Environmental Humanities in Central Asia: Relations Between Extraction and Interdependence (Routledge Environmental Humanities) [1 ed.] 1032423412, 9781032423418

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Environmental Humanities in Central Asia

This book is the first collection to showcase the flourishing field of environmental humanities in Central Asia. A region larger than Europe, Central Asia possesses an astounding range of environments, from deserts to glaciated peaks. The volume brings into conversation scholarship from history to social anthropology, demonstrating the contribution that interdisciplinary and engaged research offers to many urgent issues in the region: from the history of conservationism to the tactics of environmental movements, from literary engagements with ‘pure nature’ to the impact of fossil fuel extraction. The collection focuses on the Central Asian republics of the former USSR, where a complex layering of nomadic and sedentary, Turkic and Persianate, Islamic and Soviet cultures ends up affecting human relations with distinct environments. Featuring state-of-the-art contributions, the book enquires into human-environment relations through a broad-brush typology of interactive modes: to extract, protect, enspirit, and fear. Broadening the scope of analysis beyond a consideration of power, the authors bring into focus alternative local cosmologies and the unintended consequences of environmental policy. The volume highlights scholarship from within Central Asia as well as expertise elsewhere, offering readers diverse modes of knowledge-production in the environmental humanities. This book is an important resource for researchers and students of the environmental humanities, sustainability, history, politics, anthropology, and geography of Asia, as well as Soviet and Post-Soviet studies. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix is a Social Anthropologist based at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Beatrice Penati is a Lecturer in Russian and Eurasian History at the University of Liverpool, UK.

Routledge Environmental Humanities Series editors: Scott Slovic (University of Idaho, USA), Joni Adamson (Arizona State University, USA) and Yuki Masami (Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan)

Editorial Board Simon Pooley, Imperial College London, UK Sandra Swart, Stellenbosch University, South Africa Ann Waltner, University of Minnesota, US Jessica Weir, University of Western Sydney, Australia International Advisory Board Helmuth Trischler, Deutsches Museum, Munich and Co-Director, Rachel Carson Centre, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, USA Kirsten Wehner, University of London, UK The Routledge Environmental Humanities series is an original and inspiring venture recognising that today’s world agricultural and water crises, ocean pollution and resource depletion, global warming from greenhouse gases, urban sprawl, overpopulation, food insecurity and environmental justice are all crises of culture. The reality of understanding and finding adaptive solutions to our present and future environmental challenges has shifted the epicenter of environmental studies away from an exclusively scientific and technological framework to one that depends on the human-focused disciplines and ideas of the humanities and allied social sciences. We thus welcome book proposals from all humanities and social sciences disciplines for an inclusive and interdisciplinary series. We favour manuscripts aimed at an international readership and written in a lively and accessible style. The readership comprises scholars and students from the humanities and social sciences and thoughtful readers concerned about the human dimensions of environmental change.

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Environmental-Humanities/book-series/REH

Environmental Humanities in Central Asia Relations Between Extraction and Interdependence

Edited by Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. With the exception of chapter 11, no part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Chapter 11 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. Funded by the European Union, Horizon2020 programme (No. 822730) via the University of Central Asia. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-42341-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-42343-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-36236-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364 Typeset in ITC Galliard Pro by codeMantra

Contents

List of figuresvii List of tablesxi List of contributorsxiii Note on transliterationxvii Acknowledgmentsxix Introduction

1

JEANNE FÉAUX DE LA CROIX AND BEATRICE PENATI

PART I

Extractivism29 1 There used to be water: Soviet water policies, archaeologists, and ethnographers in Central Asia

31

IRINA ARKADEVNA ARZHANTSEVA AND HEINRICH HÄRKE

2 Administrations, herders, and experts: crossing sources and scales to write a social history of overgrazing in Soviet Kazakhstan (1960–1980) 

55

ISABELLE OHAYON

3 Environmental and community preservation in the face of fossil fuel development: the case of Berezovka, Kazakhstan

83

KATE WATTERS

PART II

Paternalism and protection105 4 Saiga antelopes (Saiga tatarica) in the environmental history of the Qazaq steppe and desert DAVID MOON

107

vi Contents 5 To tame, improve, protect: environmental discourse in Soviet graphic satire, 1950s–1991

129

FLORA ROBERTS

6 What is in the air? Citizen science, eco-internationalism, and urban air pollution in Bishkek and Almaty

150

XENIYA PRILUTSKAYA

PART III

Enspirited nature165 7 Get set! Horse training as a discontinuous action: a Central Asian physiology that forces nature, but in tune with the seasons

167

CAROLE FERRET

8 Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way? A dialogue between activism and engaged scholarship

186

GULNARA AITPAEVA AND JEANNE FÉAUX DE LA CROIX

9 The bee-human: imagining a new Qazaq identity in Oralkhan Bökei’s novel Atau-Kere

203

LAURA BERDIKHOJAYEVA

PART IV

Threats from nature223 10 Climate disaster or anticipated crisis? Ways of knowing the environment in pre-Soviet Central Asia 

225

JEANINE DAĞYELI

11 The power of apricot: border disputes, land scarcity, and mobility in the Isfara River basin 

246

ASEL MURZAKULOVA

12 Water and irrigation arrangements in the Pamirs of Tajikistan  262 ANDREI DÖRRE

Index287

Figures

0.1 Map of Central Asia. Courtesy of Julien Thorez 11 1.1 Sergei Tolstov with an expedition lorry in the dry riverbed of the Uzboi (1950, photograph D. Durdyev, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition Doc08167). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow34 1.2 Members of the Khorezmian Expedition with two pilots preparing aerial reconnaissance and photography in the Zhana-Daria region (1958; from left to right: pilot, Boris Andrianov, Sergei Tolstov, pilot, Chinese PhD student Chzhu-Chzhen, Aleksandra Kes’; archive of the Khorezmian Expedition Doc15849). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow 35 1.3 Aerial photograph from 1960 showing the classical and medieval irrigation system of the Zhany-Darya region in the Syr-Darya delta (archive of the Khorezmian Expedition Doc29-30 I 60). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow 36 1.4 Construction of the Kyrkyz Canal in progress (1946, photographer G. A. Argiropulo, archive of the Khorezmian 37 Expedition). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow 1.5 Workers of the Khorezmian Expedition on the site of Toprak Kala receiving political information by Rada Musalova on the Main Turkmen Channel (1950, photograph G.A. Argiropulo, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition). 39 Copyright IEA RAN Moscow 1.6 Convoy of lorries of the Khorezmian Expedition during archaeological work on the route of the Main Turkmen Canal – note the skeleton of a camel on the side of the track (1950, photograph M.A. Orlov, archive of the Khorezmian 40 Expedition Doc08053). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow 1.7 Plan of part of the project for the Reversal of Siberian Rivers, with the districts to be irrigated by 1990–2000 (unpublished, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition). 43 Copyright IEA RAN Moscow

viii Figures 1.8 Archaeological-geomorphological map of the Aral Sea region by Aleksandra Kes’, Boris Andrianov, and Mariana Itina (Andrianov, Itina, Kes’, 1974). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow44 1.9 View from Plateau Ust-Urt towards the village of Ugra in the Muinak district (Karakalpakia), a region often poetically called ‘Venice in the Reeds’ (1959; photograph G.A. Argiropulo, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow 46 2.1 Convoy of tractors carrying forage for the chaban brigades of the ‘Kraspanski’ sovkhoz, Chimkent oblast’, 62 9 November 1964 2.2 An avtolavka unpacking its goods, Sovkhoz Shetyrgiz, Chelkar ditrict, Aktiubinsk oblast’, 9 October 1979 68 2.3 The partorg and the Almaty oblast’ house representative Kozubekov inspecting the flock in the Toktogul sovkhoz in the presence of a herder, 1976 70 3.1 Svetlana Anosova leads an open-air community meeting, 2011. Photo by Crude Accountability 86 3.2 Map of the village, demonstrating pockets of illness in homes and neighbourhoods. Photo by Crude Accountability, 2005 92 3.3 Child being taken by ambulance to the hospital, Berezovka, 28 November 2014. Photo courtesy of Crude Accountability 96 3.4 Community meeting with KPO and local government representatives in Berezovka, 2015. Signs read: ‘For Relocation!’, ‘SOS Berezovka!’, ‘Relocate Berezovka!’. Photo 96 courtesy of Uralsk Weekly 4.1 Saiga antelope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiga_ antelope#/media/File:Saiga_antelope_at_the_Stepnoi_ Sanctuary.jpg108 5.1 Cartoon by A. Orlov, Khorpushtak 1, 1954, 10 132 5.2 Cartoon by Boris Serebrianskii, Khorpushtak 8, August 1963, 12 133 5.3 Cartoon by G. Petukhov, Khorpushtak 10, October 1954, 5. Caption reads: ‘Is it possible that we have lost the way? In spring, as I remember, we passed over a desert’. ‘Not at all! Tajikistan is a land that is changing from hour to hour’ 135 5.4 Cartoon by Hasan Rasulov, ‘At the construction site of the Nurek hydropower station’, Khorpushtak, March 1961, front cover 136 5.5 Unsigned cartoon, Khorpushtak 4, April 1956, 4 137 5.6 Cartoon by H. Rasulov, Khorpushtak 13, July 1975, front cover 142 5.7 Cartoon by S. Shongin, Khorpushtak 5, March 1982, 2 144 5.8 Cartoon by R. Nusrat, Khorpushtak 14, July 1989, 5 144

Figures  ix 6.1 A viral 2019 videoclip contained the pun (in Russian): ‘Almaty – the city that managed’/‘Almaty, the city that smogs’. @Pankirey, ‘Almaty, gorod, kotoryi smog’, YouTube videoclip, August 29, 2019, https://youtu.be/wDe6JAGJ98I/ 154 6.2 A viral meme attributed to Maksat Bolotbek from Bishkek recites (in Russian): ‘I am happy I breathe the same air as you’. Bermet Borubaieva, Facebook, December 7, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=3848081655218 076&set=a.342165832476360/154 7.1 Băǐge (long-distance horse race), Southeastern Kazakhstan, August 2013; photo C. Ferret 169 7.2 Ko˙kpar horses with nosebags and blankets in a truck after the event, Uzbekistan, Tashkent region, March 2009; photo 174 C. Ferret 11.1 Location of the region under study in the Ferghana Valley. Map by Evgeny Shibkov 248 11.2 Land use situation in the village of Kara Bak (Kyrgyzstan) and Lyakon (Tajikistan) in years 1970 and 2016. Map by Evgeny Shibkov, based on Source Esrl, DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, Eartstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community. The figure was first published in Asel Murzakulova, ‘Challenges of social cohesion and tensions in communities on the 249 Kyrgyz-Tajik border’, UCA-MSRI Research Paper 4 (2018) 11.3 Apricot trees in the Isfara River basin, Ak-Sai. Photo by Murzakulova 2018 250 11.4 Apricot sculpture in the central bazaar of Isfara city (Tajikistan). Photo by Murzakulova, August 2017 255 11.5 Surkh, dried fruits bazaar. Photograph by Murzakulova 255 12.1 Location of the three study sites in the western Pamirs. Design: Dörre 2020, based on: Andy Jarvis, Hannes I. Reuter, A. Nelson, and Edith Guevara, Hole-filled Seamless SRTM Data V4. Tile 51-5, 2008. Available online: http:// srtm.csi.cgiar.org/ (accessed on 11 May 2015); OSM Open Street Map Open Street Map, 2017. Available online: 265 https://www.openstreetmap.org (accessed on 3 May 2017) 12.2 Collective construction of a connecting path between low-lying and high-lying parts of a village in the district of 268 Ishkāshim. Photograph by Dörre, March 2018 12.3 Irrigation water provision of the Porshnev Municipality. Design: Dörre 2021 based on Stéphane Henriod, Utilisation des SIG pour l’aide a la gestion de l’irrigation. Le cas de Porshinev dans le Pamir Tadjik. (Saarbrücken: Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften GmbH & 271 Co KG, 2012); WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality

x Figures 12.4 Irrigation water provision of Sizhd Village. Design: Dörre 2022 based on a photograph by Dörre, July 2014; and Füssel et al., Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems; Mishkhonov, canal master; Parvonov, former clerk 12.5 Head section of the culvert in the valley of the Rivak Creek. Photograph by Dörre, July 2014 12.6 Irrigation water provision of Shirgin Village. Design: Dörre 2020 based on Mirzo 2010; Amonbekov, local guide, farmer; Mudoiorov former teacher, expert on local history; Deronov, teacher 12.7 Fallen rock partially blocking the water flow of the Shgardwod Canal of Shirgin Village. Photograph by Dörre, August 2016

273 274

276 277

Tables

2.1 Types of desertification processes in the arid zone territories of the SSR of Kazakhstan, 1988 (in km2 and % of the surface of the arid zone) 2.2 Growth in livestock in Kazakhstan from 1916 to 1980 in thousands of head of livestock

56 58

Contributors

Gulnara Aitpaeva is the Director of the Aigine Cultural Research Center. Her research interests include the anthropology of sacred sites, cultural heritage, Kyrgyz literature and folklore. Recent publications include The National Manual for Safeguarding Sacred Sites and Ritual Practices (Bishkek, 2020), and co-editorship of 1916: Depoliticizing and Humanizing Our Knowledge on the Uprising in Central Asia (Bishkek, 2020). Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva (b. 1956) has excavated and researched in Central Asia since her student days. She is a Principal Researcher at the Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEA RAN) in Moscow and is an Associate Professor at the Center of Classical and Oriental Archaeology at the Higher School of Economics University in Moscow. Laura Berdikhojayeva holds an MA in Eurasian Studies from Nazarbayev University. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Institute for Area Studies, Leiden University, and is completing a dissertation on women’s writing from Qazaqstan. Her research interests lie at the intersection of oral and written expressive forms, gender and postcolonial studies. Jeanine Daǧyeli is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences. Recent publications include ‘Being Natural and Supernatural: Animals Between Spiritual Sense-Making and Environmentalism from 19th to 20th Century Central Asia’. Diyâr. Journal of Ottoman, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies 3, 1 (2022): 142–145. Andrei Dörre is a lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Geographical Sciences of the Freie Universität Berlin. His research on High Asia and the former socialist region of Central Asia focuses on collaborative resource management and development in peripheral regions, the interplay of international intervention, security promotion, and development activities in Afghanistan, and animal husbandry. He is the author of ‘Land, People and

xiv Contributors Development Interventions: the Case of Rangelands and Mobile Pastoralists in Central Asia’. In: Andrea Fischer-Tahir and Sophie Wagenhofer (Eds.), Disciplinary Spaces (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2017), 65–90. Jeanne Féaux De La Croix is a Social Anthropologist focusing on water and energy issues. She is the author of Iconic Places in Central Asia: The Moral Geography of Pastures, Dams and Holy Sites (Transcript, 2017) and ­co-edited the Routledge Anthropology Handbook, The Central Asian World (2023) with Madeleine Reeves. She is setting up a transdisciplinary team at the University of Bern to foster environmental justice around marine renewable energy technologies. Carole Ferret is a French Ethnologist at the CNRS (Laboratory of Social Anthropology, Paris). She has carried out extensive field work since 1994 among the Turkic peoples of Siberia and Central Asia, especially YakutsSakha and Kazakhs. Her research focuses on the anthropology of action, technology, nomadic pastoralism, nature, and children. Among her relevant publications: Une civilisation du cheval. Les usages de l’équidé, de la steppe à la taïga (Paris: Belin, 2009) and, coedited with Marc Elie, How green is the steppe? Agriculture and environment in Central Asia (Etudes rurales 200, 2017). Heinrich Härke (b. 1949) studied and worked in the UK throughout his professional career as an archaeologist. After teaching at Queen’s University Belfast and the University of Reading, he joined the staff of Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Germany) as a Honorarprofessor in 2010, and accepted a professorship in the Center of Classical and Oriental Archaeology at the Higher School of Economics University (Moscow) in 2019. David Moon is an Honorary Professor at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London and an Emeritus Professor at the University of York. His most recent books include Place and Nature: Essays in Russian Environmental History, edited with Nicholas Breyfogle and Alexandra Bekasova (Winwick: White Horse Press, 2021) and The American Steppes: The Unexpected Russian Roots of Great Plains Agriculture, 1870s-1930s (Cambridge: CUP, 2020). Asel Murzakulova is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Central Asia’s Mountain Societies Research Institute and Co-Founder of the analytical Platform Mongu. Her current research focuses on rural change and migration in Kyrgyzstan. Between 2015 and 2020, she led a research team on transborder tensions related to water and pasture management in Central Asia. Asel’s recent publications include ‘Rethinking the nexus of Climate change, Development and Discourse of danger in Central Asia’ (with Roy Sidle), MSRI Brief, September 2020. Isabelle Ohayon is an Associate Research Professor at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and member at EHESS (School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris). She specialises in the

Contributors  xv history of colonial and Soviet Central Asia, pastoralism, socialist agriculture, Stalinist repressions, consumption and ritual economy in the late Soviet period. She is the author of Sedentarizatsiia Kazakhov SSSR pri Staline: Kollektivizatsiia i sotsial’nye izmeneniia (1928–1945) (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2006) (French and Russian). Beatrice Penati is a Lecturer in Russian and Eurasian History at the University of Liverpool. She works on the agricultural and economic history of Tsarist and early Soviet Central Asia. Recent publications include ‘“A field upstream is better than a mirab brother”: looking for power on water in colonial Central Asia’, in Hydraulic Societies: Water, Power, and Control in East and Central Asian History, ed. N. Breyfogle and P. Brown (Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2023). Xeniya Prilutskaya is a doctoral student at the University of Tübingen (Germany). She holds an MA in Eurasian studies from Nazarbayev University and is currently finalising her dissertation on the anthropology of air activism in Bishkek and Almaty. Xeniya has also published on Soviet soil sciences: ‘Siuzhety iz istorii bor’by s vtorichnym zasoleniem pochv Golodnoi stepi’. Materials of the Scientific-practical Conference ‘A man in history: sources about scientific and technical intellectuals of Kazakhstan. 1920–1950’ (Almaty, 2017). Flora Roberts is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Art History at the University of Utrecht. Much of her academic research is focused on the Ferghana Valley, which she has been exploring since 2003. She has published on the social, cultural and environmental history of southern Central Asia during the Soviet period in journals, including Central Asian Survey, Ab Imperio, and Global Environment. Kate Watters is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Crude Accountability, an environmental and human rights nonprofit organisation based in Virginia, USA. She is the author of numerous reports and articles on fossil fuel industries and civil society in Central Asia and the Caspian region. Kate holds an MA in Russian Area Studies from Georgetown University and a BA in Russian Literature from UMASS-Amherst.

Note on transliteration

This book deals with different languages used in Central Asia, both in the past and in the present. Transliteration into the Latin script for these languages is fraught with difficulties, and there is no universal consensus on how to do this. Journal house styles vary, for instance, and so do disciplinary conventions. Our transliterations in this volume are guided by two principles. The first is readability: for instance, for Russian, we use the Library of Congress latinisation system without diacritics throughout. But we also recognise a plurality of voices and traditions in the transliteration of Central Asian languages. So for languages other than Russian, some authors follow the most recent version of these languages’ (adapted) Latin alphabets, which sometimes ­includes ­diacritics. Others transliterate from the Cyrillic script of their sources. We hope that this combination allows the specialist reader to recognise terms, while also making the book accessible to a wider readership.

Acknowledgments

We thank the many colleagues and Central Asian citizens who inspired this book, allowing us to learn from their experience, concerns, and efforts to ­sustain good lives in the region. We would like to thank our family and friends for bearing with us as we sometimes ‘disappeared’ into editing and writing for substantial periods. Beatrice would like to thank Alexander and Dorothy, who provided welcome distraction while this volume was in preparation. A big thank you from Jeanne to John, Hannah, and Naomi for their patience and good humour. This book collaboration took quite a few years to take shape, during a particularly fraught and anxious time in the parts of the world we live and work in. We would like to thank all our contributing authors for their dedication, cordiality and dogged attention to detail. Aida Alymbaeva, Christine Bichsel, Svetlana Jacquesson, Niccolò Pianciola, Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt, Nathan Light, and Aibek Samakov all generously shared their critical minds in the gestation period. We found our editors Matt Shobbrook and Grace Harrison very ­supportive and full of sound advice in bringing this project to fruition. We thank the Volkswagen Foundation for generously supporting the 2017 Tashkent conference that sparked the original conversation, and the Universities of Liverpool and Tübingen for making it possible to dedicate time to this book.

Introduction Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati

In the summer of 2021, much of Central Asia was in the grip of a severe drought: social media was full of dying horses and shrivelled melon-crops. Such shocking images were discussed almost exclusively through the ­anxious lens of climate change.1 There has not yet been a broader reflection on this catastrophe,2 but Central Asia is no doubt facing stark changes through ­anthropogenic climatic shifts. Beyond well-founded contemporary anxieties around climate change, there is a deeper, more complex story to tell. Central Asians have a highly diverse history of human experience, interpretation, and skilful coping – for example, with extreme weather events. A region larger than Europe, Central Asia has an astounding range of environmental conditions: vast steppes blend into the grasslands and agricultural plains of Southern Russia, deserts are shared with Iran and Afghanistan, and the Tian Shan and Pamir ranges with their glacier crowns provide passes to China. Connected to all these diverse environments, the shrinking Aral Sea is a shared catastrophe reshaping regional climate and food production. People have managed, ­destroyed, loved, feared, and revered their Central Asian habitats in a plethora of ways, from the ancient practices of pilgrimage to sacred springs, to booming oil and gas industries. In this book, we consider the full breadth of human experiences and interaction with the climatic conditions, landscapes, flora, and fauna of Central Asia. This area is characterised by complex layers of Islamic, Turkic, and Persianate influences, the historic dialectic between nomadic and sedentary lifestyles and – more recently – the legacies of Russian colonialism, Soviet communist ideology, and different kinds of capitalism. The more-thanhuman stories in this collection thus serve as a reservoir of both warnings and inspiration, in the search for forms of resilience in Asia.3 Establishing environmental humanities on Central Asia Central Asian Studies have been expanding at a bracing pace since the breakup of the Soviet Union, with new generations of scholars coming to the fore not only in specialist institutions across the Northern hemisphere, but importantly, also in Central Asia itself.4 Scholarships on Central Asian environments have long been prominent, for instance, in studies on the history of irrigation DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-1

2  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati scholarship and that appeared well before the fall of the USSR.5 Soviet ­ ­contemporary applied research (e.g. in development projects) have their own strong interdisciplinary traditions in Central Asia.6 It is only more recently, though, that Central Asianists have started explicitly framing their research as environmental history, anthropology or political ecology, and publishing more for an audience beyond the regional interest.7 Research on the environment in Central Asia is also dispersed among dozens of institutions. There has been no sustained, systematic attempt to bridge the humanities, social and natural sciences to understand the life of the region. We see this volume as a way of encouraging more interaction and collaboration between scholars and citizens concerned with both the richness and the deterioration of Central Asian environments. Research that focuses broadly on human understandings of and impacts on the environment is in the ‘fortunate’ position of being almost self-­ evidently necessary in a situation identified as one of global ecological crisis.8 Environmental Humanities stakes its claim precisely on disturbing the disciplinary ­divides that are premised on a rigid division between the study of human and non-human lives.9 Faced with forms of ‘slow violence’ and accelerated ­processes such as mass species extinctions, we are challenged to burrow deeper in time and more broadly in context and space.10 Environmental Humanities has become one leading formulation in how to connect up the dots, and, in the process, help to reshape our understanding of life on Earth.11 This book attempts a first mapping and discussion of the kinds of Environmental Humanities research generated on Central Asia, integrating different disciplinary perspectives on a broad array of themes, from the historic experience of drought to contemporary race horse training. We see this as a hugely promising and beneficial field, an invitation and starting point for establishing such interdisciplinary conversations in the region. This is the kind of integrated knowledge that we believe is necessary, to both understand and counteract ecological crisis in Central Asia. It is high time to take stock of this flourishing field, identify its strengths, and reflect on how to push its current limits. We also hope to frame this collection as one that clearly shows up relevant links to themes explored by the environmental humanities in adjacent regions, such as oil industries in the Middle East, the legacies of Soviet-era environmental damage and conservation efforts,12 and the potential for comparison across Asia, for instance, around irrigation practices. Our goal is to make the wealth of this research readily available to ­scholars and students, bringing together work by scholars from a wide range of backgrounds, from Russophone archaeology to activist-oriented research. ­Authored by both early career and established scholars, citizens of Central Asian countries and colleagues between Bishkek, Moscow, and ‘Virginia’, the essays in this volume address key issues in the environmental humanities. Some of these topics have already been raised in scholarship, particularly global c­ ommodity frontiers, human-animal relations, resources and ‘extractivism’, colonialism

Introduction  3 and modernisation, and the intersection of different knowledge systems that ­connect both environmental disasters and forms of resilience.13 This volume investigates many issues relevant to understanding global environmental changes. By considering the environmental effects of Sovietera policies on development and conservation, and the underlying processes of knowledge production, several chapters feed into the debate whether Soviet rule in Central Asia can be considered ‘colonial’.14 So far, this discussion has looked at juridical and economic aspects. What happens to our notions of Soviet influence and power relations, when relations with the environment are foregrounded?15 Environmental history has arguably exposed the global reach of colonialism in other contexts: does this change our understanding of Soviet history? Does an expanded understanding of its effects add to our understanding of environmental policies in authoritarian regimes more broadly?16 The conflicting interests of (semi-mobile) pastoralists and sedentary populations are salient in contemporary contexts across the world, from Nigeria to Ladakh. Human-animal relations in arid environments are now frequently complicated even further not only by climate change, but also by rapid changes in the local demand for meat and wool.17 Last but not least, a n ­ umber of chapters interrogate the practices and discourses of past and present ­environmentalism. They add to the growing number of case-studies and more comprehensive analyses that engage critically with this category, by showing the intrinsic difficulties of balancing between the interests of different human stakeholders (including professional scientists) – and different formulations of the ‘rights of nature’.18 Humans in – ‘nature’, ‘naturescultures’, or ‘environments’? The idea of ‘nature’ is inherently ambiguous: sometimes cast to include ­humans, and sometimes categorically excluding them. ‘Nature’ is a metaphor that modern Europeanised societies live by. Many analysts have argued that a move away from this world-view, a pattern Descola calls ‘Naturalism’ and in Latour is called the ‘Modern Constitution’, is necessary in order to envision and enact new ontologies and politics towards sustainable transformations.19 In a similar way, Environmental Humanities research in and on non-European contexts has traced other conceptualisations of the environment in key vernacular ideas, and even assumed the latter as programmatic for research and activism.20 Recognising the world beyond this assumed nature/culture order means considering other possibilities than the binary subject-object divide and other options for who is recognised as a subject or object. We need to experiment and pluralise. Part of our strategy for this book is thus to depart (relatively gently) from the damagingly narrow conception of nature vs. human/culture.21 As an often invisible, static binary, we consider it a foundational part of the current crisis. While our scientific culture seems very clear about where ‘culture’ and the

4  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati human end and ‘nature’ begins, it is equally obvious that neither pole can exist without the other – both as a concept and as elements in the world.22 There are a number of terms that thus attempt to mediate this axis: environment being the most important as an adjective to ‘environmental humanities’.23 ‘Environment’ vacillates in including biophysical features, ecosystems, localities modified or built by humans, social, and cultural elements.24 We contend that the etymology of environment usefully points to the human condition of being enveloped, encircled, surrounded, and immersed in more-than-­human worlds. The idea points to habitation and cohabitation with others: humans, other living beings – even ‘dead matter’.25 Although the formulation of this book’s subject as ‘human-environment relations’ does not ultimately escape the categorical dichotomy we problematised above, it does create openings: conceptual avenues for thinking relationally and for thinking through different kinds of interdependence. Because our authors’ collective comes from quite different schools of thought, we opted for a relatively neutral theoretical ­‘buy-in’ that does not call for a high measure of conceptual commitment, as e.g. A ­ ctor-Network-Theory analyses do. In this book, the term ­‘human-environment relations’ is a short-hand that allows us to talk about life, including ‘natural history’ beyond ‘purely’ human social life. ‘Human-­ environment relations’ is an awkward phrase, born of a moment when we seek to question – yet also still live within – the human-environment dichotomy. The awkwardness of the phrase hopefully allows us to keep in mind the historical specificities of how this question is formulated. It reminds us that concepts like ‘environment’, ‘nature’ or even ‘human’ rarely translate neatly into other linguistic life-worlds. Certainly, other languages such as Kyrgyz have much more elegant solutions for grasping more-than-human life-worlds (cf. Aitpaeva and Féaux, this volume). For this book, in order to remain mutually intelligible and facilitate debate and conversation, we suggested a ‘controlled’ pluralisation. We asked authors to position themselves in relation to a rudimentary taxonomy for characterising dominant frameworks of how Central Asian folk relate to their environments. Before we return to the idea of characterising human-environment relations more closely, we examine the usefulness of Environmental Humanities for Central Asian Studies, as well as the usefulness of our Central Asian findings for global environmental humanities. Recasting the study of human-environment relations Disciplines

Attempts to understand, and hopefully recast, human-environment relations face the limitations of ordinary disciplinary expertise. Methodologically, the nature-culture divide has been so deeply ingrained in the genes of modern disciplinary thinking that until recently there were hardly explicit attempts to study non-human parts of the world in the humanities. What we thought we

Introduction  5 knew were humans: this is what we thought we were equipped to deal with.26 The rest we often black-boxed, or allowed the natural sciences to speak to – and for.27 Investigating human-environment relations often challenges researchers to take new kinds of sources seriously and to learn to ‘read’ other data and conceptual languages. This means that established domains of expertise (medievalist, Chaghatay-speaker, discourse analyst, art historian) often start to feel awkward and limiting. Although there are signs of a real shift (including this book series), the current academic landscape still encourages quite siloed ­research communities. Even when their research questions are closely related, the majority of researchers have difficulty comprehending and integrating the significance of research results or debates from other sub-disciplines – let alone ‘undisciplined’ knowledge).28 Such a hyper-specialisation and proliferation of research paths also creates communication barriers towards policy-makers and, equally importantly, puts up barriers in co-creating knowledge and action with a broader citizen public.29 Sources and methods

The Environmental Humanities approach is one increasingly established way of attempting to recast such limiting disciplinary practices and forms of ­attention. In Central Asia, we can chart positive trends in such cross-pollination: Geographical Information Systems (GIS), dendrochronology, and climate modelling have crept into the toolbox of historians, for example, to understand the Mongol expansion.30 It is in archaeology, though, that GIS have been most widely used, helping to make sense of the link between nomadic pastoralism and ancient trade routes,31 as well as the evolution of irrigation systems.32 While we cannot fully discuss these fascinating endeavours, there is much to be learnt for projects on modern Central Asia: first, the ­foregrounding of non-human species, particularly domesticated plants and animals;33 s­ econd, boldness in the definition of the time frame and the spatial scale of the q ­ uestions under study. If historians would hesitate to encompass several millennia,34 they can nonetheless learn to transcend the narrow – and very recent – boundaries of nation-states and empires alike. Third, the willingness to combine different types of evidence, including data from the natural sciences and even simulations or modelling, which, in turn, require a strong degree of interdisciplinarity. For this book, colleagues have used a wide variety of sources, some of which are unconventional, such as historic and contemporary aerial photographs (Dörre, Arzhantseva, and Härke), or climate and soil data originally produced in and for natural science projects (Ohayon, Dağyeli). Some subdisciplines such as environmental history explicitly advocate the need to combine sources and approaches, as in David Moon’s study of Saiga antelope hunting and c­ onservation. Other authors have employed the core methods of their discipline, such as literary criticism (Berdikhojaeva), participant

6  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati observation (Ferret), or the analysis of social media archives (Prilutskaya). Each of these contributors however combines this core with other evidence, such as sources in etymology, folklore or historical archives. As elsewhere in the Environmental Humanities, visual analyses are essential to many contributors, tracing both material reality and its scientific, fictional, or satirical representation (e.g. Dörre, Roberts, Murzakulova, Arzhantseva, and Härke). Scaling relations – in time

Thinking beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines and their reliance on particular types of sources often requires rethinking the very scale through which one’s research is framed. Scholars have already stressed the need to be sensitive to our respondents’ own time scales and to think critically about the meaning of conventional periodisations.35 For instance, oil company stakeholders (and the activists who oppose them) care less about the distant and near past: they attend more to present and future priorities and needs (cf. Watters, this volume). Time scales can intersect, rather than be mutually ­exclusive, both experientially and in the scholar’s perspective: in the study of irrigation, for instance, annual agricultural cycles are the basic units through which medium-term institutional and infrastructural change is experienced by users. Several authors here find their enquiry leading to new intersections of temporal scales. As Asel Murzakulova stresses, the life cycle of apricot trees intersects with the temporality of human households, as well as with epochal transformations, such as the end of the USSR in the Fergana Valley. Relations between non-humans and humans are projected altogether beyond measurable time, as in the magic realism of Oralkhan Bökei’s prose (Berdikhojayeva), or in the Islamic hagiographies featuring saints and Saiga antelopes (Moon). Flora Roberts reminds us how value-laden seasonality is, while Jeanine Dağyeli alerts us to the cultural embeddedness of the language for times of the year. Scaling relations – in space

Other scales are spatial: analysts have pointed out how late Soviet and ­post-Soviet voices demanding the protection of the environment could be framed either as ‘econationalism’ or as ‘eco-internationalism’, for example, in the case of the Nevada-Kazakhstan movement against nuclear experiments in the Semipalatinsk polygon.36 In this volume, Xeniya Prilutskaya and Kate Watters discuss how the very local has become increasingly tied up with ­supra-national and global economic and social trends. Several authors examine topics that bring the disjunction between agricultural and political borders into focus, as in the case of the Fergana’s apricot crop (Murzakulova). O ­ thers train our eye on phenomena that transcend national borders altogether, such as the horse training practices discussed by Carole Ferret, animal migrations in David Moon’s essay or the vernacular knowledge presented by Jeanine Dağyeli. A strong focus on the local has important benefits, for instance, often

Introduction  7 highlighting otherwise marginalised voices and practices.37 At the same time, we remain conscious that not all locally produced knowledge is necessarily empowering, nor the be-all and end-all of analysis. In a Central Asia that has long lived interlinked with other regions, it is obvious that ‘local’ perspectives or scale alone can rarely satisfy, analytically. Many of the following essays thus show the merit of nimbleness in moving from one scale to another, and alertness to their intersections. Finally, bringing together temporal and spatial scales, most essays in this collection remind us that almost everywhere, the identification of space and scales are the result of the layering of different ways of ‘relating to the ­environment’, each with its own underlying ideology and technological possibilities and limitations. When we look at Northern Kazakhstan, for instance, we need to remember that Khrushchev-era settlers, Stalin-era deportees, the colonists of Tsarist times, and the Qazaq nomads who inhabited those same lands before them each featured distinct patterns of resource usage, animal husbandry, resilience to adversity and disaster, and aesthetic appreciations of these ­environments.38 Because of this layered history of land use, highly ­diverse and mobile population patterns, Central Asia alerts us to consider not only ‘space-through-time’ but also ‘time-through-space’. Knowing environments

The essays in this collection also stimulate a discussion on how one frames knowledge more broadly. First, several contributions address the question of environmental knowledge and the conflicts – or collaborations – that have existed around it. From contested measurements of air pollution (Prilutskaya), to the definition of expertise in assessing environmental damage (Watters), and from the role of ‘the hidden world’ in guiding environmental ethics (­Aitpaeva and Féaux) to the competition between indigenous vs. Russian colonial ways of identifying adverse weather events (Dağyeli): this volume critically asks how knowledge is produced, by whom, and to what purposes.39 The development of citizen science in the face of (or alongside) state-controlled narratives or the knowledge sponsored by powerful private actors can be usefully compared to similar phenomena in other parts of the world.40 Despite the imprint of Tsarist and Soviet modernization projects, this volume also attests to the persistence of local knowledge on water management (Dörre), plants (Murzakulova), and non-human animals (Ferret). Of course, as an authors’ collective, we also participate in knowledge ­production. The volume includes two experiments at talking across conventional genres and positionalities imposed by institutions, scholarly traditions, and national perspectives. Watters voices her experience of activism in her report-cum-reflection on Berezovka’s grassroots movement fighting oil field pollution. Aitpaeva and Féaux experiment with a dialogue format to explore the intersection of Kyrgyz-language cosmologies and environmental politics in Kyrgyzstan. Our practice in working across established schools of thought

8  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati comes with a cost to uniformity: for example, appreciating other forms of enquiry and questioning one’s own practice can mean accepting different framings, for example, in engaging with ethnic identities and politics (see Berdikhojayeva, Aitpaeva and Féaux). Readers may also note some unevenness in referencing standards, according to different scholarly and non-scholarly traditions. Defining Central Asia for this book… …as (post-)Soviet

Area Studies frameworks have been thoroughly criticised.41 We contend ­however that self-aware versions of Area Studies offer scaffolding for interdisciplinary work on large and complex topics such as human-environment relations: it is good to keep a common object in view. Central Asia is a region marked historically as one of the world’s central ‘contact zones’. At the same time, Central Asia is currently often treated as a margin – be it of Russian, Chinese, South Asian or Middle Eastern spheres of influence. It is the myopia of political interests and siloed forms of research, rather than the idea of ‘disconnected’ societies, that are the real challenge of Area Studies in Central Asia.42 For this ‘cast’ of exploring the Environmental Humanities in Central Asia, we chose to focus on the former Soviet Central Asian republics. The definition of ‘Central Asia’ has long been ambiguous: its narrowest boundaries were those of the Soviet notion of Sredniaia Aziia, which left out Kazakhstan and only included the ‘grain-importing’ southernmost republics.43 Meanwhile, an influential recent modern history of Central Asia strongly makes the case for including Eastern Turkestan (broadly corresponding to Xinjiang).44 As discussed above, the history of this region can rarely be understood without considering links with Mongolia, Afghanistan, northern Iran, parts of Siberia, and even the Volga valley. Indeed, several essays such as those by Dağyeli, Moon or the eco-international orientation of Prilutskaya and Watters’ analyses clearly radiate beyond what became/what were the Soviet republics of Central Asia. The search for the ‘perfect’ region definition is ultimately pointless: each choice of boundaries reflects one’s intellectual queries. We decided to limit the geographical scope of this volume to the former five Soviet Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, ­Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) for several reasons.45 First, this area shares a common – and distinctive – history since the time of the Russian conquest in the ­nineteenth century. It became clear during our authors’ workshop that there are two dimensions for which the Soviet legacy is still key to the study not only of the twentieth, but also for the twenty-first century. First, Soviet communism brought with itself a ‘cultural revolution’ that heavily overlaid – though did not erase – Islamic and more generally older local cultures. The widespread establishment of new Soviet practices such as building big dams

Introduction  9 (cf. Roberts), scientific expeditions (Arzhantseva and Härke) or introducing new ­agricultural techniques and livestock breeds (Murzakulova and Dörre) had profound ­effects on belief systems and the way people see themselves in relation to each other, to other species, and to inanimate features of the ­landscape. Second, to this day, we see specific and long-lasting effects of ­Soviet forms of extractivism as well as the peculiarities of Soviet conservationism ­affecting Central Asian ecosystems, political practices, and even ­representations of the natural world in cultural heritage.46 We nevertheless come at this legacy ­without automatically foregrounding top-down policy-making, as is so often the case. Our choice to focus on the former Central Asia republics shapes the way we establish comparisons between this region and others. The study of ­environmental issues and nature degradation in the Soviet period has clearly shown the limitations of ‘Soviet exceptionalism’: many projects such as those of the Stalin-era ‘plan for the transformation of nature’ find parallels in similar initiatives outside the USSR, and beyond communist countries. For instance, a comparison between ‘big dam’ construction in Soviet-era Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is possible not only with dams in Soviet Russia, but also with the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority in Roosevelt’s New Deal.47 There are also striking similarities and links between soil erosion in the Qazaq steppe and ‘Dust Bowl’ issues in the American Midwest.48 In one respect, though, the USSR and its Central Asian successor states remain an exception, at least relative to liberal democracies worldwide: the ability of the public to access information, raise concerns, publicly debate controversial issues, and ultimately hold those responsible to account.49 Some of the essays in this volume (Prilutskaya, Watters) extend the reflection to ask whether obstacles to the circulation of information, public debate, and ­accountability are still in place. If so, are they simply the results of the inertia in political cultures? Or are other factors at play, such as the widening influence of multinational companies, or China? Conversely, one is brought to ask to what extent Central Asia was ­exceptional relative to the rest of the Soviet Union. Did Soviet extractivist practices unfold in distinctively ‘colonial’ ways here? Did Central Asians find specific ways to circumvent censorship on environmental issues, or vernacular ways of p ­ rotecting their environments (cf. Aitpaeva and Féaux) that were perhaps not available in other (post-)Soviet republics? Even though the following contributions (especially Ohayon’s) offer some evidence towards this debate, more empirical research on these points is required. Central Asia as… post-Soviet… and dry

The political borders we chose for this ensemble are complemented by some common shared ecological conditions. Central Asia is made up of a variety of distinct landscapes, ranging from deserts, steppe and other grasslands, ­irrigated oases, and forests to many cities. All these landscapes have

10  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati something in common, setting them apart from contiguous landscapes to the north and north-east: aridity or semi-aridity, as defined by the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).50 This basic characterisation as ‘dry’ hides a lot of internal variation in precipitation and evaporation levels.51 Other factors play a significant role, especially altitude, the proximity of permanent water courses, and different degrees of anthropogenic effects such as deforestation. The steppe is predominant to the north, making up the bulk of the ­territory of present-day Kazakhstan (see Arzhantseva and Härke, Watters). Steppe a­ reas are also interspersed among the irrigated oases to the south, even though some of this land has been reclaimed for agriculture, in particular through massive Soviet-era irrigation projects (Roberts). This is famously the case of the Hungry Steppe or Mirzacho‘l in Uzbekistan.52 Herbaceous vegetation is predominant in the steppe, where lush or sparse pasture depends on seasonal or permanent water streams, marshes, and the landscape relief. The Qizil Kum (‘Red Sand’) and Qara Kum (‘Black Sand desert’) are located on Central Asia’s south-western flank. Plant and animal lives adapted to these environments thrive here, for instance, the famous saxaul shrub (Haloxylon ammodendron), camels and the Saiga antelope. Humans have ingeniously adapted to life in these deserts or in close proximity to them,53 while also shaping the environment to their advantage, example, through the boring of artesian wells (Ohayon). Central Asian deserts and their inhabitants have also served as dense symbols in folklore, literature, and culture (see Moon).54 In Tsarist and Soviet times, railway builders and canal engineers saw sandstorms and mobile dunes as quintessential resistance put up by ‘untamed nature’ to human technological efforts.55 At the same time, the desert could become a space of safety and retreat, even celebrated as the saviour of the Turkmen nation (Figure 0.1).56 A string of large oases developed irrigated agriculture to the south and south-east of Central Asia (Dağyeli, Murzakulova, Dörre). Many generations of canals, dating from prehistory to colonial and Soviet expansions, interlace these densely worked areas. The idea of ‘bringing life’ to the land by a­ llowing irrigation to reach it was certainly part of the developmentalist discourse of both communists and Tsarist administrators,57 but the same notion was a­ lready well present in local Islamic and Persianate cultures.58 To the East and South, the region under study is dominated by the ­mountain ranges and high valleys of the Altai, Tien Shan, and Pamirs, soaring over 7,000 metres high. Among their valleys, lakes, and glaciers, people have long developed forms of transhumant pastoralism, but also cultivated crops at astonishingly high altitudes. As in the ‘Silk Road cities’ of Central Asia, incomes are often supplemented by tourism. And as everywhere in Central Asia, remittances from migrants in cities or abroad are often an essential source of revenue.59 It is striking that there seems to be a rough division of labour within the environmental humanities along ecological lines: it seems that mountain areas receive much more attention from anthropologists and applied researchers, while steppes and cities have proved most attractive to historians. Reasons for

Introduction  11

Figure 0.1  Map of Central Asia. Courtesy of Julien Thorez.

