The Bittersweet Taste of Independence in Central Asia

Abstract

This is a presentation that will be more concerned with impressions than with numbers. I suppose we could count the number of theaters or schools that have gone out of business. Yet I am not sure that would be an advantage in a presentation about culture. Two years ago, I was having lunch at a Theater Institute in Alma-Ata. It was a very special occasion because that morning they had just slaughtered a horse for us. And as my host told me this, he loooked me right in the eye and said, “You know, this is freshly-killed horse meat. We did it just for you.” As I responded, I returned his gaze, and said: “I love it.” And actually, it was very good, but remember that the Kazakhs, like all people of the East, are very sensitive to how people from the West regard them. That is but one small demonstration of this tendency. Another was that in the course of the meal someone suddenly came in and whispered something to someone else—remember the date, late May 1990—and everyone stood up and cheered. And I asked, “What's happened?” Somebody else said, “Yeltsin has been elected.” Two people at the table subsequently made mention of Yeltsin's popularity in the non-Russian areas and said that that this was an exciting development. Kazakhs really thought that this was a change for the better. And they were right.