev, former prime minister Daniyar Usenov and security services chief Murat Sutalinov, who all took refuge there amid the protests.

Does anyone closer to the situation have more information on this. Last I heard Kurmanbek Bakiyev had moved on somewhere–but if he was planning to go to Europe, I suppose the volcano might have delayed him. That would be a new angle on this volcano/flight delay story.

“History made in #Kyrgyzstan: Roza @otunbayeva looks at #Bakiev resignation letter faxed from #Kazakhstan, #freekg”: from @Baisalov on Twitpic

Click on the pic for a larger view.

Neweurasia.net has another photo up from Twitpic and a scan of the letter itself, allegedly. The text in English, according to Neweurasia, reads:

Dear compatriots!

On April 7, 2010, there was a coup in the Kyrgyz Republic. As a result of an armed seizure of power, ordinary innocent citizens had to pay in blood [and] the image of the state was heavily battered. All responsibility lies with the members of the Provisional Government, who used them to seize power. I understand my responsibility too for past events. Therefore, I offer deepest condolences to all relatives and friends of the victims. In these tragic days for the Kyrgyz people, understanding the responsibility for the future of the Kyrgyz people, preserving the integrity of the state, of Kyrgyz statehood, in accordance with the Article 50 of the Constitution of the Kyrgyz Republic, I hand in my resignation.

Signed Bakiyev

They reports rumors that the pics of Otunbayeva and the letter itself are fake. However see my comment there: Gazeta.kz, which is basically a distributor of Kazakhstan Today, an official source of news, is reporting that Kazakhstan’s ambassador to Kazakhstan delivered a letter of resignation from Bakiyev today. Whether it is the exact same one in those photos, I cannot confirm.

Really I haven’t seen a long in-depth post like this anywhere, without analysis. Simply stating what they saw and heard and what is was like to be in Bishek.

Amazing video. Go to the Youtube site to check out others by the same author. Although not showing any bloodshed, it’s quite shocking to see how well armed some of the protesters are. Where do people get automatic rifles? You can also see, in this encounter, on the main street of Bishkek a couple of blocks from the Presidential Administration, how easy it was to intimidate the police (or that at this point police orders were not to make too much trouble and avoid dangerous situations). Finally, notice how riled up the people get when the police run away. There is obviously a lot of bottled up tension here.

But more seriously, disabled children are not normally sent to school. In fact I have yet to a see a school equipped for a physically disabled person. Every school has stairs to the front entrance and narrow stairs to each floor. A kid in a wheelchair would be helpless. Teachers are not trained in any way to deal with disabled children or children with learning disabilities. So they are either sent away to special boarding schools or have tutors come to their houses.

But it’s not only school. Soviet standards dictated that houses with five or less floors didn’t need elevators. So many buildings don’t have them. Or if they do, the entrance is up a flight of stairs. So many physically handicapped people can’t even leave their homes. Sidewalks in Almaty even have stairs on them. You may have seen ramps in the sidewalks with little steps in the middle and though those were for a wheelchair. You were wrong; those are for handcarts! Even the Ministry of Social Protection makes people in wheelchairs go in through the garage!

I’ve been talking a lot about people with physical handicaps because those accommodations (elevators, ramps, ground floor entrances) are most noticeably absent. However parents and teachers are not taught coping mechanisms for dealing with physical or mental handicaps. While I’m sure that doctors and social workers try, there isn’t any kind of institutional support for teaching enabling strategies, outside of a few NGOs (I understand there is such an NGO in Almaty that does work with the disabled and their family to work with the handicap and integrate people into society).

What there is, are special companies that employ the handicapped. These companies have special status in winning government contracts. Apparently the sheets on the trains are made by the handicapped as well as some school uniforms! However, these companies tend to be only factories that don’t pay higher wages or give any better benefits to their workers. So basically the only jobs open to the handicapped are minimum wage, industrial work at a factory machine!

Unfortunately, the usual pattern appears to be that if a family gives birth to a disabled child or someone in the family is injured seriously in an accident, Mom or Dad will have to quit their job to stay home and be a caretaker. They receive an inadequately small allowance from the government. But invalids are left at home, badly educated and lacking job skills. Or the opportunity to physically go to a job. In fact, after the age of eighteen, disabled people can be sent to state nursing homes! So a family that can’t or doesn’t want to take care of their disabled son or daughter can send him or her to live with abandoned pensioners from the age of 18!

The picture seems pretty bleak and I would love to hear in the comments that I am wrong and that there are stories of hope for the handicapped.

This is no news to residents. My own wife remembers her grandmother’s apples, which were as big as a baby’s head, grown outside Almaty. Now that area is all villas for the rich and powerful. When I go to the store to buy apples, I find plenty of Russian and Chinese apples and even apples from Kyrgyzstan, but rarely any local apples. Hopefully this book and research will encourage businessmen or the government to revive the Kazakh apple. After all, being the home of the world’s best apples would be a pretty effective form of brand-imaging.