­ erhaps this differentiated focus lies not only in the reach of archives, but also p in anxieties, e.g. around fast-melting glaciers. If our description of Central Asian landscapes leans on English ecological concepts, this classification nonetheless quite closely reflects the terminology one encounters in Central Asia’s local languages. Examples include the Uzbek kum (‘desert, sand’), the Qazaq arka (‘steppe’) and the Turkic word aral (Uz. orol). Aral means both ‘island’ and, by extension, the region of the AmuDarya delta that Arzhantseva and Härke explore here.60 It is important to also acknowledge that where a mobile pastoralist lifestyle has durably imprinted language and mental maps, other spatial classifications connected to forms of land use may prevail. For example, pastoralists distinguish pairs of ‘winter vs. summer pasture’ (Kyrg. kishtoo vs. jailoo, Uz. qishloq vs. yaylov).61 Past scholarship has often been particularly preoccupied with the history of irrigation and of the agrarian landscape. In the Tsarist period, the history of canals was reported alongside data that served the Russians’ ­ambition to ­‘rationally’ exploit and expand them.62 Monographs on individual water ­systems were produced by historians, ethnographers, and hydraulic engineers alike, a stream of knowledge production that was clearly in tune with the ­political development priorities of the time (cf. Arzhantseva and Härke).63 While many Soviet publications focus on the past exploitation of natural elements as ­resources, the interest in ‘pre-Islamic relics’ among Soviet

12  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati ethnographers also led to the accumulation of evidence on the meaning and practices ­surrounding natural objects and elements (cf. Aitpaeva and Féaux).64 Interestingly, the recent environmental histories of Central Asia produced in Europe and the US often still focus on water management, even if the topic is cast as a history of infrastructure or broader political dynamics.65 The comparative neglect of the history of mountain, desert, and steppe environments is now being overcome, with renewed attention to the encounter between pastoral nomadism and Russian and Soviet modernity, as well as to possible comparisons between Central Asia and other arid and semi-arid regions.66 By contrast, the pine, walnut, and wetland ‘forests’ of Central Asia have posed more of a puzzle since the colonial era. Europeans used to extensive ­timber might be surprised by locals pointing to low shrubland as ‘forest’ ­(Kyrgyz: tokoi). This example demonstrates how naming and valuing ­landscape forms is a contingent and potentially conflictual process. For example, one could argue that, in an attempt to secure such land for resettlement, Tsarist officers overstretched the notion of ‘spontaneous wood’ (Russian: dikorastushchii les) to include land sparsely occupied by saxaul, which actually served as pasture for resident Central Asians.67 Less problematic is the inclusion in this category of extensive groves of deciduous trees on the slopes of mountain ranges in the south, as well as in some areas in the north of the steppe. Finally, one should note the unique and now scarce, sometimes mangrove-like vegetation and reed beds growing along rivers, known as tugay.68 All these spaces were and sometimes are used as ‘common-pool resources’ in Elinor Ostrom’s sense,69 with proposals to privatize or state-run them often eliciting unrest. The uses of ‘forests’ in this sense include the harvesting of wild fruit (e.g. ­walnuts, apples) for both subsistence and sale, pasture, hunting, the gathering of wood as fuel, and the collection of reeds for fodder, the fabrication of ­housing, baskets, nets, and other tools.70 If some of these a­ ctivities tended to fall off the radar of the state in the modern period, they have nonetheless often been essential to the livelihood of many households. Others have been ­reshaped by modern scientific efforts, including the Soviet-era pseudo-­ genetics of Trofim Lysenko.71 Urban environments in Central Asia are often a palimpsest from different building periods and forms of urban living.72 Many cities such as Afrasiab (now Samarkand) in the southern strip of irrigated land have very ancient origins as centres of trade.73 The commonly held image of ‘the’ Silk Road needs to be complicated to include a plurality of routes, to acknowledge the role of nomads in trade, as well as trade in commodities other than silk. These Silk Roads nevertheless significantly shaped thriving urban spaces such as Samarkand and Khiva.74 Other cities such as Almaty have a far more recent origin in the Tsarist era, while in conquered older cities to the south such as Tashkent and Khujand, Tsarist officials preferred to establish a ‘new’ city according to ‘rational’, European-style plans, next to the existing city.75 More extreme is the case of cities established, or heavily expanded in the Soviet era, for ­instance, Tselinograd (now Astana), which was at the centre of Khrushchev’s ­‘Virgin

Introduction  13 Land’ ­campaign.76 Among Soviet-era cities established as industrial and mining centres like Tursunzoda (previously Regar) in Tajikistan, or Karaganda in Kazakhstan, some are suffering from depopulation and general economic decline.77 In any epoch, Central Asian cities have played a striking role in displays of power, both as backdrops for its performance and as embodiments of fundamental ideological streaks, through construction and demolition, ­ ­greening and embellishment, immigration to and resettlement from the city.78 It is striking that the famous cities of Central Asia have not yet attracted an ‘urban political ecology’: in this volume, we were able to feature only one of the rare exceptions with Xenia Prilutskaya’s investigation of urban environmental movements. We would love to see more work on urban environmental challenges and solutions, past and present: supply in food and other goods from the surrounding hinterland or further afield, satisfying water and h ­ ygiene needs, evacuation of waste or the heightened danger from earthquakes in ­urban settings.79 Relating to environments: a broad-brush taxonomy Soviet extractivism has left a massive imprint in the landscape, practices, and culture of Central Asia. The scale of transformation for the purpose of ­extraction in the Soviet period was breath-taking: huge irrigation, mining and ­intensive livestock production vastly expanded natural resource use, and standards of wealth. At the same time, these new economies led to massive disruptions, such as the near-disappearance of the Aral Sea and many species extinctions. The essays in this volume attend to this history, which often tells a tale of more or less ‘slow’ violence (cf. Watters, Murzakulova, Samakov, Moon, Ohayon). But in this volume, we also aim to take a broader conceptual view and highlight elements of human-environmental interaction that depart from the extractivist framework, such as equine competitions, orchard e­ conomies or attempts to revive Indigenous cosmologies. Power

Writing on Central Asia, scholars appear to have privileged the adoption of questions and categories from political ecology, whereby human relations to the environment are, in essence, power relations, in which humans typically try to subjugate the natural world. This kind of analysis importantly exposes the existence of inequalities and asymmetric power relations among humans. In many contexts, such asymmetric power relations usually run along racial or racialised fault lines.80 Research on ‘natural’ disasters has highlighted how the differential impact of disasters can depend on ethnic as well as class c­ leavages.81 The advent of scholarship that explicitly brings into the picture ‘more-thanhuman’ histories, or the agency of non-humans and even inanimate objects, has significantly complicated this picture, showing the limitations of such

14  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati e­ndeavours towards the subjugation of nature. Attention to non-human ­powers and interactions now explicitly complement these anthropocentric and justice-oriented analyses.82 Analyses in this mode do not ‘side-line’ ­human concepts and agencies, but in fact rather highlight the multiple forms of ­interaction, interweaving and knotty relationships between different kinds of ­humans and many different kinds of other beings.83 A symptom is the now likely official adoption of the ‘Anthropocene’ as a geological age.84 At the same time, post-Marxist commentators have critiqued the ‘Anthropocene’ as fudging the real accountabilities, pointing to colonial and capitalist exploitation as the real causes of the earth- and climate-upheavals we face.85 Despite their massive impact, many Soviet extractivist projects such as the Virgin Lands Campaign failed to meet expectations: sometimes because of faulty designs, sometimes because of political cross-currents. In each case, the way soils, water sources, weather conditions, animals and plants met with these human ambitions could create unexpected obstacles and multifarious sideeffects.86 We argue here that relations to the environment cannot be reduced to (human) power dynamics. A single-minded focus on human politics and intention may end up obscuring experiences and realisations that can hardly be subsumed by the ‘power’ category. If this is true for humans, it is even more plausible for non-humans, whose reactions and adaptations are less easily cast in terms of power struggle.87 While we do not dispute that – as Foucault would put it – power relations can be found anywhere when one looks for them, we suggest expanding our repertoire of attention to a more comprehensive understanding of engagement. Even in Western Europe, where we could locate an extreme instrumentalisation of nature for human goals since the industrial revolution, this extreme brought about a reaction. For the Romantics, nature was a source of enjoyment, admiration, and inspiration in a quasi-religious sense, a legacy that drives entire industries such as tourism, to this day.88 To reduce this dynamic to a power struggle – even a struggle in which humans are defeated – is highly reductive. If this is true for modern Western Europe, we should also attend to non-extractive modes with and within Central Asian environments. We have supported such a broader view in this volume by casting h ­ uman-environment in terms of relations. We propose four broad categories of relating that ­intersect with, but are not reducible to, questions of ‘power’. Happily, the English idea of ‘relating’ is quite category-neutral: it does not demand that you decide whether your climbing of a hill is a one-sided action – or an interaction. A relationship can be one- or many-sided. It can have many dimensions and phases, be strongly negative, positive or a kind of ‘doesn’t matter much’ connection. Etymologically, the word is clearly related to the idea of ‘family’ or kin.89 The scope of recognising a relationship encompasses a vast range of emotional registers and notions of justice. A basic approach to the world can be framed as recognising generous gifts: whether from a supernatural entity such as Allah, or a ‘giving environment’, as many huntergatherer cosmologies would frame it.90 Of course, this idea of kinship may not

Introduction  15 actively ‘play’, for example, in the mining of gold on a Kyrgyzstani glacier. An extractive relationship fundamentally denies kinship as a potentially mutual (if not always positive) relationship. Extraction operates the idea of one-sided gain, including extremes of human exploitation in systems of slavery which deny a common humanity. We distinguish relations according to a broad-brush taxonomy: Extract, Enspirit, Protect, Fear. The purpose of these categories is not to fix and pigeon-hole a period, event or group as exclusively engaging in this ‘spirit’ with the environment. It is rather a heuristic chart, intended as a flexible overview, with attention to overlaps, ambiguities, and uncertainties. It is distinctly an analyst’s move from afar that may or may not be found in direct self-characterisations among our Central Asian interlocutors; in its plurality, it also resists ultimately essentialist attempts to identify the principle underpinning relations to environments in the context under study, thus acknowledging the variety of landscapes and cultures and the historical evolution of Central Asia.91 What unexpected insights does a reformulation of conclusions in line with this move open up? How can we understand the social processes and consequences of distinguishing Natural/Human/Un-Natural/Artificial elements in life? Undertaking such an enquiry can also address core theoretical concerns around meaning-making, agency, personhood, and power, which are not necessarily ‘about’ environmental issues. At the base of these world-making moves is a different assessment of mutual effect, and kinds of agency between humans, or between humans and other beings and things. Who is ‘in’ the collective, in the society (a term which we habitually only use as a term for human collectives)? With what or whom can one have a ‘relationship’? Our categories Extract/Protect/Enspirit/Fear point to the fact that of course a relationship may not be ‘pleasurable’ and can be highly unequal. Both the ideas of protection and extraction imply inequality, but the impact of this inequality is quite different. A vision of enspirited or threatening environments meanwhile opens the possibility for both these modes of inequality, as well as the possibility of exchange and reciprocity. Conceptualising relations in this way thus cross-cuts what ‘common sense’ might suggest: that extraction is the opposite of protection. Or that an enspirited, giving environment is the opposite of an inanimate, threatening nature. Each of the book’s chapters usually features more than one (dominant) mode of ­relating. You can extract and protect at the same time. You can fear – and revere. A rough guide to this book

We have discussed different aspects of the volume’s 12 contributions in ­relation to temporal and spatial scaling, the methods and types of environments they immerse readers in, and how they trace connections to spaces outside this volume’s definition of ‘Central Asia’. We therefore do not offer full summaries of each chapter below, but highlight the relations between chapters in the four book sections we curated.

16  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati Perhaps surprisingly, ‘Extractivism’ opens with a discussion of the famous Khorezm Archaeological Expedition. Irina Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke make clear the political directives and thirst to find suitable irrigated land that fuelled this major, decades-long undertaking. But they also demonstrate how this mission could support quite different agendas and findings on local livelihoods connected to near and ancient predecessors than this overt intent would imply. Isabelle Ohayon uses archival and oral history sources for a meticulous investigation of the consequences of another major Soviet interest: intensifying steppe pastoralism. After the mass mortality of both livestock and Qazaq citizens during the radical collectivisation of the 1930s, she follows the measures through which Soviet planners, steppe communities, and individual herders strove for recovery. They eventually achieved much higher stock numbers, with long-term consequences for pasture degradation. While these two contributions document both Soviet policy and resistances and alternatives that run ‘in parallel’ or in the shadows of policy, Kate Watters most e­ xplicitly addresses resistance to harmful extractive projects. She describes the struggle of Kazakhstani villagers and their NGO supporters to escape toxic living conditions and achieve resettlement away from major oil production fields. In ‘Paternalism and Protection’, we highlight what often seems the other side of the extractivist coin. Having studied how Saiga antelope reached the brink of extinction through over-hunting and habitat loss, David Moon traces the often very strict ‘fortress conservation-style’ Soviet and successor protection policies, which were ultimately successful in safeguarding Saiga – at least, to date. Flora Roberts meanwhile uses a Tajik-language satirical magazine to identify environmental concerns around e.g. Soviet big dam building. She shows that in admonishing citizens to greater effort in cotton harvests, magazine writers may have often been following clear political directives. But she also finds evidence of doubt, sorrow, and anxieties over the side-effects of Soviet rural policies being published, for example, in the displacement (aka habitat loss) of wildlife. The case-studies in the first two sections ‘extractivism’ and ‘paternalism and protection’ mainly share a perspective on environments as objects to use or save. In the second half of the book, contributors instead address perspectives on environments and non-human actors as agents of change themselves. Although non-human beings or phenomena such as the weather are not necessarily personified, these chapters all highlight Central Asians working with, rather than against the grain of environmental actors, as well as dealing with uncertain environmental conditions. ‘Enspirited Environments’ opens with Carole Ferret’s detailed account of the traditional training horses receive before competing in races or games. She not only details the widespread application of (to European trainers) unusual ideas on managing diet, exercise, and temperature in a horse’s body. She shows that concepts on sweat and fat are linked to broader understandings of medicine and bodily functions that affect human and horse strength and endurance alike. Human-animal relations also take centre-stage in Laura Berdikhojayeva’s discussion of an unusual sci-fi-cum-folk tale

Introduction  17 by the celebrated Qazaq author Bökei. Inspired by stories of American ‘killer bees’, Bökei uses ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ hybrid relationships with bees as a foil to advocate ‘proper’ ways of being Qazaq in late Soviet Kazakhstan. His Altai mountain protagonists come in strange configurations: an ethnic Qazaq man who hybridises with bees, out of greed. An ethnic Russian woman, who teaches her in-laws proper Qazaq ways of apiculture. Berdikhojayeva compares these forms of hybridity with those suggested in postcolonial analyses. The question of authentic – in this case – Kyrgyz ways of relating to the more-than-human world is explored in Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix’s exploratory dialogue. How do experts on Kyrgyz language, arts, and tradition make sense of reverence for holy springs on the one hand, and much more disrespectful, even abusive relations with Kyrgyzstan’s pastures, rivers, and glaciers, on the other hand? Enacting part of their master-student relationship, Aitpaeva and Féaux also address how these ideas on more-thanhuman kinship relate to the ethno-nationalist policies currently dominating Kyrgyzstan. While in ‘Enspirited Environments’, non-humans turn up mostly as allies or working partners, in the chapters on ‘Environmental Threats’, other-thanhumans are powerful entities that can threaten and inspire fear. How did, how do Central Asians handle environmental uncertainties, dangers, and scarcities? Jeanine Dağyeli takes us to the Bukharan Emirate, to analyse how farming communities tried to cope with changing conditions such as increasing droughts. Before the era of nation-state borders, they might simply shift their livelihoods to a different khanate. But when weather patterns and increasing inclusions into global export markets caused repeated stresses, there were also concerted efforts to petition rulers to intervene in food security. Shifting agricultural economies and trade routes are also key to Asel Murzakulova’s examination of the apricot as a central element of cross-border economies in the Fergana Valley. Amid frequent violent flare-ups along complicated national borders, she argues that beyond any INGO-led peace-keeping efforts, the need to share irrigation water and get apricot harvests to international market creates many everyday lines of trust and interdependency. Andrei Dörre maintains a focus on dealing with water scarcity, but takes us to the High Pamir region of Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan. Combining ethnographic, survey, mapping, and archival methods, he finds that communities self-organise successfully around common water use and management arrangements. They may not follow official blue-prints for ‘water user associations’, but the end effect is joint decision-making and collaborative action. If people have clearly worked out many ways to keep environmental threats at bay with collective technologies in the Fergana Valley and high Pamir, these threats are also balanced with blessings. In Xeniya Prilutskaya’s chapter, she finds urban populations in Almaty and Bishkek facing the new and growing hazard of air pollution. Asking how people identify ‘good’ or ‘bad’ air they cannot see, she argues that environmental moments have become increasingly sophisticated in their data collection, forms of public representation and lobbying for change. While the

18  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati blame is not as clearly attributable as in Kate Watters’ documentation of oil consortia and failing government regulation, in both cases, local movements harness international support and strategies for their concerns. Relations near and far: Central Asia in the global environmental humanities

In this book, readers will encounter horses as sweaty as their human t­rainers, apricots as valuable as horse-meat, and ancient Aral agriculture as thirsty as the Pamiri water-mills at the other end of Central Asia. This book spans studies of extractive industries, popular media outlets, urban activists, rural food producers, and climate change models. We hope to demonstrate how an environmental humanities agenda can broaden the field of what historians, anthropologists, and geographers can and should study to meet the challenges of the Anthropocene and other more-than-just-intellectual puzzles. Any study of environmental questions in the Central Asian world we cast here is likely to expose why an analysis based on simplistic methodological ­nationalism is insufficient. The contributions all look beyond ­state-centric analyses and embrace other types of relations between different human groups, as well as with and between non-human actors. Doing so sheds quite a new light on state-like aspects of interactions between Central Asians, and a differentiation of what can look like all-embracing monolithic statehood vs. ­so-called ‘failed statehood’. We see this book as a marked gathering, which we hope will signal a concentrated blossoming of environmental humanities research across the ­ ­region. As our (extensive but not exhaustive) list of references in this introduction shows, there is already lots of momentum – if somewhat dispersed. There is a huge scope for topical and methodological expansion: we would love to read natural histories of key species such as saxaul, mulberry or walnut trees, of distinctive Central Asian varieties such as Özgen rice, yaks, catfish, the humble Central Asian fat-tailed sheep or of flagship conservation species like the highly endangered snow leopard. If this book covers some multi-species encounters with bees, Saiga antelope and horses, that is just a beginning. It would also be illuminating to trace relations with more uncomfortable bed-fellows such as diseases and unattractive environments such as swamps, humble kitchen gardens or specific weather phenomena such as the feared zhut (Rus. dzhut, Qaz. jūt, great freeze) evoked repeatedly in this volume. There are also new proliferations to consider, such as plastic waste, ground-water or soil pollution and depletion. We look forward to intellectual explorations of the role of ­glaciers, even as we grieve their likely disappearance. We are keen to see analyses on environmental symbols and issues in the rich cultural archives of Central Asian film, pop videos, visual arts, crafts, and food histories. A fascinating story of healing practices waits to be told, including hot springs and herbal remedies in conjunction with Russian, Chinese, and ‘Western’ medicine. We would love that political ecologies attentive to land ownership tell the deep-time

Introduction  19 ­ istories of Central Asian mining, but also of tourism. It would be fascinating h to ­connect these forms of ‘production’ in environments to forms of mobility such as trading routes and consumption: into China, the more-than-Russian North, the South Asian sub-continent and Western Asia.92 We would love to discuss analyses of climate change mitigation and adaptation programmes, as well as explorations of the rich urban ecologies pulsating in Central Asia. ­Creating a stronger dialogue and understanding of work in the natural and ­applied sciences would be a great benefit, for all of these endeavours. Rather than reproducing William Cronon or Tania Li’s approach in Central Asia,93 we also really look forward to concepts and methods sourced from Central Asian colleagues and languages to find a place in the environmental humanities crowd. Will these concepts come to ‘play’ in the world, as Maori cosmologies and jurisdiction now have entered New Zealand’s environmental legislation? We recognise that ‘big’ ideas are not produced in a vacuum. Their production and recognition still frequently depend on metropolitan ­institutions and players, including academics. What represents the ‘metropole’ is constantly changing and should also be interrogated. But big ideas can also be generated from within political struggles such as Buen Vivir,94 often over a long period. We would love this book to become one way of introducing Central Asian environments much more strongly in teaching – be it on global environmental history, political economy or social movements courses. We strive to create a form of scholarship that supports Central Asians and their friends to find ways of flourishing in fast-changing environments, to safeguard the bases of species diversity, and of livelihoods – old and new. We hope that this work will be part of a positive Anthropocene agenda: whether it addresses activism head-on or follows less ‘spectacular’ everyday practices of care and cooperation between people and other living beings, or whether authors lay out the foundations for understanding long-term, often turbulent trajectories in natural resource management. Notes 1 Anon., “Zhutkie foto umiraiushchikh ot goloda loshadei v Mangistau obsuzhdaiut v Seti,” Tengrinews.kz. June 2, 2021, https://tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_ news/jutkie-foto-umirayuschih-goloda-loshadey-mangistau-439150/ (retrieved 23.03.2023). Jie Jiang and Tianjun Zhou, “Agricultural Drought over WaterScarce Central Asia Aggravated by Internal Climate Variability,” Nature Geoscience 16 (2023): 154–161. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01111-0 2 Roman Vakulchuk, Anne Sophie Daloz, Indra Overland, Haakon Fossum Sagbakken and Karina Standal. “A Void in Central Asia Research: Climate Change,” Central Asian Survey 42, no. 1 (2022): 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/026349 37.2022.2059447 3 See comparable work on other parts of Asia such as A.K. Enamul Haque, Pranab Mukhapadhaya, Mani Nepal, and Md. Rumi Shammin, eds., Climate Change and Community Resilience - Insights from South Asia (Singapore: Springer Nature:

20  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati 2022), Prasenjit Duara, The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 4 Examples include Ketmen International Journal for Central Asian Voices (https:// ketmen.org/), or Rico Isaacs and Erica Marat, eds., Handbook of Contemporary Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2022). 5 Vincent Fourniau, “L’irrigation et l’espace özbek: Des modes d’implantation ethno-sociale dans l’Asie Centrale du 16e au 19e siècle,” thèse de doctorat, (EHESS, 1985); Jonathan Michael Thurman, “Modes of Organization in Central Asian Irrigation: The Ferghana Valley, 1876 to Present,” PhD diss., (Indiana UniversityBloomington, 1999). 6 For work before 1991, please see footnotes below. Also cf. on Soviet-era research pp. 32–36 in Arzhantseva and Härke, Aitpaeva and Féaux pp. 187–190, Dörre p. 266, this volume. 7 Recent examples include Christine Bichsel, “White Spots on Rivers of Gold: Imperial Glaciers in Russian Central Asia,” in Ice Humanities: Living, Working and Thinking in a Melting World, ed. Klaus Dodds and Sverker Sörlin (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022): 133–153; Gulzat Baialieva and Flora Roberts, “Memories of Social Mobility and Environmental Change: Dam Builders of the Naryn-Syr Darya,” Global Environment 14, no. 2 (2021): 269–309. https://doi. org/10.3197/ge.2021.140203; Nozilakhon Mukhamedova and Richard Pomfret, “Why Does Sharecropping Survive? Agrarian Institutions and Contract Choice in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan,” Comparative Economic Studies 61, no. 2 (2019): 576–597. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41294-019-00105-z. 8 Compare: Jo Guldi and David Armitage, The History Manifesto (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 9 Isabelle Stengers, Another Science is Possible: A Manifesto for Slow Science, trans. Stephen Muecke. (Cambridge: Polity Press 2019); Silvio O. Funtowicz, Jerome R. Ravetz, “Science for the Post-normal Age,” Futures 25, no. 7 (1993): 739–755; Helga Nowotny, Peter Scott and Michael Gibbons, Re-Thinking Science. Knowledge in the Public in an Age of Uncertainty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 10 Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). 11 Deborah Bird Rose, Thom van Dooren, Matthew Chrulew, Stuart Cooke, Matthew Kearnes, Emily O’Gorman, “Thinking Through the Environment, Unsettling the Humanities,” Environmental Humanities 1, no. 1 (2012): 1–5. https://doi. org/10.1215/22011919-3609940; Poul Holm, Joni Adamson, Hsinya Huang, Lars Kirdan, Sally Kitch, Iain McCalman, James Ogude, Marisa Ronan, Dominic Scott, Kirill Ole Thompson, Charles Travis, and Kirsten Wehner. “Humanities for the Environment—A Manifesto for Research and Action,” Humanities 4, no. 4 (2015): 977–992. https://doi.org/10.3390/h4040977 12 For a balanced assessment, see David Moon, “The Curious Case of the Marginalisation or Distortion of Russian and Soviet Environmental History in Global Environmental Histories,” International Review of Environmental History 3, no. 2 (2017): 31–50. 13 For example, Jennifer Keating, On Arid Ground: Political Ecologies of Empire in Russian Central Asia (Oxford: University Press, 2022); John B. Seitz, “Imagining Alfalfastan: Plant Exploration, Technopolitics, Colonialism, and the Environment in the American West and Russian Central Asia, 1897–1930,” Agricultural History 95, no. 3 (2021): 444–471; Sean McDaniel, “Equine Empire: Horses and Power on the Kazakh Steppe, 1880s–1920s,” PhD diss., (Michigan State University, 2019); Aibubi Duisebayeva and Ian W. Campbell, “Changes in the Flock: SheepKeeping as a Symbol of the Transformation of the Kazakh Traditional Economy,”

Introduction  21 Central Asian Survey 42, no. 1 (2023): 127–148; Taylor C. Zajicek, “The Seismic Colony: Earthquakes, Empire and Technology in Russian-Ruled Turkestan, 1887– 1911,” Central Asian Survey 41, no. 2 (2022): 322–346; Marc Elie, “Coping with the ‘Black Dragon’: Mudflow Hazards and the Controversy over the Medeo Dam in Kazakhstan, 1958–66,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 14, no. 2 (2013): 313–342; Marc Elie, “Formulating the Global Environment: Soviet Soil Scientists and the International Desertification Discussion, 1968–91,” The Slavonic and East European Review 93, no. 1 (2015): 181–204; Isabelle Ohayon, “Après la sédentarisation. Le pastoralisme intensif et ses conséquences au Kazakhstan soviétique (1960–1980),” Études rurales 200, no. 2 (2017): 130–155. 14 For communism as colonialism: Alexander Garland Park, Bolshevism in Turkestan, 1917–1927 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957); contra: Adeeb Khalid, “Backwardness and the Quest for Civilization: Early Soviet Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Slavic Review 65, no. 2 (2006): 231–251; most recent rejoiner: Botakoz Kassymbekova and Aminat Chokobaeva, “On Writing Soviet History of Central Asia: Frameworks, Challenges, Prospects,” Central Asian Survey 40, no. 4 (2021): 483–503. 15 On other imperial constellations, see e.g. Richard Grove, Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600–1860 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); William Beinart and Lotte Hughes, Environment and Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 16 Paul R. Josephson, Resources under Regimes: Technology, Environment, and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). 17 For example, Kingsley O. Mrabure and Ufuoma V. Awhefeada, “Appraising Grazing Laws in Nigeria. Pastoralists versus Farmers,” African Journal of Legal Studies 12, no. 3–4 (2020): 298–314; Monisha Ahmed, “The Politics of Pashmina: The Changpas of Eastern Ladakh,” Nomadic Peoples 8, no. 2 (2004): 89–106; see also: Thomas Jefferson Barfield, The Nomadic Alternative (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993). 18 Ramachandra Guha, Environmentalism: A Global History (New York: Longman, 2000); Marco Armiero and Lise Sedrez (eds), A History of Environmentalism: Local Struggles, Global Histories (London: Bloomsbury, 2014); Frank Uekotter, The Greenest Nation? A New History of German Environmentalism (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2014); Roderick Frazier Nash, The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989). 19 Philippe Descola, Beyond Culture and Nature, trans. Janet Lloyd. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013); Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 20 For example, the notion of ‘environmenting’ (huanjing) in: Chia-ju Chang, “Environing at the Margins: Huanjing as a Critical Practice,” in Chinese Environmental Humanities: Practices of Environing at the Margins, ed. Chia-ju Chang (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 1–32. 21 Historical excursus in: Neil Evernden, The Social Creation of Nature (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992). 22 The idea of technology adds an extra twist to the amorphous relationship: objects and processes designed by humans, but part of the world of ‘things’, often in anglophone circles assumed to be somehow culture-less. This curious relationship has become central to the field of Material Culture Studies and Science and Technology Studies. 23 Other concepts attempting to recast this binary include ‘assemblage’ in ActorNetwork Theory (Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to ActorNetwork-Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); naturescultures (Latour,

22  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati We Have Never Been Modern) and cyborgs (Donna J. Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (London: Free Association Books, 1991)). 24 Helen Kopnina and Eleanor Shoreman-Ouimet, eds., Routledge International Handbook of Environmental Anthropology (Abingdon/New York: Routledge, 2016), 17. 25 Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment (London: Routledge, 2000). 26 For a historically minded discussion of hidden varieties of anthropocentrism, see David Arnold, The Problem of Nature: Environments, Culture and European Expansion (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996). 27 On ‘speaking for nature’, see Nash, Rights of Nature, 9–11. 28 There is a small industry of studies on the pitfalls of siloed research and attempts at interdisciplinary cross-fertilisation, with surprisingly sophisticated philosophical as well as practical advice on better connecting different epistemic communities, e.g. Miles MacLeod, “What Makes Interdisciplinarity Difficult? Some Consequences of Domain Specificity in Interdisciplinary Practice,” Synthese 195, no. 2 (2018): 697–720. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-016-1236-4 29 G. Hirsch Hadorn, H. Hoffmann-Riem, S. Biber-Klemm, W. Grossenbacher Mansuy, D. Joye, C. Pohl, U. Wiesmann, and E. Zemp, eds., Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research (Heidelberg: Springer, 2008). 30 Neil Pederson et al., “Pluvials, Droughts, the Mongol Empire, and Modern Mongolia,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 12 (2014): 4375–4379. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1318677111. For an example on modern history, see Akira Ueda, “The Demographic and Agricultural Development of the Kokand Oasis during the Russian Imperial Era: Nomad Immigration and Cotton Monoculture,” Central Asian Survey 38, no. 4 (2019): 510–530. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2019.1631754. 31 Michael D. Frachetti et al., “Nomadic Ecology Shaped the Highland Geography of Asia’s Silk Roads,” Nature 543, no. 7644 (2017): 193–198. https://doi. org/10.1038/nature21696. 32 Sebastian Stride, Bernardo Rondelli, and Simone Mantellini, “Canals versus Horses: Political Power in the Oasis of Samarkand,” World Archaeology 41, no. 1 (2009): 73–87; Luca C. Malatesta et al., “Dating the Irrigation System of the Samarkand Oasis: A Geoarchaeological Study,” Radiocarbon 54, no. 1 (2012): 91–105. To enable even higher levels of analysis, a project is currently aiming at georeferencing and collating evidence from tens of thousands of individual archaeological sites. University College London’s Central Asian Archaeological Landscapes, accessed February 10, 2023, https://uclcaal.org/. 33 Michael Frachetti and Norbert Benecke, “From Sheep to (Some) Horses: 4500 Years of Herd Structure at the Pastoralist Settlement of Begash (SouthEastern Kazakhstan),” Antiquity 83, no. 322 (2009): 1023–1037. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0003598X00099324. 34 Henri-Paul Francfort and Olivier Lecomte, “Irrigation et Société En Asie Centrale Des Origines à l’époque Achéménide,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 57, no. 3 (2002): 625–663. https://doi.org/10.3406/ahess.2002.280068; Michael D. Frachetti and Farhod Maksudov, “The Landscape of Ancient Mobile Pastoralism in the Highlands of Southeastern Uzbekistan, 2000 BC–AD 1400,” Journal of Field Archaeology 39, no. 3 (2014): 195–212. 35 Diana Ibañez-Tirado, “‘How Can I Be Post-Soviet If I Was Never Soviet?’ Rethinking Categories of Time and Social Change - a Perspective from Kulob, Southern Tajikistan,” Central Asian Survey 34, no. 2 (2015): 190–203. 36 Edward Schatz, “Notes on the ‘Dog that didn’t Bark’: Eco-internationalism in Late Soviet Kazakstan,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22, no. 1 (1999): 136–161; Erika Weinthal and Pauline Jones Luong, “Environmental NGOs in Kazakhstan: Democratic Goals and Nondemocratic Outcomes,” in The Power and Limits of

Introduction  23 NGOs, eds. Mendelson, Sarah Elizabeth Mendelson and John K. Glenn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 152–176. Magdalena E. Stawkowski, “‘I Am a Radioactive Mutant’: Emergent Biological Subjectivities at Kazakhstan’s Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site,” American Ethnologist 43, no. 1 (2016): 144–157. 37 Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as If People Mattered (London: Blond and Briggs, 1973). 38 For example, William Wheeler, Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region: Sea Changes. (London: UCL Press, 2021) or Matthias Schmidt, “Changing Human–Environment Interrelationships in Kyrgyzstan’s Walnut-Fruit Forests,” Forests, Trees and Livelihoods 21, no. 4 (2012): 253–266. https://doi.org/10.1080/14728028.2012.755811 39 Compare: Anna Lora-Wainwright, “The Inadequate Life: Rural Industrial Pollution and Lay Epidemiology in China,” The China Quarterly 214 (2013): 302–320. 40 For example, in the PRC; survey in: Chunming Li, “Citizen Science on the Chinese Mainland,” in Citizen Science: Innovation in Open Science, Society and Policy, eds. S. Hecker et al. (London: UCL Press, 2018), 185–189; summative reflection: Fa-ti Fan and Shun-Ling Chen, “Citizen, Science, and Citizen Science,” East Asian Science, Technology and Society 13, no. 2 (2019): 181–193. Critical perspective in: Samuel Kay, Bo Zhao, and Daniel Sui, “Can Social Media Clear the Air? A Case Study of the Air Pollution Problem in Chinese Cities,” The Professional Geographer 67, no. 3 (2015): 351–363. 41 For example, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, “Anti-Area Studies,” Communal/Plural: Journal of Transnational & Cross-Cultural Studies 8, no. 1 (2000): 9–23. For a reformulated version of area studies that attends to connectivity in the broader region and globally, as applied to Central Asia, see the Crossroads Asia research programme and Mohira Suyarkulova, “Queering Central Asian Studies,” in The Central Asian World, eds. Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Madeleine Reeves (London: Routledge, forthcoming 2023). 42 Cf. Tomohiko Uyama. “What’s So Central About Central Asia?” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 16, no. 2 (2015): 331–344. 43 W.A. Douglas Jackson, “The Problem of Soviet Agricultural Regionalization,” American Slavic and East European Review 20, no. 4 (1961): 656–678. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S1049754400007458. 44 Adeeb Khalid, Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2022). 45 As in much of the literature on Central Asia, the study of Turkmenistan remains a glaring blank spot in this volume. The severe political limitations on freedom of movement and freedom of speech make research on environmental and social issues in the country extremely scarce. For some valuable exceptions, see Carole Ferret (this volume) or Gaigysyz Joraev, “Politics, Archaeology and Education: Ancient Merv, Turkmenistan,” in Public Participation in Archaeology, eds. S. Thomas and J. Lea (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2014), 119–128. 46 Moon, “The Curious Case”. 47 Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), 94–95; on Dnieprostroi: Anne D. Rassweiler, The Generation of Power: The History of Dneprostroi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). 48 David Moon, The American Steppes: The Unexpected Russian Roots of Great Plains Agriculture, 1870s–1930s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 49 Josephson, Resources under Regimes. 50 This classification is, in turn, based on the Thornthwaite aridity index (the ratio of precipitation on evapotranspiration, or P:PET), which in this region oscillates between 0.05 and 0.5: Nick Middleton and David S. G. Thomas, World Atlas of Desertification (London: Edward Arnold, 1992).

24  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati 51 As every region of the world, Central Asia has also gone through climatic changes in the modern historical period, cf. Dağyeli, this volume. 52 Julia Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams: Cotton Growing and Irrigation in Central Asia, 1860–1991 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017); for the Tsarist period: A.V. Stanishevskii, Golodnaia Step’ 1867–1917: Istoriia Kraia v Dokumentakh (Moskva: Nauka, 1981). 53 The ‘Oxus civilisation’ or Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) is a case in point; see e.g. Barbara Cerasetti et al., “The Rise and Decline of the Desert Cities: The Last Stages of the BMAC at Togolok 1 (Southern Turkmenistan),” in Cultures in Contact: Central Asia as Focus of Trade, Cultural Exchange and Knowledge Transmission, eds. C. Baumer, M. Novák, and S. Rutishauser (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2022), 89–116. On a later period, e.g. Paul D. Wordsworth, “Sustaining Travel: The Economy of Medieval Stopping Places Across the Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan,” in Landscapes of the Islamic World: Archaeology, History, and Ethnography, eds. Paul D. Wordsworth and Stephen McPhillips (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 219–236. 54 For example, Arash Khazeni, “Across the Black Sands and the Red: Travel Writing, Nature, and the Reclamation of the Eurasian Steppe circa 1850,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42, no. 4 (2010): 591–614; Mieka Erley, “‘The Dialectics of Nature in Kara-Kum’: Andrei Platonov’s Dzhan as the Environmental History of a Future Utopia,” Slavic review 73, no. 4 (2014): 727–750; Roman Osharov, “Kara-kum Sweets (Central Asia),” online exhibition Soviet Central Asia in One Hundred Objects, 2022, https://www.cabinet.ox.ac.uk/kara-kum-sweetscentral-asia, January 20, 2023. 55 Keating, On Arid Ground; compare: Turksib, dir. by Viktor Turin (Vostokkino, 1929). 56 Spasite pustyniu [Save the desert], dir. by Sapar Mollanyazov (Turkmenfilm, 1988). 57 Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams. 58 L.N. Sobolev, Geograficheskie i statisticheskie zavedeniia o Zeravshanskom okruge (SPb: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi Akademii Nauk, 1874), 24–25. 59 For overviews and case-studies of mountain livelihoods, see Stefanie Christmann and Aden A. Aw-Hassan, “A Participatory Method to Enhance the Collective Ability to Adapt to Rapid Glacier Loss: The Case of Mountain Communities in Tajikistan,” Climatic Change 133, no. 2 (2015): 267–282; Amantour J. Japarov, “Contemporary Livestock Husbandry in Kyrgyzstan,” Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia 56, no. 1–2 (2017): 52–78. https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2 017.1360676; Hermann Kreutzmann and Teiji Watanabe, Mapping Transition in the Pamirs: Changing Human-Environmental Landscapes (Cham: Springer, 2016); Bernd Steimann, Making a Living in Uncertainty: Agro-Pastoral Livelihoods and Institutional Transformations in Post-Socialist Rural Kyrgyzstan (Zürich: Universität Zürich, 2011); Carol Kerven, Bernd Steimann, Chad Dear, and Laurie Ashley, “Researching the Future of Pastoralism in Central Asia’s Mountains: Examining Development Orthodoxies,” Mountain Research and Development 32, no. 3 (2012): 368–377. For a rare history-cum-ethnography that discusses the concept of ‘too’ (Kg: ‘mountain’) as pasture, see Svetlana Jacquesson, Pastoréalismes: anthropologie historique des processus d’intégration chez les Kirghiz du Tian Shan intérieur (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2010). 60 See Ulfatbek Abdurasulov, “The Aral Region and Geopolitical Agenda of the Early Qongrats,” Eurasian Studies 14, no. 1–2 (2016): 3–36. In this book, we engage with five of the major languages of Central Asia: Qazaq, Russian, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Tajik. Unfortunately we have not been able to cover other important language groups such as Turkmen, Karakalpak or Uighur. 61 Jacquesson, Pastoréalismes.

Introduction  25 62 Sobolev, Geograficheskie i statisticheskie zavedeniia; V.V. Bartol’d, “K istorii orosheniia Turkestana,” in: Idem, Sochineniia, t. III (Moskva: Nauka, 1965), 97–236 [originally published in 1914]. 63 For example, Ia.G. Guliamov, Istoriia orosheniia Khorezma s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (Tashkent: Izd-vo Akademii nauk Uzbekskoi SSR, 1957). 64 For instance on flowers: O.A. Sukhareva, “Prazdnestva tsvetov u ravninnykh tadzhikov (konets XIX-nachalo XX v.),” in Drevnie obriady verovaniia i kul’ty narodov Srednei Azii (Moskva: Nauka, 1986), 31–46; or fish: Iu.V. Knozorov, “Mazar Shamun-Nabi,” Sovetskaia Etnografiia, no. 2 (1949): 86–95, here 93. See also: R.Ia. Rassudova, “Kul’tovye ob”ekty Fergany kak istochnik po istorii oroshaemogo zemledeliia,” Sovetskaia Etnografiia, no. 4 (1985): 96–103. Compare: Adhamjon Ashirov, O‘zbek madaniyatida suv (Toshkent: Akademnashr, 2020). 65 Vincent Fourniau, “L’irrigation et l’espace özbek”; Jonathan Michael Thurman, “Modes of Organization”; Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams; Maya K. Peterson, Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia’s Aral Sea Basin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); Tetsuro Chida, “Science, Development and Modernization in the Brezhnev Time: The Water Development in the Lake Balkhash Basin,” Cahiers du Monde Russe 54, nos. 1–2 (2013): 239–264; Christian Teichmann, Macht der Unordnung: Stalins Herrschaft in Zentralasien 1920–1950 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition HIS, 2016). 66 See the approach to the Great Qazaq Famine in: Sarah I. Cameron, The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018); Keating, On Arid Ground. See also relevant elements in David Moon, The Plough That Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700–1914 (Oxford: OUP, 2013). 67 Beatrice Penati, “Managing Rural Landscapes in Colonial Turkestan: A View from the Margins,” in Explorations into the Social History of Modern Central Asia, ed. Paolo Sartori (Boston-Leiden: Brill, 2013), 65–109. 68 Aibek Samakov, “Livelihoods and Social-Environmental Change in the Syr Darya Delta: Adaptive Strategies and Practices,” PhD diss., (University of Tübingen, forthcoming); N. Thevs, A. Buras, S. Zerbe, E. Kuhnel, N. Abdusalih, and A. Ovezberdiyeva, “Structure and Wood Biomass of Near-Natural Floodplain Forests along the Central Asian Rivers Tarim and Amu Darya,” Forestry 85, no. 2 (2012): 193–202. https://doi.org/10.1093/forestry/cpr056. 69 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: University Press, 1990). 70 Beatrice Penati, “Swamps, Sorghum and Saxauls: Marginal Lands and the Fate of Russian Turkestan (c. 1880–1915),” Central Asian Survey 29, no. 1 (2010): 61–78. On nuts, see e.g. B.I. Iskanderov, O nekotorykh izmeneniiakh v ekonomike vostochnoi Bukhary na rubezhe XIX–XX vv. (Stalinabad: Iz-vo AN Tadzhikskoi SSR, 1958), 43–44. 71 Kamil’ S. Ashimov, Lesnoe Delo Turkestanskogo Kraia (Istoriia orekhovo-plodovykh lesov) (Zhalal-Abad: Kyrgyzsko-shveitsarskaia programma podderzhki lesnogo dela, 2004); Jake Fleming, “Building Plant Bodies: People, Trees, and Grafting in the Walnut-Fruit Forests of Kyrgyzstan,” PhD diss., (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2017.) 72 This classification of course remains very schematic. It has been included here for the benefit of readers less familiar with Central Asia. 73 On the ambiguous impact of the Mongol era, see e.g.: Michal Biran, “Culture and Cross-Cultural Contacts in the Chaghadaid Realm: 1220–1370: Some Preliminary Notes,” Chronica (Szeged) 7–8 (2007): 26–43. 74 David Christian, “Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History,” Journal of World History 11, no. 1 (2000): 1–26; Khodadad Rezakhani, “The

26  Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Beatrice Penati Road That Never Was: The Silk Road and Trans-Eurasian Exchange,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 30, no. 3 (2010): 420–433. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-2010-025. 75 See Jeff Sahadeo, Russian Colonial Society in Tashkent, 1865–1923 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007). 76 Michaela Pohl, “From White Grave to Tselinograd to Astana: The Virgin Lands Opening, Khrushchev’s Forgotten First Reform,” in The Thaw, eds. D. Kozlov and E. Gilburd (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), 269–307. 77 See Wladirmir Sgibnev and Rano Turaeva (eds), Mining Cities in Central Asia and the South Caucasus: Survival Strategies under Conditions of Extreme Peripheralization (Leipzig: Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde e.V., 2023); Kate Brown, “Gridded lives: Why Kazakhstan and Montana Are Nearly the Same Place,” The American Historical Review 106, no. 1 (2001): 17–48; E. Nasritdinov, M. Ablezova, J. Abarikova, and A.Abdoubaetova, “Environmental Migration: Case of Kyrgyzstan,” in Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability, eds. Tamer Afifi and J. Jäger (Springer: Berlin/Heidelberg, 2010). https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-642-12416-7_18. 78 For example, Paul Stronsky, Tashkent: Forging a Soviet City, 1930–1966 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010); Adrien Fauve and Cécile Gintrac, “Production de l’espace urbain et mise en scène du pouvoir dans deux capitales ‘présidentielles’ d’Asie Centrale,” L’Espace Politique 8 (2009). https://doi. org/10.4000/espacepolitique.1376; on restoration: Elena Paskaleva, “Ideology in Brick and Tile: Timurid Architecture of the 21st Century,” Central Asian Survey 34, no. 4 (2015): 418–439. 79 Examples of work on urban ecological questions include Gulzat Baialieva, “The Afterlife of Industrialization: Flows and Transformations in Kyrgyzstan,” PhD thesis, University of Tübingen, 2023; on municipal waste dumps see Aikokul Arzieva, “Tensions, Disorientation, and Search for Moral Grounds: Development Driven Order and Conflicting Value Systems in Kyrgyzstan,” PhD thesis, Geneva Graduate Institute, 2022, chapter 1. 80 Juan Martínez Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005). 81 Philip L. Fradkin, The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Patricia Bellis Bixel and Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Galveston and the 1900 Storm: Catastrophe and Catalyst (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000). 82 For example, María Puig de la Bellacasa, Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2017); Marisol de la Cadena, “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections beyond ‘Politics,’” Cultural Anthropology 25, no. 2 (2010): 334–370. 83 Isabelle Stengers, “The cosmopolitical proposal,” in Making Things Public: Atmospheres for Democracy, eds. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), 994–1003; Annemarie Mol, The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). 84 Meera Subramanian, “Anthropocene Now: Influential Panel Votes to Recognize Earth’s New Epoch,” Nature News, October 21, 2019, accessed April 06, 2023. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01641-5; Will Steffen, Paul Crutzen, and John McNeill, “The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?” AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 36, no. 8 (2007): 614–621. 85 Heather Davis and Zoe Todd, “On the Importance of a Date, or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene,” ACME 16, no. 4 (2017): 761–780; Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg, “The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene Narrative,”

Introduction  27 The Anthropocene Review 1, no. 1 (2014): 62–69; Jason W. Moore, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism (Oakland: PM Press, 2016). 86 See e.g. Keating, On Arid Ground, 32–44. 87 While the field of Environmental Humanities and the case-studies on Central Asia presented here invoke foundational questions on the nature of power and agency, it is not a primary goal of the book to develop a new analysis of these concepts. 88 Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500– 1800 (London: Allen Lane, 1983). 89 Marilyn Strathern, Relations: An Anthropological Account (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020). 90 The notion of a relationship can encompass forms of exchange, which economic anthropologists often gloss as different forms of reciprocity: negative (as in ­stealing), balanced (as in acceptable trade) or generalized. See Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press: 1972). 91 For a contrasting approach, see Chang, “Environing at the Margins”. 92 For example, Matthew P. Romaniello, “Could Siberian ‘Natural Curiosities’ Be Replaced? Bioprospecting in the Eighteenth-Century,” Early Science and Medicine 27, no. 3 (2022): 257–277. 93 William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill & Wang, 1983; 20th anniversary edition, 2003); Tania Li, The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007). 94 Alberto Acosta, “Degrowth in Movements: Buen Vivir,” Resilience, March 24, 2017, accessed April 06, 2023. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-03-24/ degrowth-in-movements-buen-vivir/

Part I

Extractivism

1 There used to be water Soviet water policies, archaeologists, and ethnographers in Central Asia Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke ‘Khorezm is a country that derives all its benefits from the Djeikhun’ [i.e. Amu-Darya] (al-Istakhri, tenth-century geographer)

Archaeology in the Soviet Union enjoyed a cozy relationship with the powersthat-be, its funding for rescue archaeology being legally enshrined as a defined share of the budget of all major development projects.1 Ultimately, this led to something which can only be described as complicity of Soviet a­ rchaeology in environmentally destructive development projects of the USSR. The Khorezmian Expedition in Central Asia provides one of the best examples of this link.2 While there have been in recent years a number of publications dealing with Tsarist and Soviet water projects and engineering in Central Asia,3 this particular aspect has not so far been the focus of published research even though the enthusiastic (but later increasingly wary) work of archaeologists, historians, ethnographers, and their associated scientists contributed, directly and indirectly, to the disastrous consequences of Soviet water policies in the region. Much of the information used in this paper is derived from Soviet archives which were accessible from the Perestroika years until the early years of the twenty-first century, but have since become practically inaccessible again.4 Tsarist Russia attached great importance to the study of the geography and history of Turkestan, especially its water resources and the development of its irrigation systems, seeing these as essential for the economic prosperity of the region (especially the development of cotton-growing). The Russian imperial authorities designed their water policy on the basis of the study, use, restoration, and development of old irrigation systems built by the ‘natives’ using ­traditional building techniques and technology.5 The customary law regulating water use in Turkestan since the Middle Ages was also upheld, ­demonstrating the concept of the combination of ‘old traditions and new power’.6 Great ­attention was paid to the Amu-Darya and its supposed ancient drainage channel, the Uzboi.7 The idea of an artificial redirection of rivers (‘river-turning’) was formulated and given a firm place in the projects of this time. Thus, projects were set up for directing the waters of the Amu-Darya DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-3

32  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke through the Uzboi to the Caspian Sea, providing a direct connection from Russia to Afghanistan and beyond.8 Another project of this kind was the suggestion by Ia. Demchenko, a graduate of Kiev University, of redirecting part of the Ob and Irtysh drainage into the Aral Sea basin.9 The formulation of irrigation projects already benefitted from historical and ethnographic information compiled by the orientalist V.V. Bartol’d and Duke V.I. Masal’skii, although the projects themselves were overtaken by the Bolshevik Revolution.10 The Bolsheviks who came to power in 1917 and subsequently the Soviet government paid much attention to questions of irrigation and to the ­construction of canals in Turkestan and the Soviet republics of Central Asia, respectively, after their new boundaries had been drawn.11 As early as 1918, in the most complicated internal political situation and with Civil War raging, the Council of People’s Commissars, on the initiative of Lenin, issued a decree (№ 494) entitled ‘On the allocation of 50 million rubles for irrigation in Turkestan and the organization of these works’.12 This extreme haste is explained by the political situation whereby Russia was facing the real threat of losing all territories that played a role as suppliers of raw materials and as markets for Russian industrial products. In Soviet historiography, the official explanation was: V.I. Lenin dreamed of the full irrigation of the arid lands of Kazakhstan, Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Volga region, and he considered the struggle against drought by irrigation a primary task of the Party and the Soviet state.13 Continuity in the water policies of the Tsarist government was provided by many specialists – hydrologists, geographers, irrigation experts, engineers, topographers, builders – who worked in Turkestan before the Revolution and continued their activities under the Bolshevik and Soviet governments.14 Thus, the new government inherited or resumed most of the major ­pre-revolutionary projects relating to canals and irrigation systems. As in Tsarist Russia, the main idea behind the projects was irrigation of land for the cultivation of cotton and other important crops. Major differences compared with pre-revolutionary construction were the scale, the application of new technologies, and the use of huge human resources. The Soviet authorities also contemplated p ­ rojects which had been rejected by the Tsarist government, such as the plans to move and redirect rivers.15 And while the Russian Imperial authorities had used ­traditional indigenous technologies in the construction of irrigation networks and canals, and in matters of water use applied customary native law, the Soviet government, following the new ideology, destroyed traditions and put in their place the idea of a ‘bright communist future’ where all will be equal and happy. Archaeologists and ethnographers were engaged in research in Russian Turkestan before the Revolution, but it was only after the Revolution that they became interested in the history of irrigation in Central Asia since ancient times, foremost among them Bartol’d.16 Probably, the first to undertake research into irrigation systems using archaeological evidence was Dmitrii Dem’yanovich

There used to be water  33 Bukinich, a versatile scientist, irrigation specialist, botanist, archaeologist, and ethnographer.17 According to documentary information, there was a personal meeting in the course of which Bukinich warned Lenin against ambitious land improvement projects because these could lead to irreversible salination and waterlogging of soils.18 Bukinich supported Bartol’d’s call for the involvement of archaeologists in scientific irrigation research, but his plans did not come to fruition. In the late 1930s, a new wave of Stalinist repression began in which many scholars and scientists were caught up. Subject to persecution, unable to bear the prospect of imminent arrest, Bukinich committed suicide in 1939.19 And all his dire predictions of environmental consequences became reality. Beginnings and context of the Khorezmian Expedition From 1937, the Aral Sea region became the area of operations of the newly founded Khorezmian Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition, the largest expedition of the Soviet Union in terms of area covered and in terms of active members. It was also unique in its duration (more than 60 years): it ceased to exist only with the collapse of the USSR.20 The scale of state support for this expedition was unprecedented, as was the level of cooperation by archaeologists and ethnographers with builders and irrigation specialists in the region. One of the most significant achievements of this expedition was the discovery and exploration of the earliest irrigation systems of the Aral Sea region. The Khorezmian Expedition was not the only archaeological expedition that began its work in Middle and Central Asia at this time.21 This was not a coincidence: by the mid-1930s, Central Asia was largely pacified, and the process of demarcation of the new national republics had been concluded; added to this was the large scale of ‘socialist construction’, i.e. industrialisation and collectivisation, characteristic of Soviet policy in Central Asia and elsewhere. All these new projects required rescue archaeology on a commensurate scale, as was enshrined in Soviet law since 1934.22 Thus, the interests of scholarship and the plans of Soviet power in Central Asia coincided to a certain extent and for a time. The work of the Khorezmian Expedition began with a visit of Aleksei I. Terenozhkin, an archaeologist of the Institute of the History of Material Culture (Academy of Sciences of the USSR), to the Shabbaz and Turtkul regions of the Karakalpak ASSR in 1937.23 In the first season, he examined the sites of the Berkut-Kala oasis, one of the subsequently most famous Khorezmian oases where dozens of early medieval manors were found along the ­irrigation canals. It was the beginning of numerous discoveries of ­monuments of ancient, pre-Arab Khorezm.24 The director of the Khorezmian Expedition, and its founder and charismatic leader, was Sergei Pavlovich Tolstov, an ­ethnographer, ­archaeologist, orientalist, and outstanding organiser.25 Being a product of the Soviet system in every way, he saw archaeology not just as a source of knowledge about the past, but also wanted to apply this knowledge to the contemporary needs of the national economy. That is why he came up

34  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke with the idea of reclaiming ‘lands of ancient irrigation’ on the alluvial plains of the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya deltas.26 This desire – to put ‘the experience accumulated over millennia’ in the service of the Soviet motherland – and the many years of archaeological work subsequently spent on rescue archaeology for water-related building projects explain how the study of ancient irrigation systems and the remains of ancient canals became one of the main directions of the Expedition’s work (Figure 1.1).27 There were a number of key figures who were instrumental in the development of its innovative multi-disciplinary methodology for the identification and interpretation of traces of ancient irrigation. One of them was Yakh’ya G. Guliamov, who was a personal friend of Tolstov and was to become the first professional Uzbek archaeologist. On the basis of archaeological data obtained from the 1930s to 1950, Guliamov published in 1957 his book on the ‘History of Irrigation of Khorezm from Ancient Times to the Present Day’, the first extensive work on the history of irrigation in Central Asia.28 In it, he reconstructed the development of the irrigation of ancient Khorezm by studying the locations of ancient agricultural settlements in the Amu-Darya delta.29 On the science side, there were in particular the palaeogeographer Alexandra S. Kes’ and the geographer Boris V. Andrianov, who were involved in the design of an innovative approach: distribution maps of archaeological sites were superimposed onto geomorphological maps, providing a basis for the inference of irrigation systems at a given time.30 From 1950 onwards, Kes’ cooperated closely with the Khorezmian Expedition, exploring the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya deltas (Figure 1.2). Her work confirmed earlier

Figure 1.1 Sergei Tolstov with an expedition lorry in the dry riverbed of the Uzboi (1950, photograph D. Durdyev, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition Doc08167). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

There used to be water  35

Figure 1.2 Members of the Khorezmian Expedition with two pilots preparing aerial reconnaissance and photography in the Zhana-Daria region (1958; from left to right: pilot, Boris Andrianov, Sergei Tolstov, pilot, Chinese PhD student Chzhu-Chzhen, Aleksandra Kes’; archive of the Khorezmian Expedition Doc15849). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

conclusions by Tolstov and Guliamov who had suggested that the expansion of the large irrigation system of ancient Khorezm had lowered the level of the Amu-Darya, creating excessive water loss in the technically primitive irrigation structures, and leading to the silting-up of river channels such as the Daudan.31 B.V. Andrianov (1919–1993) worked from 1952 for many years on the Expedition and headed an archaeological topography unit.32 The latter was mainly engaged in the study of ‘lands of ancient irrigation’ which covered 5  million hectares stretching from the Sarykamysh Lake and the Ustyurt Plateau to the middle Syr-Darya. Andrianov developed a technique for interpreting aerial photographs of desert landscapes and for identifying signs of various types of irrigation systems and structures visible in them. A key element was the assumption that river channels and canals could be dated by the archaeological monuments located next to them; at the time, unfortunately, no radiocarbon dating was done on canals or monuments. The correlation of aerial survey data with evidence obtained during ground-based linear surveys led to his reconstruction of irrigation systems and anthropogenic landscapes of the southeastern Aral Sea region in various periods from the Bronze Age to the Late Middle Ages (Figure 1.3). The publication of Andrianov’s work in the late 1960s coincided with the last years of Khrushchev’s ‘thaw’ in the political and intellectual life of the Soviet Union. At that moment, it was possible for Andrianov to dedicate the book to the memory of the politically repressed Dmitrii D. Bukinich. But there were still the mandatory ideological messages in introduction and conclusions,

36  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke

Figure 1.3 Aerial photograph from 1960 showing the classical and medieval irrigation system of the Zhany-Darya region in the Syr-Darya delta (archive of the Khorezmian Expedition Doc29-30 I 60). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

and the general message was the same as formulated by Bartol’d and elevated by Tolstov: ‘Centuries-old experience of ancient irrigation in the selection of optimal channel directions should be used in the modern practice of irrigation construction’.33 The map of the ancient irrigation systems of Khorezm, designed by Tolstov and his Expedition, was indeed used by local irrigators in the development of new areas of irrigation: often, instead of digging new canals, they cleared out the ancient ones for re-use.34 The ‘Great Constructions of Communism’ At the beginning of the Bolshevik period, the main work of the staff of the Irrigation Authority in Turkestan was to maintain the working condition of, and to repair, the entire existing system of irrigation. A new stage of land reclamation began in 1923 when the government of the USSR allocated ­multimillion sums for design and practical work to the Central Asian Vodkhoz (State Committee for Water Management).35 This work was linked to the plan adopted by the GOELRO (State Plan for the Electrification of Russia) in 1921 when large-scale construction of canals, hydroelectric power stations, ­reservoirs, and other water management and usage elements began.36 The ‘Great Constructions of Communism’, as they were often called in the Soviet mass media, were unprecedented in history. They shared all the basic mistakes made in the construction of canals and irrigation systems in Central Asia: ­grandiose and often hasty plans; the promise of freedom, equality, and full ownership of land and water for dekhkans (free farmers on their own land) who had actually been forced into collective farms and agricultural cooperatives; and the renewed enforcement of canal-digging labour from these same

There used to be water  37

Figure 1.4 Construction of the Kyrkyz Canal in progress (1946, photographer G. A. Argiropulo, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

­ ekhkans, with the explanation such labour served the cause of a communist d future – and many of them did comply, with enthusiasm verging on fanaticism (Figure 1.4).37 The true picture of life, however, was not as joyful as many newspaper and magazine articles described. It was never mentioned in Soviet historiography that the so-called ‘construction workers’ army’ used in the construction of canals in Central Asia included a significant proportion of prisoners. Local residents, too, worked on the construction sites, in conditions which differed little from that of prisoners and made them slaves in all but name.38 A report from the camp of section No. 5 contains an illuminating letter in Uzbek: ‘To anyone in Nukus, I’m from the Farab District, Khaldek-oba, Kirov kolkhoz, Atan Faretov, I have a sick mother and wife left [at home]. Mother cries. Give her [my] greetings’. It is significant for the circumstances of the writer and his letter that this did not reach the intended recipient: it was intercepted in the process of smuggling it out of the camp, and was found in the archives of the NKVD.39 It is also fair to note that initiative ‘from below’ was welcomed, though: collective farmworkers, without waiting for the project to reach them, ­ themselves dug canal networks and laid new collective farm fields, often ­ ­completely disregarding the hydrology of the district and ignoring the experiences of earlier times, remote or not. For example, Guliamov writes: ‘… the collective farmers of the Turtkul region recaptured part of the “ancient irrigated lands” from the sands, having advanced several kilometers into the interior of the Kyzylkum [desert] and expanded the boundaries of the modern oasis’.40 But while describing a dramatic breakthrough (a so-called degish) in the A ­ mu-Darya riverbed in the 1940s, he reported that it was exactly

38  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke these collective farm fields which had been washed away by the river d ­ uring the devastating floods.41 Uncontrolled digging of unplanned canals in the course of ‘socialist competitions’ led to a number of dam breaks and water breakthroughs.42 The Main Turkmen Canal Disregarding these dangers and precedents, Turkestan was one of the eight main economic regions of Russia where huge construction projects were launched, and it was here that the Khorezmian Expedition led by Tolstov became involved in two gigantic projects: the Main Turkmen Canal (MTC) and the ‘Reversal of Siberian Rivers’. Work on and along the MTC became the context of a strikingly close interaction of archaeologists, ethnographers, geographers, cartographers, hydrologists, geomorphologists, and soil ­scientists – a collaboration which ­provided the data for recommendations regarding the development of currently abandoned areas which showed evidence of ancient irrigation. On 12 September 1950, the Soviet newspapers published the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR which initiated the construction of the MTC over the length of 1,100 km from Takhiatash, along the AmuDarya, bypassing the Sarykamysh Basin, through the Karakum desert along the ancient bed of the Uzboi, and to the arid stretches of the Caspian plain in western Turkmenistan.43 It was also planned to build large branch canals for irrigation and pipelines for water supply to industrial enterprises and populated areas. The project used many of the data and the main elements of Glukhovskii’s project44 proposed at the end of the nineteenth century when it had been sharply criticised and rejected by the Russian government.45 Extensive propaganda for the canal project was launched in the Soviet media, declaring the construction of the canal to be the realisation of a centuries-old dream of the Turkmen people (Figure 1.5). From 1950 to 1953, there was not a single newspaper in the USSR which did not publish enthusiastic reports on the construction of the MTC.46 It became the subject of articles, films, and popular science literature, primarily addressed to young people. Three basic motifs underpinned numerous publications (scientific, literary, and journalistic): first, the notion that most of the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya water was completely wasted, as it discharged uselessly into the Aral Sea without bringing any benefit to the land thirsting for water; the Aral Sea itself was considered too big, uselessly absorbing and evaporating invaluable water. Second, the Aral Sea would bring more benefits as a source of water for irrigation than as a source of natural resources which were already known and available elsewhere. Third, only the Soviet people under the leadership of the Communist Party and of Comrade Stalin himself were able to transform nature at their own will and make it serve the communist future.47 As early as the 1950s, a scientific discussion came to the conclusion that the diversion of around 25% of the water from the Amu-Darya into the MTC would inevitably cause a drop in the level of the Aral Sea, but by no more

There used to be water  39

Figure 1.5 Workers of the Khorezmian Expedition on the site of Toprak Kala ­receiving political information by Rada Musalova on the Main Turkmen Channel (1950, photograph G.A. Argiropulo, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

than 6–7 metres over some 200–300 years.48 Irrespective of such ­legitimising ­calculations, it is known that the construction of the MTC was initiated by Stalin himself who had a predilection for large-scale costly projects which ­official propaganda called the ‘Stalin constructions of communism’.49 Preparatory work for the canal took more than two years; in September 1950, the Sredazgidrostroi Administration (SAGS) was instructed to carry out the construction.50 The Ministry of Internal Affairs also became involved because prisoners were planned to be the main workforce for building work on the canal and all ancillary structures. The engineer S.K. Kalizhniuk was appointed the head of the construction department; he also held the rank of Major in the State Security and was the Director of the Karakum Forced Labour Camp in order to provide the workforce.51 A huge amount of money – about 22 million roubles – was spent for preparatory work and construction of facilities for the MTC in 1951 alone.52 The Khorezmian Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition completed the generously funded rescue archaeology along the proposed canal route and in flood zones, before and during construction (Figure 1.6). Immediately after the publication of the resolution of the Council of Ministers on the ­construction of the canal, Tolstov himself wrote that it was decided to carry out ­extensive archaeological ground reconnaissance. On 9 October 1950, the Expedition left Nukus on three lorries, and from Kunya-Urgench it went straight south, to the extreme western edge of the ‘ancient lands of irrigation’ which had been surveyed in ­previous years only from the air.53

40  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke

Figure 1.6 Convoy of lorries of the Khorezmian Expedition during archaeological work on the route of the Main Turkmen Canal – note the skeleton of a camel on the side of the track (1950, photograph M.A. Orlov, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition Doc08053). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

Archaeologists were expected to describe and, if possible, explore archaeological sites discovered in the areas to be affected by construction and flooding. In areas with known or reported monuments, soil movements were allowed only after inspection. However, according to the participants in the Expedition, attitudes to dealing with archaeological monuments during building work varied considerably along the route of the canal, and there were reports about medieval ruins being ripped apart for their fired bricks.54 Because of its association with the extensively publicised canal construction, the name of Tolstov and the work of the Khorezmian Expedition became widely known, even famous, and were mentioned in many newspaper reports and magazine articles about the canal. Popular science documentaries were filmed about Tolstov’s expedition and about the participation of archaeologists in the study of the history of irrigation in the Aral Sea region.55 And even an editorial in the scholarly journal Sovetskaia Etnografiia gushed: ‘The world knows our successes in the construction of the Volga-Don Shipping Canal named after V.I. Lenin, the Main Turkmen Canal and other hydraulic and irrigation facilities that our people have lovingly called “great construction sites of communism”’.56 This phase was the high point of Tolstov’s career, and it marked the peak of his fame. In 1949, he had been awarded the Stalin Prize for his book Ancient Khorezm. Most likely, Stalin himself had read it, judging by the fact that the submission for the prize carries Stalin’s personal annotation to award a first rank instead of second rank as was initially considered.57 While there is no evidence that Tolstov had direct personal contacts with Stalin, it is known that the dictator urged Kalizhniuk, chief engineer on the Great Turkmen Canal,

There used to be water  41 to read the book.58 And if, indeed, Stalin read it himself, perhaps it influenced his decision to order the canal to be built along the northern route: through Karakalpakia, along the dry bed of the Uzboi. Stalin’s preferred route for the MTC led to more work by the Khorezmian Expedition in the area. The first work of the Expedition here had taken place as early as 1939; systematic interdisciplinary study of the formation of the ancient channels of the Amu-Darya and the Syr-Darya and on the date of the Uzboi, in particular, began in 1950–1952.59 The evidence collected by the Expedition in the first few years and in the 1950s (see below) made it possible to reconstruct the main features of the historical use of the Uzboi by humans since the Neolithic, and to infer the main reason for the Uzboi falling dry: the grandiose irrigation network of ancient Khorezm which had been built with the help of ‘a huge number of slaves’.60 Tolstov declared with his innate pathos: Neither Genghis Khan nor anyone else in antiquity and in the Middle Ages could turn the waters of the Amu-Darya into the Caspian. This turned out to be beyond the power of Peter I. and the authors of projects of the 19th–early 20th century. Only a new historical epoch – the era of building the material and technical base of communism, the era of the Stalinist plan for the transformation of nature made it possible to realize the thousand-year old dream of the peoples of the great Central Asian desert.61 With the death of Stalin in 1953, work on the construction of the MTC was stopped. Huge funds and the labour of 12,000 bonded people had been spent in vain. But in the eyes of officialdom and propaganda of the time, the Khorezmian Expedition had done a great job. The project of the ‘Reversal of Siberian Rivers’ The other famous ‘project of the century’ which the Khorezmian Expedition became involved in was the ‘reversal’ (or rather, redirection) of part of the runoff of Siberian rivers towards the south into the Aral Sea.62 As early as the beginning of the 1960s, the outline and scale of the impending ­catastrophe – the ‘Aral Crisis’ – became obvious. Huge quantities of water were taken from the Syr-Darya and the Amu-Darya for irrigation; the Aral Sea dried out, and northeastern winds carried salty dust onto the newly irrigated lands of Khorezm. This, however, was not publicly discussed and not mentioned in the press. On the official geographical maps of the region issued until the 1990s, the outline of the Aral Sea was shown with unchanged extent, as were the two large rivers flowing into it – but by that time the sea had lost more than half of its water, and the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya practically did not reach it any more. The Karakalpak writer Orozbai Abdirakhmanov wrote in 1988: ‘... on the maps, the huge rivers – Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya – resemble two thick braids of Karakalpak beauties.... The current state of affairs resembles girls

42  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke who long ago cut off their braids’.63 The alarm was sounded by scholars and scientists who were directly involved in the study of the Aral Sea area, among them Tolstov. In the last years of his scholarly work and expedition activity,64 he compiled a series of notes for the government and publicly delivered scholarly papers on the rational use of water resources and of ‘lands of ancient irrigation’. As Dzhabbarov put it, ‘Unfortunately, in the conditions of stagnation and the method of government by administrative pressure, his words remained a voice calling in the desert’.65 The redirection of part of the runoff of the Siberian rivers to Central Asia seemed to many to be the ideal solution to the problem.66 When finally the programme of redirecting Siberian water to Central Asia was adopted, Tolstov believed that this plan could no longer work. ‘It’s too late, too late’, he repeated, intuitively realising that ‘the train has already left’ and the desiccation process had become irreversible.67 In 1966, the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a programme for the development of land reclamation throughout the USSR. It was to be carried out by the Ministry of Land Reclamation and Water Management (Minvodkhoz) which had been newly created for this purpose in 1965; later, this ministry was blamed by many for the catastrophic development of the Aral Sea situation.68 Eventually, on 24 July 1970, there came a joint decision by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR ‘On the plans for the development of land reclamation, regulation, and redistribution of river flow in 1971–1985’. The whole programme consisted of two parts: the reversal of the northern rivers of the European part of the USSR to the south in order to raise the level of the Caspian Sea (which was falling in those years); and the redirection of water of the river Ob from western Siberia to the southwest to provide water for cotton cultivation in Uzbekistan (Figure 1.7). Since it was a state project, many well-known scientists became involved, for example, the above-mentioned Alexandra Semenovna Kes’, who took part in the forecast of changes in the natural conditions of Central Asia.69 The author of the feasibility study for redirecting part of the waters of Siberian rivers, as well as the chief engineer of the project, was another well-known scientist: irrigation engineer I.A. Gerardi, an authority recognised in the Soviet Union and abroad.70 Gerardi really believed in the success of this project, and in a series of lectures at the Institute of Deserts in Ashgabat in 1975, he very convincingly argued in favour of its necessity and rationality. His reply to the final question from the audience was: ‘Are there [not] two rivers in Central Asia? Are there [not] lands irrigated from them? Do they [not] give life to millions of people? There will be a third river that will give life to new generations!’71 More than 160 organisations worked on the project for some 20 years. In its context, the key mission of the Khorezmian Expedition was the recording of archaeological sites and monuments on the planned route of the canal.72 Mapping and study of archaeological monuments in the vast region of the southern and eastern Aral Sea region resulted, among others, in an archaeological-geomorphological map of the lower Syr-Darya and the Amu-Darya (scale 1:300,000), compiled in 1971–1973 in cooperation with the Institute

There used to be water  43

Figure 1.7 Plan of part of the project for the Reversal of Siberian Rivers, with the districts to be irrigated by 1990–2000 (unpublished, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

44  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke

Figure 1.8 Archaeological-geomorphological map of the Aral Sea region by Aleksandra Kes’, Boris Andrianov, and Mariana Itina (Andrianov, Itina, Kes’, 1974). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

of Geography of the Academy of Sciences. It showed the geomorphological data (including numerous dry channels) as well as all known archaeological sites and monuments: ancient towns, ruins of settlements, and networks of irrigation systems (Figure 1.8). Its quality and innovative methodology was such that it was awarded a prize at the National Achievement Exhibition (VDNKh) in 1977.73 Tolstov had intended the map to help the needs of agriculture and livestock in the area of the future channel.74 At this time, it was already quite obvious that the lowering of the water level and the bogging of the Aral Sea, as well as the salination of soils, were due to the excessive and uncontrolled expansion of irrigated land. In spite of this growing evidence, the work of the Expedition was still aimed at identifying new irrigation opportunities between the lower Syr-Darya and Amu-Darya and making recommendations to relevant organisations for the development of these lands: Comprehensive archaeological, geomorphological and soil research … makes it possible to conclude that different parts of the territory under study are unequal in terms of prospects for economic use [emphasis in original] … However, the soils of these plains are saline to varying degrees, and after special studies the issue of a complex of meliorating measures for the prevention of salination must be resolved... During our investigations in the remote parts of the sandy massif of the eastern Aral Sea region, plots with the lay-out of fields and the remnants of small irrigation canals of the 18th and early 19th centuries testified to the fact that irrigated agriculture was developed here in the past, and that in the

There used to be water  45 future it is possible to develop not only open spaces of plains along the Zhana-Darya and Kuvan-Darya, but also individual areas in the depths of the sands.75 Their recommendations were based on valuable interdisciplinary research, but again accompanied by the unavoidable political hyperbole: ‘… the laws of the development of a new, communist society create scientifically based plans for the economic development and transformation of vast desert territories ­prepared by millennia of labour of former inhabitants’.76 Work on the project was stopped in August 1986 by a joint decision of the USSR Council of Ministers and the CPSU Central Committee. This decision referred openly to the protests of ‘the general public’ (it was the beginning of Glasnost) and to the need to study the environmental and economic aspects of this project.77 Almost simultaneously with the work of redirecting Siberian rivers in order to save the Aral Sea and top up the two big rivers, the construction of new hydrological installations and reservoirs continued on the lower Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya, thereby aggravating the water situation in the region. Thus, in the 1970s, one of the largest reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations of Central Asia, Tuiamuiunskoe, was built 450 km from the mouth of the AmuDarya, with the intention to provide water for irrigation in Karakalpakstan and Khorezm during the spring low-water periods. The Khorezmian Expedition also took part in rescue archaeology during the construction of Tuiamuiunskoe; the archaeologists’ work was financed in large part by construction units and economic organisations, both All-Union and local. The building of the Tuiamuiunskoe reservoir further upset the rhythm of flooding in the Amu-Darya delta and brought about fundamental changes in its natural conditions78 – not to mention that an important part of the historical landscape of Khorezm was irretrievably lost.79 It is indicative of the ambivalence of the work of the Khorezmian Expedition that its Ethnographic Unit conducted fieldwork in the southern Aral Sea region (in the Muinak and Turtkul districts of Karakalpakstan) which would be affected first, and most heavily, by the Aral Sea crisis. The first ethnographic research in this area in the late 1940s was classical, traditional ethnography: identifying the main local features of economy and history, culture, and way of life of individual groups of Karakalpaks.80 Change came about in 1951 when the All-Union Ethnographic Conference was held in Leningrad under the slogan ‘Closer to the Present!’81 In keeping with this new direction, the Khorezmian Expedition embarked on studying, from the later 1950s, the new way of life of collective farmers and fishermen, the process of the socialist reorganisation of the life of the Karakalpaks and the elimination of patriarchalfeudal survivals, the history of the formation of the modern Soviet culture and art of the Karakalpak people (‘national in form, socialist in content’).82 Describing the new way of life of the people who lived in the delta of the Amu-Darya and on the southern coast of the Aral Sea, then still in its full

46  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke

Figure 1.9 View from Plateau Ust-Urt towards the village of Ugra in the Muinak district (Karakalpakia), a region often poetically called ‘Venice in the Reeds’ (1959; photograph G.A. Argiropulo, archive of the Khorezmian Expedition). Copyright IEA RAN Moscow.

extent, the Expedition unwittingly captured the last days of a kind of ‘Venice on the Aral Sea’ (Figure 1.9). In the villages of Muinak and Urga, there were river channels instead of streets, and people moved along them on boats. This everyday life was captured in exquisite detail in numerous photographs and diaries of the Expedition members.83 The catastrophic Aral Sea regression began in exactly this area. As eyewitnesses reported, in the first instance the sea shore retreated 30 metres overnight in 1962, followed by further retreats of the shoreline. The people were amazed, but they did not realize that the sea would retreat by 180 km. At first, people tried to dig a canal to connect the port of Muinak to the open sea. In the end, the canal was 22 km long, but it was futile to struggle against nature, the water left too quickly, many ships remained on the banks of the canal.84 It is hard to imagine what people must have felt when they stepped out of their houses in the morning and could not see the body of water on which their life and that of their ancestors had depended for an eternity. The ethnographers of the Khorezmian Expedition were not there to record their emotions. Conclusions The story of the Khorezmian Expedition shows that Soviet archaeologists and ethnographers in Central Asia lent support to the ultimately catastrophic

There used to be water  47 water policies of the regime not just in return for funding, but also that many s­cholars and scientists (and initially perhaps all who participated in the projects) believed in the cause, in the concept of nature serving society, in the plan of re-shaping the environment for the benefit of the national economy. Their support went well beyond just doing rescue archaeology: scholars actually tried to inform official construction and irrigation plans by providing ­historical and archaeological data on past river courses and ancient irrigation systems. Thus, in Soviet Central Asia, archaeologists, and historians positioned themselves on the same side as politicians and engineers who were planning and working towards the transformation of natural and historical landscapes. While this extractivist venture continued a clear trend from the Tsarist period, it needs to be emphasised that the Tsarist administration had operated largely within traditional structures and technologies, and on less grandiose scales. The Soviet pattern is also in contrast to other large-scale, high-profile water projects elsewhere in the world, such as the Aswan Dam construction where archaeologists and engineers were perceived as being on different sides of the conflict.85 In addition to practical support, Tolstov and his colleagues tried to provide flank support for the regime on an ideological question of some importance for Marxist ideology: the concept of the ‘hydraulic society’. In the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet scholars and scientists staged a ‘debate’ about Wittfogel’s book and his theory of the ‘hydraulic state’.86 It was not really a discussion, but a ganging-up on Wittfogel, the level of which was not improved by the fact that the book was little known in the USSR and had not been translated into Russian. Andrianov, who was a prominent geographer on the Khorezmian Expedition, contributed to this exercise with a critical article in which he accused Wittfogel of distorting Marxism, and of misinterpreting the leading role of the mode of production in the formation of the state.87 This ‘scholarly’ discussion was possibly inspired from above by official ideologues who were offended by Wittfogel’s comparison of the Soviet state to historical cases of ‘Oriental despotism’.88 Rather than becoming involved in this, by now, largely terminological wrangle, it might be more fruitful to look at Soviet activities in Central Asia as another case of ‘imperial science’: the worldwide application of science to the productive control of nature within a colonial context.89 There are some striking similarities between the Central Asian case and British irrigation policies in the Indus Basin, but the aim of Soviet irrigation policy on the Amu-Darya was not just economic, but also social: the transformation of the native societies of Central Asia. The youthful enthusiasm of the Khorezmian Expedition, their wholehearted commitment to the projects of the MTC and the Reversal of Siberian rivers go far beyond opportunism or fear of reprisals: at its basis, there was sheer and, as yet, unadulterated belief in progress. In an almost comical way, this belief is mirrored in the ‘enthusiasm’ of canal diggers so beloved of official Soviet propaganda which portrayed them as heroes of its ‘Great Constructions of Communism’. While the latter illustrated the fatal attraction to megalomaniac

48  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke projects for autocratic regimes and their populace, at the lower level the ‘enthusiasm’ of unregulated diggers of smaller irrigation canals (naively and misleadingly described by Guliamov as an example of the positive effects of the Soviet liberation of peasants)90 led to the introduction of ideology-supported chaos into a fragile system, adding to the environmental costs. But the lessons of the past seem already to have been forgotten by some. In the past two decades, there have been increasingly insistent suggestions from high-ranking officials and politicians in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan to revive the plan to reverse the flow of Siberian rivers towards the south.91 The enthusiastic support from Soviet archaeologists and other scholars, full of good intentions and the desire to prove the wider social and economic benefits of their disciplines, should give us pause for thought. It might also encourage us to reflect on the role of archaeologists and anthropologists in contemporary environmental and climate debates in their respective societies. In Central Asia, the road to hell was paved with good intentions. Notes 1 Valerii I. Guliaev et al., Antologiia sovetskoi arkheologii (Moscow: Institute Arkheologii RAN, 1995–1996); Leo S. Klein, Fenomen sovetskoi arkheologii (St. ­Petersburg: Farn, 1993); Leo S. Klejn, Soviet Archaeology: Trends, Schools, and ­History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 2 Mar’iana A. Itina, “Problemy arkheologii Khorezma (k 40-letiiu Khorezmskoi ­ekspeditsii),” Sovetskaia arkheologiia no. 4 (1977): 42–52; Irina Arzhantseva, “The Khorezmian Expedition: Imperial Archaeology and Faustian Bargains in Soviet Central Asia,” Public Archaeology 14, no. 1 (2015): 5–26. 3 Maya K. Peterson, “Technologies of Rule: Water, Power and the Modernization of Central Asia, 1867–1941,” PhD diss., (Harvard University, 2011); id., Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia’s Aral Sea Basin (New York: ­Cambridge ­University Press, 2019), and the review by Sarah Cameron, Central Asian Survey 40, no. 1 (2021): 136–138; Julia Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams: Cotton ­Growing and Irrigation in Central Asia, 1860–1991 (Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2017); Christine Bichsel, “Water and the (Infra-) Structure of Political Rule: A Synthesis,” Water Alternatives 9, no. 2 (2016): 356–372. 4 Gleb Belichenko, “Metody raboty ne podlezhat raskrytiiu. Pochemu FSB otkazyvaetsia vydavat’ uzhe rassekrechennye dokumenty,” Meduza, July 14, 2015; see also Arustan A. Zholdasov, “Glavnyi Turkmenskii kanal: uroki velikoi stroiki,” Evraziia: Istoriia, istoricheskie nauki 1 (2003): 177. 5 Nikolai Dingel’shtedt, Opyt izucheniia irrigatsii Turkestanskogo kraia (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Ministerstva Putei Soobschenia, 1893); Vladislav I. ­ Massal’skii, Turkestanskii krai (St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo A.F. Devriena, 1913), 428 wrote: ‘The development of the irrigation network, which became especially noticeable with the accession to Russia of Turkestan and with its final reconciliation, happened mainly through the gradual expansion of existing irrigation systems on their outskirts and the continuation of irrigation ditches further into the steppe’. 6 Ekaterina A. Pravilova, “Reka Imperii. Amudar’ia v geopoliticheskikh i irrigatsionnikh proektakh vtoroi poloviny XIX veka,” in Aziatskaia Rossiia. Liudi i struktury imperii, ed. Nataliya G. Suvorova (Omsk: Omskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet,

There used to be water  49 2005), 446. For the wider application of this concept, see Tsentral’naia Aziia v sostave Rossiiskoi Imperii (St. Petersburg: Evropeiskii Universitet, 2008), passim. 7 Vasilii V. Bartol’d, “Dzhy-i Arzis (k voprosy ob istorii irrigatsii v Turkestane),” Turkestanskii vestnik no. 45 (1904). Repr. id., Sobranie sochinenii, vol. III (Moscow: Vostochnaia Literatura, 1965), 274–276; id., “Arkheologiia i vopros ob oroshenii Turkestana,” Turkestan no. 36 (1912); id., K istorii orosheniia Turkestana (St. Petersburg: Vostochnaia Literatura, 1914). Repr. id., Sobranie sochinenii, vol. III (Moscow: Vostochnaya Literatura, 1965), 97–233. 8 Alexandr I. Glukhovskii, Propusk vod r. Amu-Dar’y po staromu ee ruslu v Kaspiiskoe more i obrazavanie nepreryvnogo Amu-Dar’inkogo puti ot granits Afganistana po Amu-Dar’e, Kaspiiu, Volge i Mariinskoi sisteme do Peterburga i Baltiiskogo moria. Izdano nachal’nikom ekspeditsii, general’nogo shtaba general-leitenantom A.I. Glukhovskim na angliiskom i russkom iazykakh. The passage of the waters of the river Amu-Darya along its old channel to the Caspian Sea and the formation of the continuous Amu-Darya – Caspian water route from the borders of Afghanistan along the Amu-Darya, the Caspian, the Volga and the Mariinskii system to St. Petersburg and the Baltic Sea. Published by Head of Expedition, Lieutenant-General of the General Staff A. I. Glukhovskii in English and Russian (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia M.M. Stasulevicha, 1893). 9 Iakov Demchenko, O navodnenii Aralo-Kaspiiskoi nizmennosti dlia uluchsheniia klimata prilezhashchikh stran (s kartoi beregov Kaspiiskogo i Aral’skogo Morei), 2nd ed. (Kiev: Izdatel’stvo S.P. Iakovleva, 1900). The English translation of the title is: On the flood of the Aral-Caspian lowland for improving the climate of the contiguous countries. 10 Bartol’d, “Dzhy-i Arzis”; id., “Arkheologiia i vopros ob oroshenii Turkestana”; id., K istorii orosheniia Turkestana; Massal’skii, Turkestanskii krai, 328, 417, 430, 433, etc. 11 Georgii K. Rizenkampf, Problemy orosheniia Turkestana (Moscow: Redaktsionnoizdatel’skii otdel Vysshego Soveta Narodnogo khoziaistva, 1921), 6. 12 “Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii pravitel’stva za 1917–1918 gg.,” in Upravlenie delami Sovnarkoma SSSR (Moscow: Sovnarkom, 1942), 519–522. 13 Duisenkul S. Sarykulov, Razvitie vodnogo khoziaistva Kazakhstana (Alma-Ata: ­Kainar, 1979). 14 Foremost among these were the hydraulic engineer and melioration specialist G.K. Rizenkampf; the hydrologist and geographer V.V. Tsinzerling; meliorator S.K. Kondrashev; and the hydraulic engineer F.P. Morgunenkov. The aspect of continuity is also emphasized by Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams, and Peterson, Pipe Dreams. 15 Pravilova. “Reka Imperii,” 458. 16 See endnote 11. 17 Dmitrii D. Bukinich, “Istoriia pervobytnogo oroshaemogo zemledeliia v Turkmenskoi oblasti v sviazi c voprosom o proiskhozhdenii zemledeliia i skotovodstva,” Khlopkovoe delo nos. 3–4 (1924): 92–135; id., “Kratkie predvaritel’nye soobrazheniya vodosnabzhenii i irrigatsii Starogo Termeza i ego raiona,” in Termezskaia arkheologicheskaia kompleksnaia ekspeditsiia 1936 g. (Tashkent: Izdatel’stvo Uzbekskogo filiala Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1941), 154–158; id., “Kanaly drevnego Termeza,” in Trudy Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoi SSR Seriia 1, no. II (Tashkent, 1945). 18 See Valeriy A. Germanov, “Mifologisatsiia irrigatsionnogo stroitel’stva v Srednei Azii v postsovetskikh shkol’nykh uchebnikakh i sovremennye konflikty v regione iz-za vody,” Internationale DAAD-Tagung “Krieg der Vorstellungswelten”, July 12–18, 2009. Georg-Eckert-Institut, Braunschweig, accessed January 08, 2023, http://amudarya.gei.de/fileadmin/_amudarya/bs/vg.pdf. Germanov is referring

50  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke here to documents in the Central State Archive of the Republic of U ­ zbekistan (f. 130, op. 2, ed. khr. 63-b, l. 3). The hydrologist and geographer Vladimir V. ­Tsinzerling, in his Oroshenie na Amu-Dar’e (Moscow: Upravlenie vodnogo khoziaistva Srednei Azii, 1927), had calculated that with the irrigation of about 1 million desiatins (about 1.4 million hectares) of land in the Amu-Darya basin, the level of the Aral Sea might drop by almost 10 metres over 15 years. In actual fact, it dropped by 22.5 metres over slightly less than 40 years. 19 Alexander A. Formozov, “Russkie arkheologi i politicheskie repressii 1920–1940kh gg.” Rossiiskaia arkheologiia no. 3 (1998): 203. 20 Arzhantseva, “The Khorezmian Expedition”. 21 Sergei P. Tolstov, Po drevnim del’tam Oksa i Iaksarta (Moscow: Vostochnaya ­Literatura, 1962), 6–8. 22 Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR, Postanovlenie VTsIK, SNK RSFSR 10.02.1934 “Ob okhrane arkheologicheskikh pamiatnikov,” Sobranie Uzakonenii RSFSR no. 9 (1934): 52. 23 Iz zhizni Alekseia Terenozhkina (napisano ego rukoi, sobrano ego synom) (Kiev: ­Korovin Press, 2006), 15, 17. 24 Ibid. 21. 25 Mar’iana A. Itina, “Problemy arkheologii Khorezma (k 40-letiiu Khorezmskoi ekspeditsii),” Sovetskaia arkheologiia no. 4 (1977): 42–52; id., “K 90-letiiu S.P. Tolstova”. 26 According to the recollections of his students, Tolstov also dreamed of dis covering  an oil deposit during his excavations; see Iuriy A. Rapoport and Iuriy Semenov, “Sergei Pavlovich Tolstov: vydaiushchiisia etnograf, arkheolog, M.  ­ organisator nauki,” in Vydaiushchiesia otechestvennye etnologi i antropologi XX v., eds. Valeryi A. Tishkov and Daniil D. Tumarkin (Moscow: Nauka, 2004), 229, endnote 95. 27 Sergei Tolstov and Boris V. Andrianov, “Novye materialy po istorii razvitiia irrigatsii v Khorezme,” Kratkie Soobshcheniia Instituta Etnografii XXVI (1957): 5–11; id., “Drevniaia irrigatsionnaia set’ i perspektivy sovremennogo orosheniia (Po issledovaniiam drevnei del’ty Syr-Dar’i),” Vestnik AN SSSR no. 11 (1961): 59–65; id., “O zemliakh drevnego orosheniia v nizov’iakh Amu-Dar’i i Syr-Dar’i i vozmozhnosti ikh osvoeniia v sovremennykh usloviiakh,” Obshchestvennye nauki v Uzbekistane no. 8 (1961): 3–10; id., “Resul’taty istoriko-arkheologicheskikh issledovanii 1961 g. na drevnikh ruslakh Syr-Dar’i (v sviazi s problemoi ikh osvoeniia),” Sovetskaia arkheologiia no. 4 (1962): 124–148; id., “Ob ispol’zovanii dannykh istoricheskikh nauk dlia praktiki narodnogo khoziaistva,” in Zemli drevnego orosheniia i perspektivy ikh khoziaistvennogo ispol’zovaniia, eds. Sergei P. Tolstov and Boris V. Andrianov (Moscow: Nauka, 1969), 9–21. 28 Iakh’ia G. Guliamov, Istoriia orosheniia Khorezma s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei (Tashkent: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk Uzbekskoi SSR, 1957). 29 The decade in which Guliamov wrote his book was the time when Tolstov’s expedition collected enough archaeological material to reconstruct the picture of flooding and drying out of the canals and the old river channels of the Amu-Darya, and of the floruit and abandonment of oases at various times in the past. 30 Boris A. Latynin, “Nekotorye voprosy metodiki izucheniia irrigatsii Srednei Azii,” Sovetskaia Arkheologiia no. 3 (1959): 22. 31 Sergei P. Tolstov, “Arkheologicheskie pamiatniki po trasse Glavnogo Turkmenskogo kanala (Razvedki Khorezmskoi ekspeditsii AN SSSR v 1950–1951 godakh),” Vestnik AN SSSR no. 4 (1952): 46–58; Guliamov, Istoriia orosheniia Khorezma, 284. Similar comprehensive work on ancient irrigation was also carried out in the delta of the Syr-Darya, beginning in 1946. Unfortunately, though, the results of many years of research were not published as a final monograph, as it was done in the case of research in the lower Amu-Darya.

There used to be water  51 32 See Sergei B. Bolelov, “Boris Vasilevich Andrianov and the Study of Irrigation in Ancient Khorezm,” in Ancient Irrigation Systems of the Aral Sea Area: The History, Origin and Development of Irrigated Agriculture, ed. Simone Mantellini (Oxford and Philadelphia: American School of Prehistoric Research, 2016), 7–10. The ­original is Boris V. Andrianov, Drevnie orositel’nye sistemy Priaral’ia (Moscow: Nauka, 1969). 33 Andrianov, Drevnie orositel’nye sistemy, 5, similarly 233. See also Sergej P. Tolstov and Aleksandra S. Kes’, Nizovia Amu-Dar’i, Sarykamysh, Uzboi. Istoriia ­formirovaniia i zaseleniia (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1960); Boris V. Andrianov, Mar’iana. A. Itina and Aleksandra S. Kes’, “Zemli drevnego orosheniia iugo-vostochnogo Priaral’ia: ikh proshloe i perspektivy osvoeniia,” Sovetskaia Etnografiia no. 5 (1974): 50. 34 Itina, “Problemy arkheologii Khorezma (k 40-letiiu Khorezmskoi ekspeditsii),” 51. 35 Evgenii Zhirnov, “Vse voruiut. Scheta – fil’kina gramota,” Kommersant’ Vlast’ 10 (March 12, 2012): 48–53. 36 The electrification of Russia began some three decades before the First World War and the October Revolution. The plan for electrification was continued by the communist regime: Iuriy I. Koriakin, “Kto zhe byl initsiatorom i vdokhnovitelem elektrifikatsii Rossii” Novaia Gazeta – Nauka, June 20, 2001. 37 Guliamov, Istoriya orosheniia Khorezma, 274. 38 Alexandr I. Kokurin and Iurii N. Morukov, Stalinskie stroiki GULAGa 1930–1953 (Moscow: Materik, 2005); Leo S. Klein, Istoriia rossiiskoi arkheologi: Ucheniya, shkoly i lichnosti. Tom 2. Arkheologi sovetskoi epokhi (St. Petersburg: EVRAZIYA, 2014), 277. 39 Zholdasov, “Glavnyi Turkmenskii kanal,” 186. See also Christian Teichmann, Macht der Unordnung. Stalins Herrschaft in Zentralasien 1920–1950 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2016), for working conditions on construction sites in Stalinperiod Central Asia. 40 Guliamov, Istoriya orosheniia Khorezma, 39. 41 Ibid., 29. 42 Ibid., 218. This is a good example of what Teichmann, Macht der Unordnung, has termed ‘power of disorder’. 43 The resolution was entitled ‘On the construction of the Main Turkmen Canal Amu-Darya – Krasnovodsk, on the irrigation and watering of the lands of the southern regions of the Caspian plain of western Turkmenistan, the lower reaches of the Amu-Darya and the western part of the Kara-Kum desert’. See Glavnyi Turkmenskii kanal: Prirodnye usloviia i perspektivy orosheniia i obvodneniia zemel’ iuzhnykh raionov Prikaspiiskoi ravniny Zapadnoi Turkmenii, nizov’ev Amu-Daryi i zapadnoy chasti pustyni Kara-Kumy (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1952), 3–4. 44 Glukhovskii, Propusk vod r. Amu-Dar’y. 45 Pravilova, “Reka Imperii,” 458, 459. 46 Zholdasov, “Glavnyi Turkmenskyi kanal,” 178. 47 See e.g. the illustrious geographer and Stalin Prize laureate Boris A. Fedorovich, Lik pustyni (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo kul’turno-prosvetitel’skoi ­literatury, 1950), 240. 48 Zholdasov, “Glavnyi Turkmenskii kanal,” 180. 49 Oleg Khlevniuk, Stalin. Zhizn’ odnogo vozhdia (Moscow: Ast, 2015), 406. 50 By decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 11 September 1950, and the order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR of 16 September 1950. The management was in the hands of an operational group (Ministry of Internal Affairs, order no. 00579 of 16 September 1950). 51 By order No. 0701 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs dated of 14 October 1950. See Nikolai G. Okhotin and Arsenii B. Roginskii, eds., Sistema ispravitel’no-­ trudovykh lagerei v SSSR (Moscow: Zven’ia, 1998).

52  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke 2 Zholdasov, “Glavnyi Turkmenskii kanal,” 182, 183. 5 53 Tolstov, “Arkheologicheskie pamiatniki po trasse Glavnogo Turkmenskogo kanala,” 46. 54 Unpublished notes by Yu. A. Rapoport for his article with Semenov (see endnote 27); Archive of the Khorezmian Expedition, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. 55 For example, the 1952 film ‘The Past of the Amu-Darya Delta in the Light of Archaeological Data’, a joint production of the Moscow Studio of Popular Science Films and the Tashkent Newsreel Studio. For popular reports, see e.g. Orazmurad Dzhumaev, “Glavnyi Turkmenskii kanal,” Smena no. 22 (1950): 13–14; Roman Karmen, Avtomobil’ peresekaet pustyniu (Moscow: Detgiz, 1954). 56 “XIX s’’ezd KPSS i voprosy etnografii,” Sovetskaia Etnografiia no. 4 (1952): 4. 57 Reported by S. Kamalov, quoted by Valerii A. Germanov, “Glas vopiiushchego v pustyni. Al’ians diktatora i uchenogo,” in Kul’turnye tsennosti. Cultural Values. (Bibliotheca Turkmeninica 2000–2001) (St. Petersburg: Evropeiskii dom, 2002), 13–34. 58 Ibid., 22; Klein, Istoriia rossiiskoi arkheologi, 277. 59 Tolstov, “Arkheologicheskie pamiatniki po trasse Glavnogo Turkmenskogo kanala,” 46. 60 Sergei P. Tolstov, Drevnii Khorezm (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo ­Universiteta, 1948), 48, 49, etc. 61 Tolstov, “Arkheologicheskie pamiatniki po trasse Glavnogo Turkmenskogo kanala,” 58. 62 There are a huge number of publications on the project of redirecting Siberian ­rivers to Central Asia. The history of the struggle of the scientific community against this project is set out in the book by Mikhail I. Zelikin, Istoriia vechnozelenoi zhizni (Moscow: Faktorial Press, 2001). A critical review of the problems associated with this project is presented in Mikhail K. Nemtsev, “Istorii proekta ‘perebroski severnykh rek’,” Anthropological Research Center, November 23, 2014, accessed January 2, 2023, https://antropya.com/articles/18/50/. 63 Orazbai Abdirakhmanov, Aral-pechal’ moy (Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1992), 5. 64 In 1951, Tolstov suffered his first stroke; in 1962, a second, soon followed by a third. After this, he retired and no longer went on expedition. 65 Issa.M. Dzhabbarov, “Tolstov i istoriko-ethnograficheskaia nauka v Srednei Azii,” in Etnicheskaia istoriia i traditsionnaia kul’tura narodov Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana, eds. Vladimir N. Basilov and Rail G. Kuzeev (Nukus: Karakalpakstan, 1989), 268. 66 The author of this idea was the Ukrainian journalist and engineer Iakov Demchenko (1842–1912). His book, Demchenko, O navodnenii Aralo-Kaspiiskoi nizmennosti, based as it was on a secondary-school piece of work and ­published in two editions (1871 and 1900), did at the time not attract the attention of the specialists; see Alexandr P. Koshelev, “O pervom proekte perebroski sibirskikh vod v Aralo-Kaspiiskii bassein,” Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki no. 3 (1985): 95–97. The idea was then taken up again in the Soviet period. Soviet researchers and engineers began work on projects that proposed the creation of an ­artificial Siberian Sea in the basin of the Ob, Tobol, Irtysh and Ilim, from which water could be channelled in the direction of the Aral Sea. In general, these proposals were similar to the ideas put forward earlier by Demchenko (see Vitalij G. Shishikin, “Proekty perebroski stoka severnykh rek v respubliki Srednei Azii,” accessed January 2, 2023, http://www.science-techno.ru/nt/article/ proekty-perebroski-stoka-severnykh-rek-vrespubliki-srednei-azii. 67 Itina, “K 90-letiiu S.P. Tolstova,” 197. 68 The corrupt structures and workings of Minvodkhoz have so far not received sufficient attention, neither from Western researchers who are largely unaware of its role, nor from Russian or Central Asian researchers who have to struggle with

There used to be water  53 the patently misleading documentation produced by this Soviet government ­organization. See “Aral’skaia katastrofa: Kruglyi stol zhurnalov ‘Novyi Mir’ i ‘Pamir’ po resul’tatam ekspeditsii ‘Aral-88’,” Novyi Mir no. 5 (1989): 182–213; Viktor Zuev, Aral’skii tupik (Moscow: Algoritm, 2018). See also Nemtsev, Istorii proekta “perebroski severnykh rek”; Zelikin, Istoriia vechnozelenoi zhizni; Abdirakhmanov, Aral-pechal’ moya, 182–241. 69 Tatiana P. Griaznova, “Aleksandra Semenovna Kes’ (1910–1993),” in V nashem dome na Staromonetnom, na vyselkakh i v pole, ed. Alexandr V. Drozdov (Moscow: Tovarischestvo Nauchnykh Izdanii KMK, 2012), 10–11. 70 Damir M. Ryskulov, “K 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia I.A. Gerardi. Ot proekta, operedivshego vremia, k koridoru vo vse strany mira,” 2010, accessed January 2, 2023, http://water-salt.narod.ru/pam_gerardi.htm. 71 Alexandr N. Morozov, “K 100-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia I.A. Gerardi. Vstuplenie,” 2010, accessed January 2, 2023, http://water-salt.narod.ru/pam_gerardi.htm. 72 Itina, “K 90-letiiu S.P. Tolstova,” 197. The archaeological work does not seem to have been influenced in any documented way by the increasingly local decision-making observed by Chida in this and other cases: Tetsuro Chida, “Science, Development and Modernization in the Brezhnev Time,” Cahiers Du Monde Russe 54, nos. 1–2 (2013): 239–264. 73 Itina, “Problemy arkheologii Khorezma,” 42. 74 Andrianov, Itina and Kes’, “Zemli drevnego orosheniia,” 51, 52. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid., 59. 77 Nemtsev. Istorii proekta “perebroski severnykh rek”. 78 Artur B. Avakian and Irina V. Osadchaia, “Tuiamuiunskoe vodokhranilishche,” in Aral’skii krisis (istoriko-geograficheskaia retrospektiva), ed. Boris V. Andrianov (Moscow: In-t Etnologii i Antropologii AN SSSR, 1991), 241. 79 Itina, “Problemy arkheologii Khorezma,” 49. 80 Tatiana A. Zhdanko, Karakalpaki Khorezmskogo oazisa (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo ­Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1952). 81 Klein, Istoriia rossiiskoi arkheologi, 278. 82 Zhdanko, Karakalpaki Khorezmskogo oazisa, 472, 473. 83 See the photos in Irina A. Arzhantseva, Khorezm: Istoriia otkrytii i issledovanii. Po materialam arkhiva Khorezmskoi ekspeditsii (Ul’ianovsk: Artishok, 2016). 84 Putevye zametki. Piatyi den’, kladbishche korablei, April 22, 2010, accessed ­January 2, 2023, https://varlamov.ru/239299.html. 85 Fekri A. Hassan, “The Aswan High Dam and the International Rescue Nubia Campaign,” African Archaeological Review 24, nos. 3–4 (2007): 73–94; Cornelia Kleinitz and Claudia Näser. “Archaeology, Development and Conflict: A Case Study from the African Continent,” Archaeologies 9, no. 1 (2013): 162–191. Brite suggests a new perspective that goes beyond the analysis of exclusively human agency in these projects and their ensuing conflicts. From a material perspective, Brite calls for the inclusion in our analysis of multiple non-human agents (including the landscape) and develops the concept of ‘hydrosociality’: Elizabeth B. Brite, “The Hydrosocial Empire: The Karakum River and the Soviet Conquest of C ­ entral Asia in the 20th Century,” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 52 (2018): 123–136. 86 Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1957). 87 Boris V. Andrianov, “Kontseptsiia K. Vitfogelia ‘gidravlicheskoe obshchestvo’ i ­novoe materialy po istorii irrigatsii,” in Kontseptsii zarubezhnoi etnologii. K ­ riticheskie etiudy, ed. Iulian V. Bromlei (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 177–192. 88 K. Wittfogel initially adhered to Marxist views and was a member of the ­German Communist Party. His only article translated into Russian and published in the USSR had been written in the ‘communist’ mode (Karl Wittfogel, “Geopolitika,

54  Irina Arkadevna Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke geograficheskii materializm i marksizm,” Pod znamenem marksizma nos. 2–3 (1929): 6–8). In 1939, under the impression of news of Stalinist repression and the Soviet-German pact, Wittfogel officially broke with Communism and moved to openly anti-communist positions. His main book, Oriental Despotism, was written after he had already abandoned Marxist positions. On the Soviet ‘debate’ about Wittfogel, see Iurii V. Latov, “‘Vostochnyi despotizm’ K.A. Vittfogelia (k 50-letiiu ‘strannoi’ knigi),” Istoriko-ekonomicheskie issledovaniia 8, no. 2 (2007): 11; Kamil’ Galeev, “Teoriia gidravlicheskogo gosudarstva K. Vittfogelia i ee sovremennaia ­kritika,” Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie 10, no. 3 (2011): 156. For new perspectives on Wittfogel, see Christine Bichsel, “Water and the (Infra-)structure of Political Rule: A Synthesis,” Water Alternatives 9, no. 2 (2016): 356–372. 89 David Gilmartin, “Scientific Empire and Imperial Science: Colonialism and Irrigation Technology in the Indus Basin,” Journal of Asian Studies 53, no. 4 (1994): 1127–1149. Peterson, Pipe Dreams, prefers to see the imperial Russian and Soviet cases as part of a global ‘irrigation age’, while Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams, positions herself against the conventional ‘colonial’ perspective on Soviet Central Asia. 90 Guliamov, Istoriia orosheniia Khorezma. 91 Iurii M. Luzhkov, Voda i mir (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Moskovskie Uchebniki i Kartolitografiia, 2008). For the wider context of the post-Soviet environmental discourse in Kazakhstan, see Beatrice Penati, “The Environmental Legacy of the Soviet Regime,” in Kazakhstan and the Soviet Legacy, ed. Jean-François Caron ­(Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 51–74.

2 Administrations, herders, and experts Crossing sources and scales to write a social history of overgrazing in Soviet Kazakhstan (1960–1980)1 Isabelle Ohayon Throughout the second part of the twentieth century, the world’s major ­pastoral areas underwent a Promethean exploitation, which was promoted by Socialist states (USSR, Mongolia, and the People’s Republic of China) and post-colonial development policies (e.g. in the Sahel Belt) alike. Everywhere, but with varying intensity, these endeavours brought on forms of settlement, the development of mixed farming, urbanisation, and the deterioration of ecosystems.2 In Central Asia, overgrazing or desertification affected a significant part of the steppe and semi-arid and arid lands. Over the years, this region had been shaped by interactions typical of ­pastoral nomadism between humans, animals, and their milieus, but also by cautious and conservative water management, partly inspired by the technical culture of neighbouring oasis societies. The Soviet industrial and technological shift led to a more intensive and invasive form of exploitation. A history of Soviet high-productivity development cannot be confined to its ‘technical’ dimension: it must rely on a variety of sources and the comparison of multifarious documents and actors. Because the Soviet State was the driving force behind transformation, one cannot do without sources emanating from it; these, however, tend to steer the reflection towards political and economic objects. The prolific nature of Soviet bureaucracies at all levels can narrow the field of investigation of the historian, whom the profusion of data might seduce or overwhelm. This chapter means to compare this plethora of documents with the voice of the parties involved in animal husbandry, thus addressing the perspective and experience of all social groups engaged in pastoralism, from herders, animal-husbandry officers to scientific experts. Different g ­ enres of sources are thus used: written documents (archives and press articles) are cross-referenced with testimonies, photographic documents, audio-visual sources, and more. Besides offering counterpoints to administrative sources, this method presents a view of the history of overgrazing through different angles and at various levels – herders, communities of experts or ministries. Importantly, it allows us to grasp the role of each actor in the ‘objectivation’ (in a Durkheimian sense) of overgrazing as a social, economic, and ­environmental issue, and the leeway these actors enjoyed in the face of the Soviet central ­planning steamroller. DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-4

56  Isabelle Ohayon Indeed, these distinct outlooks enable us to examine the emergence of a potential environmental awareness among those directly dealing with the consequences of pastureland deterioration. The intent is thus to discern the development of a consciousness that goes beyond the acknowledgement of contingent problems, puts the perceived phenomena into perspective, and seeks to interrogate and decipher their causes, while formulating a reflection on future possible transformations. This potential ‘ecologisation’ might have emerged in two ways, which will be discussed in the following: the advent – or the absence – of an ‘environmentalism of the poor’,3 understood as a form of grassroots activism initiated by the direct victims of ecological catastrophe, or the mobilisation of an ‘epistemic community’ able to promote decisions towards environmental protection. In this sense, did areas affected by pastoralism and its evolution also experience the shift towards environmental concerns that marked the USSR from the 1960s to the 1970s, as first noted by Douglas Weiner?4 How did different actors react to pasture depletion and degradation? To answer these questions, this chapter reconstructs the process that led to pastureland degradation, and examines the way political apparatuses, ­economic decision-makers, and herders found themselves trapped in production models that dramatically shaped their perceptions of environmental problems ­themselves. Finally, we turn to the role played by scientists and their capacity to alert and push forward change in opinions within the community. To address these points, as hinted above, this study uses ‘classic’ archival documents from the agricultural administrations, the Communist Party of the Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) of Kazakhstan, and the whole executive chain of command. These are complemented by scientific documentation, as a reflection of the position of a professional group, and scientific literature and material for the media made to popularise science. Finally, sources include a corpus of testimonies built from semi-structured interviews with 31 people in various regions of Kazakhstan, resulting from oral history field research conducted between July 2016 and August 2017. The interviewees were chosen because of their direct or indirect proximity to herding or rural life in the 1960s–1980s. Table 2.1 Types of desertification processes in the arid zone territories of the SSR of Kazakhstan, 1988 (in km2 and % of the surface of the arid zone).5  

Km2

%

Degradation of the plant cover due to intensive use Degradation of the plant cover due to lack of grazing Territories of partial desertification around wells Wind erosion Salinisation of irrigated lands Salinisation due to the reduction of the sea level and the regulation of river flow Technological desertification

481,513 – 8,714 – 6,536 75,162

44.2 – 0.8 4 1.4 6.9

61,006

5.6

Total Surface unaffected by desertification

632,931 436,835

59.9 38.3

Administrations, herders, and experts  57 These ­interviews touched upon the conditions of animal husbandry, personal f­arming, and social and political relationships in the kolkhozes.6 The increase of pastoral pressure on a shrunken territory A famine triggered by the 1930s collectivisation caused a massive settlement of the Kazakh population and a deep crisis of pastoralism. One of the key measures in Stalin’s first five-year plan was a spate of forced livestock requisitions from nomadic herders to supply cities and industrial construction sites, while harvests and grain reserves were seized from farmers. These measures resulted in a food and sanitary crisis that pushed famished and dispossessed Kazakhs to leave their homesteads and take the road.7 In 1933, a third of the Kazakh population perished from epidemics and hunger, and almost 500,000 permanently fled the Republic’s territory.8 The remaining livestock (20% of the stock available in 1928) was barely sufficient to ensure self-sustainability in the new kolkhozes to which the survivors from the famine had been assigned.9 Due to reduced numbers, it became harder to lead the livestock towards more distant grazing pastures. However, the Soviet authorities did not forgo the idea of harnessing the strong economic potential of pastoralism as an optimal production and ­exploitation method for arid environments. Therefore, they subsequently championed a policy of livestock acquisition and promoted sedentary ­pastoralism, thus professionalising pastoral mobility: individuals tasked with herd-keeping on pastureland were authorised to move around, while the rest of society was assigned to activities within the confines of the collective farms.10 This ­theoretical model, which abolished nomadism as a lifestyle involving s­ ociety as a whole, was gradually implemented and came to its desired end. In the 1960s, as in other societies of herders in the USSR, there were only a few remaining ­households living a nomadic life,11 and mobile pastoralism had become an almost exclusively masculine activity.12 In the majority of cases, relatives (­rodstvenniki) of herdsmen only joined them on the summer pasture (jailau) ­during the school holidays. Two factors reduced the perimeter of transhumance towards summer pastures: first, until the end of the 1950s, before the livestock recovered pre-collectivisation levels, the need for pastureland was less pressing and pastoral mobility was therefore distributed over smaller ­territories, often close to the villages (auyl). Second, cattle feed included a greater share of cultivated forage, as part of a wider agricultural development strategy devised to transform pastoralism in Soviet Central Asia.13 Furthermore, collectivisation promoted the development of cereal crops and emphasised the reclamation of arable lands, thus encroaching on grazing land. This phenomenon was accentuated by Khrushchëv’s 1954 gigantic Virgin Lands campaign, which harnesses lands in the steppe areas with greatest ­rainfall (Aktyubinsk oblast’, Akmola, north Kazakhstan, and Karaganda).14 Despite its original surface of 1.79 million km2, not only did grazing land shrink, but its quality declined, too, because land earmarked for cereal farming was the richest in water resources. Water is a decisive factor for animal ­grazing

58  Isabelle Ohayon Table 2.2 Growth in livestock in Kazakhstan from 1916 to 1980 in thousands of head of livestock.15

1916 1928 1941 1951 1961 1971 1977 1980

Sheep and goats

Horses

Camels

18,364 19,169 8,132 18,038 28,718 31,777 34,414 35,067

4,340 3,545 897 1,454 1,158 1,245 1,296 1,258

– – 104 126 140 129 124 122

and for the geography of pastoral movements. The availability of ­pastoral ­territory in Kazakhstan was thus quantitatively and qualitatively reduced, in line with a long-term process that had begun under the Tsars.16 Moreover, right after the war, farms experienced organisational problems regarding pastoral mobility and the definition and distribution of pastureland.17 Pastoral pressure started to increase due to the steadily growing size of herds, while the kolkhoz land acreage failed to adapt rapidly to these changes. The plots assigned were overgrazed and herders strove to expand transhumance territories by ­negotiating with neighbouring farms or by using known pastures and confront the authorities with the fait accompli. In 1961, this situation led Kazakhstani authorities to revise ­pastureland allotment in order to redistribute grazing resources. In 1964, before Khrushchëv’s demise, the creation of 155 sovkhozes (state farms) specialised in sheep-breeding, boasting 50,000–60,000 head of cattle each, and responsible for producing wool and meat, represented a momentous turn and a prelude to things to come.18 As part of an all-Union reform that embodied Khrushchëv’s ambitious agricultural policy, existing kolkhozes (collective farms) were merged to generate ex nihilo bigger farms; meanwhile, the s­ tatus of salaried sovkhoz workers was boosted over that of kolkhoz m ­ embers, whose pay depended on production results. In Kazakhstan, this process gave precedence to ­sheep-rearing, which had already become the preferred form of animal husbandry after sedentarisation and was viewed as the most ‘rational’ choice, c­onsidering the country’s agro-climatic conditions. Sheep were thought to have the ­highest output compared to the other species traditionally bred by nomads (goats, horses, and camels). The new sheep-rearing sovkhozes were built in semiarid and arid regions on ‘unexploited and unallocated’ lands from the State’s public real estate, for a total surface of 133 million hectares.19 The goal was to increase the size of the Republic’s livestock by 42%, reaching 50 million sheep. Two decrees in 1964 and 1979 bolstered this policy through investments in wages and infrastructure (new villages, irrigation, road building, rural electrification, etc.).20 While they did not attain the desired o ­ utcome  – the size of sheep livestock never reached the expected 50 million and its growth

Administrations, herders, and experts  59 plateaued in the mid-1970s21 – all these measures markedly affected the culture of pastoral husbandry and pastureland ecology. Indeed, this shift was carried out according to a dual push towards extensive pastoralism, with the conquest of new grazing lands, and for intensification, with the development of forage and greater concentration of animals in state farms. The conquest of new Virgin Lands? The pastures that the authorities of the Kazakh SSR planned to conquer as new ‘Virgin Lands’ could only be exploitable if they had enough water resources to cover the livestock’s needs. As in the Sahel Belt in the 1950s, the Soviet State implemented a ‘pastoral hydraulic scheme’. Relying on water as a key factor for development, this policy aimed at multiplying water access points and modernising watering techniques in order to expand and intensify cattle-breeding.22 In Kazakhstan, pastoral irrigation was also promoted. The agricultural department of the central committee of the Kazakh Communist Party devised a specific plan of ‘water supply’ (obvodnenie) to pastureland that aimed at both enabling cattle-watering and, to a smaller extent, land-spraying, supposedly to increase the plant-cover yield. Based on a hydrological assessment, the department set out to define potentially exploitable areas. Twenty-three of them were identified across arid and semi-arid regions, for a total of 102 million hectares, i.e. 57% of the available grasslands, to feed a hypothetical 74 million head of livestock, all species combined.23 Each of these selected zones was studied for the productivity of its plant cover relative to its carrying capacity, i.e. the amount of animals that could be led to graze on it. The highest stake, however, was placed on the analysis of water resources and how they could be exploited. For instance, in the sand desert of Naryn-kum (located east of the Volga and almost extending to the edge of the Ural River), with less than 200 mm of rain per year24 and few endorheic streams, the project aimed at developing 3.3 million hectares to breed 1.2 million head of livestock. It identified the average flow from three types of water resources: first, potable groundwaters accessible at a depth of 3–10 metres on coarse and medium sand areas of the northern part of the desert; second, brackish subterranean waters of potable quality for animals at a depth of 5–18 metres; and third, artesian non-potable water at a depth of 500–800 metres. The project’s conclusion encouraged the construction of ordinary wells in the western part of the area; elsewhere, it proposed canals supplied through water collectors and pipes, and the use of natural and artificial lakes. The development costs just for the Naryn-kum were estimated at several hundred million rubles in ten-year increments – a considerable amount at the time.25 In terms of investment-planning and technical processes, this was a typical example of the 23 projects of water supply. At the republican scale, various hydraulic techniques provided an array of options, ranging from artesian wells, pumping stations, the collection of river water,

60  Isabelle Ohayon motorised boreholes – even water holes drawn by animals (camels), which the State did not advertise.26 In the subsequent 25 years, these developments were projected to triple the volume of sheep and goats and substantially increase the size of herds of other species (cattle, camels).27 The new aspiration to conquer grazing land in the arid territories to ­consolidate the ‘forage base’ (i.e. the total forage reserves, including natural or tame hay and natural pastureland) was part of a larger Soviet process. Overall, Kazakhstan played an important role in large-scale flagship development projects spurred by Soviet gigantism.28 The republic was directly concerned by the ‘project of the century’ – ultimately never completed – which consisted in diverting water from Siberian rivers southwards to supply the dried-out Aral Sea (see Arzhantseva and Härke, this volume).29 The country welcomed three major hydraulic engineering projects, including the Irtysh-Karaganda Canal, which steered the Irtysh River upstream.30 Unsurprisingly, this zeitgeist extended to the pastoral world: Kazakhstan was already the third largest grain producer in the USSR and needed to keep its rank as second mutton and wool producer.31 The rhetoric of conquest spread to Kazakh technocratic discourse, all the way to progressive herders. The ambition to intensify farming and acquire mastery over new territories was amplified by the 1964 sovkhoz reform mentioned above. ‘Being a chaban is a honourable trade; while tractor drivers plough virgin lands, we, the herders, set off to conquer arid and semi-arid lands’, said one of the chief shepherds of a Karatal sheep-breeding sovkhoz in 1964 on the occasion of a gathering of the Communist Party organisations in the Alma-Ata oblast’.32 Or, as a young herder put it in 1966: ‘In fact, really, sheep rearing was like a second Virgin Lands campaign [vtoraia tselina]’.33 The map of developed pastureland shows that many of these works never came to fruition, though.34 This is the case for the venture in the Naryn-Kum Desert evoked earlier. In 1980, only 10 million hectares of grazing lands (often arid and with sandy soil) were supplied with water in the whole of Kazakhstan, i.e. only one-tenth of initial plans. Still, the ‘water supply’ scheme triggered massive investments, large-scale projects, and the strong commitment of the administrative bodies in charge of water management (the Ministry of Water and its subsidiaries) and all levels of government. The mechanisation of pasture water supplies required numerous technical interventions and the resolution of technical challenges. A notable share of the equipment was poorly maintained, so that farms had to bring water to the grazing lands by tanker trucks or tractors.35 For instance, according to a May 1967 report from the People’s Committee overseeing the Dzhambul region, an audit of the pastures used by the Merke district farms in the Moiynkum Desert revealed that only 108,000 hectares out of 274,000 were equipped with wells, with more than half of these at a standstill. Thus, each well was servicing on average 8,000–12,000 animals in extremely unsatisfactory conditions. Meanwhile, many tanker trucks stood idle, awaiting repairs.36 In the few cases where ‘water supply’ worked,

Administrations, herders, and experts  61 the largely intensive feeding of livestock led to an ­overexploitation of their fragile soil.37 The 1970s marked the advent of other localised measures to fence off and irrigate pasture lands. These developments targeted the sovkhozes in the ­driest areas, where cultivated pastures were sown under selected forage species to secure feeding for livestock kept close to the farms, as the animals were too young or too weak to be taken to further-removed grazing lands. The KzylOrda or Taldy-Kurgan regions were the most active in devising fenced pastures because they were both irrigated by rivers (the Syr-Darya and Ili, respectively), which could provide the necessary water supplies.38 Spurred by the central committee of the Kazakh Communist Party and council of ministers, and overseen by the regional agencies tasked with water and agriculture, these works were conducted in the same manner as for the new irrigation to grow cotton and rice in the Syr-Darya watershed. For instance, in the Kzyl-Orda region, the upstream linearisation of the Syr-Darya, achieved by rectifying its meanders, resulted in increased acreage for technical crops (cotton, corn, tobacco, sugar beet), but also in 75,000 hectares of irrigated pastures:39 both developments were instrumental in drying out the Aral Sea and damaging the local environment. Soil erosion and depletion resulting from the development of pastureland was denounced as early as the 1970s,40 very soon after the lands had been put under cultivation and used as pastures. Regional authorities complained about grass salinisation and the appearance of marshlands due to inadequate drainage. But rather than learning from this lesson, the same authorities requested that the spring flood discharge from the endorheic waters of the Sarysu River be diverted from the neighbouring Karaganda into the Chiili district, to allow irrigation and increase plant cover there.41 Failure to grasp the situation was widespread: at the beginning of the 1980s, measures to expand pastureland productivity kept multiplying nationwide. Pesticides and herbicides were increasingly employed to destroy weeds and replace them with edible species.42 In 1983, the Kazakhstan Institute for Land Planning (Kazgiprozem), in charge of registering land assets and managing land use, laid out a programme aimed at increasing the total irrigated surface by 48%, the surface of pastures enhanced by fertilisation and sowing by 69%, and the surface of irrigated grazing land by a whopping 180%!43 People and apparatuses facing tight forage resource management These projects and measures to increase sheep meat and wool production and the tide of Soviet planning created a sense of urgency among those involved in the breeding industry, all the more so that bolstering pasture forage and grazing land surface represented an additional and pressing challenge to animal-feeding. Increasing forage productivity called for further irrigation ­ investments, due to the difficulties experienced in exploiting the pastures

62  Isabelle Ohayon a­ vailable. Their natural yield ranged between 0.5 and 3.5 quintal/ha: too low to meet the needs of mobile livestock.44 Moreover, on degraded ­pasturelands, the application of these yield-enhancement techniques turned out to be expensive, burdensome, and unsustainable, judging from the environmental damages they caused in some places (e.g. desertification, weed outgrowth). The emphasis placed on producing forage had its roots in the hardships experienced every winter by farms and breeders, and thus by all the administrative branches of the executive and the Communist Party. A systematic shortage in hay affected animals in stables and sheepfolds, as well as grazing livestock. As early as the end of the 1950s, it had become customary to carry over additional forage to grazing lands, if the need arose (see Figure  2.1). In continental steppe ecosystems, storms and heavy snows followed by freezing temperatures contributed significantly to annual livestock losses and were therefore considered an intolerable hindrance to the rational model of Soviet pastoralism. They imperiled planned developments and raised the spectre of dzhut, which the authorities had been fending off since the late 1920s. Executive bodies had been obsessing over dzhut,45 and so had all ranks of the

Figure 2.1  Convoy of tractors carrying forage for the chaban brigades of the ‘Kraspanski’ sovkhoz, Chimkent oblast’, 9 November 1964. Source: TsGA KFD RK 3-9519.

Administrations, herders, and experts  63 agricultural administrations. According to surveys from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, dzhut spells typically struck every 3–4 years in the Kazakh steppes; the most severe ones, which led to high livestock mortality rates, occurred every 10–12 years. It would then take a decade for the herd to return to its previous size, so that dzhut was one of the main factors underpinning extreme variations in animal population.46 This remained a genuine concern for the Soviet authorities in the second half of the twentieth century, in spite of the pastoral ‘modernisation’. Since the word ‘dzhut’ had been banned from the agronomic and administrative vocabulary, this phenomenon was then called ‘massive losses of livestock’. There remained that, between November and March, sovkhozes and kolkhozes worked to counteract weather vagaries and their consequences. This resulted in long- and short-term strategies of stockpiling and supplying forage. Farms and their hierarchies had to deal with such phenomena, experienced as emergencies every winter. For instance, during the winter of 1963–1964, in the Kzyl-Orda area, hurricanes, snow storms, gusts of wind, and sudden temperature drops produced ice sheets 40–90 cm deep, which drove many farms to bring their sheep and horses back from remote pastures and into stables and sheepfolds.47 The available forage, though, could only cover ten days of feeding, which led the authorities to take 1,500 tonnes from the neighbouring region of Dzhambul and request forage from state reserves for an additional 1,000 tonnes.48 As for the 60% of sheep, horse, and camel herds that remained on the winter pastures with their herders, the local authorities requested forage and warm clothing.49 When the same winter came to an end, the three southern regions of Kzyl-Orda, Shymkent, and Dzhambul had lost 54,000 head of small stock, double the previous year.50 Edige, a herder in Kyzylkum, gave a similar account of the 1961–1962 winter, when kokhozes resorted to emergency forage to counter the bad weather conditions. The death tally then was between 200 and 300 animals per farm (5–10% of the herd).51 Masaty, daughter and daughter-in-law of a sovkhoz director, also reported: Shepherds and horse herders were responsible for fulfilling their socialist obligations in terms of livestock growth and meat output. When there was a dzhut, they could go to prison if their herd suffered heavy losses. As a horse herder friend of mine once told me, there was a year when it kept alternating between cold and mild. The snow would melt and then it would snow again, which made water turn to ice. The horses couldn’t break the ice to get to the grass and graze. They died because of it. One morning, he found 500 horses kneeling on the ice. Afterwards, they were all dead. According to the interviewee, this would often occur in the year of the ­monkey (according to the Asian calendar).52 Even D. Kunaev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Kazakh republic, declared in December 1969 that district and oblast’ organisations could not cope with recurring

64  Isabelle Ohayon livestock losses and were covering them up by recording the shortfalls as local ­consumption figures.53 This did not necessarily mean that kolkhoz members were ­over-consuming meat: it is instead revealing of how administrative bodies, who found it impossible to question the principles of economic planning and to account for risk (especially weather-related), feared to admit that pastoral production was highly volatile. Like a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads, the perspective of dzhut informed practices in a context of tight management of the resources available. Every year, nationwide, planned agriculture imposed on farms to increase forage growing and harvesting, and provide detailed monthly inventories of their yields and of their stock. In 1965, in the Dzhambul oblast’, the preparations for winter were set to gather about 1.5 million tons of forage.54 This required the exploitation of all sorts of lands and plants potentially usable. Indeed, on irrigated fields, rain-fed plots, natural meadows, lands located on the bed of the Chu or the Talas, in the mountains, and in the non-sandy zone of the Moiynkum steppe, hay was mown not once, but twice or thrice. Marginal forage species (e.g. reeds) or residuals from technical cultures (corn, sugar beet), vegetable plants, and even straw were used to bolster forage reserves.55 Finally, a Party committee in the Dzhambul oblast’ had parks, public gardens, dacha gardens, and all of the region’s road banks mowed; they even authorised cutting down vegetation from the Aksu Zhabagly protected natural park. This endeavour resulted in a total 9,000 tonnes of hay56 – a modest amount if compared to the slated 1.5 million tons, but telling of the pressure farms experienced during the cold season. Every winter through the 1960s and 1970s, figures from kolkhozes and sovkhozes reflected an expected forage shortage of 15%.57 This was partially compensated for by an equalisation mechanism across all the regions of the Soviet republic. Nasyr, a chief shepherd in the Kazalinsk region, remembered that hay supplies set aside for winter were f­requently insufficient, which led to the death of many animals. Problems with forage deliveries, that he described as ‘fake promises’ from the sovkhoz, were gradually resolved by the end of the 1970s.58 Nurpaiyz, a horse herder, reminisced about the dzhut of 1971–1972, when the Aktyubinsk and Kokchetav regions supplied the Kazalinsk district with hay to feed the animals.59 Zhenis, a veterinary doctor and party member, also evoked the hunger of the animals on the grazing lands: In the 1970s, there were spells of drought, during the winter, we had to break the frozen crust [korka ledianaia] that had formed on pasturelands. Sometimes it snowed, sometimes it rained. As soon as the sheep heard the tractor, they would run to get grass and eat. This was in 1971 and 1973.60 New techniques and feedstuff quality standards also explain this rush to p ­ roduce forage. The 1970s witnessed developments in fodder plants silage techniques and the use of additives or forage substitutes, especially in the larger sovkhozes

Administrations, herders, and experts  65 where production was truly industrialised. The process of ensiling (i.e. the fermentation of forage to preserve it in silos as a wet product) marked a new phase of agricultural industrialisation in Europe, the USSR, and the United States. Buttressed by public policies, this practice became widespread among the largest farms, where it involved the addition of urea.61 The mass production of vegetal meals made of hay and cereal residues, also kept in silos, was accompanied by the introduction of animal meals based on fish not suitable for human consumption.62 Meals were combined with proteins, vitamins, and mineral supplements and were so popular that herders frequently requested phosphate additives to prevent diseases.63 Overall, this policy led to a steep increase in the share of cultivated fodder plants in the livestock feed. In 1970, about half the supplementary forage was produced from natural p ­ astures. In 1980, 60% was coming from artificial pastures.64 However, the share of forage in the diet of Kazakhstani livestock and the evolution of the forage/pasture ratio remain difficult to quantify. Herders ensnared between paternalism and productivity-based management To understand the specific position of herders in the face of increasing ­pressure towards forage production and pasture overgrazing, one must examine their labour culture and the conditions in which they exercised their craft. First, their input was very seldom taken into account in economic, agronomic, and breeding decision-making. They were not consulted on plan delivery, the estimation and allocation of the ‘forage base’, or animal selection. Yet, at the end of the day, they were held accountable for the annual livestock yield,65 be it at the kolkhoz, sovkhoz, or district level. There were two types of herders in the organigram of breeding farms: the chief shepherds (starshii chaban), who were largely accountable, and the assistant herders (pomchaban). Herdsmen were also hierarchised depending on the type of animals they handled: sheep, yearling calves, ewes, etc. These positions came attached to different migration timings and quality in pastures, varying levels of comfort, and specific symbolic significance.66 Each chief shepherd was responsible for a flock (otar) of about 700–800 animals (sometimes up to 1,200), and was assisted by one or two assistant herders. Together, they were responsible for grazing and herding, daily care, and lambing, and were held accountable for shearing outputs. These last two assignments were at the core of their production goals. The breeders’ work was compensated primarily according to the birth rate, but also the quality of the wool produced each year and, to a lesser extent, the live weight of each animal. Productivity was stimulated through a complex blend of measures that ­combined allowances and management techniques. Several incentives made the position of chabany attractive: they benefitted from financial and in-kind premiums, accompanied by an array of symbolic rewards (medals, d ­ ecorations). The latter were heavily advertised in the regional and national press, where

66  Isabelle Ohayon production records were posted, honouring the best farms and workers. Herders who reached the top of the honours hierarchy could, as other USSR model workers, be celebrated as heroes of Socialist labour. Brezhnev’s regime was particularly keen on this incentive and generously dispensed medals and other decorations, rewarding hard agricultural work. For instance, in the USSR, breeders were specifically targeted in 1973: one out of 50 employees in the agricultural sector workers received an award, but awardees were concentrated in Siberia and Kazakhstan – two large livestock-breeding regions.67 On the local level, advertising success had considerable impact on the life of the kolkhoz or the sovkhoz and, for the individual, the highest awards could lead to getting elected Party or oblast’ representative.68 To this day, reminiscing on these events evokes feelings of pride. In Karkaralinsk, a 66-year-old woman said enthusiastically about the sovkhoz’s best herder that [h]e was spearheading production [on peredovik proizvodstva]. He was decorated. He was sent to the VDNKh in Moscow, he was elected representative, and then decorated with the Order of Lenin, of the Red Labour Banner. He also received honours from the trade union [po linii profsoiuza].69 In the village of Furmanovka (now Moiynkum in the Dzhambul oblast’), a museum, still active nowadays, was created to honour Zhazylbek Kuanyshbaev, a herder who was hailed a hero of Socialist labour on two occasions. There, one can also see the shearing or milking records and achievements of other herders.70 Each year, the ‘festival of herders’ (chaban toy in Kazakh), corresponding to the ‘day of agricultural workers’ (denʹ rabotnikov selʹskogo khoziaistva) in the all-Union Soviet ritual calendar, was the occasion to gather all the workers from the sovkhozes of the area and confer honours and potential gifts. In the words of one such winner: Oh - chaban toi, that was a big party! There were thirteen sovkhozes, all gathered together. The top chabany were given a bonus [premiia]. They got money, new yurts. One year, I got a yurt made of 6 kanat [a component of the yurt’s truss]. A white yurt with a wooden floor. And a gold watch. And also a rug: there was a shortage of those [defitsit byl]. Everybody came, there was music. [And] a banner: ‘Top Shepherd, champion! [Peredovoi, chempion]’.71 Access to rare consumer goods was a key contributing factor to the ­comfortable way of life of herders, but also to their respectability. The avtolavka – a truck that came to the pastures with supplies of various items and services – is remembered as embodying privilege and a certain affluence: Artists would also go visit the herders where they were stationed [na chabanskie tochki]. We used to call it the ‘agit-prop train’ [agit-poezd]. In the propaganda team, they had a doctor, a tailor, household services, a

Administrations, herders, and experts  67 hairdresser, a librarian with newspapers and magazines and a c­ onvenience store. An entire crowd came to the dwellings, where, for instance, there would only be two families. These people gladly came to where h ­ erders were staying since, if they [the herders] didn’t want of the hard-to-find goods, these could be purchased. A group would come, in the little 2-bedroom lodging, and it would be a whole pandemonium [tselyi kontsert]: some had their hair cut, other their measurements taken in the tailor workshop, some were selling goods. The travelling shop brought imported shoes from the Czech Republic, Poland or Germany [germanskie], vodka, gherkins, fruit spread [povidlo], and jams from Moscow, Azerbaijan, or Ukraine. The herder would slaughter a sheep and, after dusk, there would be a concert. On the following day, we would go to another herder. All this was done for two-three chabany in the area.72 This service replaced de facto an institution invented in the 1920s, the ‘red yurt’, supposedly to provide ideological support (through the press and ­literature on political education) and medical assistance to breeders in ­transhumance.73 Primarily devised for the zimovki (winter pastures), the avtolavka did reach the farther transhumance spots (otgonnye tochki), but it took some time for this initiative to be effectively implemented throughout the country. In 1965, dysfunctions, especially in the access to health services and culture, were ­publicly criticised in a Pravda article signed by ‘Kazakhstan’s finest herders’ (peredovye zhivotnovody Kazakhstana).74 However, for the 1970s and 1980s, our interviews reflect the unanimous appreciation of avtolavka services and the impatience that preceded their arrival: The chabany could not miss it. They saw the Avtolavka coming from afar from the hill and said: ‘oh, the Avtolavka is coming!’ (Oi, avtolavka keledi!; in Kazakh in the original]. It came once a week at the request of the RaiPO [district supplier] to each herder dwelling [chabanskie tochki]. It was the avtolavka’s task to do the rounds among all herdsmen and provide them with hard-to-find goods [razvesti defitsit]. It did not come from the sovkhoz, but from the RaiPO and God forbid a chaban should complain that it hadn’t come for a while. The Raikom [district’s executive committee] would get wind of it! The chabany knew their rights.75 All the respondents stressed the avtolavka services that strove to answer to the herders’ needs: Sometimes, people would call the raikom if a chaban had something to complain about. There was a case when a chaban who was 200–300 km away said that the ‘Krona’ batteries from his portable radio were ­wearing out. It was an emergency [ChP, chrezvychainoe proisshestvie]. They ­chartered an avtolavka. He just said his batteries would run out soon. If a shepherd’s hair had grown, the domestic service provider [bytkombinat] was called. If the bytkombinat hairdresser did not go, he could

68  Isabelle Ohayon get fired. […] Then herders got their own bytkombinat: they got from the chabany [their] children’s measurements it was them who sew their clothes. […] Herders placed orders through animal-husbandry technician [zootekhnik]. The sector techician had to do rounds and check if anything was missing, food, forage. Then the avtolavka came to each dwelling every month.76 True or not, these representations highlight, if not the specific nature of the status of herder, the performative impact of the ‘cult of the herder’. The advent of this genuine ‘cult’. described by Svetlana Jacquesson for neighbouring Kyrgyzstan,77 can also be found in Kazakhstan and in most of the pastoral areas of the USSR (e.g. Buryatia, Tuva). The respondents – Roza, Sandybai, and Masaty – internalised the values promoted by the State’s narratives. The chaban’s remunerations, whether monetary or in kind, were perceived as highranking in the rural income-based hierarchy. Private flocks, obtained especially as standard annual payments and ranging approximately between 50 and 150 heads, held a special place in the family budget. Not only were they

Figure 2.2  An avtolavka unpacking its goods, Sovkhoz Shetyrgiz, Chelkar ditrict, Aktiubinsk oblast’, 9 October 1979. Source: TsGA KFD RK 3-21594.

Administrations, herders, and experts  69 considered a form of wealth that could be directly commandeered for private c­onsumption: they did also constitute a fundamental variable to adjust the kolkhoz or the sovkhoz statistics. Herders used these animals to make up for shortages or inflate their results,78 and thus get rewards or earn rights to scarce goods (cars, refrigerators, etc.): There was money – it was the goods that weren’t there. That’s why it was so complicated to incentivise [zainteresovat’] only with money. Those who delivered high volumes were even given cars, a Moskvich, a Zhiguli, or an Ural motorcycle. Combine-harvester drivers, herders, machinists and mechanical engineers, each got gifts in turn.79 Herders were thus at the top of the hierarchy of agricultural labourers and were rewarded in the same way as their technical counterparts. The Party committee on the kolkhoz or sovkhoz levels had agency in these incentives and used these tools to stimulate the work of livestock breeders and meet the plan’s objectives. The other side of a herder’s existence was made of rough living conditions and work pressure. By dint of the latter, herders were affected by changes in feeding conditions, and therefore by the nature and quality of pastures. These conditions directly impacted the health of their livestock (private or collective) and their wages. A flock might produce at least 110 lambs and 100 ewes, but when the plan’s lambing targets were not met, breeders, as we previously m ­ entioned, had to compensate by using animals from their own private flocks.80 For instance, a 90-year-old former herder explained that in 1979, due to hay shortages, they suffered heavy losses. He lost 12 head of livestock and replaced them with his own animals. He remembered how fiercely he argued with his wife about this decision. As he feared, the sovkhoz might launch an enquiry and punish him.81 If this strategy was often willingly adopted, the sovkhoz could also sometimes forcefully seize private livestock and even impose deductions on salaries.82 This is what a 1969 complaint recorded: several herders protested against their sovkhoz managers, accusing them of abusing their position and seizing 24 animals without their owners’ consent.83 Indeed, shepherds were regularly auditioned by local political leaders, especially the partorg (representative of the Party’s local branch) and oblast’ personnel.84 Similar procedures existed in all of Central Asia’s pastoral areas, as can be seen in the picture below, from Kyrgyzstan (Figure 2.3). The combination of private and collective flocks was complicated by many factors, including the regulation of land use. In many cases, privately owned animals grazed with the collective flock, following mutual arrangements between herders. Putting these animals together left room for ­manipulations on both types of flocks. For instance, when an animal was sick, it could either be recorded as a loss for the kolkhoz or not, depending on whether the herder was more inclined to give preference to collective output or his ­personal gains. Sometimes, though, private small flocks were sent to graze with ­privately owned cows, on meadows close to the villages, and could visibly

70  Isabelle Ohayon

Figure 2.3 The partorg and the Almaty oblast’ house representative Kozubekov inspecting the flock in the Toktogul sovkhoz in the presence of a herder, 1976. Source: Central State Archive of Film, Phonographic and Photographic Documents of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, 1-22119.

be distinguished from the kolkhoz’s livestock. As for the choice of pastureland, as we previously mentioned, except for the afterwar period, the task of mapping the seasonal pastoral migrations fell to centralised bodies ranking above state farms and districts, particularly because it was contingent on the engineering works that would provide grazing lands with water supplies and chemical treatments. As Masaty reported: Chabany didn’t get to decide themselves where to go with their flocks (otar). Because they had geneticists and breeders working in and for the sovkhozes. They could set aside a very good meadow for a difficult period of the year so that the grass could grow properly. Pastures were also sprayed by An-2 planes to fend off grasshoppers and weeds, there again the idea was to get better grass. That’s why the decisions as to where the livestock would be taken to graze came from the top.85 Caught in these hierarchical constraints, herders were inevitably the first to face the deterioration of the plant cover. As very classically noted in the Sahel Belt, they observed the decay of pastures close to water points that were ­overgrazed and trampled on by cattle and sheep, and of the green lands along the transhumance routes towards large seasonal pasturelands. They did inform their kolkhoz or sovkhoz managers and animal-husbandry officers of the state

Administrations, herders, and experts  71 of the pastures,86 but were not authorised to stray from their assigned area. They were therefore acutely aware that they were letting their animals feed on overgrazed lands, but they were predominantly passive towards this problem. This circumstance raises the question of the degree of latitude and agency at their disposal. Interviews with herders and other parties involved in rearing very strikingly show some casual awareness of the deterioration of grazing lands and, in a vast majority of cases, mere indifference to it. From the respondents’ silence or their inability to understand what was at stake, it transpires that this issue was underconceptualised in the sovkhoz and kolkhoz economy. It was neither recognised, nor thought out as a ‘generalised’ problem, whether at farm or national level. Therefore, in the discourse on the state of the pasture lands, there is no sign of increasing awareness. Ecologist Sarah Robinson, though, made some interesting findings in her field research on farms located in the Moiynkum Desert of southern Kazakhstan. For instance, herders from the Zhenis sovkhoz, created in 1960, showed no sign of opposition when pastures previously used sporadically as grazing land during the seasonal migrations were reclassified as principal pastures, where animals were to feed in spring, summer, and autumn.87 This intensification of pastoral use, by ­cutting short the time required to allow the plant cover to grow back and thus ­stripping the pastures of their quality, was the result of an increase in livestock. A lack of expertise, due to the rupture in the transmission of pastoral knowledge that took place in the 1930s, could partly explain why herders did not protest, although this is not directly mentioned by respondents.88 Another reason resides in the primacy of executive committees in the prospection of new grazing zones. This primacy was enforced very early on, after pastoralism was reinstated in the 1940s.89 In the Moiynkum region studied by Robinson, when the plant cover was too damaged close to the water points, herders said that they would unilaterally decide to extend the grazing perimeter beyond the allowed 3 km.90 This self-attributed modicum of freedom did not constitute a challenge to the general grazing organisation, which remained widely accepted due to their respect of the hierarchy. Some interviews show that herder discontent mostly focused on pressure to increase the livestock. Yet, such pressure was resented because it entailed breeding more animals with the same grass and water resources, not because it led to overgrazing. Eventually, herders only showed concern for environmental damage when they worried that the watering points assigned to each pasture would not cover their livestock’s needs.91 The fear of drought transpires from the practice of an ancient propitiatory rite that consisted in praying and slitting the throat of an animal over flowing water (a river, or spring water), so that blood would drip into the latter. This rain-propitiating rite (Tasattyq in Kazakh) has been performed in most of the country’s regions (Kzyl-Orda, Chimkent, Dzhambul, Alma-Ata oblast’) from the 1960s to this day.92 In the Soviet era, it was often recorded by the local services monitoring religious practices of the Plenipotentiary for the Council of Religious Affairs, for instance, in Turkestan,93 Semipalatinsk,94 and the Virgin Lands.95 It was also recorded in the oasis regions of Central Asia in

72  Isabelle Ohayon the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, even if it bore a different name and form.96 For breeders as well as farmers, this pre-Islamic sacrifice, documented among various Turkic peoples,97 was integrated into Muslim rites and accompanied by a prayer from the Qur’an in Arabic, sometimes recited by a mullah. In the 1960s and 1970s, the ceremony’s officiants were neither accredited by the state services nor part of the few officially recognised mullahs. Depending on the social and religious contexts, performing the Tassatyk was a social event where food and the animal itself were shared, either on the sacrificial grounds or at the home of the person who had commissioned the ceremony.98 There were other propitiatory rites to fend off dzhut, but they are not attested in the second half of the twentieth century.99 Therefore, this recourse to religious rites is revealing of the fear to face a dry season. More generally, such a symbolic and social investment into praying to avoid drought reflects some lack of confidence in technical and human devices; perhaps herders found solutions offered by farms and administrations in case low rains inadequate. Even though they showed concern for their flock (in terms of productivity and ­animal welfare), herders had very little room to manoeuvre and resolve overgrazing problems. It is also likely that they were not fully aware of them. Therefore, it seems that the model of ‘environmentalism of the poor,’ reflecting activism from the lower levels and propelled by ‘poor’ or ‘marginal’ populations, is not applicable to the social configuration of pastoralism in Soviet Kazakhstan. Still, using it enables us to see the high level of integration of herders and breeders within Soviet society and the comfortable way of life they subsequently enjoyed. Embedded in social, political, ideological, material, and sanitary frameworks created by Soviet paternalism, breeders internalised the system’s ethos of intensive production because they had a vested interest in it. The large, sometimes gigantic, flocks from the sovkhozes, which at times reached 60,000 head of sheep, recalled images of the wealthy nomads and their abundant flocks of yore. This imaginary is reflected in many interviews, where prosperity was directly linked to abundant meat consumption; moreover, in an essentialist way, meat consumption was considered as a marker for herder societies since ancient times. Thus, actors involved in Soviet pastoralism benefitted indirectly from the wealth of State farms, the level of respectability pushed forward by the dominant discourse, and preferential access to goods. At the same time, the availability of good quantities of meat, allowed by this economic model, was satisfying the cultural and ritual needs of rural Kazakh society. Until the end of the Soviet era, families in rural areas enjoyed the luxury of being able to slaughter a lamb whenever they desired, while ­cities faced chronic meat shortages. Being a relative of an auyl resident allowed urban-dwellers to obtain meat from time to time.100 Experts: embedded actors or budding epistemic community? While in the planned economy herders were at one end of the pastoralist chain of command, experts, in the broadest sense, intervened at different levels of the economic and political breeding process and held a decisive position.

Administrations, herders, and experts  73 A nebulous aggregate of institutions, expert agencies, and research institutes devised the breeding policy framework. Spurred by the highest-level governing powers, these institutions operated under the aegis of the ministries of agriculture and water management and of the USSR and Kazakhstan Academies of Sciences. They were created to accompany the plan and propose alternatives to enhance breeding productivity. They held shared and specific competences, although their tasks often ended up overlapping because of continual changes. For experts, the most important issue was animal selection: they prioritised fat-tailed sheep, merinos, mixed breeds, and karakul sheep, which were raised for their lambskins. They also focused on the advancement of veterinary ­science (e.g. treatment for diseases, hormonal boosters to increase ewe fertility) and on the study of grazing lands and forage production. This collection of experts encompassed botanists, biologists, agronomists, veterinaries, animal-husbandry technicians, as well as economists. Research on the state of pasturelands was entrusted to two institutions: the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences (VASKhNIL) and the ‘Forage and Pastures’ Research and Production Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of Kazakhstan, created in 1949 and still active. These institutions provided their expertise not only to national agencies such as the Kazgiprozem, mentioned above, but also to regional and district organisations and sovkhozes, in accordance with the results of their field investigations. After the Second World War, when Kazakh pastoralism expanded, thanks to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of animals from Moldavia and Ukraine in 1941– 1942,101 a­ gronomists and animal-husbandry technicians rolled out a new discourse about indigenous know-how. While in the 1920s and 1930s they had widely criticised vernacular skills in the name of modernity and rationalisation,102 agronomists started supporting a return to pastoral mobility based on ‘the study and use of the ancestral practices of former nomads’; such practices should be disseminated among ‘the best kolkhozes’,103 They contended that the know-how of local herders was already orienting the recovery of pasture occupation. Yurts also acquired a new form of legitimacy in the eye of the authorities and were introduced in the kolkhoz production plan. Here again, the idea was to use traditional know-how to produce the felt and wood beams required for the frame of the tent.104 Yet, the core of these scientists’ research remained focused on livestock and pastures. Their objective was to supplement and, in the long run, replace traditional local knowledge. Little by little, as livestock numbers grew and the plan’s goals evolved, their research became more complex and focused primarily on practical issues: winter breeding techniques, animal selection (based on the adaptability of each species or breed, their respective productivity, the fodder used, and the agro-climatic environment), water management, and, most important, the inventory of pastureland in order to identify under-grazed areas and periods of optimal use.105 As early as the 1960s, at the request of higher-ranking authorities (the republic’s Communist Party and the ministry), but also local administrations and their sovkhozes,106 these institutions focused on grazing land deterioration and potential solutions to the latter, so

74  Isabelle Ohayon that seamless productivity could be preserved. These teams of botanists and agronomists ran studies based on methods similar to those used in the West. In both of these scientific traditions, researchers compared an ideal standard to the current state of affairs. In the USSR, the quality of the pastureland was evaluated according to two key indicators: the variety of species carried and the loss in productivity of the plant cover. Numerous field studies were conducted in the regions most affected by overgrazing, such as the Moiynkum area. Researchers realised that the blend of plant species increasingly included non-edible or even nefarious plants; biomass was also shrinking: grassland productivity decreased from 500 kg/ha to 100–200 kg/ha in the most severely hit regions of Karaganda and KzylOrda.107 They came up with various solutions: for instance, following a scientific expedition and some sampling at the request of the Tattyn sovkhoz in the Merke district of the Dzhambul region,108 scientists from the Forage and Pasture Institute suggested to treat the plots overtaken by weeds with herbicides or, for the areas that were the most damaged (close to wells, sheepfolds, and pens) to harrow and sow new plants following a specific calendar. At the same time, they reviewed the pasture rotation plan and recommended for planted and natural grazing lands to lay fallow, while maintaining their multi-year exploitation. They also requested a change in transit routes, avoiding the pasturelands most severely hit by overgrazing. These technical recommendations, in addition to the occasional advice to use fertiliser, constituted the best scientific solutions at hand to meet the growing needs for pastures of farmers faced with an increasingly fragile environment. Allowing time for regeneration, though, was not enough to counter soil depletion in the arid and semi-arid areas of Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, the sources available do not clarify the constraints faced by local, political, and administrative authorities, and the nature of their debates around these issues. Experts also used the journal Problemy osvoeniia pustynʹ [‘Problems of desert development’] as a dedicated platform to exchange views on more general scientific questions. The journal was created in 1972 and edited by Agadzhan Babaev, a Turkmen physicist and geographer who attained the highest positions within the Soviet academic world. For a long time, he presided the Academy of Sciences of the Turkmenistan SSR. In 1976, he was also elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences and then of the Russian Academy of Sciences. As a specialist in arid environments and their development, he led innovative research on the deterioration of the arid and semi-arid regions of Central Asia. He was among the first to use satellite imaging to this end. He also stood out as a staunch supporter of modern irrigation technologies based on saline water treatment to curb desertification.109 His journal brought together many researchers in applied ­sciences from institutions across several Soviet republics, who turned it into an important platform for debates on the environmental crisis in Central Asian deserts and steppes. While the papers in this publication set forth analyses and experiments by experts in government agencies,110 they still contributed to

Administrations, herders, and experts  75 the development of the discourse on the protection of ecosystems. Contrary to what ensued after the Perestroika, this discourse was devoid of vindictiveness.111 The journal remained strictly utilitarian – a fact especially true of a section called ‘Production aid’, which contained practical advice. It is either fortuitous or emblematic that this section disappeared in 1985, as the same time as the Soviet ecological boom. Indeed, only then did warnings about the environmental emergency caused by overgrazing enter public scientific discourse. This happened with the release of Beregite pastbishcha [‘Protect the Pastures’], a book by Kazakhstani geobotanist and ecologist B.A. Bykov, and the ensuing debate between him and A.G. Babaev. Bykov was a prominent figure in the field of pastoral ecosystem ecology and a member of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan. He drafted the first botanical inventory of pastures in the Kazakh republic in 1969 and dedicated his career to observing their evolution. In his 1985 study, he classified as overgrazed all lands where productivity had fallen by more than 25% relative to their supposedly optimal state in the 1960s, and where plant cover had undergone a profound change in composition. His c­ onclusions ­differed from Babaev’s more optimistic assessment, even though Bykov’s ­criteria were more restrictive. According to the latter’s estimations, 30% of the arid zone had ­ iffering deteriorated in Kazakhstan over these decades.112 Regardless of their d methodology, both of these scientists, and more generally the academe, shared the same conclusion. The debate around the preservation of ecosystems spread to ministries and administrations. One can see in this the work of an epistemic community that engaged with several bodies and projected its diagnostics and warnings, even in the absence of an organised movement. This awareness entered public discourse through articles in the press and documentary films about Central Asia, which multiplied during Perestroika and covered desertification, the salinisation of Turkmenistan, air pollution in Alma-Ata, and the drying-out of the Aral Sea.113 Scientists were then asked to testify on camera and share their expertise to bring legitimacy and help mobilise public opinion. For instance, in an interview with other colleagues, Babaev highlighted how water flowing from cotton-field drainages damaged the surrounding biosphere. They objected to prioritising cotton because it came at the expense of livestock-rearing and bore a heavy toll on the Turkmen desert environment.114 His perspective remained nonetheless firmly ‘Promethean’: with more than a hint at self-promotion, he used his newly acquired freedom of speech to praise the new desalinisation techniques he was working on. While it remains difficult to assess how much this rising awareness of ­environmental issues affected on policymaking, one can still surmise that, considering the imminent fall of the Soviet system, all this took place too late for tangible measures to be implemented to protect the pastoral milieu. Many actors were stuck in a setting dominated by stringent production goals. An example can be found in the analysis of Kazakh economist Gani Kaliev’s analysis: his 1989 essay Sheep-breeding: strategies for an accelerated development set forth a new model of pastoralism compatible with the introduction of land

76  Isabelle Ohayon leasing and the economic liberalisation of the end of the Soviet era. While he acknowledged the deterioration and depletion of available pastures, he promoted the intensification of sheep-breeding in stables through more and more sophisticated inputs. On the basis of cost-effectiveness, he proposed to limit pastoral migration to selected breeds, adapted to the specificities of the zones where they would be put to graze. Conclusion The pastoral world was articulated around the links between various actors: decision-making institutions and executors, research agencies, and herders. All these links operated at different levels. It would be difficult to argue, thus, that scientific and practical information did not circulate between these spheres. Local executive bodies received scientific analyses from expert agencies, but also had their own inherent knowledge of production hurdles. The reports executive bodies drafted for agricultural administrations, the archives of which served as material for this research, report pastureland deterioration, salinisation problems, and, sometimes, the failure or success of measures adopted following experts’ fieldwork and recommendations. Groups of experts, in turn, had the sovkhozes or kolkhozes they visited during their field research in mind, but wrote more general reports to the ministries or governmental agencies, such as Kazgizprozem. The diagnosis of overgrazing was certainly shared by all these sets of actors. This knowledge was fragmented, though: only the ministry of agriculture, the Kazgizprozem, and the Forage Institute benefitted from a global understanding of how this issue manifested itself across the country’s territory, and even this knowledge would have been piecemeal, given the multiplicity of experts and viewpoints. If a form of environmental awareness had emerged, it would have been within these epistemic communities. Among these, only the scientific community, involved both in academia and in applied expertise, sought to alert the authorities: it was the likes of Bykov or Babaev who wrote articles intended for experts and, later, featured in documentary films for the general public. As for local actors, whether politicians or administrative personnel, or kolkhoz or sovkhoz members involved in animal husbandry, they had little access to general knowledge on overgrazing. There was in fact a hiatus between the producers of practical and theoretical knowledge and actors on the ground. Therefore, if there ever was an ‘environmentalism of the poor’, one must concede that sources have yet to provide substantiating evidence for it. No oral testimony or written source document mobilisation, however isolated, in defence of the pastoralists’ environment. Indeed, awareness of overgrazing was highly dependent on the competing interests of each side, especially the economic authorities and the academic world. In many cases, productivity remained the main objective of all those involved, leaving environmental protection far behind. Herders, who laboured under a culture that firmly emphasised hierarchy, do not seem to have become a driving force for protest. They certainly did not advocate alternative pastoral methods. Were they even provided with the opportunity to do so, though?

Administrations, herders, and experts  77 The sources at our disposal, oral and archival, show no space where herders could have voiced their opinions on pasture quality. A reduced and deteriorated framework for pastoral migration did not allow kolkhozes and sovkhozes much wiggle room. Their only option would have been to diminish their flocks or turn cultivated fields into pastures, but both these solutions would have been in direct conflict with the spirit of Soviet productivity and would have been untenable in an annual production report. Moreover, the concern and response of livestock breeders to drought and lack of water, whether for livestock watering or for the uninterrupted growth of the plant cover, only point at a situation where water supplies were not secured by agricultural institutions. The latter catered to the bare minimum in forage, but experienced difficulties in exploiting water supplies, especially during drought years. As for the herders, even when they only let their flocks graze on the pastures assigned to them, they still believed that they had immense territories at their disposal and did not imagine that they could ever be confronted with a lack of land. Crucially, the many technical initiatives implemented to fill the cracks caused by environmental overexploitation contributed to rendering the deterioration of the plant cover invisible. This entailed the illusion, among kolkhoz and sovkhoz members, that higher-level administrative bodies would always be able to respond adequately to crises. Finally, as mentioned by Jeanne Féaux de la Croix in relation to Kyrgyzstan,115 a sense of national pride probably delayed widespread awareness of pasture deterioration. Beside these psychological processes, though, a very practical circumstance prevented the emergence of a form of migration more in tune with changes in pastureland quality: this was the lack of maintenance and completion of hydraulic infrastructure in the arid zone. This issue of water-point distribution over the territory appeared indirectly in scientific texts, when they described how the plant cover was trampled on around overused wells. But the logical conclusion – that wells should be put somewhere else – was never drawn. In this regard, it is clear that agronomists, botanists, and geographers ­followed the same general logic as economic planners and policymakers. While they were aware that pastoral systems are to re-modulate grazing areas and flock itineraries, they remained subservient to the economic decisions and technologies sanctioned by the ministries of water and agriculture. In this ­relation between herders, experts, and institutional economic actors, the latter occupied the top of the pyramid, while the others were constrained to tightly defined areas of intervention. It was because these three sets of actors operated in a compartmentalised and heavily hierarchical way that environmental awareness failed to develop. Notes 1 Research conducted for this chapter was funded by ANR-DFG, project E ­ coGlobReg, 2015–2018. 2 Rolando García et al., Nature Pleads Not Guilty (Oxford: Pergamon, 1981), Rolando García et al., The Constant Catastrophe: Malnutrition, Famines and ­ Drought (Oxford: Pergamon, 1982); Rolando García and R. Pierre Spitz, Drought

78  Isabelle Ohayon and Man: The 1972 Case History: The Roots of Catastrophe (Oxford: ­Pergamon, 1986); Kathleen A. Galvin et al., Fragmentation in Semi-Arid and Arid ­Landscapes. Consequences for Human and Natural Systems (Dordrecht: Springer, 2008); ­ Monique Mainguet, Desertification: Natural Background and Human Mismanagement (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1994); David Thomas and Nicholas Middleton, World Atlas of Desertification (London: Routledge, 1997); Brigitte Thébaud, Foncier, dégradation des terres et désertification en Afrique: réflexions à partir de l’exemple du Sahel (London: International Institute for Environment and Development, 1995). 3 See Juan Martinez-Alier, The Environmentalism of the Poor: A Study of Ecological Conflicts and Valuation (Cheltenham: E. Elgar Publishers, 2002). 4 Douglas R. Weiner, A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachëv (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). 5 Source: N.G. Kharin and A.A. Kiril’tseva, “New Data on Areas of Desertified Lands in the Arid Zone of the USSR.” Problems of Desert Development 4 (1988): 4. (The arid zone corresponds to the desert agro-climatic area that covers half of Kazakhstan.) 6 These interviews were conducted in Kazakh or in Russian by Aybek Samakov (KzylOrda oblast’) and Xeniya Prilutskaia (Aktyubinsk oblast’, Akmola oblast’, Karaganda oblast’, Dzhambul oblast’, South Kazakhstan oblast’), whom I would especially like to thank. Oral history survey financed by Labex Tepsis (EHESS, Paris). 7 Isabelle Ohayon, La sédentarisation des Kazakhs dans l’URSS de Staline. Collectivisation et changement social (1928–1945) (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2006). 8 Ohayon, La sédentarisation, 363. 9 Ohayon, La sédentarisation, 312–326. 10 Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Respubliki Kazakhstan [herafter TsGA RK] 1000/1/32/35–38. 11 Veniamin V. Vostrov, “Kazakhi Dzhanybekskogo raiona Zapadno-Kazakhstanskoi oblasti (istoriko-ėtnograficheski ocherk),” in Kulʹtura i byt kazakhskogo k­ olkhoznogo aula (Trudy Instituta istorii, arkheologii i ėtnografii, vol. 3, ‘Etnografiia’), eds. Al’kei Kh. Margulan et al. (Alma-Ata: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR, 1956): 5–104; O. A. Korbe, “Kul’tura i byt kazakhskogo kolkhoznogo aula,” ­Sovetskaia etnografiia, no. 4 (1950): 67–91. 12 David George Anderson, Identity and Ecology in Arctic Siberia: The Number One Reindeer Brigade (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 37ff. 13 “Organizatsionnye sistemy zhivotnovodstva i sezonnogo otgona skota v ­Kazakhskoi SSR,” July 24, 1942, TsGA RK, 1137/7/367/72–88; A.B. Tursunbaev, K ­ azakhskii aul v trëkh revoliutsiiakh (Alma-Ata: Kazakhstan, 1967). 14 Zauresh G. Saktaganova, Ekonomicheskaia modernizatsiia Kazakhstana (­Karaganda: Izd. KarGU, 2017), 188–190. 15 Kazakhskaia sovetskaia sotsialisticheskaia respublika. Ėntsiklopedicheskii spravochnik, ed. Manash K. Kozybaev (Alma-Ata: Glavnaia redaktsiia Kazakhskoi S ­ ovetskoi ėntsiklopedii, 1981), 339. 16 The first legal restrictions to annual migrations and nomadism date back to Paul I, in 1802, and increased with the peasant colonisation that substantially expanded from 1870. See Istoriia Kazakhstana s drevneishikh vremën do nashikh dnei v piati tomakh, t. III (Almaty: Atamura, 2000), 424ff. 17 Galvin et al., Fragmentation, 163. 18 Galvin et al., Fragmentation, 165; K.A. Asanov and I.I. Alimaev, “New Forms of Organisation and Management of Arid Pastures of Kazakhstan,” Problems of Desert Development 5 (1990): 42–49.

Administrations, herders, and experts  79 19 Arkhiv Prezidenta Respubliki Kazakhstan [Archives of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, hereafter AP RK] 708/56/326/30. 20 Galvin et al., Fragmentation, 166. 21 See Table 2.2. 22 Catherine Baroin, “L’hydraulique pastorale, un bienfait pour les éleveurs du ­Sahel?,” Afrique contemporaine 205 (2003): 205. 23 AP RK, 708/35/66. In 1980, the total size of the livestock was of 50 million head. 24 AP RK, 708/35/41. 25 600 million rubles, on average, would amount to about 1.2% of the annual GDP for the Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan in the 1970s – an amount that would have to be spread over ten-year increments. 26 Tsentral'nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Nauchno-Tekhnicheskoi Dokumentatsii Respubliki Kazakhstan [Central State Archives of technical and scientific documentation – hereafter TsGA NTD RK], 106/3–6/54/199–213; on water-drawn holes: “Vodopoi u shakhtnogo kolodtsa sovkhoza Piatimorskii dzhangalinskogo raiona,” Uralsk oblast’, 1962, TsGA KFD RK, 3–25043. 27 AP RK, 708/35/57. 28 Klaus Gestwa, Die Stalinschen Grossbauten des Kommunismus: sowjetische Technikund Umweltgeschichte, 1948–1967 (München: R. Oldenbourg, 2010); Paul R. ­Josephson. “‘Projects of the Century’ in Soviet History: Large-Scale Technologies from Lenin to Gorbachev,” Technology and Culture 36, no. 3 (1995): 519–559. 29 Josephson, “‘Projects of the Century’ in Soviet History,” 552. 30 Zhivotnovodstvo SSSR (Statisticheskii sbornik) (Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe statisticheskoe izdatel'stvo, 1959), 382. 31 Zhivotnovodstvo SSSR, 552. 32 AP RK 708/37/267/68. 33 Comments made at the occasion of the Republican Meeting of Young Herders: “Respublikanskoe soveshchanie molodykh chabanov ovtsevodov,” 1966, TsGA RK 1137/24/1802/24. 34 Kazakhskaia sovetskaia sotsialisticheskaia respublika. Entsiklopedicheskii spravochnik, 339. 35 TsGA NTD RK, 106/3–6/54/199–213. 36 TsGA RK 209/1/358/3–6. 37 VASKhNIL analysis in a report to the Central Committee of the Communist Party, 1973, AP RK 708/56/326/30–37. 38 AP RK 708/51/2010/76–79; AP RK 708/58/2038/49–63. 39 See all the quoted interviews from Kazalinsk region in 2016. 40 AP RK 708/56/326/30–37. 41 AP RK 708/51/2010/77 and AP RK 708/38/1303/79. 42 Interview with Masaty Bolatovna (b.1963), daughter and daughter-in-law of sovkhoz directors in the Ėmba district. 43 Galvin et al., Fragmentation, 166. 44 AP RK 708/56/326/31. 45 Pravda, no. 89, 19 April 1927, clipping in TsGA RK, 1000/1/32/24; TsGA RK, 1000/1/32/35–38; I.A. Zveriakov, Ot kochevaniia k sotsializmu (Alma-Ata, Moskva: Kraevoe Izdatel’stvo Ogiza v Kazakhstane, 1932), 146. 46 V.F. Shakhmatov, “O proiskhozhdenii dvenadtsatiletnego zhivotnogo tsikla ­letoischisleniia u kochevnikov,” Vestnik Akademii Nauk Kazakhskoi SSR no. 1 (1955), 43–53; Sarah Robinson, “Pastoralism and Land Degradation in Kazakhstan,” PhD dissertation, (University of Warwick, 2000), 79. 47 AP RK 708/37/1309/114–115. 48 AP RK 708/37/1309/116.

80  Isabelle Ohayon 49 “Sekretar’ partorganizatsii kolkhoza “Bolshevik” dzhambul’skogo raiona privëz tëpluiu odezhdu chabanam na otgonnye pastbishcha,” October 14, 1963, TsGA KFD RK 3–6488. 50 AP RK 708/37/1309/119. 51 Interview with Edige (b. 1937), chief shepherd, Kazalinsk district, Kzyl-Orda oblast’, 17 August 2016. 52 Interview with Masaty. 53 Minutes from the 12th Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the SSR of Kazakhstan, 24–25 December 1969 AP RK 708/46/13/42–43. 54 AP RK 708/38/1303/87. 55 AP RK 708/38/1303/88. 56 AP RK 708/38/1303/89. 57 The anticipated deficit for 1971 was estimated to be 15% for the Republic as a whole, with significant variations depending on regions, AP RK 708/51/2009/2. The Dzhambul obkom warned as early as 5 July 1965, of a foreseeable lack of forage for the incoming winter and announced a potential deficit of 50%, APRK 708/38/1303/109. The chart recording the 1969 deficits shows an average of 9%; the variations were offset by a system of equalisation, but the average still ­reflected a shortfall, AP RK 708/48/551/15–16. 58 Interview with Nasyr (b. 1939), chief shepherd, Kazalinsk district, Kzyl-Orda oblast’, 19 August 2016. 59 Interview with Nurpaiyz (b. 1943), horse herder, Kazalinsk district, Kzyl-Orda oblast’, 16 August 2016. 60 Interview with Zhenis (b. 1944), Karkaralinsk, Nurken Sovkhoz, veterinary and then Party employee, 11 July 2017. 61 AP RK 708/51/2009/3. 62 AP RK 708/51/2009/7. 63 AP RK 708/51/2009/7. 64 Galvin et al., Fragmentation, 166. 65 Interview with Kaiypkozha, born in 1959, assistant herder, Kazalinsk district, KzylOrda oblast’, 17 August 2016. 66 The same hierarchy can be observed in Kyrgyzstan: Svetlana Jacquesson, Pastoréalismes: anthropologie historique des processus d’intégration chez les Kirghiz du Tian Shan intérieur (Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2010), 159–161. 67 Viktor Dënningkhaus and Andrei Ivanovich Savin, “Smotrish', i Mane, i Tane kakoi-to “Znak Pochëta” popadaet. Brezhnevskaia “industriia” nagrazhdenii i ­ ­sovetskoe obshchestvo,” Rossiiskaia Istoriia, no. 2 (2014), 127–149. 68 Interview with Aitzhan (b. 1940), chaban, Moiynkum village, Dzhambul oblast’, 8 July 2017. 69 Interview with Nurgaliuly Toleutai (b. 1936), educator, inspector of popular education, in sovkhozes and kolkhozes and with Saulie, born in 1951, raikom employee, then library employee, Karkaralinsk, 8 May 2017. 70 Visit of the museum on 8 July 2017. 71 Interview with Aitzhan. 72 Interview with Roza (b. 1952 in Ėmba city), daughter and sister of sovkhozes directors, Aktyubinsk oblast’, Kandyagash, 3 June 2017. 73 Alun Thomas, Nomads and Soviet Rule: Central Asia under Lenin and Stalin (­ London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 142–145; Paula A. Michaels, Curative Powers: Medicine and Empire in Stalin’s Central Asia (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003), 155; Rebekah Ramsay, “Nomadic Hearths of Soviet Culture: ‘Women’s Red Yurt’ Campaigns in Kazakhstan, 1925–1935,” Europe-Asia Studies 73, no. 10 (2021): 1937–1961. 74 “Delo ėto nashe, obshchee. Pis’mo peredovykh zhivotnovodov Kazakhstana,” Pravda, 7 September 1965, 2.

Administrations, herders, and experts  81 75 Interview with Gulmira (b. 1962). chaban’s daughter, Aktyubinsk oblast’, 17 March 2017. 76 Interview with Sandybai (b. 1940), former sovkhoz director, animal husbandry officer, Aktyubinsk oblast’, Kandyagash, 3 June 2017. 77 Jacquesson, Pastoréalismes, 164–165. 78 Interview with Nurgaliuly Toleutai and Saulie. 79 Interview with Roza. 80 Interview with Nasyr. This situation was also observed by Jacquesson, Pastoréalismes, 162. 81 Interview with Amangeldy, born in 1927, chief shepherd, Moiynkum village, Dzhambul oblast’, 8 July 2017. 82 Interview with Nurpaiyz. 83 TsGA RK 2029/1/898/2–3. 84 Interview with Nasyr. 85 Interview with Masaty. 86 Interview with Bakhytzhan (b. 1949), animal-husbandry officer, sovkhoz­ “Arnasay”, Kirov district, Southern Kazakhstan oblast’, 4 September 2016. 87 Robinson, “Pastoralism and Land Degradation in Kazakhstan,” 87–88. 88 Ohayon, La sédentarisation, 332. 89 “Resolution of the Ispolkom of the Soviet of the workers’ deputies of the South Kazakhstan oblast’ and of the obkom office of the KP(b)K on kolkhoz livestock transhumance on summer pasture in the high mountains of the Bostandyk district.” TsGA RK, 1137/7/367/1–2. 90 Robinson, “Pastoralism and Land Degradation in Kazakhstan,” 103. 91 Interview with Sholpan (b. 1960), niece of a herder, familiar with summer ­pasturelands, Agadyr region, Shet district, Karaganda oblast’, 24 October 2016. 92 Interview with Abi (b. 1951), driver, sovkhoz employee, Kazalinsk district, KzylOrda oblast’, 15 August 2016; interview with Nasyr. 93 AP RK 708/38/1280/310. 94 TSGA RK 2079/1/80/281–290. 95 TSGA RK 1711/1/102/47–50. 96 Raushan M. Mustafina, Predstavleniia, kulʹty, obriady u kazakhov (Alma-Ata: Qazaq Universiteti, 1992), 123–126. 97 D.Kh. Karmysheva, “Zemledel’cheskaia obriadnostʹ u kazakhov,” in Drevnie obriady, verovaniia i kulʹty narodov Srednei Azii, ed. V.N. Basilov (Moskva: Nauka, 1986), 208. 98 Mustafina, Predstavleniia, 124. 99 Khalel A. Argynbaev, “Narodnye obychai i pover’ia kazakhov sviazannye s skotovodstvom,” Khoziaistvenno-kul'turnye traditsii narodov Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana (Moskva: Nauka, 1975), 194–206. 100 Interview with Bibigul and Zaure (b. 1969), Almaty, reminiscing about the end of the 1970s, when they were children and took the train with their mother from Alma-Ata to the aul to buy meat, 16 July 2016. 101 TsGA RK, 1137/6/577/24. 102 TsGA RK, 1000/1/12/34–71, 1000/1/12/197, 1000/1/12/203–208, 1137/1/760/30–33, 1137/1/760/37–43. 103 L.M. Zal’tsman and B.L. Blomkvist, Opyt otgonno-pastbishchnogo ­soderzhaniia skota v kolkhozakh (Moskva: Sel’khozgiz, 1948); T.B. Balakaev, Kolkhoznoe krestʹianstvo Kazakhstana v gody velikoi otechestvennoi voiny, 1941–1945 (AlmaAta: Nauka Kazakhskoi SSR, 1971), 160–166. 104 Ohayon, La sédentarisation, 338. 105 Boris A. Bykov, Pastbishcha i senokosy (klassifikatsiia) (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1969). 106 TsGA NTD RK, 106/3–6/4/2. 107 Asanov and Alimaev, “New Forms of Organization,” 42–49.

82  Isabelle Ohayon 08 TsGA NTD RK, 106/3–6/4/1–10. 1 109 Agadzhan Babaev and Zakhar Freikin, Pustyni SSSR vchera, segodnia i zavtra (Moskva: Mysl’, 1977), 248ff. 110 Marie-Hélène Mandrillon, “L’expertise d’État, creuset de l’environnement en URSS,” Vingtième Siècle, no. 113 (2012): 107–116. 111 Survey of the journal Problemy osvoeniia pustynʹ from 1972 to 1988. 112 Robinson, “Pastoralism and Land Degradation in Kazakhstan,” 87. 113 See, for example, Aralkum, directed by B. Muzafarov (Lennauchfil’m, 1987), 28 min. Documentary film shot in Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan). 114 Spasite pustyniu, directed by Sapar Mollaniiazov (Turkmenfil’m, 1988), 27 min. 115 Jeanne Féaux de la Croix, Iconic Places in Central Asia: The Moral Geography of Dams, Pastures and Holy Sites (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2016).

3 Environmental and community preservation in the face of fossil fuel development The case of Berezovka, Kazakhstan Kate Watters This is an account of a group of local activists—primarily women—in western Kazakhstan, who worked for almost two decades to relocate their village away from the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field, a 280 square kilometre field 5 kilometres from their homes in Berezovka. They tirelessly organised locally and led a campaign that, in the end, saw Berezovka resettled into two distinct communities. They did this together with national and international environmental defenders, whose interests intersected with their own. These actors held accountable the government, corporations, and international financial institutions engaged at and benefiting from the Karachaganak Field. The protagonists of this push for relocation are among the many women who, around the world, find their health, ways of life, and values challenged by fossil fuel development. Although they did not all overtly identify as feminists, the villagers of Berezovka led a call for environmental justice grounded in concepts often couched elsewhere in ecofeminist terminology. The ecofeminist perspective is brought in here by the author, who was privileged to be intimately involved in this campaign between 2003 and 2017. I worked closely with local community activists and national NGOs in Kazakhstan and engaged as an interlocutor with international institutions such as the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As an executive director of Crude Accountability, a US-based environmental and human rights nonprofit organisation, I bring a practitioner’s perspective to environmental justice issues.1 In many ways, the campaign was a success: the community was relocated, the villagers received financial compensation and new homes, and the ­consortium operating the field, including some of the largest oil companies in the world, paid for the relocation. In some sense, this was justice: despite the country’s corrupt and authoritarian regime and extreme imbalance of power and money between oil companies and less well-endowed communities and civil society organisations, the residents of Berezovka won. In other ways, though, the campaign is a story of loss—of home, community, culture, economy, trust, and belief. It was also, at its inception, a story of loss of health, loss of a bright future, and, in some cases, loss of educational opportunity. This chapter is DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-5

84  Kate Watters dedicated to the brave and committed protagonists of this story, and first and foremost, to the founder and leader of the community group Zhasil Dala,2 Svetlana Anosova, who started it all. The Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field Oil and gas fields in western Kazakhstan account for the lion’s share of the country’s oil and gas production; the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate and Tengiz Fields are the two largest petroleum liquids and natural gas fields in the country.3 The Karachaganak Field covers 280 square kilometres, and is one of the largest in the world.4 It holds an estimated 9 billion barrels of condensate and 48 trillion cubic feet of gas, with estimated gross reserves of 2.4 billion barrels of condensate and 16 trillion cubic feet of gas.5 It was discovered in 1979 by the government of the USSR; Karachaganakgazprom, a subsidiary of Gazprom, then started its exploitation.6 In 1997, the partners of the international consortium, Karachaganak Petroleum Operating, B.V. (KPO), signed a joint venture with the government of Kazakhstan to develop the field until 2038.7 In 2002, the consortium received $150 million in loans from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private investment arm of the World Bank Group. The loan was signed by Lukoil, which at the time was a 15% minority shareholder in the venture. The loan subjected KPO to the social and environmental standards of the World Bank Group, including those related to involuntary resettlement, and required the consortium to report regularly to the IFC about its social and environmental due diligence. Until 2012, the KPO consortium was unique in Kazakhstan and the Central Asian region in that it was a fully foreign-owned consortium, with no Kazakhstani share. In 2012, Kazmunaigaz joined the consortium, gaining a 10% share, with the effects described below.8 ENI and Shell are the joint operators of KPO, each at 29.25%, followed by Chevron (18%), Lukoil (13.5%), and then Kazmunaigaz (10%). The operators are among the largest oil companies in the world: the Italian ENI is considered a global super-player and operates in 69 countries9; Shell and Chevron are among the ten largest oil companies in the world.10 Russia’s Lukoil, although smaller, operates in over 30 countries and calls itself ‘one of the largest publicly traded, vertically integrated oil and gas companies in the world’.11 Chevron is Kazakhstan’s largest private oil producer, with investments at both Karachaganak and Tengiz Fields.12 ENI and Shell hold investments at the Kashagan offshore field, and Lukoil holds other assets both on and offshore in the country. Up to this day, each member of the consortium, including Lukoil, has made significant profit, despite sanctions against Russian companies, and even though Kazakhstani oil and gas reaches Europe through Russia.13 In the third quarter of 2022, Chevron made a record $11.2 billion in net profits.14 ENI reported 5.77 billion euro net profit for the same period.15 For its part, Shell reported $9.5 billion in profits for third quarter of 2022.16

Environmental and community preservation  85 The most recent figures available for Lukoil are 2021 net profits, which were $6.9 ­billion—50 times higher than the previous year.17 Kazmunaigaz’s net profit for the first quarter of 2022 was $628 million.18 KPO itself does not release financial profits in its reporting, but only ­production numbers and information about its social and other outputs. For instance, in the first half of 2022, KPO produced 71.4 million barrels of oil equivalent of stable and unstable liquid hydrocarbons, export raw gas and sweet fuel gas. In addition, 5.7 billion cubic meters of raw gas were injected into the reservoir, which accounts for 54.3% of the total gas produced in the field.19

Berezovka’s struggle The village of Berezovka was located approximately 25 kilometres from the town of Aksai, and about two and a half hours by car south of the city of Uralsk in western Kazakhstan. According to the villagers, the first homes were built in 1909, the village church was constructed in 1912, and then a school and other buildings were added.20 During the Soviet period, Berezovka was a state farm (sovkhoz), with a sausage factory that processed local livestock. It was an ethnically mixed community—in the 2000s, the population was approximately half-Kazakh and half-Slavic. We observed Kazakh and Slavic (of Russian and Ukrainian heritages) residents of the village socialising and working together for relocation. The community was both Muslim and Orthodox, with separate religious traditions and cemeteries. Crude Accountability staff communicated with the villagers primarily in Russian, although some of our contact was in Kazakh. Inhabitants of Berezovka (especially women) came to realise that the oil field was polluting the village and surrounding area with toxic emissions that were negatively impacting the soil, air, and water they relied on. They were worried that their children and grandchildren would not grow up healthy and safe there, and so, as painful as it was, they came to understand that relocation was the best option for future generations. Beginning in 2003, local activists repeatedly appealed to the regional and national government and the consortium, asking for data on emissions from the field. When they were stone-walled, they turned to monitoring the data themselves and undertook independent air, soil, and water testing with the help of Crude Accountability.21 The village initiative group (called initsiativnaia gruppa by its ­members), which formalised itself in 2007 to become the local NGO Zhasil Dala, accessed the complaint mechanism of the IFC that had made loans to KPO.22 They also appealed to the National Focal Points of the OECD, a program that aims to hold corporations to account.23 Finally, they filed lawsuits with their own ­government, advocated on the international level by engaging the

86  Kate Watters

Figure 3.1 Svetlana Anosova leads an open-air community meeting, 2011.  Photo by Crude Accountability.

United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and used the press to tell their story. The last straw on the relocation issue came in November 2014, when two dozen members of the community—19 children and three adults—fell ill simultaneously from exposure to toxic emissions in the air. It was only then that the Kazakhstani government finally decided to relocate the village. Even then, it took another six months and several additional instances of mass illness in the village to finalise such a decision. The relocation was announced in July 2015 and was fully completed at the end of 2017 (Figure 3.1). Ecofeminism and Berezovka’s women An ecofeminist analysis helps to understand how the development of the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field collided with the economic development ‘model’ of the village of Berezovka, and why women played a pivotal role in the community’s relocation. In 1974, French intellectual Françoise d’Eaubonne coined the term ecofeminism in her Le feminisme ou la mort (Feminism or Death). For her, patriarchal capitalism was the common denominator in both the oppression of women and the exploitation of nature, concluding that ‘we need urgently to remake the planet around a totally new model. This is not an ambition, this is a necessity; the planet is in danger of dying, and we will die along with it’.24 Long before the climate crisis came to the fore, d’Eaubonne deplored the exploitation of natural resources and blamed the capitalist model. Many of the destructive policies associated with capitalism were also central to the Soviet model of industrialisation, which calls into question this aspect of d’Eaubonne’s analysis. More generally, the destructive practices of the fossil

Environmental and community preservation  87 fuel industry rely on what Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies called ‘the e­ conomic model ­focusing ­myopically on “growth,”’ which ‘begins with violence against women by discounting their contribution to the economy’.25 As Jeanne Burgart Goutal stated, ‘According to ecofeminists, the exploitation of nature and male domination have deep shared roots, and use similar mechanisms such as objectification, devaluation, and violence’.26 Critics of first-wave ecofeminism have targeted its essentialism, its failure to consider the diversity of women’s experiences, and its binary approach to gender. More recent authors have focused on the patriarchal relationship of industrial development to the land. Today, the climate crisis has revived interest in ecofeminism. Starting from the observation that the majority of the world’s poor are women, recent proponents such as Leah Thomas stress the intersection of ecofeminism, environmentalism, and climate justice.27 In Thomas’s words, ‘[e]cofeminism is both a philosophy and a movement that exposes the dual oppressions of women and the environment as rooted in patriarchal structures’—and seeks to subvert it.28 According to UN Womenwatch, women are more vulnerable to the consequences of environmental degradation and climate change because of their role in traditional societies and communities. They also face ‘social, economic and political barriers that limit their coping capacity’.29 They are less likely to benefit from natural resource extraction and to suffer adverse effects from it. At the same time, women ‘are also effective actors or agents of change in relation to both mitigation and adaptation’.30 As reflected in the strategies of Zhasil Dala, [w]omen often have a strong body of knowledge and expertise that can be used in climate change mitigation, disaster reduction and adaptation strategies. Furthermore, women’s responsibilities in households and communities, as stewards of natural and household resources, position them well to contribute to livelihood strategies adapted to changing environmental realities.31 Ecofeminism, by ‘see[ing] climate change, gender equality, and social injustice more broadly as intrinsically related issues, all tied to masculine dominance in society’,32 can thus help define and articulate the dynamics—of power, authority, and economics—that underpinned Berezovka’s campaign for relocation. Ecofeminism, though, is not a label Berezovka’s women would have chosen for themselves. Talking to me, they denied that feminism drove their concerns. Instead, they noted that it was riskier for local men to engage in work to protect the community because many worked for KPO or its contractors on the rigs, driving trucks, or in construction, and feared for their jobs. The women identified as community activists, as mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, wives, as teachers, and professionals33—but most importantly as members of a community that was under threat from large, external economic forces beyond their control and, at least initially, beyond their understanding. Their motivation fit with Peshkova’s characterisation of Central Asian women, whose

88  Kate Watters ‘socio-political activism is pragmatic [and] informed by personal experiences, feelings of moral responsibility vis-à-vis others, economic necessity, consumerist desires, and local and global discourses on rights’.34 Berezovka’s women took the significant step to learn the dynamics, systems, and scope of the influence of the international actors impacting their community, including corporations and financial institutions that held fundamentally different values from theirs. National and international NGOs such as Crude Accountability and the Kazakhstani NGO Zelenoe Spasenie35 (Green Salvation) worked with Zhasil Dala to help them navigate this landscape, engage with the Kazakhstani court system, and use the complaint mechanisms of international financial institutions and of the companies themselves. The women who led the campaign were discredited, threatened, p ­ ressured, and experienced violence from the predominantly male authorities and corporate leadership. Their struggle was, in many ways, a manifestation of ecofeminist values in opposition to those of corporate, patriarchal transnationals. Regardless of gender-equitable hiring practices for international executive positions, the general directors of KPO come alternately from ENI and Shell (the co-operators of the consortium) and have always been male. In terms of nationality, higher paid positions in the industry went to non-Kazakhstanis. This has led to labour disputes at Karachaganak, Tengiz, and other oil fields.36 As for the local authorities, many of them benefited from their contacts with KPO through gifts or access to resources. In the early 2000s, it was widely known that the mayor of Berezovka was also employed by KPO. Similarly, the local police often appeared to be in close cooperation with the company. As they became more vocal in their opposition to the development of the Karachaganak Field, members of Zhasil Dala were followed, their phones were tapped, they were threatened, and some of them, including Svetlana Anosova, were fired from their jobs by village officials. Zhasil Dala campaigns for relocation The words Zhasil Dala mean ‘green steppe’ in Kazakh. A green steppe ­surrounds the village of Berezovka in the spring and early summer months, as the community is located on the vast, mostly treeless plains of western Kazakhstan. In the spring, the steppe is dotted with the bright colours of wild poppies and other wildflowers. As the heat of summer intensifies, the flowers die, and the green waving grasses fade to a golden colour. The winds blow hot and steady, and the vast expanse of land is reminiscent of the ocean: constantly in motion and seemingly endless. In the winter, the steppe is transformed into a shimmering sea of snow, and as the winds blow down from Siberia, the cold is one that seeps into your bones. If those unfamiliar with the steppe are overwhelmed by its beauty, for Svetlana Anosova and many of the other women of Berezovka, the steppe was a source of comfort, food, and solace. Svetlana’s kitchen was stocked in winter with herbs and mushrooms gathered from the steppe, with salted and frozen fish taken from its rivers, and with flowers dried for their beauty and

Environmental and community preservation  89 medicinal qualities. The name Zhasil Dala, Green Steppe, which she chose for her organisation, is thus a fitting one. From its formation in 2002, Zhasil Dala met regularly in members’ homes to discuss the latest news about issues of concern: whose children were sick, how often they smelled the odour of rotten eggs as hydrogen sulphide was released from Karachaganak, who woke up in the middle of the night to see strange light from the Karachaganak Field, and who arose in the morning with headaches and a feeling of exhaustion, even though they had slept all night. Many of the members of the group were teachers in the community school. The latter taught children from kindergarten through high school, who from 2003 onward regularly suffered from ailments that had previously been rare, or unheard of. These included skin rashes, nosebleeds, and severe headaches. The village nurse-midwife was a member of the group, as were the school’s science teacher, the director of the village community centre, and the director of the village music school: Svetlana Anosova. Crude Accountability started working with the initiative group in 2003. We were invited first in 2003 to help the group ascertain their problems and work for relocation away from the Karachaganak Field.37 Svetlana and the other women in the group explained that from the early 2000s, when the field expanded its operations under KPO, the government of Kazakhstan had promised that the two closest villages, Tungush and Berezovka, be relocated to a ‘village of the 21st century’, where they not only would be safe from emissions, but even enjoy better quality of life. Articles were published in the local newspapers about this promise, and local officials bragged about how the communities would be treated well, kept intact, and offered first-class housing. At the basis of this promise, there was a law whereby a Sanitary Protection Zone (where living and grazing livestock was unsafe) should be established around each industrial enterprise, including oil and gas fields. The Sanitary Protection Zone, or SPZ, extended for 5 kilometres around the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field,38 thus squarely including Tungush at 2.5 kilometres, while Berezovka sat on its boundary. Importantly, the IFC recognised the need for safe zones in its social and environmental standards. In 2003, the village of Tungush was relocated,39 but instead of earlier promises, residents moved to apartment buildings in the city of Uralsk, 2.5 hours away by car. Most of them had spent their lives in village homes, relying on livestock, barns, fruit trees, gardens, and space. In Uralsk, they had no place to put their livestock and no opportunity to sell them. Even their appliances were too large for their new flats, so that they had to sell them and purchase new ones. The apartment buildings themselves had stood half built for years before KPO quickly finished and decorated them. The Tungush residents did not receive financial compensation, and many of them were unable to find work in the city.40 Berezovka was not relocated, though, because the government of Kazakhstan reduced the Karachaganak SPZ to 3 kilometres.41 It was from this point that the serious struggle started for its 1,500 inhabitants.

90  Kate Watters Life in Berezovka Members of Zhasil Dala described their life in the village, prior to the development of the Karachaganak Field, as in tune with natural cycles, albeit difficult. Though far from a pristine environment, the community was decidedly rural. Its agricultural orientation had unfolded in the Soviet era. Beside work of the sovkhoz and connected sausage factory, residents of Berezovka provided food for their families by fishing in the river that flowed through the village and hunting hares and other game. Pickled, canned, and dried produce from subsistence gardens complemented their diet in winter, while many gathered mushrooms and herbs for food and medicine. The expansion of Karachaganak, though, meant the closure of the sausage factory in the early 2000s; increasing industrialisation made reliance on agriculture more difficult, too. After unemployment and economic hardship in the 1990s, some (especially men) found the development of Karachaganak appealing. The construction jobs that became available, though, were mostly short-term, while more technical jobs were unavailable to those without suitable qualifications. After KPO received the IFC loan in 2002 and invested it in development, toxic emissions, including hydrogen sulphide, carbon disulphide, methylene chloride, and other chemicals associated with petroleum production, ramped up. The village residents began noticing health impacts in themselves and in their livestock: fruits and vegetables from subsistence gardens were malformed, spoiled, or of poor quality, so that they could not be preserved. The amount of food each family could bring in for the winter thus diminished significantly: families had to spend their wages to purchase food from stores in nearby towns instead. Local officials largely downplayed the harms that resulted from emissions: damage to indispensable cottage garden produce was presented by government officials as unimportant in comparison to the overall profits to the state. As for humans, according to a 2003 survey run by the villagers, some 45% of residents became chronically ill. As ecofeminist authors anticipated,42 Berezovka’s children suffered disproportionately due to their particular vulnerability to toxic exposure. This picture was confirmed by the UN special rapporteur on hazardous substances, Baskut Tunchak, who visited Berezovka in 2016 to collect data on the issue.43 Buckets, maps, and blood samples: community science turns ‘kitchen talk’ to data In conversations around their kitchen tables, members of Zhasil Dala brought up a multitude of hitherto unseen conditions, including epilepsylike symptoms, which they assumed were linked to the emissions.44 Yet, this ‘kitchen talk’ needed to be turned into data. The American environmental activist Linda Price King, founder and executive director of Environmental Health Network, trained the villagers to do exactly this. By gathering relevant

Environmental and community preservation  91 environmental and health data, community members gained a better grasp of the ­environmental and health conditions in the village. A first step was a survey of school pupils. Out of 100 high-school students in the village, almost all reported health concerns, including overall weakness (95), severe headaches (83), memory loss and frequent fainting spells (77), skin ailments (67), feelings of aggression (49), and regular nosebleeds (34). Out of 80 elementary school children (aged 7 to 10), headaches were common (45), followed by stomach aches and weakness (38), skin ailments (29), memory loss (24), and even regular chest pains (21).45 Adults also suffered from the toxic emissions. The health study conducted by Anosova and the other members of Zhasil Dala in 2003 revealed that approximately one adult in two suffered from headaches and memory loss, f­ollowed closely by musculoskeletal problems; around one out of three reported significant loss of hair and teeth, vision loss, cardiovascular and digestive problems, while one out of four adults reported ailments of the upper respiratory tract or the skin.46 A further 2012 scientific report found that exposure to hydrogen sulphide increased cardiovascular morbidity by more than 40%.47 Air monitoring: the bucket brigade

In 2003 and early 2004, Crude Accountability and Zhasil Dala worked together to gather environmental monitoring data from KPO and the Uralskbased regional environmental authority. They also sought data collected by a government-hired medical doctor in 2003, but this was never shared. Crude Accountability requested the Ministry of Health’s survey results, but was told that we would have to pay for them.48 Crude Accountability and Zhasil Dala thus began conducting independent environmental air monitoring in the ­summer of 2004. Crude Accountability trained with Denny Larson, activist and founder of Communities for a Better Environment,49 a California-based nonprofit working with communities impacted by oil and gas production in Texas, Louisiana, and elsewhere. A firm believer in and practitioner of citizen science, Larson had developed the EPA-certified air monitoring technique known as ‘Bucket Brigade method’.50 It involves the conversion of a five-gallon bucket into a vessel that holds a tedlar bag,51 which, using a vacuum, draws in air from the polluted site, imitating a human lung. The air sample is then sent to a certified laboratory to be analysed for airborne toxins. We first built monitoring buckets, learned how to use them, were certified to train others, and then translated the training materials into Russian. Then, in August 2004, the Crude Accountability team travelled to Berezovka and over a weekend taught members of Zhasil Dala how to use the Bucket Brigade methodology. We built several buckets for different parts of the village. It was essential that if the villagers detected emissions at night-time, equipment ­enabled them to respond effectively.

92  Kate Watters The Berezovka villagers collected samples from September 2004 through August 2005 and gathered data on seven occasions over this period. Each of the samples showed that toxins exceeded both Kazakhstani and US norms on maximum permissible concentrations, indicating that air pollution posed environmental health problems for the community. The compounds identified (carbon disulphide, methylene chloride, sulphur dioxide, toluene, benzene, xylene, trimethylbenzene, and hydrogen sulphide) are associated with oil and gas production and have long-term negative health impacts for humans. Mapping health

The villagers also mapped Berezovka, marking each house, other buildings, the village layout, river, elevation, proximity to the Karachaganak Field, and other potential sources of pollution. Zhasil Dala members checked each house’s location door-to-door. Using strategies developed in the citizen ­science movement, a household survey and map (Figure 3.2) found that those in lower areas of the village and along the river suffered from higher levels of almost every health problem identified by the villagers, in ways compatible to greater exposure to hydrogen sulphide. Being heavier than oxygen, hydrogen sulphide gathers in low-lying areas and along riverbanks. These findings further confirmed the community’s fears and made them more confident in their campaign and their relations with local press. Using this data, the villagers ran an educational campaign in the village and ­presented their findings to the local authorities and the media. Regional independent newspaper Uralskaia Nedelia published an article in December 2005, reporting both on health risks and on local activism.52 For years, villagers had been

Figure 3.2 Map of the village, demonstrating pockets of illness in homes and neighbourhoods. Photo by Crude Accountability, 2005.

Environmental and community preservation  93 told that they should not worry because nothing was wrong in the village and their symptoms and fears were all in their head: now they had concrete data to prove that they had been right. By seeing their fears legitimised, they felt empowered. They had uncovered—independently—what the government and the company had endeavoured to hide. And they had found ways to call in the expertise needed to support their cause through hard data. New and better knowledge allowed them to formulate more concrete demands for access to environmental monitoring data from the company and the government. In the fall of 2004, while Svetlana and the villagers completed the ‘Routes of Exposure’ and health mapping, we teamed up with Atyrau-based NGO TAN, led by environmental activist Shynar Izteleyova, as well as with Olga Iakovleva, a Moscow-based Russian human rights lawyer, who focused on constitutional law. With Shynar and Olga, we devised a two-pronged strategy, so that data from the ongoing Bucket Brigade air monitoring could be combined with other evidence. To continue to collect and share data on health impacts, blood samples were to be taken from willing villagers. The results would replace the data the government was unwilling to provide. Each person who gave blood would then receive their own results; furthermore, the community would be informed of what an epidemiologist had concluded on the basis of the aggregated data. To this effect, we collaborated with an independent medical clinic in the town of Aksai. The day before blood samples were collected, we held a workshop in the village of Berezovka with Olga Iakovleva, who provided a citizens’ guide to the Kazakhstani constitution. We met at the music school in the village— where Svetlana taught piano and accordion to school children—and distributed copies of the constitution—in Kazakh and Russian—to the attendees. It was a cold morning when we started—the snow crunched under our boots as we walked from Svetlana’s house to the school. As we walked down the main street of the village, we saw cars parked around the music school: an odd occurrence, as everyone in the village walked such short distance, and many simply did not have cars. Official-looking, black-dressed men in hats surrounded the music school, trying to intimidate potential attendees. Security and regular police were among those who surrounded the place, and one National Security Committee officer followed us into the room and filmed the entire workshop. Women, men, young, old, pensioners, and working people took every seat, and more were left to stand along the wall. Olga started the workshop by praising the Kazakhstani constitution, saying that it was a document to be proud of and one, which, if followed, would protect people, and guide them to become active citizens. She encouraged the crowd to replace every other pronoun with ‘I’, as a reminder that this text was for and about them. We spent the day going over citizens’ rights and responsibilities, including the right to a clean environment, and everybody’s responsibility to work to protect it. Individuals, who had seemed intimidated and afraid as they came in,

94  Kate Watters walked out confident. Attendees who had been concerned about our ‘radicalism’ appeared reassured. The next morning, we convoyed by car to the town medical clinic. Each person’s medical history would be tracked in a medical survey, to provide some background to the epidemiologist. About 60 villagers arrived, mostly women and children; occasionally, men accompanied their wives. The first couple of hours passed without incident, but then men in black leather—again—showed up at the clinic and started videotaping. Someone ran into the clinic, reporting that the police were forcibly attempting to apprehend women who were trying to enter, in some cases dragging them under cars. However, this intimidation did not stop the procedure. Ultimately, samples taken that day showed elevated levels of hydrogen sulphide in their blood, and that anaemia was prevalent in the community. In sharp contrast to the behaviour of government agencies, the campaign provided each person with their own results, so that they could discuss them with their doctors. In addition, we sent the information to epidemiologists in Astrakhan (Russia) for analysis. This analysis determined that the residents of Berezovka were exposed to hydrogen sulphide and other toxins at levels that compromised their health, with high numbers of people with anaemia and other blood disorders.53 Advocacy at the national and international levels In their efforts to obtain relocation, Zhasil Dala further cooperated with national NGOs in Kazakhstan, including Almaty-based Zelenoe Spasenie. The latter filed numerous lawsuits on behalf of Zhasil Dala, including one to obtain access to environmental information about the activities at the Karachaganak Field. In an unprecedented victory, Zelenoe Spasenie won this suit and KPO was required to release previously undisclosed environmental information to the public.54 In 2010, Zelenoe Spasenie also filed a lawsuit on behalf of the village of Berezovka, claiming that reducing the SPZ around Karachaganak from 5 to 3 kilometres had been illegal. After numerous hearings, the Supreme Court in Astana agreed with Zelenoe Spasenie’s claim, ruling that the families at the northern edge of the village, whose homes were entirely inside the Sanitary Protection Zone, should be relocated. Although the court specified that the duty to implement this fell on the local administration,55 it failed to proceed. In addition to working locally, members of Zhasil Dala and their international partners (including Crude Accountability) strove to draw the attention of international organisations, by writing complaints to the IFC. Zhasil Dala filed two complaints with the Office of Compliance, Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) of the IFC. Zelenoe Spasenie and Crude Accountability filed a third complaint on behalf of the community. Two of these three complaints were accepted by this office; as a result of the first 2004 complaint, in 2008, the compliance officer of the CAO ruled that the IFC had failed to comply with

Environmental and community preservation  95 its own standards, and that the emissions stacks at Karachaganak must be retrofitted to comply with IFC standards. The CAO also reported that the IFC had failed to monitor for hydrogen sulphide at all between 2003 and 200656; in those years, the residents of Berezovka had reported the worst emissions. Unfortunately, although the CAO worked on the Berezovka case between 2004 and 2009, no satisfactory resolution for the community came out of it. Although the CAO claims to address the concerns of communities impacted by IFC projects,57 its approach in Berezovka was decidedly unsuccessful and severely undermined the community’s belief in international institutions. This point was especially important for Zhasil Dala’s organising strategy. At the beginning of the campaign, Berezovka’s women thought that, if they explained the situation to the corporation and the IFC, and made them understand the scale of damage to the environment and health, they would stop their investments, or at least correct the problem. This was sadly not the case. The CAO was unable or unwilling to work towards a shared solution; in fact, it told local community members that they could negotiate with KPO only if they left out their national (Zelenoe Spasenie) or international (Crude Accountability) partners. This was, they said, a condition KPO had set. Zhasil Dala correctly understood that, alone, they could not face KPO’s lawyers, and rejected these terms. The CAO documented this move as Zhasil Dala’s refusal to negotiate, thus stopping this part of the process. The CAO closed the case, and violations continued. Henceforth, having understood the fundamental difference in values between themselves and the international financiers and corporations, the local activists turned most of their attention back to their government, despite fears of corruption and authoritarian reprisal. The unthinkable happens On November 28, 2014, during the second ‘shift’ of classes at Berezovka village school, 19 children and three adults simultaneously fell ill with convulsions and lost consciousness. The previous evening, villagers had seen and smelled unusually intense emissions from the Karachaganak Field. Ambulances were called, and the sick children were rushed to the nearest hospital at Aksai, 25 kilometres away (Figure 3.3). While the government initially initiated an investigation into Karachaganak, stating that evidence showed the company had emitted toxins the evening of November 27,58 shortly after they backtracked and absolved KPO of responsibility. Emergency equipment that would have sounded an alarm was reportedly turned off for repairs at the time.59 The incident repeated itself several times over the next few months: school children would fall ill, convulse, or lose consciousness. Each of these instances was preceded by elevated emissions from the Karachaganak Field. In an Orwellian turn of events, during a process that took months, the local authorities claimed that the children were not, in fact, sick from toxic

96  Kate Watters emissions, but rather that their parents fed them too much junk food and failed to care for them properly. In a series of public hearings in the ­community, the villagers expressed their outrage and demanded relocation (Figure 3.4). Local medical doctors failed to find a correlation between the toxic ­exposure and the children’s illness, although some of the children continued

Figure 3.3 Child being taken by ambulance to the hospital, Berezovka, 28 November 2014.  Photo courtesy of Crude Accountability.

Figure 3.4 Community meeting with KPO and local government representatives in Berezovka, 2015.  Signs read: ‘For Relocation!’, ‘SOS Berezovka!’, ‘Relocate Berezovka!’. Photo courtesy of Uralsk Weekly.

Environmental and community preservation  97 to fall into convulsions and lose consciousness for months and years after the accident. The children did not receive any assistance from the state or the company following the diagnosis—no payment for medication or rehabilitation was offered. However, a study by the regional health department released in January 2015 revealed that half of the residents of Berezovka—adults and children—suffered from various illnesses: ‘30% of residents, the majority of whom are children, suffer respiratory diseases, 21% suffer diseases of blood circulatory system, [and] 14%, diseases of digestive organs. Some people suffer diseases of the nervous and muscular systems’.60 These results were remarkably close to the 2003 study by Zhasil Dala. Furthermore, two teenage girls, who displayed the most severe symptoms, were seen by a doctor in Moscow, far from the pressure put on local doctors by the authorities and the company: the diagnosis was toxic encephalopathy—long-term brain disfunction caused by toxic exposure. Conclusion and epilogue On July 10, 2015, eight months after the severe poisoning of Berezovka’s children and 12 years after the beginning of the campaign for relocation, the Kazakhstani government announced that the village of Berezovka would be resettled at the expense of the KPO Consortium. According to Deputy Premier Minister Berdibek Saparbaev, 127 families in the village would be relocated by the end of 2015, and the rest by the end of 2016.61 In fact, it took until the end of 2017 to relocate the community fully; the village was left in ruins on territory that is now inside the SPZ of the Karachaganak Field, which was expanded to accommodate the additional exploitation of the field.62 The 15-year saga of Berezovka’s struggle for relocation demonstrates not only the failure of the government of Kazakhstan and the corporations operating the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field to protect the people living closest to (and most impacted by) one of the world’s largest petroleum fields, but also these actors’ mercenary calculations. Berezovka’s residents were effectively collateral damage in the push to exploit the region’s natural resources. As a World Bank official put it to Crude Accountability and Zhasil Dala representatives in a meeting: ‘Ladies, there are losers and winners in this world. You are the losers’. Through an ecofeminist lens, the recent history of Berezovka casts light on the patriarchal, exploitative, and unsustainable nature of the hydrocarbon industry. Women and children felt most acutely the ­overwhelmingly negative impact of the development of the Karachaganak Field, which happened at the expenses of the economy, environment, and human rights of the local community. Because the work to care for and feed families was not paid labour in a traditional sense, women’s contributions appeared to be ignored in economic calculations about the impact of the Karachaganak Field on western Kazakhstan region. As Mies and Shiva articulate in their ecofeminist critique

98  Kate Watters of ­industrial development, ‘[t]he…accounting systems which are used for ­calculating growth in terms of GDP are based on the assumption that if producers ­consume what they produce, they do not in fact produce at all, because they fall outside the production boundary’.63 Because the national economy of Kazakhstan relies on oil and gas production, the hardships in local communities such as Berezovka were largely discounted. Another crucial factor that led to the destruction of Berezovka’s way of life was the notion that local communities must somehow be sacrificed for the greater good, that ‘lower order (local) hierarchies should somehow be subservient to the higher (global)’.64 In this instance, rather than a higher global good, the community was also sacrificed for a higher national good. Oil and gas accounts for 70% of Kazakhstan’s exports; at its peak in 2006, this sector generated 21% of the country’s GDP.65 From an ecofeminist perspective, ‘[t]he paradox and crisis of development results from mistakenly identifying culturally perceived poverty with real material poverty, and of mistaking the growth of commodity production as better satisfying basic needs’.66 The basic needs that were met by Berezovka residents when they were able to live off the land cannot be met in that way anymore. The land, air, and water around the Karachaganak Field are poisoned; they are no longer able to feed and sustain the communities that once depended on it. This separation of local, household-based labour from the economic analysis of production creates a situation in which violence—first and foremost through harms to health—occurs against women and children, by separating them from the traditional sources that sustain their quality of life. In Mies’s and Shiva’s words, this occurs by ‘displacing women from their livelihoods and alienating them from the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend….’67 It took the mass poisoning of children, which was never acknowledged publicly, to push the government of Kazakhstan to relocate Berezovka. KPO paid for the relocation, which was a measure of justice, but the relocation was far from equitable. There is nonetheless no question that the reason the community was relocated and received housing and financial compensation is to be seen in the efforts of Zhasil Dala members. Their demands for dignity and respect, their fortitude and determination, forced the government and KPO to provide them with compensation that otherwise would likely not have been distributed. Compared to the relocation of Tungush, the relocation of Berezovka was managed much more humanely. That said, there remains the fact that their way of life was destroyed—a casualty in the ‘development’ of western Kazakhstan Oblast by the oil sector and the government. The village where generations of farmers lived is now empty. The community is scattered across two villages. Some members who had the means to do so have chosen to move entirely elsewhere. The Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field has expanded its ­operations, producing more gas condensate than ever before. The relocation

Environmental and community preservation  99 of Berezovka has conveniently given KPO unfettered access to the land where the village once was. Those activists who independently monitored the field are also dispersed. Since Berezovka was relocated, the government of Kazakhstan has c­ ontinued to crack down on civil society activists in the country. In January 2022, the government cracked down on isolated episodes of mob violence, but also on genuine massive demonstrations that took place across Kazakhstan, leading to the detention of over 8,000 and the death of at least 164 people.68 Repression and arrests of individuals accused by the government of participating in the events have continued till the time of writing. Oil workers in western Kazakhstan were among those who protested. At the heart of many of the protests was a demand for higher pay and better working conditions.69 Environmental concerns also continue to be important to many Kazakhstanis, especially in relation to the impact of the fossil fuel sector. As fossil fuel production comes to its inevitable end, the government of Kazakhstan, as governments around the world, will also have to find another way to meet the energy needs of its own people. Meanwhile, …the creation, not the destruction of life must be seen as the truly human task, and the essence of being human has to be seen in our capacity to recognize, respect, and protect the right to life of all the world’s multifarious creatures.70 The question remains, what will it take to make this shift to a more holistic relationship with the earth, in Kazakhstan and elsewhere? Notes 1 https://crudeaccountability.org/campaigns/karachaganak/ 2 Zhasil Dala were able to register locally as NGO in 2007, after years of informal work as an “initiative group” (initsiativnaia gruppa) of community members. 3 Energy Information Administration (EIA), “Background Information Kazakhstan,” accessed November 1, 2022, https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/ countries_long/Kazakhstan/background.htm 4 Karachaganak Field Discovery, accessed October 21, 2022, https://kpo.kz/en/ about-kpo 5 Karachaganak Field Discovery. 6 Wikipedia, “Karachaganak Field,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachaganak_ Field, accessed February 24, 2023. 7 Karachaganak Field. 8 Milestones of Karachaganak Field Development, accessed October 29, 2022 https://kpo.kz/en/about-kpo/karachaganak-milestones 9 Market Share, accessed February 25, 2023, https://www.eni.com/en-IT/ operations/market-share.html 10 Nathan Reiff, “Ten Biggest Oil Companies,” January 17, 2023, accessed February 25, 2023, https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/010715/ worlds-top-10-oil-companies.asp

100  Kate Watters 11 “Corporate Profile,” accessed 25 February 2023, https://www.lukoil.com/ Company/CorporateProfile 12 “Kazakhstan,” accessed October 29, 2022, https://www.chevron.com/worldwide/ kazakhstan#:~:text=Chevron%20holds%20a%2050%25%20interest, (3%2C657% 20m)%20below%20ground 13 Kate Watters, “Sidestepping the Sanctions on Russia,” Inkstick, October 4, 2022, accessed February 25, 2022, https://inkstickmedia.com/sidesteppingthe-sanctions-on-russia/ 14 Sabrina Valle, “Chevron’s $11.2 Bln Quarterly Profit Soars Past Estimates,” October 28, 2022, accessed October 29, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/ energy/chevrons-112-billion-quarterly-profit-soars-past-estimates-2022-10-28/ 15 “ENI Results for the Third Quarter and Nine Months of 2022,” October 28, 2022, accessed October 29, 2022, https://www.eni.com/en-IT/media/pressrelease/2022/10/2022-third-quarter-results.html 16 Sarah Taaffe-Maguire, “Energy Company Shell Reports Profits of $9.5bn for Q3 of 2022 But Not At Record Levels Seen in First Half of Year,” October27, 2022, accessed October 29, 2022, https://news.sky.com/story/energy-company-shellreports-profits-of-9-5bn-for-q3-of-2022-but-not-at-record-levels-seen-in-firsthalf-of-year-12731176#:~:text=back%20to%20home-,Energy%20company%20 Shell%20reports%20profits%20of%20%249.5bn%20for%20Q3,soaring%20oil%20 and%20gas%20prices 17 Bloomberg, “Russia’s Second-Largest Oil Producer Just Posted its Biggest Profit in at Least 7 Years Amid War in Ukraine and a Surge in Energy Prices,” March 2, 2022, accessed October 29, 2022, https://fortune.com/2022/03/02/ lukoil-russia-oil-producer-profit-6–9-billion-energy-price/ 18 “JSC NC KazMunayGas Announces Financial Results for the First Quarter of 2022,” June 7, 2022, accessed October 29, 2022, https://kase.kz/files/emitters/ KMGZ/kmgz_relizs_070622_en.pdf. 19 “KPO Reports Half-Year Performance Results,” July 22, 2022, accessed October 29, 2022, https://kpo.kz/en/news-room/company-news/companynews?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=3065&cHash=b5224a9b329aae5f9f6c4d12c1 aab067 20 S.Ia. Anosova, Berezovka. Kniga vospominanii (Orenburg: OOO “Tipografiia Agentstvo Pressa,” 2019), 7, accessed November 1, 2022, https://e6ee56795a54–4577–8caf-742f8f2a84b7.filesusr.com/ugd/e79462_2164faf63f7f46fb891 be123e1a890fb.pdf. 21 https://crudeaccountability.org/ 22 Rigzone, “Lukoil Overseas Meets Requirements of IFC Loan Agreement,” November 22, 2005, accessed October 29, 2022, https://www.rigzone.com/ news/oil_gas/a/27194/lukoil_overseas_meets_requirements_of_ifc_loan_­ agreement/ 23 “Crude Accountability et al vs ENI,” June 6, 2013, accessed October 29, 2022, https://www.oecdwatch.org/complaint/crude-accountability- et-al-vs-eni/ 24 Françoise d’Eaubonne, Feminism or Death (Verso: London, New York, 2022), 191. 25 Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva, Ecofeminism (New York: Zed Books, 2021), xv. 26 Jeanne Burgart Goutal and Laury-Anne Cholez, “Fighting the Patriarchy to Save the Planet,” Green European Journal, August 17, 2021, accessed December 10, 2021, https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/ fighting-the-patriarchy-to-save-the-planet/ 27 UN Womenwatch, “Women, Gender Equality and Climate Change,” accessed November 15, 2022, https://www.un.org/womenwatch/feature/climate_ change/downloads/Women_and_Climate_Change_Factsheet.pdf

Environmental and community preservation  101 28 Leah Thomas, The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People Planet (New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2022), 31–32. 29 UN Womenwatch, “Women, Gender Equality and Climate Change.” 30 UN Womenwatch. 31 UN Womenwatch. 32 Sarah Regan, “What Is Ecofeminism? Understanding The Intersection of Gender & The Environment,” mbgPlanet, June 20, 2020, https://www.mindbodygreen. com/articles/ecofeminism-history-and-principles 33 Compare: Svetlana Peshkova, “A Reflection on Gender Studies in Central Asia,” Voices on Central Asia, April 29, 2022, accessed February 26, 2023, https://­voicesoncentralasia. org/a-reflection-on-gender-studies-in-central-asia-by-svetlana-peshkova/ 34 Peshkova, “A Reflection on Gender Studies in Central Asia.” 35 Lawsuit on the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan’s failure to act and on acknowledging the Senior Sanitary Inspector’s statement regarding reduction of the Sanitary Protection Zone (SPZ) to be invalid. 2010, accessed February 27, 2023, http://esgrs.org/?lang=en 36 Paolo Sorbello, “Mass Brawl at Kazakh Oil Field Unveils Labor Dissatisfaction,” The Diplomat, July 2, 2019, accessed February 26, 2023, https://thediplomat. com/2019/07/mass-brawl-at-kazakh-oil-field-unveils-labor-dissatisfaction/ 37 Crude Accountability had been working to understand the impact of oil and gas on communities in the Caspian region. In 2002, it conducted a field trip along the entire Caspian Pipeline Consortium pipeline from Atyrau (Kazakhstan) to Novorossiisk (Russia). On that occasion, it met Berezovka activists, who asked us to come back and help hold the company accountable. 38 Compare: Sanitary-Epidemiological Rights and Standards, “Exploration and Production of Metals and Non-metallic Minerals” (1994) [SNP No. 1.01.001– 94], 78; idem, “Sanitary Epidemiological Requirements for Development of Industrial Facilities” (2005) [SanPiNom 2005]; Sanitary Norms, “SanitaryEpidemiological Requirements for the Establishment of Sanitary Protection Zones of Industrial Facilities,” No. 93 (2012) [SanPiNom 2012]. The requirements of SNP No. 1.01.001–94 were confirmed in new documents, retained in connection with the exchange of SNP No. 1.01.001–94 for SanPiNom 2005 and  the SanPiNom 2012. Each document imposed a 5-kilometre SPZ where there is a high content of hydrogen sulfide and mercaptans in oil and associated gas. 39 “Ob uprazdnenii Tungushkogo sel’skogo okruga Burlinskogo raiona,” January 29, 2004, accessed November 20, 2022, https://adilet.zan.kz/rus/docs/ V04Z0002453 40 IFC’s explicit policies on involuntary relocation (Operational Directive 4.30) were violated in Tungush’s relocation, specifically on the right of those being relocated to choose from alternatives and on the borrower’s duty to pay. 41 Zelenoe Spasenie challenged this decision in court on behalf of the Berezovka villagers; the Supreme Court of Astana ruled in favour of Zelenoe Spasenie: ­ Lawsuit on the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan’s failure to act and on ­acknowledging the Senior Sanitary Inspector’s statement regarding reduction of the Sanitary Protection Zone (SPZ) to be invalid, accessed February 27, 2023, http://esgrs.org/?p=8106 42 Mies and Shiva, Ecofeminism, 82. 43 UNHR, Office of the High Commissioner, “Toxic Substance Exposure a ‘Silent Epidemic’ Facing Children,” September 23, 2016, accessed February 25, 2023, https://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2016/09/toxic-substance-exposuresilent-epidemic-facing-children

102  Kate Watters 44 Crude Accountability, “Karachaganak Oil and Gas Field Threatens Health of Citizens: 2003 Village Health Survey Results,” https://crudeaccountability.org/ wp-content/uploads/2012/06/health_survey_results_2003.pdf 45 “The Campaign: 2003 -- Today,” accessed December 15, 2021, https://­ crudeaccountability.org/campaigns/karachaganak/the-campaign-2003-today/ 46 “The Campaign: 2003 -- Today.” 47 Dinara Kenessary et al., “Human Health Cost of Hydrogen Sulfide Air Pollution from an Oil and Gas Field,” Annals of Agricultural and Environmental Medicine 24, no. 2 (2017): 213–216. 48 Conversation between the author and the chief doctor, August 2004. Crude Accountability did not pay to access the results, which should have been publicly available information. 49 Communities for a Better Environment, accessed November 14, 2022, https:// www.cbecal.org/ 50 “About the Bucket,” accessed 12 December 2021, https://labucketbrigade.org/ pollution-tools-resources/the-bucket/ 51 “Tedlar Bag,” accessed November 20, 2022, https://www.techinstro.com/ tedlar-bag/ 52 Lukpan Akhmedyarov, “Travyat! Dokazano!” Uralsk Weekly, December 15, 2005, https://ru.crudeaccountability.org/%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%8 F%D1%82-%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0 %BE/, https://crudeaccountability.org/theyve-recorded-it-its-proven/, accessed December 12, 2021. The original article, published in the Uralsk Weekly on 15 December 2005, is no longer available on the website. Crude Accountability republished the article on its website, and it is available there. 53 A.E. Lazko and M.V. Lazko, Gomestaza u prozhivaiushchikh v zone vozdeistviia krupnogo gazoneftepererabatyvaiushchego kompleksa, Unpublished Report, 2005. 54 “The Campaign: 2003-Today,” accessed December 12, 2021, https://­ crudeaccountability.org/campaigns/karachaganak/the-campaign-2003-today/ 55 Green Salvation, “Summary of Lawsuits in 2010 by the Ecological Society Green Salvation,” , accessed December 12, 2021, http://esgrs.org/?p=8290 56 “Kazakhstan: Lukoil Overseas-01/Berezovka,” accessed December 12, 2021, https://cao-ombudsman.org/cases/kazakhstan-lukoil-overseas-01berezovka 57 Compliance Advisor Ombudsman, accessed December 12, 2021, https://caoombudsman.org/about-us 58 Bruce Pannier, “Welcome to Poison Village, Kazakhstan,” RFE-RL, December 8, 2014, accessed November 20, 2022, https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-­ environment/26732210.html 59 Ibid. 60 “Doctors Reveal Pathologies Among Half of Berezovka Residents Nearby Karachaganak,” TAG News, January 8, 2015, accessed November 20, 2022, https://kaztag.kz/en/news/doctors-reveal-pathologies-among-half-of-­ berezovka-residents-nearby-karachaganak 61 “After Twelve Years of Struggle, the Village of Berezovka Will Finally Be Relocated” July 10, 2015, accessed December 12, 2021, https://crudeaccountability.org/ after-twelve-years-of-struggle-the-village-of-berezovka-will-finally-be-relocated/ 62 “Sanitary Protection Zone,” accessed December 12, 2021, https://kpo.kz/en/ sustainability/protecting-the-environment/sanitary-protection-zone 63 Ibid. 64 Mies and Shiva, Ecofeminism, 10. 65 Asian Development Bank, “Kazakhstan Country Diagnostic Study,” August 2018, accessed November 1, 2022 https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/­ publication/445446/kazakhstan-diagnostic-study-highlights.pdf

Environmental and community preservation  103 6 Mies and Shiva, Ecofeminism, 73. 6 67 Ibid. 68 “Thousands Detained After Kazakhstan Unrest,” Deutsche Welle, January 9, 2022, accessed November 14, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/thousandsdetained-after-kazakhstan-unrest/a-60371130 69 “Kazakhstan: Oil Workers at the Heart of Protests, Stuck in Poverty as their Foreign Employers Profit,” Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, January 7, 2022, accessed November 14, 2022, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latestnews/kazakhstan-oil-workers-at-the-heart-of-protests-stuck-in-poverty-as-theirforeign-employers-profit/ 70 Mies and Shiva, Ecofeminism, 88.

Part II

Paternalism and protection

4 Saiga antelopes (Saiga tatarica) in the environmental history of the Qazaq steppe and desert David Moon

In August 1769, in the northwest of present-day Qazaqstan, the naturalist Peter Pallas observed ‘large flocks of antelopes feeding’ on the ‘white w ­ ormwood’, which grew in abundance and which they were ‘very fond’ of. Pallas noted that the ‘antelopes’ could smell people or animals two or three miles away because ‘nature’ had ‘favoured them in the organs of smell’. ‘Nature’ had also ‘made them much superior to other animals’ in their ‘quickness’ as they ‘seem to be constructed for swift running, having wind-pipes almost two inches in diameter, large lungs and wide skinny nostrils’. These physical attributes served them well as they could flee from the local ‘Kirguese’ (Qazaq/Kazakh)1 nomadic pastoralists ‘who hunt them incessantly’. Pallas was on ‘the high shore [left or east bank] of the river Jaik’ (now Jaiyq/Ural) en route from the cossack settlement of ‘Jaitskoi Gorodok’ (Iaitsk, now Oral/Ural’sk) to ‘Gurjef’ (Gur’ev, now Atyrau) near the Caspian Sea. Pallas shot 12 ‘antelopes’ in the interests of ‘science’.2 His first encounter with these curious animals had been the previous autumn, further west, between the Russian cities of Simbirsk (now Ul’ianovsk) and Samara on the river Volga. Noting that Russians called them ‘wild goats’ and the Tatars ‘saiga’, he compared them with European roe and fallow deer as well as ‘the Pygargus [a type of antelope] of the ancients’. Pallas considered them a species of antelope: Antilope Scythia.3 He sent two live specimens to the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg which sponsored his expedition.4 Pallas’s brief account shows how saiga were adapted to the steppe environment and two of the ways they interacted with humans, by fleeing from hunters and as ­unwitting objects of ‘scientific’ study. This chapter locates the saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica, known as aqböken or kiık in Qazaq) in the environmental history of the Eurasian steppe and desert (Figure 4.1). Saiga helped shape the region’s environmental history and have been shaped by it. Most notably, they have become endangered due to human activity. Humans have hunted saiga for millennia for their meat, hides, and their horns. Saiga horns are greatly valued for medicinal purposes, especially in China. Poaching saiga for the lucrative Chinese market continues to threaten their survival. Saiga have lost access to ever larger areas of their grazing lands over DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-7

108  David Moon

Figure 4.1 Saiga antelope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saiga_antelope#/media/ File:Saiga_antelope_at_the_Stepnoi_Sanctuary.jpg

the last two centuries as farmers have ploughed up fertile land to grow crops. Many of the farmers have been settlers, and the descendants of settlers, from Russian lands to the northwest. Finally, this chapter pays attention to efforts to protect saiga, and how they have been able to maintain their populations and way of life. This chapter contributes to Central Asian environmental humanities by turning attention to relations between non-human and human actors, marked by both predation and protection, and how these relations have been represented in material, oral, and written cultures. While the main focus is on saigahuman interactions, due attention is given to state power, in particular Russian and Soviet colonialism. Animal history offers a valuable perspective in this volume’s aim of de-centring state power as it analyses ‘the part that both humans and animals have played in shaping each other’s lives and the broad spectrum of relationships they have had with each other’. Central to this endeavour is a recognition that ‘animals … [once considered] a backdrop to human history, …are increasingly seen as authentic and autonomous historical agents who had a real impact on the world around them’.5 Conscious of Sandra Swart’s proposal to write ‘animal-sensitive history,’ rather than ‘make grand claims about

Saiga antelopes  109 “seeing from their perspective”’,6 this chapter treats saiga as subject, object, and agent in their relations, or interactions, with the steppe and desert environment and the human societies and states they have shared it with. By emphasising what humans have thought about saiga as well as how their actions have affected these animals, this chapter complements that by Carole Ferret in this volume that focuses on how humans have acted with horses. It also complements Isabelle Ohayon’s chapter on overgrazing by domesticated livestock in the late Soviet period by considering wild grazing animals over a longer timespan. The main geographical focus is the Eurasian steppe and desert in present-day Qazaqstan. This is where most saigas in the wild now live and where they now form three distinct populations. The Ural population, the largest, lives north of the Caspian Sea and west of the Ural River. The small Ustiurt population’s range lies east of the Ural River, east and northeast of the Caspian Sea, and extends south into northwestern Uzbekistan. The population with the largest range is in the Betpaq Dala of central Qazaqstan. There are also saigas northwest of the Caspian Sea in the Kalmyk Republic in the Russian Federation and Mongolia.7 The latter, however, are a sub-species (Saiga tatarica mongolica).8 The saiga’s range was far greater in the past, however, when they lived in far larger areas of the northern hemisphere. The main chronological focus is the two and half centuries following Pallas’s encounter in the 1760s, although there is some discussion of the preceding millennia. In human history, the main period covered encompasses the annexation of the Qazaq steppe and desert by the Russian state between the early seventeenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, the incorporation of the region in the Soviet Union after the revolution in Russia of 1917, and independent Qazaqstan since 1991. This periodisation allows an analysis of evolving relations between saiga, humans, and their environment in the context of changes in state power. This chapter is based on a range of sources that allow an understanding of the topic from differing perspectives. ‘Scientific’ studies have provided valuable material and I owe a debt to scientists who have researched ‘saiga history’.9 They followed the pioneering work of Pallas, who wrote a detailed description of saiga following his expedition.10 He and his contemporaries were motivated by their instructions from the Russian Academy of Sciences to locate human and natural resources for exploitation and by the Enlightenment project to collect and systematise data on the ‘natural world’.11 In the twentieth century, Soviet scientists were required to support state-directed economic development.12 For example, Andrei Bannikov and his co-authors explained at the start of their 1961 book on saiga biology that they aimed to provide the theoretical basis for utilising saiga’s ‘first-class meat’, hides, fat, and horns. In their final chapter, they discussed the saiga’s ‘practical significance’.13 The authors may have intended these opening and concluding sections – those most likely to be read by Soviet censors – to camouflage their main interest in pure science and the need to protect saiga.14 Generations of scientists, Russian, Soviet,

110  David Moon and international, have been motivated by intellectual curiosity to understand saiga, their ways of life, and their interaction with their environments. Saigas have attracted particular interest since they are one of the few large mammals that live in significant numbers in harsh steppe and desert environments and have evolved particular physiological and biological traits to cope with such conditions. These have enabled them, thus far, to survive periodic ‘mass mortality events’, caused by disease, predation by humans and other carnivorous animals, and other factors.15 I have also used sources produced by people without such ‘specialised’ knowledge that are essential to a broader understanding of saiga interactions with their human neighbours and environments. The local population produced few written sources before mass literacy in the twentieth century; some oral traditions have nonetheless been recorded and archaeologists have uncovered evidence from far back in time. Visitors to the Eurasian steppe, including elites from the Russian colonial power, described their encounters with saiga. The chapter opens with a discussion of saiga in the steppe and desert environment. The following two sections cover the periods before and after the Russian conquest and colonisation of the region, including consideration of Soviet and independent Qazaqstan. The final section is devoted to human efforts to protect saiga. Saigas in the steppe and desert environment Central to understanding the history of saiga in the steppe and desert of Qazaqstan is that they evolved in precisely such an environment and are thus well adapted to it.16 Between 10,000 and 50,000 years before the present (YBP), the fossil record and the modelling of past environments have shown that the saiga’s range extended from northern Canada and Alaska, across northern Eurasia to western Europe, including southern England. During the ice age of the late Pleistocene epoch, environmental conditions in this vast region resembled those of the present-day Eurasian steppe and desert.17 Since the end of the last ice age, around 10,000 YBP, the saiga’s range has been greatly reduced under the influence of natural changes in the climate and vegetation cover as well as the growing human population. By the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, saigas were observed in parts of eastern Europe and central Eurasia, in the territories of modern-day Ukraine, southern Russia, including Siberia, Qazaqstan, and northwestern China.18 The environment of the Qazaq steppe and desert has several features.19 It is largely flat with mountains (Altai, Tian Shan, Pamirs) along the eastern and southern peripheries, and is drained by slow-flowing rivers, including the Ural in the west, Irtysh (Ertis) and Ishim (Esil) in the north and east, and the Syr Daria, Amu Daria, and Ili in the south. There are many lakes with fresh and/ or salt water. The largest are the saline Aral Sea (now largely dried up), saline Tengiz, and half-fresh/half-salty Balkhash. The climate is strongly continental with long cold winters that transition to hot summers after a short spring.

Saiga antelopes  111 Winters are colder and summers cooler in the steppes in the north, while winters are milder and summers hotter in the deserts of the south. The mean temperature in January varies between −14 and −19˚C, but can fall to −40˚C. Average July temperatures are between +20 and +25˚C, and can reach +40˚C. The air is dry with strong winds blowing across the flat landscape. The mean annual precipitation is low, ranging from 150 mm in the deserts to 300 mm in the steppes. Precipitation varies sharply from year to year with recurring droughts. Snowfall is higher and lies at greater depths, over 20 cm, in the north. In winter, crusts of ice can form over the snow preventing grazing animals from feeding on the vegetation underneath. This phenomenon, known in Qazaq as jūt (‘devourer’; hereafter ‘jut’), has caused catastrophic death rates among domestic livestock and wild saiga.20 The wild fauna includes predators such as wolves, foxes, and eagles. Among the main soil types are fertile chernozem (black earth) and dark kashtanozem (chestnut soils) in the steppe in the north and lighter brown and grey soils in drier, desert south. Most land with fertile soils has been ploughed up since the nineteenth century, and cultivated crops, such as wheat, have largely replaced more diverse natural vegetation comprising grasses, small shrubs, and other plants. The vegetation is sparser, with more shrubs than grasses in the drier climate and less fertile soils of the deserts. In addition to variations between the steppes in the north and deserts of the south, there have been changes over time. Periods of warmer and wetter conditions, allowing the growth of lusher grasses that could support more animals, have been interspersed with periods with colder and drier conditions and less productive grasslands. Such fluctuations are part of natural, cyclical changes.21 In recent decades, anthropogenic climate change is causing average temperatures to become warmer, droughts more frequent, and the growing season shorter. During the dry summer of 2021, much domestic livestock died in southern Qazaqstan.22 Saigas are well suited to such conditions and have been able to survive shortages of food caused by jut and drought, predation by wolves and other carnivorous animals, and disease. Saiga adaptations to their habitat have been noted by observers since ancient times. The first known written description, by the Greek geographer Strabo (c. 64 BCE–21 CE), noted the presence of this curious animal to the north of the Black Sea: the ‘colos’ … is between the deer and ram in size, is white, is swifter than they [sic], and drinks through its nostrils into its head, and then from this storage supplies itself for several days, so that it can easily live in the waterless country.23 While he misunderstood the purpose of the distinctive nostrils (they use them to breathe air, not drink water), he realised that they were part of saiga’s adaptation to their environment. From the sixteenth to the late eighteenth century, European naturalists and other visitors to the Eurasian steppe wrote about saiga from their own observations or second-hand information.

112  David Moon They generally considered them a type of wild goat and described their speed, feeding habits, distinctive broad inflatable nostrils, and horns.24 Since Pallas in the late eighteenth century, scientists have produced detailed descriptions of saiga.25 While saigas have attracted more attention than many steppe and desert fauna, there has probably been more research on horses.26 Saigas are smaller than horses, around the size of small sheep, but have longer and thinner legs. These enable them to run quickly across the flat, treeless, steppe, and desert terrain to escape predators. They have the endurance to run for a long time as they have big hearts, large-capacity lungs, and highly developed nasal passages that filter out dust in the hot, dry summers and warm the icy air in the long, cold winters. Their nostrils facilitate their highly developed sense of smell that allows them to sense danger almost 400 metres away (rather less than Pallas estimated). While running, they jump to keep an eye on the danger. A further adaptation to the environment is coats that change with the seasons to provide camouflage and insulation. In the hot summers, their coats are light brown, similar to the parched vegetation, and as winter approaches, they grow much warmer, grey-white coats that blend with the snow-covered landscape. Observations in Qazaqstan in the 1950s showed that saigas could live for long periods in temperatures of between −40 and −50°C. Male saigas’ horns, by contrast, do not seem to be an adaptation to the environment. Saigas feed on the natural vegetation of the steppe and desert. The grasses, shrubs, herbs, and legumes provide the nutrients they require. As Pallas noted, white wormwood (Artemisia terrae-alba) is a particular favourite. Also important is Russian thistle or saltwort (Kali tragus) during its succulent stage in the summer before it dries out and tumbles across the landscape to spread its seed. During major droughts, saigas move away from their regular feeding grounds in search of food. In winter, they use their large, broad hooves to dig through snow and their noses to loosen it to reach plants underneath. They can dig through snow as deep at 20 cm, but cannot break through frozen icy crusts that form in juts. Succulent plants provide much of the water saigas need, allowing them to remain hydrated during droughts while they look for water. Importantly, they are adapted to drink both the fresh and saline water in the lakes in the Qazaq steppe and desert. In winter, they eat snow and ice and can break ice on puddles to drink the water underneath.27 Saigas cannot find the food they need in the same location throughout the year because of the extreme seasonal variations in the climate. In a similar manner to other animals with analogous habitats, they have adapted by migrating between seasonal pastures, travelling up to a thousand kilometres each way. In the spring of 1769, while travelling southeast towards the Qazaq steppe, Pallas met herds of saiga migrating northwards to escape ‘the dryness of the season’ further south.28 Saigas follow the melting snow north in the spring to find fresh vegetation in the steppe and semi-desert over the summer, and then return south to escape plants dying back in the autumn before being buried in deep snow. They spend the winter in the deserts in the south, where shallower snow cover allows them to reach the vegetation. Saigas alter their

Saiga antelopes  113 migration routes, moving further north into the steppe during dry summers or ­remaining further south in the semi-desert in wet years. During severe winters with deep snow or ice crusts, they head off in search of locations where they can reach vegetation. Comparing observations of saiga migrations since the eighteenth century shows that they no longer venture as far north into the steppe as much has been ploughed up to grow crops. Nevertheless, seasonal migrations are key to saigas living in steppe and desert conditions.29 Saiga reproduction is also well adapted to their environment. Females are sexually mature at seven-eight months and males at around 19 months. Dominant males form harems of between 2 and 15, but sometimes as many as 30, females. They mate in late December and the young are born in May. Many females give birth to twins. Female saigas gather in large numbers in the spring in calving areas near sources of fresh food and water. Females give birth to fewer young, and fewer survive, during hard winters and droughts. Young saigas lie hidden in the vegetation after they are born, but are able to run and jump within two to three days to escape predators.30 Early female sexual maturity and propensity to give birth to two young are important adaptations that enable saigas to cope with high mortality and recover from periodic mass mortality. High mortality and population collapses have been caused by humans, in particular by overhunting and poaching (see below), but they are also a result of environmental factors such as predation, food shortages caused by jut and drought, and disease. The main predators are wolves, which hunt in packs. While some wolves are chasing the saigas, others lie in wait and block their escape. Wolves take more vulnerable saigas, such as males exhausted after mating, pregnant females, and the young. Adult saiga, which can run at 60–80 km/h, can outrun wolves. Nevertheless, in 1955, it was estimated that wolves killed 20–25% of all saigas in Qazaqstan. The numbers killed by wolves fell after a campaign to exterminate them in the late 1950s. Young saigas are also taken by foxes, birds of prey, and dogs. Mass die-offs caused by juts, when saigas cannot reach fodder through ice crusts on the snow, occur once or twice a decade in Qazaqstan. For example, the Betpaq Dala population fell from 480,000 in 1976 to 280,000 in 1978 following juts in two successive winters. Droughts, which also occur regularly, reduce the supply of fodder and cause high mortality among the young and lower female fertility.31 Diseases are a major cause of mortality. Around 50,000 young died of foot-and-mouth disease in Qazaqstan in 1967. Rinderpest kills many saigas. There was a dramatic mass die-off in May 2015 in the Betpaq Dala population. A total of 200,000 saigas died in ten days during the calving period. The dead were females and their young. The tragedy, which killed over half of the global population of saigas, attracted world-wide attention. Scientists worked hard to identify the cause, which turned out to be a bacterial infection caused by Pasteurella multocida in the respiratory tract. The effects of the disease may have been exacerbated by warmer than average temperatures, which prompts further concern as anthropogenic climate change is causing temperatures to rise.32

114  David Moon Thus, the environmental conditions of the Eurasian steppe and desert have had a considerable impact on saigas, which have evolved to adapt to them. It has not been a one-way process, however, as grazing by herds of saigas and other ungulates over many millennia have had an impact on the soil and vegetation, contributing to the evolution of the distinctive ecosystems of the steppe and desert. Grazing stimulates further plant growth and exchanges of nutrients as animals eat, digest, and excrete plant matter. The hooves of countless grazing animals compacts the soil, allowing seeds to spread and germinate in new areas. Soils, moreover, form in processes of interaction with the fauna and flora living, and dying, on them.33 Unlike saigas, humans did not evolve in the steppe and desert, but in the African savannah, and have found such environments less hospitable until they devised ways to adapt. People have often noted the presence of saigas in areas with few members of their own species. In the 1840s, in the northern Qazaq steppe, Baron Petr Karlovich Uslar noted: ‘We travelled for several days and the view of the steppe barely changed. Everywhere the same barrenness, … shortage of water and …[an] unattractive view of the land that merged with the sky….’ Except a few expanses of ‘pleasant’ silvery feather grass, the vegetation was brown. ‘Everywhere we impatiently expected to meet some people’, he continued, ‘but besides saigas and wild asses [kulany], we did not meet anybody’.34 Uslar, a Russian military engineer, was taking part in the suppression of a revolt against Russian rule led by Kenesary Qasymuly (Kasymov), which may partly explain why local people were keeping out of the way. Uslar’s sense of desolation was likely accentuated since he was from northwestern Russia, where the climate was wetter, the land greener and wooded, and there were far more people. However, Qazaqs also wrote about saigas living in areas with few humans. Säken Seifüllin opened his poem, ‘The Wounded Saiga’ (‘Aqsaq kiık’) of 1924: ‘In the hilly desert, in the waterless steppes, For centuries no one has settled, The Saiga only is found in these parts. Waterless steppe without lakes and without rivers, No wonder man disliked [it]’,35 In the 1930s, Ramazon Eleusizov – who participated in expeditions with zoologist Viktor Alekseevich Selevin – wrote that the region was a ‘terrible desert … but saiga were not afraid of it’ because there was sufficient fodder and water for them.36 Both were describing the Betpaq Dala of south-central Qazaqstan: a region known, with good reason, as the Golodnaia step/Hungry Steppe in Russian and English. Seifüllin’s and Eleusizov’s perceptions of the saiga’s habitat as inhospitable for humans are more telling than Uslar’s as they were Qazaqs with long familiarity with the environment. Saiga and local human population before Russian colonisation Humans, including local Qazaqs as well as Russians, have devised ways to live in the Eurasian steppe and desert, but in doing so have had a profound impact on this environment and the saigas that live there.

Saiga antelopes  115 Saigas and humans encountered each other long before Pallas wrote about them in the eighteenth century. The importance of animals, including saiga, for the human population of the Eurasian steppe and desert is indicated by their portrayal in culture over the millennia. Archaeologists have found representations of saiga in artefacts produced by the nomadic Saka-Scythian people who lived in the Qazaq steppe in the first millennium BCE. For example, a scene on a bone container unearthed in central Qazaqstan is dominated by a saiga being attacked by predators.37 Representations of saiga heads appear on gold clothing patches and diadems found further in the Altai region and present-day Xinjiang in China.38 More important than saiga to the nomadic pastoralists who dominated the Eurasian steppe and desert for several millennia were their herds of domesticated livestock. In the late eighteenth century, Pallas described the mobile way of life of the ‘Kirguisians’ and ‘Kalmucks’ (Qazaqs and Kalmyks), which contrasted with the sedentary lives of farmers he was accustomed to in his native Germany and European Russia. He noted that nomads did not prepare fodder for their livestock in the winter, but moved between pastures with the seasons, from south to north in the spring and back again in the autumn, to find fresh vegetation. They preferred horses, sheep, goats, and camels over cattle as the last struggled to reach plants under the snow in the winter. The nomads chose winter pastures with wormwood (the saiga’s favourite) for their sheep as it stayed green under the snow. In the late summer, they burned the steppe to promote the growth of fresh grasses for their livestock to eat the following spring.39 The nomadic pastoralists faced similar environmental constraints to the saiga: because of the continental climate and low rainfall, and hence sparse vegetation, they could not find sufficient fodder for large herds of livestock in the same place for the whole year. And they came up with the same solution as the saiga: they migrated between seasonal pastures. They adopted this strategy for a range of reasons – economic, social, and political – as well as environmental.40 However, Qazaq scholar Nurbulat Masonov argued that humans may have been influenced by saiga migrations. People followed migrating saiga and other wild animals to hunt them, brought their domestic livestock with them, and thus copied the saiga migrations, joining in natural processes in the environment.41 Masonov’s argument may be more than informed speculation. Maps tracing migration routes followed by Qazaqs and saigas show significant similarities.42 To take just one example, in the 1890s, both saiga and Qazaq nomads moved between summer pastures in Akmolinsk district in northern Qazaqstan, via the Betpaq Dala, to winter pastures on the river Chu in the south.43 The similarities may be because both were following the seasons in search of vegetation and so were likely to follow similar routes, and it is possible that the Qazaqs’ livestock took the initiative in seeking fodder; saiga, however, had been doing this for millennia before nomads and their domesticated livestock adopted the same strategy to adapt to the environment.

116  David Moon Nomadic pastoralists and saigas using similar migration routes came into contact. Near the Iaik (Ural) River in the autumn of 1769, local people told Pallas that saigas always fled as Qazaqs approached them.44 Saiga had good reason to be afraid as Qazaqs, and Kalmyks, hunted them for their meat, their hides, and their horns, which they used for various purposes and sold to Chinese merchants.45 Steppe peoples used several techniques to hunt elusive and fleet-footed saigas. One was to build fences several hundred metres long creating a space in the shape of a funnel. Hunters then drove saigas into the funnel, forcing them into traps or the path of other hunters at the narrow exit. Archaeologists have found evidence for over a hundred such constructions dating back to the first millennium BCE on the Ustiurt plateau. Saigas were also driven onto low fences made from pointed reeds or posts to injure them. Hunters chased saigas into swamps and deep snow where they could catch them, and waited by rivers where saigas had to slow to cross them. People hunted saigas from horseback with clubs and with trained eagles and hawks that were saigas’ natural predators. Thousands of saigas were taken every year by Indigenous people.46 While Qazaqs, in Pallas’s words, hunted saigas ‘incessantly’ (see above, p. 107), their oral culture, reflecting their religious beliefs, was ambivalent about this practice. Allen Frank noted that Islamic law expressly permits hunting game, including wild ruminants such as saiga, but the oral literature of nomadic pastoralists in Central Asia and hagiographies of Sufi saints treat saiga and other grazing animals as ‘sacred’ or ‘gods’s flocks’ and deserving protection against ‘wanton’ hunting of females with young or dominant males that would endanger their ability to multiply. Such notions are contained in an epic poem about the saint or spirit Sayaq Ata by Tileumaghambet Amanzholov (1865–1935) in western Qazaqstan. Sayaq Ata, who has the gift of speaking with animals, heals a wounded saiga and in return asks permission to milk her and other saiga to feed his children. After the saiga assents, he promises not to hunt them for food, stating that this is in line with God’s law. Sayaq Ata shows further concern by asking the wolves not to hunt saiga.47 Such stories may not have deterred Qazaqs from hunting saiga, but informed attitudes that led to protecting them at times when their numbers dropped sharply and their survival was threatened. Saigas and humans under Russian and Soviet power Russian and later Soviet rule of the Qazaq steppe and desert had a profound impact on the environment and its inhabitants, including saiga. Russian conquest and colonisation of the region began in the seventeenth century. The cossack settlement of Iaitsk (now Oral/Ural’sk) that Pallas visited was founded in the early seventeenth century and the Iaik (after 1775 Ural) Cossacks defended Russian territory against the Indigenous population. In the early eighteenth century, the Russian state built a line of fortresses along its southern frontier with the Qazaqs extending from Omsk, along the Irtysh River,

Saiga antelopes  117 to Ust’-Kamenogorsk (Oskemen). The relationship between the Russian tsars and Qazaq khans gradually changed from alliances of nominal equals to subordination and subjecthood. Over the nineteenth century, the Russian authorities extended their power deeper into the Qazaq steppe and desert.48 Russian and Soviet colonisation of the region adversely affected saiga in several ways. Saiga lost access to ever larger areas of their summer pastures in the steppe as the land was settled by growing numbers of migrants, mostly Slav peasants, from the Russian lands to the northwest. Settlers ploughed up and grew crops in land that had been previously used as pasture by saiga and domesticated livestock. This process was underway when Pallas visited in the late eighteenth century. His expedition was one of several sponsored by the Russian Academy of Sciences to investigate the expanding empire’s natural resources. Among those they identified was fertile soil that both the naturalists and Russian authorities thought would be better used for crop cultivation by settled farmers than as pasture.49 The numbers of migrants increased, especially from the late nineteenth century. At the turn of the twentieth century, a Russian statistical expedition was sent to identify what it deemed ‘surplus’ Qazaq pasture land to allocate to settlers who prioritised grain cultivation over animal husbandry and wild grazing animals.50 In addition, farmers killed saigas that ate their crops. By the late nineteenth century, as the settler population of the Qazaq steppe grew, saigas were becoming less common.51 The equation of more humans equals fewer saigas was reversed in the 1930s. The Soviet government forced Qazaq nomads to settle and confiscated some of their livestock. The result was a catastrophic famine. Around a million and a half Qazaqs died and a similar number left for China and southern Central Asia.52 Saiga reoccupied land depopulated by people and their livestock.53 The abandoned land included large areas in the Ustiurt plateau and Betpaq Dala desert that hosted large saiga populations. The numbers of Qazaqs who died or left were so great that it was not until the 1940s that state farms resumed grazing on some of the pastures that had been abandoned.54 The pendulum swung the other way after 1954 with the launch of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands Campaign to increase grain production by ploughing up ‘virgin and long-fallow’ (tselinnye i zalezhnye) land in northern Qazaqstan. The campaign went ahead despite protests by some Qazaq Communist Party leaders that it was not virgin and long-fallow land, but pastures and hayfields needed to provide fodder for livestock. Between 1953 and 1964, the area of land sown with grain in Qazaqstan increased from 6.7 to 24.4 million hectares. The campaign had many consequences. Over 600,000 ‘volunteers’, mostly Russian and Ukrainian, arrived in Qazaqstan, transforming the ethnic composition of the population. Grain production increased sharply, but unevenly due to recurring droughts. The campaign was not properly planned to take account of the environmental conditions, causing extensive soil erosion and a Soviet ‘dust bowl’ by the early 1960s.55 The Virgin Lands Campaign had consequences for saiga. The numbers spending summers in the steppe in northern Qazaqstan fell further as more

118  David Moon land on their migration routes and summer pastures was ploughed up. Saiga entered arable fields in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, especially during drought years, causing some damage to crops.56 Writing during the Virgin Lands Campaign, a team of Soviet scientists downplayed the damage saiga caused to fields of crops, trees planted as shelterbelts, and livestock by competing for pasture and spreading disease.57 The scientists may, however, have understated the harm caused by saiga to make an implicit case for their protection.58 At this time, a nature reserve was founded in the Qazaq steppe at Korgalzhyn, where saigas graze on land protected from all human activity besides scientific research.59 After the collapse of the Soviet Union and its agricultural system in 1991, the area of land under cultivation in the Qazaq steppe fell, but it has grown again in recent years. There is now little prospect of saiga returning to the steppe in northern Qazaqstan in significant numbers and they have been pushed south into the semi-desert and desert.60 Russian and Soviet colonisation increased the threat to saiga from hunting as they brought more hunters with new techniques to the Qazaq steppe and desert. In the vanguard of Russian expansion, cossacks supported themselves by fishing in the Iaik/Ural River, herding livestock and trading in salt, also hunting saiga. In May 1773, Pallas noted: The Cossacks … go out in small parties to hunt these animals … skin the best of them, and carry off such skins and their horns. They had also many horns of those that had been killed by wolves…, which they sell to the Chinese merchants. … The Cossacks … annually kill a great number of these animals.61 Ural Cossacks were still hunting saigas in large numbers for their meat, hides, and horns in the mid-nineteenth century.62 Russian nobles visited the Qazaq steppe to hunt saiga for sport. The poet Aleksei Tolstoi took part in a hunting expedition 160 kilometres southeast of Orenburg in the hot summer of 1842. He was delighted to have the opportunity to hunt saigas as he had read that they were among the fastest and least accessible of the antelopes. When his party first saw some saigas, several ­kilometres away, they ran off before they were within range. When the party got closer to the animals, Tolstoi took a shot, but missed. He observed his prey: ‘I could make out his large, beautifully arched horns with black tips, deep wrinkles on his humped nose, and huge flared nostrils that he wiggled in all directions’. He prepared his next shot. All I could see was the [saiga’s] head and neck. I aimed at the neck and, holding my breath, touched the trigger. At first, nothing could be seen for the smoke. … I ran forward, and who can describe my joy when he appeared before my eyes, lying with a bullet in his neck: I hit just where I was aiming!

Saiga antelopes  119 Tolstoi was a sportsman who relished the challenge of shooting a saiga, but he also enjoyed the meat, which he described as tasty and similar to mutton.63 The main motive for hunting saiga in this period was for the horns which were much in demand for use in medicines in China, where they commanded high prices. Hunting saigas grew sharply over the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. According to incomplete data, between 1852 and 1882 alone, nearly 40 million saiga horns were exported to China via the border crossing at Kiakhta. Hunting saiga for their horns to sell to China continued despite a ban imposed by the new Soviet authorities in 1923 to protect them as their numbers were in sharp decline.64 Exceptions were made to the hunting ban in 1930s to allow Qazaqs to kill saigas to eat during the famine. Collective farms were supplied with rifles, gunpowder, and bullets for this purpose. The measure seems to have been unsuccessful, however, since saiga hunting by the decimated human population fell in this period.65 A decade later, during severe hardship on the home front during the Second World War, a hunting inspector in Karaganda region discovered the corpses of 60,000 saigas killed by poachers.66 In the 1950s, inmates at the labour camp at Kengir in Karaganda region were ordered to make lead shot for the camp’s officers to use to hunt saiga.67 Controlled, commercial hunting was authorised in Qazaqstan by the Soviet authorities in 1954, but poaching continued. Hunters and poachers used various methods. Some captured saigas by driving them into corrals made of nets. The most common technique was shooting. In daytime, beaters drove saigas towards lines of hunters armed with shotguns. The most effective and common method was used at night. Trucks were driven slowly, at 15–20 km/h, with an operator using a narrow beam of light to locate saigas. When prey had been found, the truck approached them and the operator shone a more powerful spotlight in their eyes to blind them. Once the animals were within 30–40 metres, the hunters opened fire with smooth-bore shotguns. An experienced team of four or five hunters could shoot over a hundred saigas in a few hours. Hunters, legal and illegal, were after saiga meat, hides, and horns. The high prices commanded by saiga horns in China continued to be a major motivation to hunt the animals.68 The economic crisis in the years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and establishment of independent Qazaqstan in 1991 fuelled a massive increase in hunting saigas by Qazaqs who had lost their livelihoods. Saiga meat became a common sight at markets in provincial towns. The Betpaq Dala population suffered most as they were within reach of poachers from nearby urban centres such as Karaganda.69 Illegal hunting of saigas has continued. Poachers who kill saigas only for their horns to sell to the Chinese market leave de-horned carcasses to rot.70 In poverty-stricken areas, for example, the region around the largely dried-up Aral Sea, however, people continue to hunt saigas for meat for subsistence.71 Russian and Soviet colonisation of the Qazaq steppe and desert caused further harm to the saigas. Under policies to ‘develop’ the region, which have

120  David Moon continued in independent Qazaqstan, fences, roads, railways, and oil pipelines have been constructed that block saiga migration routes. Pollution from industry and mining contaminates saiga grazing lands that have already been cut back by the growth of arable farming. Diseases and parasites pass between domesticated livestock and saiga. Anthropogenic climate change is making the climate more extreme, exacerbating problems for saigas caused by drought and jut.72 It is likely, moreover, that saigas have been killed by fuel and debris falling from Soviet and Russian rockets launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Qazaqstan since the 1950s.73 Protection Human attitudes to saigas have changed over time, to some extent reflecting sharp fluctuations in their numbers. In the first half of the nineteenth century, they roamed in vast numbers. Aleksei Levshin, a Russian official who surveyed the Qazaq steppe in 1832, wrote: ‘Herds of these [saiga] are extremely numerous in the steppes, sometimes reaching, it is said, as many as tens of thousands’.74 Describing his hunting expedition in 1842, Aleksei Tolstoi noted: They ran towards the stream in huge herds. The more I looked into the distance, the more of them I discovered on the horizon: they stretched from every quarter. The entire steppe, apart from … about 10 versts [about 10 km] around us, was covered with them. I think there were several thousand. Tolstoi’s cossack guides explained that the numbers were greater than usual because more had come from drought-stricken land to the south. Nevertheless, Tolstoi had no qualms in hunting them.75 Such accounts resemble those by Euro-American explorers of vast herds of bison (‘buffalo’) in the Great Plains of North America in the early nineteenth century; yet a few decades later due to excessive hunting, their numbers were falling sharply. The naturalist John James Audubon had noted how excessive hunting by American soldiers was already reducing their numbers and ‘before many years the Buffalo, like the Great Auk, will have disappeared… Surely, this should not be permitted’.76 The North American bison was saved by conservation measures.77 The saiga’s experience has been more complex as they have undergone periodic population crashes and recoveries. Saiga numbers collapsed over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries due to overhunting and juts. By the early 1920s, they were on the verge of extinction. Over this period, motivated by religious, scientific, and commercial concerns, there were calls for saiga to be protected.78 As we have seen, protecting animals from threats to their survival had roots in Qazaq and Muslim religious cultures. In the nineteenth century, Persian stories circulated widely among Qazaqs about the Prophet Muhammed intervening to save an antelope from an infidel hunter. This could be interpreted as either protecting the

Saiga antelopes  121 animal from humans or giving precedence to Muslim hunters. Hagiographies of Sufi saints are less ambiguous. Ramanqŭl-äwliye Toqtasŭlï (1853–1935), who lived in western Qazaqstan, took a deep interest in saigas and healed sick or injured animals. He shared his knowledge with a relative who worked on a nature reserve.79 The epic poem about Sayaq Ata who saved a lame saiga may have inspired Säken Seifüllin’s 1924 poem lamenting the fate of a saiga left wounded by a hunter (see above, p. 114 and p. 116). He had a wider point: ‘Herds of saiga are becoming rarer, Possibly they will soon be completely exterminated. The saiga, which formerly roamed in herds, only occasionally meets the gaze’.80 From the late nineteenth century, protecting nature, including endangered flora and fauna, had strong support among scientists in the Russian Empire and, later, the Soviet Union.81 The first nature reserve in the Russian Empire was established at Askaniia-Nova in today’s southern Ukraine in the 1880s to protect steppe flora and fauna, including saiga and Przewalski’s horses.82 Protecting the endangered saiga, for commercial as well as scientific reasons, was behind a ban on hunting saiga by the new Soviet government in Qazaq lands in 1923. This was part of wider nature conservation measures by the early Soviet government.83 Fairly effective enforcement of the ban and the collapse in the human population during the famine of the 1930s, allowed saiga numbers to recover. The ban on hunting saiga was lifted in 1954. Licenced hunters were required to observe regulations on the numbers, age, and sex of saigas they took during a prescribed season. These regulations, which were largely enforced until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, allowed the saiga population to remain at generally healthy levels. By the mid-1970s, there were around 1.2 million saigas in Qazaqstan. This situation changed after 1991, when rampant overhunting and poaching caused saiga numbers to plummet, pushing them again to the verge of extinction.84 In recent years, scientists, conservation organisations, and the Qazaqstani government have worked to protect the saiga population. This has included government measures to clamp down on poaching, outreach and education schemes among the local population by conservation organisations, and research by scientists into threats to saiga, including disease as well as human factors.85 The need for protection once again became acute after the dramatic mass mortality event in the 2015 that killed 200,000 animals (see above, p. 113). These measures have had some success. In the early 2000s, the total number of saigas was only around 50,000. On the eve of the 2015 mass dieoff, it had recovered to 300,000, only to fall abruptly by around two-thirds. Since then, however, saiga numbers have recovered substantially, to 842,000 in 2019 and 1,318,000 in 2022.86 Conclusion This chapter has offered a perspective on environmental humanities in Central Asia by analysing relations between non-human and human actors and the

122  David Moon steppe and desert environment. By considering the perceptions of saiga by naturalists, scientists, hunters, and the local population as well as the impact of human activity on saiga, it complements Ferret’s analysis of horse training in this volume to offer further perspectives on human-animal relations in Central Asia. Moreover, while taking account of changes in state power, in particular Russian and Soviet colonisation, it has de-centred state power by focusing on this region, leaving St Petersburg and Moscow on the periphery. The relationship between saiga and the environment which they evolved and have lived in for millennia has been mutual. With the exception of juts and droughts that cut their access to food, they thrive on plants that grow in the steppe and desert and can survive on moisture from succulent plants if necessary. And, by grazing on vegetation, they have helped shape the environment. Saigas have also had mutual relationship with human populations. Saigas have been represented in local cultures, hunted for their meat, hides, and horns, and have been pushed off their grazing land by humans who want pasture for their livestock, land to plough for crops, and to build settlements and infrastructure. Human impact on saiga and the environment was exacerbated by colonialism, in particular settler colonialism, by the Russian and Soviet states. While the impact on saiga of Soviet ‘high-productivity development’, to use Isabelle Ohayon’s term (see her chapter in this volume), was particularly marked during the Virgin Lands Campaign that greatly restricted their access to summer pastures in northern Qazaqstan, the human depopulation resulting from the famine in the 1930s benefitted saiga by reducing competition for grazing land by domesticated livestock. However, saigas have also had an impact on humans. Early pastoral peoples may have been influenced by saiga migrations between pastures as the seasons changed. Both saiga and nomadic pastoralists with their livestock headed north in the spring to find fresh plants for grazing and south with the onset of winter. While the idea of humans emulating animals may seem surprising, there are other examples: human music has been influenced by bird song,87 birds inspired humans to fly,88 and people copied frogs’ swimming techniques to devise the breaststroke.89 The history of saiga in the Qazaq steppe and desert has shown them to be well adapted to this environment. Their sense of smell and ability to run fast, as Pallas observed, allow them to escape some danger. Their endurance enables them to migrate for distances that are among the longest of any of the world’s land animals. Their fertility, which is high compared to other wild grazing animals, has allowed them to recover from catastrophic population collapses due to juts and droughts restricting their access to food and water, diseases, predation by other animals, and a wide range of human activities.90 However, the actions of the Qazaqstani government, conservation organisations, and scientists, together with members of the local population, have contributed to the recent recovery in the saiga population. Nevertheless, there are no reasons for complacency. It remains to be seen if this recovery can be sustained, or whether the saiga population will continue to experience cycles of collapse and recovery, or share the fate of other animals that have become extinct. Saigas are both resilient and fragile. They have nonetheless become

Saiga antelopes  123 increasingly dependent on the humans who they share the Qazaq steppe and desert with to ensure that they can remain a key and distinctive feature of their environment. The latest news, as this chapter went to press, shows again the resilience and fragility of the saiga population. According to the latest count (from aircraft) in the spring of 2023 there were over 1.9 million saiga in Qazaqstan, but a few weeks later 150,000 dead saiga, mostly young, were found in Western Qazaqstan.91

Notes 1 Proper nouns are given in the spelling used in the source followed by their modern forms, first in Qazaq, then Russian, in brackets. The new Latin orthography for Qazaq has been used. Assel Satubaldina, “Kazakhstan Presents New Latin Alphabet, Plans Gradual Transition through 2031,” Astana Times, February 1, 2021, https://astanatimes.com/2021/02/ kazakhstan-presents-new-latin-alphabet-plans-gradual-transition-through-2031/ 2 S. Pallas (sic), “Travels into Siberia and Tartary, Provinces of the Russian Empire,” in The Habitable World Described…, 4 vols., ed. John Trusler (London: The Literary-Press, 1788–1789), vol. 3, 3–4, 14. This translation followed Pallas’s original German in using the term ‘antelope.’ Peter Simon Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reiches, 3 parts (SPb: Kaiserl. Academie der Wissenschaften, 1771, 1772, 1776), part 1, 402. The contemporary Russian translation called them ‘saigaki.’ Peter Simon Pallas, Puteshestvie po raznym provintsiiam Rossiiskoi Imperii, 3 parts (SPb: Imp. Akademiia nauk, 1773–1788), part 1, 588. Saiga were not new to Russians. In the late seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries, inhabitants of today’s Ukraine sent saiga, dead and alive, to Moscow as game rather than scientific specimens. S.V. Kirikov, Izmeneniia zhivotnogo mira v prirodnykh zonakh SSSR. Stepnaia zona i lesostep’ (Moscow: Izd-vo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1959), 48–49. 3 Pallas, “Travels,” vol. 2, 79–80, 148–149; Peter Simon Pallas, Spicilegia zoologica, vol. 1 (Berlin: Gottl. August. Lange, 1767), 9–10. Petr Ivanovich Rychkov, a Russian colonial official in Orenburg, considered saiga to be wild goats. Topografiia Orenburgskaia P.I. Rychkova: nauchnoe izdanie v dvukh tomakh, ed. A.A. Chibilev (Orenburg: Inst. stepi UrO RAN, 2010) [originally published in 1762], vol.1, 318. 4 [P.S. Pallas], Nauchnoe nasledie P.S. Pallasa: pis’ma 1768–1771 gg., compiled by V.I. Osipov, trans. V.I. Osipov and G.I. Fedorova (St Petersburg: TIALID, 1993), 84, 87, 100, 210. 5 Lesley B. MacGregor, “Centring the Animal: Re-evaluating the Human–Animal Relationship since the Middle Ages,” English Historical Review 136, no. 578 (2021): 151. 6 Sandra Swart, “Writing Animals into African History,” Critical African Studies 8, no.2 (2016): 95–108. 7 For a map, see “Saiga Antelope Populations,” https://www.grida.no/resources/ 7491 8 A.B. Bekenov et al., “The Ecology and Management of the Saiga Antelope in Kazakhstan,” Mammal Review 28 (1998): 3–6; E. J. Milner-Gulland et al., “Dramatic Declines in Saiga Antelope Populations,” Oryx 35, no. 4 (2001): 340– 345; IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group, “Saiga tatarica ssp. Tatarica,” The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018: e.T19834A50194657. 9 T.A. Adol’f, “Izmeneniia v rasprostraneniia saigi,” Okhrana prirody, 15 vols (Moscow: Vseros. Obshchestvo okhrany prirody, 1948–1952), vol. 2, 61–93;

124  David Moon Bekenov et al., “Ecology”; S. Robinson, and E. J. Milner-Gulland, “Political Change and Factors Limiting Numbers of Wild and Domestic Ungulates in Kazakhstan,” Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal 31, no. 1 (2003): 87–110. 10 Peter Pallas, Spicilegia Zoologica, vol. 12 (Berlin: Christinum Fridericum Voss, 1777), 21–45 + figures. 11 See David Moon, “The Russian Academy of Sciences Expeditions to the Steppes in the late-Eighteenth Century,” Slavonic and East European Review 88 (2010): 211–212. 12 See Loren R. Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). See also the chapter by ‘Arzhantseva’ and Härke in this book. 13 A.G. Bannikov et al., Biology of the Saiga, trans. M. Fleischman (Jerusalem: Israel Program for Scientific Translations, 1967) [first published in Russian in 1961]. 14 On Soviet conservation scientists using the political language of exploiting nature for ‘socialist construction’ as ‘protective colouration’ for their main interests, see Douglas R. Weiner, A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachev (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 12, 30. 15 I am grateful to Sarah Robinson for her advice on this section. 16 For a parallel argument for bison in the North American Great Plains, see Alwynne B. Beaudoin, “A Bison’s View of Landscape and the Paleoenvironment,” in Bison and People on the North American Great Plains: A Deep Environmental History, ed. Geoff Cunfer and Bill Waiser (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2016), 51–89. 17 See Derek Jurestovsky and T. Andrew Joyner, “Applications of Species Distribution Modeling for Palaeontological Fossil Detection: Late Pleistocene Models of Saiga (Artiodactyla: Bovidae, Saiga Tatarica),” Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments 98, no. 2 (2018): 277–285; Jonathan Jürgensen et al., “Diet and Habitat of the Saiga Antelope during the Late Quaternary Using Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Ratios,” Quaternary Science Reviews 160 (2017): 150–161. On saiga fossils in England, see A. P. Currant, “Late Pleistocene Saiga Antelope [Saiga tatarica] on Mendip,” Proceedings of the Bristol Spelaeological Society 18, no. 1 (1987): 74–80; A. S. Woodward, “Note on the Occurrence of the Saiga Antelope in the Pleistocene Deposits of the Thames Valley,” Proceedings of the Zoological Society 12 (1890): 613–616. 18 For analysis of written sources from this period, see Adol’f, “Izmeneniia,” 67–92; Kirikov, Izmeneniia, 48–52; Bannikov et al., Biology, 25–29; Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 3–7. 19 This paragraph is draws largely on Tatyana Bragina et al., “Grasslands of Kazakhstan and Middle Asia: The Ecology, Conservation and Use of a Vast and Globally Important Area,” in Grasslands of the World: Diversity, Management and Conservation, eds. Victor R. Squires et al. (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2018), 139–167. 20 On jūt, see V.A. Fadeev and A.A. Sludskii, Saigak v Kazakhstane (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1982), 131–133; Svetlana Koval’skaia, “Dzhut v kazakhstoi stepi,” Qazaqstan tarihy, January 22, 2018, https://e-history.kz/ru/seo-materials/show/29469/ 21 See Nicola Di Cosmo, “Why Qara Qorum? Climate and Geography in the Early Mongol Empire,” Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 21 (2014–2015): 67–78; David Moon, “The Debate over Climate Change in the Steppe region in NineteenthCentury Russia,” Russian Review 69 (2010): 251–275. 22 Anon, “Climate Change Is Shortening Central Asia’s Growing Season – Study,” Eurasianet, July 27, 2021, https://eurasianet.org/climate-change-is-shorteningcentral-asias-growing-season-study; Zholdas Orisbayev, “Kazakh Social Media Rings

Saiga antelopes  125 Alarm about Drought, Livestock Die-Off,” Eurasianet, July 20, 2021, https:// eurasianet.org/kazakh-social-media-rings-alarm-about-drought-livestock-die-off 23 Strabo, Geography, Volume III: Books 6–7. Translated by Horace Leonard Jones (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924), 249. 24 See, for example, Sigmund Herberstein [1486–1566], Notes upon Russia, translated and ed. R.H. Major (London: Hakluyt Society, 1851–1852), 97; Conrad Gesner, Historiae animalium liber primus de quadrupedibus viuiparis, liber 1, 2nd ed. (Francofurti: In Bibliopolio Cambieriano, 1602), 361–362; Caroli a Linné, Systema naturae, tom 3, Regnum lapideum (Holmiae: Impensis direct. Laurentii Salvii, 1768), 97; Moon, “Russian Academy of Sciences Expeditions,” 224–225. See also Adol’f, “Izmeneniia,” 62–63. 25 This account is based on Bannikov et al., Biology, 7–21, 210–212; Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 10–11, 26. 26 See, for example, P. Librado et al., “The Origins and Spread of domestic Horses from the Western Eurasian Steppes,” Nature 598 (2021): 634–640. On camels in the same environment, see Anna Olenenko, “Camels in European Russia: Exotic Farm Animals and Agricultural Knowledge,” in Thinking Russia’s History Environmentally, ed. Catherine Evtuhov, Julia Lajus and David Moon (New York: Berghahn, 2023). See also chapter by Ferret in this volume. 27 Bannikov et al., Biology, 97–128; Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 16–21, 34–35. 28 Pallas, “Travels,” vol. 2, 148. 29 See Bannikov et al., Biology, 56–88; Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 10–16, 22–25; Fadeev and Sludskii, Saigak v Kazakhstane, 42–62. For a map showing current saiga migration, see “Saiga Antelope Populations,” https://www.grida.no/ resources/7491 30 Bannikov et al., Biology, 137–148, 213–216; Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 26–34. 31 Bannikov et al., Biology, 203–212; Bekenov et al., “Ecology”, 36–39; Robinson and Milner-Gulland, “Political Change”, 91–96; Fadeev and Sludskii, Saigak v Kazakhstane, 26, 121–136. 32 Eleanor Jane Milner-Gulland et al., “Planet Earth II: Why More than 200,000 Saiga Antelopes Died in Just Days,” The Conversation, December 4, 2016, https://theconversation.com/planet-earth-ii-why-more-than-200-000-saigaantelopes-died-in-just-days-69859 33 See Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 17; Shree R. S. Dangal et al., “Integrating Herbivore Population Dynamics into a Global Land Biosphere Model: Plugging Animals into the Earth System,” Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 9, no.8 (December 2017): 2920–2945; David Moon, The Plough that Broke the Steppes: Agriculture and Environment on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 75–86. 34 Baron U-r [Peter Karlovich Uslar], “Chetyre mesiatsa v kirgizskoi-stepi,” Otechestvennye zapiski 60, no. 10, section 2 (1848): 168. On Russian (and American) Attitudes to Grassland Environments, see David Moon, The American Steppes: The Unexpected Russian Roots of Great Plains Agriculture, 1870s–1930s (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 11–13. 35 Saken Seifullin (Säken Seifüllin), “Ranenaia saiga” [Aqsaq kiık] 1924, trans. S. Narovchatov, in S. Seifullin, Izbrannoe: Stikhotvoreniia; Poemy; Povesti; Rasskaz, ed. R. Guzairov (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1987), 88–91. 36 Adol’f, “Izmeneniia”, 77. 37 Arman Z. Beisenov, “Saka ‘Animal Style’: The ‘mysterious picture’ on a Carved Bone Container from Central Kazakhstan,” in Masters of the Steppe: The Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomad Societies of Eurasia, ed. Svetlana V. Pankova and St John Simpson (Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd, 2020), 43–50.

126  David Moon 38 Zainolla Samashev, “The Illustrious Culture of the Early Nomads in the Kazakh Altai,” in Gold of The Great Steppe, ed. Rebecca Roberts (Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum and East Kazakhstan Regional Museum of Local History, [2021]), 50–51; Henri-Paul Francfort, “Scythians, Persians, Greeks and Horses: Reflections on Art, Culture, Power and Empires in the Light of Frozen Burials and Other Excavations” in Masters of the Steppe, 153. 39 Pallas, “Travels,” vol. 2, 202–226, 285–324. 40 See Anatoly M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World, trans. by Julia Crookenden, 2nd ed. (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 85–118; M. Frachetti, “Multiregional Emergence of Mobile Pastoralism and Nonuniform Institutional Complexity across Eurasia,” Current Anthropology 53 (2012): 2–38. 41 Nurbulat Edigeevich Masonov, Kochevaia tsivilizatsiia kazakhov: osnovy zhiznedeiatel’nosti nomadnogo obshchestva, 2nd ed. (Almaty: Sotsinvest, 1995), 35. 42 Robinson and Milner-Gulland, “Political Change”, 91 and Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 13–15. 43 Adol’f, “Izmeneniia”, 80–81. 44 Pallas, “Travels,” vol. 3, 25. 45 Pallas, “Travels,” vol. 2, 218, 300, 323. 46 See Adol’f, “Izmeneniia”, 88–90; Bannikov et al., Biology, 222–223; Pallas, “Travels,” vol. 2, 324; Shamil S. Amirov et al., “Mapping Ancient Hunting Installations on the Ustyurt Plateau, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan: New Results from Remote Sensing Imagery,” Paléorient 41, no. 1 (2015): 199–219. 47 Allen J. Frank, “Sayaq Ata and the Antelopes: Game Animals as an Islamic Theme in Qazaq Hagiography,” in From the Khan’s Oven: Studies on the History of Central Asian Religions in Honor of Devin DeWeese, ed. Eren Tasar et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 409–434. 48 See Martha Brill Olcott, The Kazakhs, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 28–62; Gregory Afinogenov, “Languages of Hegemony on the EighteenthCentury Kazakh Steppe,” The International History Review 41, no. 5 (2019): 1020–1038. 49 Moon, “Academy of Sciences Expeditions”; Pallas, “Travels,” vol. 2, 143–156. 50 See Alexander Morrison, “Russian Settler Colonialism,” in The Routledge Handbook of the History of Settler Colonialism, eds. Edward Cavanagh and Lorenzo Veracini (London: Routledge, 2016), 313–326; Zhanar Jampeissova, “Imperial Statistical Research in the Kazakh Steppes (Late 19th–early 20th Centuries),” Oriente Moderno 96, no. 1 (2016): 118–131. 51 Adol’f, “Izmeneniia,” 69, 80–82. 52 See Sarah Cameron, The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018). 53 Masonov, Kochevaia tsivilizatsiia, 36; Isabelle Ohayon, La sédentarisation des Kazakhs dans l’URSS de Staline (1928–1945) (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2006), 306. 54 Bekenov et al., “Ecology”, 9; Robinson and Milner-Gulland, “Political Change,” 97. 55 See Zauresh G. Saktaganova, Istoriia osushchestvlenniia sovetskogo opyta ekonomicheskoi modernizatsii v Kazakhstane (1946–1970) (Karaganda: Izd-vo KarGU, 2004), 182–203; Marc Elie, “The Soviet Dust Bowl and the Canadian Erosion Experience in the New Lands of Kazakhstan, 1950s–1960s,” Global Environment 8, no. 2 (2015): 259–292; Zh.B. Abylkhozhin, Poststalinskii period v istorii Sovetskogo Kazakhstana (1953–1991 gg.) (Almaty: Kazakhstansko-Britanskii tekhnicheskii universitet, 2019), 63. 56 Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 42–43. 57 Bannikov et al., Biology, 218–222. See also Robinson and Milner-Gulland, “Political Change,” 95–99; Mukhit B. Orynbayev et al., “Seroprevalence of

Saiga antelopes  127 Infectious Diseases in Saiga Antelope (Saiga Tatarica Tatarica) in Kazakhstan 2012–2014,” Preventive Veterinary Medicine 127 (2016): 100–104. Saiga eat only a small part of the vegetation and cause insignificant damage to pastures. Bekenov et al., “Ecology”, 17. 58 Bragina et al., “Grasslands,” 153–156. 59 David Moon, “A Blue-Green Oasis in the Heart of the Kazakh Steppe: The Korgalzhyn Nature Reserve,” Arcadia, no. 2 (Spring 2022). Last modified February 9, 2022. https://www.environmentandsociety.org/arcadia/ blue-green-oasis-heart-kazakh-steppe-korgalzhyn-nature-reserve 60 A.A. Chibilev, “Ekologicheskie uroki tseliny,” Geografiia, no. 10 (2004), https:// geo.1sept.ru/article.php?ID=200401003 61 Pallas, “Travels’,” vol. 1, 182–197; vol. 3, 259. 62 I. Zheleznov, “Saigachniki,” Otechestvennye zapiski 112, no.5, section 1 (1857): 188–199. 63 A.K. Tolstoi, “Dva dnia v Kirgizkoi stepi,” Vestnik Evropy, vol. 1, book 2 (1906): 523–535, quotes from 529. 64 Adol’f, “Izmeneniia”, 82, 90–91. 65 Ohayon, La sédentarisation des Kazakhs, 306; Masonov, Kochevaia tsivilizatsiia, 38. 66 Adol’f, “Izmeneniia”, 80, 90. 67 Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, translated by Harry Willets, 3 volumes (New York: Perennial Library, Harper and Row, 1979), vol. 3, 330. 68 Bannikov et al., Biology, 223–232; Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 39–42. 69 Milner-Gulland et al., “Dramatic Declines”. 70 For examples of many reports of poaching in the media, see Anon, “Kazakhstan: Saiga’s Fortunes Further Dashed by Poachers,” Eurasianet, December 7, 2015, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-saigas-fortunes-further-dashed-by-poachers; Mariia Mel’nikova, “Desiatki tush saigi s otpilennymi rogami naigeny v ZapadnoKazakhstanskoi oblasti,” Radio Azattyk, February 1, 2020, https://rus.azattyq. org/a/30411355.html 71 William Wheeler, Environment and Post-Soviet Transformation in Kazakhstan’s Aral Sea Region (London: UCL Press, 2021), 223. 72 Johannes Kamp et al., “Persistent and Novel Threats to the Biodiversity of Kazakhstan’s Steppes and Semi-deserts,” Biodiversity and Conservation 25, no. 12 (2016): 2521–2541; E.R. Morgan et al., “Assessing Risks of Disease Transmission Between Wildlife and Livestock: The Saiga Antelope as a Case Study,” Biological Conservation 131 (2006): 244–254; Bragina et al., “Grasslands,” 156–157. 73 See, for example, Antoine Blua, “Spacecraft or Forage: What’s Killing The Saiga Antelope?,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, May 22, 2012, https://www.rferl. org/a/saiga-antelope-deaths-spacecraft-forage/24589539.html. Rocket debris was not, in spite of speculation at the time, the cause of the mass mortality of saiga in 2015. 74 Aleksei Levshin, Opisanie Kirgiz-Kazach’ikh, ili Kirgiz-Kaisatsikh ord i stepei, 3 parts (SPb, Tip. Karla Kraia, 1832), part 1, 135. 75 Tolstoi, “Dva dnia,” 531. 76 Dan Flores. American Serengeti: The Last Big Animals of the Great Plains (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016), 7. 77 See Cunfer and Waiser, Bison and People. 78 Adol’f, “Izmeneniia,” 82–83; Bekenov et al., “Ecology,” 4–5. 79 Frank, “Sayaq Ata,” 19–20. 80 Seifullin, “Ranenaia Saiga”. 81 See Douglas R. Weiner, Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation and Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia, 2nd ed. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000); Weiner, A Little Corner of Freedom.

128  David Moon 82 E. Kozlova, Askaniia-Nova: Zoopark v iuzhno-russkikh Stepiakh (Petrograd: Nachatki znanii, 1923), 9. 83 Weiner, Models of Nature, 22–30. 84 Bannikov et al., Biology, 223–226; Fadeev and Sludskii, Saigak v Kazakhstane, 136; Robinson and Milner-Gulland, “Political Change”, 101–105. 85 For media reports, see Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan: Endangered Antelope Bounces Back,” Eurasianet, May 28, 2021, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-­endangeredantelope-bounces-back; Joanna Lillis, “Kazakhstan’s Rare Antelope Makes Baby Steps Toward Revival,” Eurasianet, May 24, 2021; https://eurasianet.org/ kazakhstans-rare-antelope-makes-baby-steps-toward-revival; Anon, “Kazakhstan: Killers of Saiga Protector Given Life Sentences,” Eurasianet, February 21, 2020, https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-killers-of-saiga-protector-given-life-sentences. For further details, see the websites of the Saiga Conservation Alliance. https:// saiga-conservation.org/ and the Saiga Resource Centre, https://www.saigaresourcecentre.com/content/saiga-news-magazine 86 Milner-Gulland et al., “Planet Earth II”; Anon, “Chislennost’ saigakov v Kazakhstane prevysila 800 tyshach,” Ministerstvo ekologii, geologii i prirodnykh resursov Respubliki Kazakhstan, May 28, 2021, https://www.gov.kz/­memleket/ entities/ecogeo/press/news/details/chislennost-saygakov-v-kazahstane-­ prevysilo-800-tys-golov?lang=ru; Anon, “Rezultaty aviaucheta saigakov v 2022 godu, Kazakhstanskaia assotsiatsiia sokhraneniia bioraznoobraziia,” June 10, 2022. https://www.acbk.kz/article/default/view?id=580 87 Matthew Head, “Birdsong and the Origins of Music,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 122, no. 1 (1997): 1–23. 88 B.J. Goodheart, “Tracing the History of the Ornithopter: Past, Present, and Future,” Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research 21, no. 1 (2011): 31–44. 89 Howard Means, Splash! 10,000 Years of Swimming (London: Allen & Unwin, 2020): 91–94. 90 Fadeev and Sludskii, Saigak v Kazakhstane, 148–151. 91 ‘Chistlennost’ saigakov v Kazakhstane dostigla pochti 2 mln’, Kazakhstan Today, 23 May 2023, https://www.kt.kz/rus/ecology/chislennost_saygakov_v_ kazahstane_dostigla_pochti_2_mln_1377950462.html

5 To tame, improve, protect Environmental discourse in Soviet graphic satire, 1950s–1991 Flora Roberts

Relative to Soviet Russia, environmentalism in Soviet Central Asia is a neglected topic in the Anglosphere: particularly from a historical perspective, there is not much one can read about how, why or when individuals or groups began to articulate concerns about the environmental degradation, or mobilise to raise awareness of environmental harms. In the final decade of the Soviet Union’s existence, there was some interest from political scientists in tracking environmentalist groups, particularly those active in Russia, as a potentially promising source of dissent and opposition to the regime.1 It was generally understood in the West that environmental groups provided political cover for a variety of other interests and causes that could not be so openly voiced – that environmentalism was the acceptable face of political dissent.2 For Russia, this interest has also yielded environmental histories of Soviet nature protection movements, notably by Douglas Weiner and Stephen Brain,3 but the story of how an interest in nature protection coalesced or was articulated in the Central Asian republics remains largely to be told.4 In this chapter, I take a small step in this direction by charting the coverage of environmental themes in the graphic satire published in a magazine called Hedgehog (in Tajik Khorpushtak), printed in Dushanbe beginning in 1953.5 I was already interested in the role of satire and the graphic arts within the ecosystem of the Soviet press, and it seemed to me that the qualities of activism, denunciation, social critique, and (potentially) subversive humour might make cartoons a rewarding window through which to watch for signs of a developing environmental consciousness.6 The chosen window may be a small one, and the glass discoloured and warped, but the view is interesting nonetheless. In this chapter, after briefly situating graphic satire as a genre in the Soviet context and introducing the team behind Hedgehog, I trace developments in the portrayal of socialist modernisation and the transformation of the natural world, the effects on wildlife, and pollution between the early 1950s and the early 1990s. This chapter contributes to environmental humanities in and of Central Asia by focusing attention on how the Tajik creative intelligentsia of the second half of the twentieth century made sense of the changes taking place in the natural world around them, and how they gradually became aware DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-8

130  Flora Roberts of the environmental toll exacted by the project of socialist construction they were paid to promote. Satirical press in the Soviet Union Within the Soviet press landscape, satirical magazines were deemed to serve important political and social functions, and were funded accordingly. The Tajik magazine Hedgehog operated within the relatively well-developed and populated field of satirical press endorsed and funded by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Russian-language satirical magazine Krokodil had been published since 1922,7 and gradually each of the Soviet republics acquired their own counterpart, published in the titular language of the republic, under the supervision of the republican Communist Party. Satirical magazines occupied a distinctive spot in the ecosystem of Soviet journalism. The various members of the Krokodil ‘family’ were expected to investigate and lampoon waste, inefficiency and corruption, not only to inspire their readers to do better, but also to ensure that the guilty faced retribution. Kateryna Yeremieieva, who researches the Ukrainian satirical magazine Perets (Pepper), suggests that these Soviet magazines performed a politically useful function by encouraging readers to laugh at government officials, allowing them through humour to ‘blow off steam’ and slake their discontent in a manner that was harmless to the regime.8 The title for the Persian language9 Hedgehog, launched in 1953, was ­chosen to symbolise the magazine’s intent to prick the conscience and interest of readers, and thus spur them to join in the construction of socialism. The magazine’s avatar, a jovial red hedgehog, sometimes dressed in a suit and often carrying a giant pen in the manner of a spear, appears regularly in its pages. As Basir Raso, long-term editor of Hedgehog, explained in a 2006 interview, the magazine cultivated a network of informants, who wrote in regularly with pseudonymous allegations that they felt should be investigated. Raso saw himself and his team of satirical journalists as a vital link between those who broke the law and the prosecutor’s office.10 In his own words, as reported by local journalist Manizha Kurbanova: We could not know what was going on in each individual district, mahalla [neighbourhood]. That’s when our informants came to our aid. They all wrote to us under their pseudonyms. It was forbidden to disclose names, even to the prosecutor’s office. In general, we always checked the facts, and when the material was already being printed, we explained to the offended heroes of our feuilletons, when they came to ‘bomb’ the editorial office, that it was important to look at the facts, and not at the authors of the material.11 The editorial team headed for some four decades by Basir Raso (1931–2010) was remarkably stable, and apparently close-knit: Samad Ghani (1908–1974),

To tame, improve, protect  131 the first editor of the magazine from its 1953 launch,12 was replaced as editor in 1962 but remained on the editorial team right up until his death in late 1974, suggesting a relatively frictionless transition. It seems possible that the longevity and stability of this editorial team explain how Hedgehog eventually acquired the ability and inclination to publish potentially provocative and outspokenly critical cartoons. For the first few issues, while the magazine was finding its feet, the satire published is very gentle indeed: many illustrations wholesomely celebrate the government’s successes – overfulfilling the cotton plan, for instance, or bringing field labourers to the opera – and offer no critical content at all.13 The satirical cartoons are often normative in tone, directed at altering a specific human behaviour or attitude viewed as objectionable, from the perspective of the Communist Party. In the early years, many of the cartoons in Hedgehog are so overtly didactic that an image’s message can be read as a simple command, often a variation of ‘work harder, be more conscientious, and less lazy and rapacious’. This message is most often aimed at specific categories of worker, such as bureaucrats and collective farm managers. There are also cartoons that take aim at supposedly entrenched social problems of Muslim Central Asia, such as dowry payments,14 polygamy15 and the enduring influence of imams16 and faith healers.17 Overall, imagery relating to the natural world is not prevalent in the pages of Hedgehog. While the vast majority of the Tajik population lived in rural areas  – even by 1989, the urban population had scarcely reached a third of the 5 ­million total – the republic’s small literary elite lived in the cities.18 Agriculture remained the undisputed mainstay of the economy, which accounts for Hedgehog’s preoccupation with cotton quotas, fighting pests with pesticides, the correct diet of dairy cows, and other agricultural concerns. Eventually, wasting water and industrial pollution would emerge as pressing concerns, even as the target of critique appears to shift from the ‘a few bad apples’ model to hints at more systemic and structural causes. Overall however, the magazine largely reflected the interests and concerns of a minority, the urban intelligentsia and their Party bureaucrat overseers, who edited, wrote, and illustrated each issue. The natural world transformed The transformation of the natural world was understood by Bolshevik ­leaders to be both necessary and welcome to the construction of a new socialist economy and society.19 Within the register of graphic satire, indeed, the extent to which landscapes have been transformed is often presented as a measure of the successes achieved in the construction of socialism. Stalin’s ambitious plans calling for the ‘Transformation of Nature’, promulgated in 1948, were not officially repudiated by his successor Khrushchev, who chose to undertake some significant land reclamation projects of his own, notably the Virgin Lands Campaign launched in 1956 (principally

132  Flora Roberts directed at the Kazakh steppe, rather than southern Central Asia).20 One of the many continuities between the Stalin and Khrushchev periods, indeed, was the broad acceptance at leadership level that nature was the raw stuff with which Communism was to be built. Profound transformations of landscapes  – deemed necessary to extract or optimise natural resources – were viewed positively as a sign of the successes of socialist labour on the path to the construction of Communism. In this vein, wild landscapes, that do not bear obvious signs of human manipulation, are virtually never portrayed in the pages of Hedgehog, and landscapes, when they do appear, are depicted as either in the course of transformation or in an idealised, highly ordered and ‘cultured’ state, in a form akin to what Sheila Fitzpatrick memorably described as a ‘preview to the coming attractions of socialism’.21 In 1954, a Hedgehog cartoon (Figure 5.1) reminded artists of their responsibility to document and celebrate the transformation of landscapes under socialism: rather than dwell on picturesque vestiges of the past, as the backward artist does – a donkey grazing in front of a tumbledown adobe hut – painters should be recording what is supposedly right in front of their eyes (or at least will be, once Communism arrives). These fruits of modernisation include the multistorey buildings, electricity pylons, cars,

Figure 5.1  Cartoon by A. Orlov, Khorpushtak 1, 1954, 10.

To tame, improve, protect  133 trucks, and motorised harvesters, while a crane reassures viewers that further transformations are yet underway (see Figure 5.2).22 In her work on Soviet satire, Annie Gérin establishes the binary construction – a split-screen before/ after or good/bad image – as a staple of 1920s campaigns against old byt’, or outdated modes of living.23 Cartoons in the idealised register favour prosperous and efficient farmland, with crops sown in neat rows and little sign of any spontaneous plant growth or wild animal. A picturesque and bustling collective farm appears in a 1963 issue, depicting an idyll where all work is done by hand by sturdy, smiling workers, and the children file along a shaded path carrying balloons, escorted by serene and solicitous teachers. Typical architectural forms and material culture of Central Asia – deg, aivan, tapchan,24 caged quail – are on display, while the modern improvements – television, loudspeaker, and enormous bags of superphosphate fertiliser – merge into the harmonious whole.25 The satirical dimension of the images emerges in the accompanying text, which asks readers of the magazine to write in if they have ever seen such a scene themselves, and particularly if they are kolkhoz chairmen, party activists or otherwise leading figures on any collective farm.26 The clear implication is that such scenes are rare, if they exist at all!

Figure 5.2  Cartoon by Boris Serebrianskii, Khorpushtak 8, August 1963, 12.

134  Flora Roberts The 1960s witness the apogee of Hedgehog’s enthusiasm for the p ­ romises of technology and ‘Big Chem’, with many cartoons insisting that the specialists know best, and that the key to unlocking greater agricultural productivity lies in the enthusiastic deployment of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. Thus, in 1964, an allegorical female figure swathed in a banner labelled ‘Big Chemistry’ and wearing an alembic on her head as if it were an astronaut’s helmet strides purposefully towards a grateful Central Asian crowd, who raise their hands in greeting against an industrial backdrop of tractor-ploughed fields, factories, and cranes.27 A decade and a half later, the theme of industrially transformed landscapes appears rather strained, or unsettling: outsized human figures and gigantic bulldozers loom over a thoroughly subdued, industrial landscape, where the water channels dissect ploughed fields punctuated by the occasional pylon or crane – further in the distance a dam can be seen. The accompanying article obliquely alludes to an apparently shambolic mishandling of water provision to a remote community on the part of the authorities, by means of a folkloric tale of a mill with no water.28 Wild animals as a measure of progress Hedgehog’s cartoonists are ingenious in thinking up ways of rendering in graphic form the speed with which landscapes are being transformed throughout their republic: a favourite way of doing so is by adopting the viewpoint of a wild animal, confused at finding themselves in a bustling new world. Wild animals do not appear frequently in the pages of Hedgehog but when they do, it is often to highlight the extent to which their habits and rhythms are being disrupted by the mechanisation, and the modernisation of the countryside (which at that point remained more of a hope and a plan than an actuality). Thus, in 1954, a bulldozer with caterpillar tracks is portrayed running over a large snake, and causing a monitor lizard to run away in fear.29 In the very next issue, a mama bear leads her cub away from her former habitat that has become a building site.30 Geese flying over a landscape dominated by a large dam worry that they are lost, as their usual landmarks have evidently been submerged or otherwise done away with (Figure 5.3).31 In these early iterations of this topic, I see no explicit invitation to empathise with these wild animals, many of which are carnivorous predators often regarded with fear (the monitor lizards, snakes, and bears are all native to the region). Their primary role seems to be highlighting the scale and rapidity of the positive changes being wrought by socialist modernisation. This visual trope continues into the 1960s, when its inverse is also deployed: when the attributes of socialist modernity are neglected or insufficiently cared for, wildlife creeps back from the margins to reclaim spaces where it should not be tolerated. Timid birds are often used in this role: birds nest in a newspaper display case, to underscore that those responsible are failing in their duty to refresh the display with the latest edition.32 The caption clarifies that the cartoon is commenting on a news item: one of Hedgehog’s eyes and ears in the countryside has reported that newspaper displays at collective farms,

To tame, improve, protect  135

Figure 5.3  Cartoon by G. Petukhov, Khorpushtak 10, October 1954, 5. Caption reads: ‘Is it possible that we have lost the way? In spring, as I remember, we passed over a desert’. ‘Not at all! Tajikistan is a land that is changing from hour to hour’.

state farms and institutions are not regularly maintained. A few years later, in a cartoon by Anisimov, a stork nests on an unfinished building and – in a wink at the keen interest in genealogy common among Tajiks – observes with pride that the family has now been roosting in the same spot for seven generations (haft pusht).33 Large predators occasionally appear in Hedgehog’s pages, as a threat to the collective farms’ bottom line: thus in 1953, a bear and a wolf have a conversation about eating sheep.34 Wolves are again portrayed as a threat to flocks in 1959, but they pose a lesser threat than human embezzlement: a young shepherd is reprimanded for killing a wolf, for now they have lost their alibi: ‘Who will believe us now when we say the wolf has eaten our sheep?’35 This cartoon seems to cast wolves as a potentially useful, but distinctly finite commodity – a sign perhaps that the broader public was beginning to notice their sharply declining numbers? The 1960s was a time of intense construction and transformation of nature in Tajikistan: some of the biggest and most disruptive dam and reservoir projects were either being built or planned,36 and the pace of industrialisation was picking up. Judging by the pages of Hedgehog however, satire was not yet

136  Flora Roberts an established vehicle for expressing environmental concerns. In the whole ­decade, there is a single cartoon about littering, and nothing about issues such as deforestation or water pollution, which did occur in the Russian-language Krokodil during those years.37 In fact, disruption to wildlife – from the fishes in rivers and reservoirs, to the bears and lizards of the mountains – is used rather as a signifier for the successes attained in transforming the environment in accordance with human needs, and a measure of the speed of these transformations. The cover of the March 1961 issue of Hedgehog (Figure 5.4) depicts the construction site of the Nurek hydropower station, where one of Tajikistan’s largest dams was then being built38: a large Kamaz truck is driving up a steep road in the foreground, while in the background we see more heavy machinery, and several cranes, in a high mountain setting. The truck in the foreground, driven by a cheerful young man in a cap and overalls, may have to slow down to make way for a rather pitiful little procession of wild animals crossing the road: a snake, a large lizard, a tortoise, and a bear. These last two carry bundles of their belongings, and look up with apprehension at the advancing truck. The caption, a line of dialogue, reads, ‘What is this calamity (dahshat) that has roused us from our thousand year sleep?’ The surface message of the cartoon is

Figure 5.4 Cartoon by Hasan Rasulov, ‘At the construction site of the Nurek hydropower station’, Khorpushtak, March 1961, front cover.

To tame, improve, protect  137 about the rapid pace of change, but perhaps some readers may spare a twinge of sympathy for the animals with their bundles. Throughout Hedgehog’s first decade, disruption to wildlife seems, on the surface, to be used by cartoonists as a measure of the success achieved by socialism in transforming the environment in accordance with human needs. But these are not monologic images, and less optimistic, more subversive readings are also possible. Consider, for example, a cartoon published in April 1956 (Figure 5.5). That month, a new dam was inaugurated at Qayroqqum, on the Syr Darya River, in the Tajik Ferghana Valley, which caused a large reservoir to form, an expanse of water of several square kilometres that would flood farmland and orchards, and displace several farming communities.39 In the cartoon, which is divided into two halves, we see a fish from a river in the south of Tajikistan, calling a fish in the Syr Darya River in the north, on the telephone. Fish in both locations can be seen clutching heavy luggage. In the Tajik-language caption, the southern fish – who apparently initiated the phone call – says to the Qayroqqum fish, ‘The river is getting very chaotic (noorom is the opposite of calm or peaceful). Would you let us come and stay with you?’ To which the northern fish sarcastically replies along the lines of ‘sure, be my guest!’.40 An immediate difference between these fish and the other ­ depictions of wildlife discussed above is that these are clearly and emphatically

Figure 5.5  Unsigned cartoon, Khorpushtak 4, April 1956, 4.

138  Flora Roberts anthropomorphised, with their telephones, boxes, umbrellas and balls. The lives of all these fish have clearly been disrupted by dam building. In both locations, we see cranes, fumes, and other signs of ambitious projects of environmental transformation. These are all rendered in revolutionary red, which – given the publication context of state socialism – surely confers a positive connotation. If this is socialist development in action, readers can surely laugh away the inconvenience caused to a few dumb fish. However – and herein lies the power of satirical cartoons – other readings are possible. Large dams cause disruption to human communities as well as to natural ecosystems, and those built on the Vakhsh and Syr Darya entailed the involuntary resettlement of many hundreds of people away from the area, as well as the mobilisation of a large workforce. More broadly, as a political system, the Soviet Union was characterised by both legal restrictions on movement and population flows vast both in quantity and in distance covered, ranging on a spectrum from spontaneous to mandated relocations and forced deportations.41 Could these gloomy looking fish, clutching suitcases but unsure where to go, have been intended to evoke displaced human villagers or deracinated workers? Those displaced by dam construction, at least, if not the general public, might well have been inclined to identify, and sympathise, with the plight of these very anthropomorphic fish. Even in the years of perestroika, Hedgehog never would publish a cartoon criticising the fate of those forcibly resettled any more directly: population displacement seems to have been a taboo topic, at least for a humour-focused magazine. In 1969, however, an article by B. Faizulloev fiercely lampooned the negligence and incompetence of the water infrastructure administration (TojikGlavVodStroi) and the Amelioration Department for building houses for settlers (the Persian muhojir is closer in meaning to refugee) in the Vakhsh Valley in an area subject to extreme secondary salinisation. In the accompanying photograph, the thick crust of salt covering the wheel-rutted track could easily be mistaken for deep snow.42 If this is satire, who or what is the target? It is probably a stretch to construe this cartoon as a veiled critique of the prevailing attitude towards the environment. The cartoon does appear to acknowledge, however, with an unusual level of frankness, that gargantuan infrastructure and landscape engineering projects cause both intended and unintentional disruptions and upheavals. Ecosystem disruption is a side effect of socialist construction. One possible indication that this particular cartoon – which is certainly a thematic o ­ utlier – was perceived as risky, or potentially subversive, is that it was published unsigned, which is relatively unusual in the Hedgehog. Despite the fleeting unease expressed at the disruption caused by a dam in 1956, thereafter graphic coverage of dams in Hedgehog continues to be broadly positive, and such disruption is no longer alluded to, even as larger and larger dams are planned and approved in the republic. On the cover of the final issue of 1963, the old year (a bearded old man) hands over to the new year a plan of action dominated by a large dam.43 In 1967, in a cover image promoting

To tame, improve, protect  139 the upcoming elections, amid campaign issues, including the right to work, rest, education, and so on, the concept of ‘communism’ is illustrated by a dam and power lines.44 Dams are yet more emphatically celebrated throughout the 1970s, with a series of very un-satirical cartoons emphasising the connection between dams, progress, and domestic illumination. The benefits that dams bring are most often represented for the public by a cheery smiling lightbulb – recalling Lenin’s 1920 ambition to electrify the whole country, yet unrealised in the Tajik republic.45 Around 1970, the theme of wild animals used as a measure of transformations enacted by state socialism comes to an end. A late entry in this genre is rather unsettling: a binary construction juxtaposes a tiger crouching amid high reeds, with a farmer posing before a vast blooming cotton field; the accompanying text is from a farm chairman in Kolkhozobod, celebrating local successes in land reclamation which have banished all trace of reeds, and tigers.46 The disappearance of tigers from the Tajik republic is revisited in satirical key in 1974, with a joke about how reports always blame wolves for losses of sheep – so this time a tiger will get the blame! The joke relies on tigers being rarer and less plausible as a culprit.47 By the 1970s and 1980s, satirical cartoons in which wild animals appear tend to depict them sympathetically, advocating for their protection from poachers,48 or comparing their behaviour favourably to that of predatory inspectors and feckless shepherds.49 A decade and a half after picturing a dam experienced by fish, Hedgehog begins to take the side of wild animals consistently. Pollution The extent of the transformation of nature wrought by socialism had been measured by Hedgehog’s cartoons in terms of the impact of modern infrastructure on wildlife since the 1950s, as the previous section has shown. Pollution of the air, soil, and water – as a specific and negative side effect of industrialisation and of the modernisation in agriculture – also gradually entered the satirical magazine’s lexicon. The caution with which the Hedgehog cartoonists seem to approach the issue of pollution, and the effects of economic activity and resource extraction on air and water qualities, may be related to the difficulty of blaming pollution on individual bad actors, as well as the centrality of heavy industry to the communist modernisation project. In this section, I will trace the evolution of the portrayal of water and air pollution. Early depictions of what we would think of as water pollution are blamed on individual Soviet citizens, portrayed as discarding bottles and rubbish in natural beauty spots and water courses, for example.50 This is a theme which overlaps with Hedgehog’s growing preoccupation with the issue of waste, and resources not being used or stewarded correctly. In particular, readers are repeatedly admonished that the Tajik cotton harvest would be even larger, if so much cotton were not lost en route from the fields to the storage facilities and processing plants.51 In one cartoon, so many cotton bolls have fallen off

140  Flora Roberts the trucks transporting cotton from the farms as to give a new meaning to the Central Asian version of ‘Bon Voyage’, which translates literally to ‘White Road’, or ‘may your way be clear’.52 The message that resources should not be wasted is often conflated with critiques of those who litter in natural landscapes or parks. In a 1954 cartoon, we see anthropomorphised frogs capering on the bank of a rubbishfilled lake.53 The broken bottles and jagged rusting tins pose a clear threat to swimmers, but there may also be an implication that these items should have been collected for recycling rather than discarded. Indeed, there were periodic campaigns launched to encourage citizens to collect scrap metal, which were also duly satirised: the wrong metal objects are collected, and rampaging youth indiscriminately strip metal fixtures that are very much needed.54 In a cartoon published a few years later, a pair of boys going fishing seem unable to catch anything but discarded tins and bottles.55 In this vignette, an inebriated diner in a tie vomits over the parapet of the teahouse into the water – the target of satire is evidently those whose behaviour degrades this popular recreation spot. The emphasis, thus, in the 1950s, is on good citizenship or being public-spirited, rather than explicitly focused on stewardship or preservation of the natural world. The industrial sector was very much in its infancy in the Tajik republic in the 1950s – before most of the large hydropower plants went online – and the pollution from factories does not appear to be a topic of concern. As a Soviet-planned city built virtually from scratch beginning in the 1930s, Stalinabad (subsequently renamed Dushanbe) had a designated industrial district, on the southern side of the settlement. A 1954 publication underscored the authorities’ concern for fostering a pleasant and healthful environment for the city’s inhabitants. One aspect of this regard for the citizens’ comfort involves locating some industries at a distance from the main industrial district (which was integrated within the city limits), with the stated intent of limiting air and noise pollution in particular: But some of these enterprises would be harmful for the residential quarters because of the smoke from factory chimneys, the clang of metal, the noise of freight traffic and other inconveniences. It was therefore planned to build the meat-packing plant, the cotton (now textile) combine and the fruit-canning plant two or three kilometres away from the general industrial district.56 In a cartoon published a decade later, in 1964, Hedgehog offered the first clue that the industries located in the capital were, in fact, impinging negatively on their human neighbours. A cartoon, apparently inspired by a letter from a reader, satirically reported that the Dushanbe asphalt factory was providing its neighbours with a free and durable black dye for their clothes and hair. The illustration, attributed to one L. Naborshchikova, is also one of the very first credited to a woman (apparently not a regular contributor). The

To tame, improve, protect  141 drawing is in two parts: at top right, a blonde woman in a modish knee-length dress strolls past a factory silhouetted in black, with her small dog on a lead. From the factory chimney, a long plume of thick black smoke emerges into an otherwise blue sky, and curves round, spreading downwards. At the bottom of the page, we see the same woman again, but now her hair, dress, and little dog are all rendered in dark grey.57 While from a twenty-first-­century perspective this looks like a reference to air pollution, the focus is on the inconvenience of doing additional washing: any impacts on human health are not directly addressed. All the same, the clear implication that factories – those privileged sites of socialist labour – can make unpleasant neighbours is a striking editorial innovation for Hedgehog. The editorial team, indeed, may have sought to deflect accountability by the two-pronged method of attributing the critique to a reader, and entrusting the artwork to a rarely published woman. It would be a full decade before Hedgehog would publish another cartoon portraying airborne emissions from factories, but this time too, the editorial team maintained some distance between themselves and the topic: the published cartoon was one reproduced from Perets, the Ukrainian satirical magazine. The Ukrainian cartoon depicts smoke from a factory chimney threatening trees: a much more direct statement on the correlation between industry and environmental harm made by the far more industrialised ­republic.58 The f­ ollowing year, in 1975, a Hedgehog cartoon (Figure 5.6) again tackled ­industrial pollution, but engaged in some light-hearted misdirection: the implication is that the smoking room at the factory produces more smoke than the main chimney stack does – but for the first time, a belching chimney is portrayed on the magazine cover.59 As Prilutskaya argues in this volume, a smoking industrial chimney could often be coded positively in the Soviet press, but in Hedgehog, by the mid-1970s, this ceases to be the case. It need hardly surprise us that the topic of industrial pollution was tackled so rarely up until the mid-1970s in Tajikistan, as the republic’s industrial sector continued to be dwarfed by agriculture. We see a distinct shift in tone, however, with the theme of air pollution being addressed more regularly and more explicitly, beginning in the mid- to late 1970s. In 1978, the Soviet Union was engaged in negotiating the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution,60 and would become a signatory to this ground-breaking convention the following year. This inaugurated a series of very pointed and critical cartoons denouncing industrial air pollution, at least some of which were specifically located in Dushanbe, published from the late 1970s into the 1990s – making clear that the air pollution treaty had raised awareness of the problem and allowed its airing, rather than solved it. A particularly forthright and ironical depiction of air pollution comes in March 1978, in a cartoon by M. Belan, in which a supervisor or engineer armed with a briefcase instructs the worker to build the factory chimney as high as possible ‘so that the smoke will not be visible’. The towering chimney recalls the Tower of Babel, with its echoes of discord and divine disapproval,

142  Flora Roberts

Figure 5.6  Cartoon by H. Rasulov, Khorpushtak 13, July 1975, front cover.

and raises the question of why it is the visibility of air pollution that is at issue here.61 In a 1982 cartoon, we see an indirect implication that factory directors may bear some responsibility for industrial air pollution: a middle-aged man at a desk with a ‘factory director’ sign on the wall behind him refuses a cigarette on the grounds that smoke is bad for one’s health. Through the windows, smoke belches forth from several chimney stacks, with the implication that these fall within his purview.62 This message is conveyed more explicitly by M. Belan in a 1986 cartoon, in which we see an irate factory manager in a tie attempting to pin the blame for the bad air on a car idling outside, whose fumes are dwarfed by the gigantic plumes bellowing from the chimneystacks behind him.63 The preoccupation with industrial air pollution is sustained throughout what would turn out to be the Soviet Union’s final years: in 1985, a schoolteacher uses the belching smokestacks looming directly outside the classroom windows to explain the concept of volcanoes to her class.64 In October 1986, Hedgehog published a letter from a reader complaining about smoke and dust coming from the Leninobod furniture factory, despite the availability of ‘special devices’ to filter such particles before becoming airborne.65 Of

To tame, improve, protect  143 course, the letter may not be genuine: the accompanying name, Korelevskii, suggests that translation at least may have been involved, but it tells us at least that Hedgehog sought to present air pollution as a concern shared by the public. In 1987, Rasulov published a cartoon in which factory smoke seems to gobble up the surrounding trees, and in 1990 another in which cats lament that the fumes from the nearby factories have driven away the mice they used to eat.66 Hedgehog cartoonists sounded the alarm about the industrial pollution of waterways with an increasing sense of urgency along the same timeline as air pollution, and with a similar dose of misdirection. The first reference to the possibility that industry could also cause water pollution occurs in an apparently wholesome and sincere image celebrating the passage of the ‘Founding Law of the USSR and Union Republics concerning water’ of 1971. The cartoon shows a red axe cutting through a pipeline that previously, it would seem, connected factories to streams of running water. The fish in the stream look happy with this development!67 The fact that this cartoon praising legislation designed to tackle water pollution precedes the publication of texts or images expressing concern for this issue suggests that contaminated water was not a pressing concern for the official intelligentsia of the capital, who well into the 1970s appear more concerned by the patchy availability of piped water, and the inefficiencies in its distribution, rather than its quality.68 The canonical graphic representation of water pollution portrays ­effluent from a factory in a river or stream, causing the water to change colour (Figure  5.7). We see an artist try – in a mocking revisitation of socialist ­realism  – to render faithfully the precise combination of unnatural hues that a factory has contributed to a river.69 Despite the vast difference in size and impact between the agricultural and industrial sectors in the Tajik SSR, agriculture’s responsibility for water pollution is only glancingly addressed. One cartoon has a lazy driver dumping an entire truckload of nitrate fertiliser (locally called selitra) into a canal, pointing out that it will eventually reach the fields ­anyway – but the main message is probably the usual critique of inefficiency and waste, rather than prompted by the damage that chemical fertilisers wreck on aquatic ecosystems.70 A particularly bleak indictment of the state of the republic’s waters comes in a cartoon by R. Nusrat in July 1989 (Figure 5.8): a woman scientist with test tubes in her lab coat pocket instructs a rural woman not to let her young child drink unboiled water (drawn with a bucket from the waterway). The mother responds: ‘How could there be living microbes in that water?’, referring to the industrial effluent pouring into the waterway.71 The same issue features a dark cover image, in which bathers attempt to relax on a little beach on the banks of a reservoir dominated by a large factory: the showers provided by the cooperative for its workers do not inspire much confidence.72

144  Flora Roberts

Figure 5.7  Cartoon by S. Shongin, Khorpushtak 5, March 1982, 2.

Figure 5.8  Cartoon by R. Nusrat, Khorpushtak 14, July 1989, 5.

To tame, improve, protect  145 Conclusion By the 1980s, positive depictions of the environment become very rare, and by the end of that decade, all cartoons that include plants or animals, portray a broken and blighted world. There was something very rotten in the state of Denmark: inexplicably felled trees,73 leaking canals,74 looming mounds of garbage,75 and nothing left to shoot in the nature reserve.76 How should we interpret such coverage? The magazine itself offers little evidence that anyone on the Hedgehog team identified explicitly with ecologists or as an environmental activist: there are no positive depictions of the nature preservation movement, for example, which in some other parts of the USSR was both visible and quite popular by the 1970s.77 The only published cartoon about ‘nature lovers’ – in 1967 – seems condescending or dismissive of youthful activism: it depicts a mountain slope denuded of trees to build a ‘nature lovers’ hut’.78 Even as the environmental problems portrayed in Hedgehog mount up, there is no sign or acknowledgement of any organised campaigns to address them. In this chapter, I have shown that by the second half of the 1950s, treatment of topics with important environmental dimensions, like the construction of dams and the cultivation of cotton, was more varied and heterodox than might be expected. Some of Hedgehog’s cartoonists, for whatever reason, were prepared to draw images whose tone or narrative was strikingly at variance with others on the same topic. Sometimes, the editorial team seemed to test the waters on a new topic by publishing a cartoon that had previously appeared in one of the other members of the Krokodil family – this is the case with air pollution. Gradually, beginning in 1956, Hedgehog began publishing an increasing number of cartoons highlighting systemic issues, blame for which could not plausibly be laid at the feet of any one individual or group, aside from perhaps those at the very top. Eventually, we see the clear emergence of an environmentalist discourse in the official, Party-funded satirical press. But did the emphasis on the damage to air and waterways caused by industry make sense in an overwhelmingly agricultural republic? Were the cartoons about poisoned rivers and belching smokestacks a case of misdirection, distraction, or perhaps a means of hinting at other, more sensitive issues? The environmental causes taken up with the greatest clarity and urgency by the magazine called Hedgehog were not, in fact, the issues that – following the break-up of the Soviet Union – would be seen as the most urgent issues facing the region, or as the most troublesome inheritance of the Soviet period. Perhaps the highest profile industrial plant in Soviet Tajikistan, in terms of its economic and political significance, was a hulking aluminium plant inaugurated in the spring of 1975: widely celebrated in the press – and never satirised or criticised by Hedgehog.79 Industrial air pollution may have bothered the creative intelligentsia living in the Tajik capital, but arguably more pressing issues were those surrounding water distribution and waste – which Hedgehog did indeed tackle, and pollution associated with uranium mining and enrichment, which remained a taboo. Likewise, Hedgehog criticises waste

146  Flora Roberts of agrichemicals, but remained silent on the appalling health impacts of chemical pesticides and defoliants on cotton workers, documented by investigative journalist Aleksandr Minkin in 1988.80 Despite such ‘no-go’ areas, the cartoons in Hedgehog offer compelling evidence of a commitment to investigative reporting, and developed a satirical repertory grounded to a significant extent in local tip-offs from the Tajik provinces, rather than merely relaying messages from Moscow. Notes 1 Robert G. Darst Jr, “Environmentalism in the USSR: The Opposition to the River Diversion Projects,” Soviet Economy (Silver Spring, Md.) 4, no. 3 (1988): 223–252. 2 See e.g. Richard Brant, “Soviet Environment Slips Down the Agenda: Environmentalism Is Strong in the New Republics, But Most People Are More Worried about Sausages than Pollution,” Science 255 (1992): 22–23. 3 Douglas R. Weiner, A Little Corner of Freedom: Russian Nature Protection from Stalin to Gorbachëv (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999); Steven Brain, Song of the Forest: Russian Forestry and Stalinist Environmentalism, 1905–1953. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). 4 Julia Obertreis has made an important contribution to advance our understanding of an elite-level critique of water management in Central Asia unfolding in academic journals from the 1970s. Obertreis, Imperial Desert Dreams: Cotton Growing and Irrigation in Central Asia, 1860–1991. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017) 5 I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the numerous individuals and institutions who facilitated my access to the entire run of Khorpushtak 1953–1992, including Dr Sultonbek Aksakolov of the University of Central Asia, his wonderful student Dilnoza and the staff of the National Library of Tajikistan, the Center for Research Libraries, the University of Chicago library system and ILL in the US, and the Lenin Library in Moscow (Khimki branch). 6 On Soviet humour, satire, and the Russophone Soviet satirical press: Evgeny Dobrenko and Natalia Jonsson-Skradol, State Laughter: Stalinism, Populism, and Origins of Soviet Culture (Oxford: OUP Oxford, 2022); John Etty, Graphic Satire in the Soviet Union: Krokodil’s Political Cartoons (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019); Annie Gérin, Devastation and Laughter: Satire, Power, and Culture in the Early Soviet State (1920s–1930s) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018). 7 John Etty, Graphic Satire, 4. 8 Anna Simile, “Kateryna Yeremieieva on the Soviet Satirical Magazine Pepper (Perets),” Ab Imperio 2 (2021): 211–214. 9 During the Soviet period, the script used for the variant of Persian adopted as the official language of the Tajik SSR changed twice: in 1928, a modified Latin script officially replaced the Arabic script that had been in use for centuries, and that, in turn, was replaced by a modified Cyrillic script, adopted in 1939 and still in use today. 10 Manizha Kurbanova, “Basir Raso: ‘Khorpushtak nuzhen dlia vospitaniia vzroslykh,’” Azia-Plus, December 12, 2006, https://www.toptj.com/News/2006/12/14/ basir_raso_khorpushtak_nuzhen_dlya_vospitaniya_vzroslykh 11 Kurbanova, “‘Khorpushtak’”. 12 Other names associated with the first issue were Mirzo Tursunzoda, M. Mirshakar, Suhaili Javharizoda, Rahim Jalil, Boqi Rahimzoda, F. Niyozi, A. Dehoti, Battol,

To tame, improve, protect  147 and Jurajon (texts) and G. Petukhov. M. Krasnopol’skii, P. Protasov, and B. Serebrianskii, Chairman of the Union of Artists of the Tajik SSR (illustrations). 13 An apparently sincere image in the first issue celebrates the ability of Pobeda (Victory) motor cars to bring collective farm workers to the iconic, and newly constructed, Opera and Ballet Theatre in Stalinabad in allegedly large numbers (Khorpushtak 1, 1953, 4). 14 Khorpushtak 13, July 1986, 5. 15 Khorpushtak 6, June 1955, 5; 11, November 1955, 5. 16 Khorpushtak 6, June 1964, 9. 17 Khorpushtak 8, August 1959, 9. 18 Kirill Nourzhanov and Christian M. Bleuer, Tajikistan: A Political and Social History (Canberra: ANU E-Press, 2013), 95. 19 As Paul Josephson and others have pointed out, there were significant continuities between the land reclamation goals of the Tsarist and Soviet governments in many areas. The bulk of Tajik territory, however, belonged to the Emirate of Bukhara until the early 1920s. See Paul Josephson et al., An Environmental History of Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 23–69. 20 Stephen Brain, “The Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature,” Environmental History 15, no. 4 (2010): 670–700. Denis J.B. Shaw, “Mastering Nature through Science: Soviet Geographers and the Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature, 1948–53,” The Slavonic and East European Review 93, no. 1 (2015): 120–146. On the Virgin Lands Campaign: Zhanna Mazhitova, Aigul Zhalmurzina et al., “Environmental Consequences of Khrushchev’s Virgin Land Campaign in Kazakhstan (1950s–1960s),” Environmental Policy and Law E3S Web of Conferences 258, 05036 (2021); Michaela Pohl, “From White Grave to Tselinograd to Astana: The Virgin Lands Opening, Khrushchev’s Forgotten First Reform,” in The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture During the 1950s and 1960s, eds. Denis Kozlov and Eleanor Gilburd (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 269–304. 21 Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 262. 22 In fact, in a cartoon published a full quarter century later, M. Toshbekov renders a (contemporary) Tajik village as consisting of low, adobe huts similar to those relegated to the past in 1954 – but in this case, the butt of the joke is a visiting hippie, and the vernacular, traditional architecture simply sets the scene. Khorpushtak 8, April 1979, 7. 23 Gérin, Devastation and Laughter, 140. 24 A deg is a large semi-spherical pot used for cooking plov; an aivan is a shaded portico or colonnade; a tapchan is a raised wooden platform used for sitting or lying on (often outdoors). 25 Cartoon by Boris Serebrianskii, Khorpushtak 8, August 1963, 12. 26 “Picture Mystery,” Khorpushtak 8, August 1963, 11. 27 Cartoon by Boris Serebrianskii, Khorpushtak 2, February 1964, 2. 28 “Guyo surob boshad…” (“Perhaps It Will Be Full of Water”), Khorpushtak 9, May 1979, 2–3. 29 Khorpushtak 4, 1954, 2. 30 Khorpushtak 5, 1954, 6. 31 Khorpushtak 10, October 1954, 5. 32 Khorpushtak 9, September 1960, 9. 33 Cartoon by Yu. Anisimov, Khorpushtak 12, June 1967, 4. 34 Khorpushtak 5, 1953, 9. 35 Khorpushtak 6, 1959, 4.

148  Flora Roberts 36 On Soviet dam building in Tajikistan: Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Mohira Suyarkulova, “The Rogun Complex: Public Roles and Historic Experiences of Dam-Building in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan,” Cahiers d’Asie centrale 25 (2015): 103–132; Jeanne Féaux de la Croix and Flora Roberts, “Big Dam Biographies in Central Asia: Tracing Goals, Actors and Impacts from the Second World War to the Present Day,” in A New Ecological Order: Development and the Transformation of Nature in Eastern Europe, ed. Ştefan Dorondel and Stelu Şerban (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2022). 37 For example, Krokodil 18, 1961, 11–12, for a cartoon about industrial water pollution bothering fish, and one about litter in city parks, by I. Sychev and E. Shchelgov, respectively. 38 On the Nurek project: Artemy M. Kalinovsky, Laboratory of Socialist Development: Cold War Politics and Decolonization in Soviet Tajikistan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), esp. chapter 5. 39 Flora Roberts, “A Controversial Dam in Stalinist Central Asia: Rivalry and “Fraternal Cooperation” on the Syr Darya,” Ab Imperio 2 (2018): 117–143. 40 Unsigned cartoon, Khorpushtak 4, April 1956, 4. 41 On legal restrictions to movement: Marc Garcelon, “Colonizing the Subject: The Genealogy and Legacy of the Soviet Internal Passport,” in Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World, ed. Jane Caplan and John Torpey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 83–100; on forced resettlement campaigns in Tajikistan: Botakoz Kassymbekova, “Humans As Territory: Forced Resettlement and the Making of Soviet Tajikistan, 1920–38,” Central Asian Survey 30, nos. 3–4 (2011): 349–370; Thomas Loy, “The Big Fraud – Recollecting the Resettlement of the Population of the Yaghnob Valley,” in Remembering the Past in Iranian Societies, ed. Christine Allison and Philip G. Kreyenbroek (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 141–164; Alexander Sodiqov, “Resettlement for the Rogun Dam Reservoir Begins in Tajikistan,” CACI Analyst, June 3, 2009, http://www.cacianalyst.org/publications/field-reports/ item/11857-field-reports-caci-analyst-2009-6-3-art-11857.html 42 B. Faizulloev, “Khonahoye benamak dar koni namak” (“Senseless Houses in the Salt Field”), Khorpushtak 1, January 1969, 2. 43 Cartoon by Pavel Geivandov, Khorpushtak 12, December 1963, 1. 44 Cartoon by D. Safoev, Khorpushtak 4, February 1967, 1. 45 Cartoon by P. Shamsiddinov, “Steps of Development,” Khorpushtak 7–8, April 1970, 4. Lenin’s iconic slogan “Communism Is Soviet Power plus Electrification of the Whole Country” originated in a December 1920 speech. 46 This image is not in a satirical register: it appears in a special celebratory issue ­published to mark the revolution’s anniversary Khorpushtak 7–8, April 1970, 15. 47 Cartoon by H. Rasulov, Khorpushtak 8, April 1974, 3. 48 The cartoon by V. Shiriaev, Khorpushtak 2, January 1972, 3 depicts a bear driving a motorcycle with a hunter trussed up in a sidecar towards the department of jungle management (Idorai Khojagii Jangal). 49 Cartoon by H. Orifi, Khorpushtak 9, May 1981, 1. 50 Cartoon by B. Serebrianskii, Khorpushtak 5, 1954, 5: compare: cartoon by E.  Sheglova, Krokodil 18, 1961, 12, depicting a park littered with tin cans. 51 Cartoon by S. Nikitin, Khorpushtak 6, October 1953, 11. 52 In Tajikistan, the phrase rohi safed (clear path/way) appears on billboards along roadsides, as does the equivalent oq yo’l in Uzbekistan. 53 Cartoon by B. Serebrianskii, Khorpushtak 5, May 1954, 5. 54 See, for example, the cartoon lampooning the results of scrap metal collection ­campaigns in Khorpushtak 2, February 1967, 7 (a huge pile of bed frames lie

To tame, improve, protect  149 stacked outside a factory), and, by M. Belan, Khorpushtak 11, June 1975, 6 (robots run away from schoolchildren sent out to collect scrap metal). 55 Cartoon by V. Blinov, Khorpushtak 7, July 1957, 6. 56 Pavel Luknitsky, Soviet Tajikistan (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), 148. 57 Cartoon by L. Naborshchikov, Khorpushtak 10, October 1964, 3. 58 Khorpushtak 1, January 1974, 8. 59 Khorpushtak 13, July 1975, 1. 60 Adam Byrne, “Trouble in the Air: Recent Developments under the 1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution,” Review of European, Comparative and International Environmental Law 26 (2017): 210–219. 61 Cartoon by M. Belan, Khorpushtak 6, March 1978, 1. 62 Cartoon by A. Rahimov, Khorpushtak 2, January 1982, 3. 63 Cartoon by M. Belan, Khorpushtak 23, December 1986, 3. 64 Khorpushtak 1, January 1985, 5. 65 Letter signed by V. Korelevskii, Khorpushtak 19, October 1986, 8. 66 Cartoons by H. Rasulov, Khorpushtak 13, 1987, 4; Khorpushtak 7, 1990, 16. 67 Cartoon by V. Chechetka, published in Khorpushtak 4, February 1971, 3. 68 See, for instance: a cartoon depicting leaky plumbing in an apartment building, Khorpushtak 4, April 1955, 6; out of order pump obliges women to go further for water with their buckets in Khorpushtak 2, February 1958, 9; an apartment building has no running water, evidenced by the buckets lined up at the pump outside, in Khorpushtak 9, September 1964, 4; Khorpushtak published a photograph of girls queuing up at a water pump with their buckets in Dushanbe in 9, September 1965, 8; crossing city roads is like fording a stream, in Khorpushtak 1, January 1967, 2. 69 Cartoon by S. Shongin, published in Khorpushtak 5, March 1982, 2. 70 Although the focus of this chapter is on graphic satire, it is worth noting that by the 1980s, Hedgehog also published satirical reportage on water pollution, such as the article by M. Faizaliev and P. Boboev denouncing the pollution of the Kofarnihon River by the cattle farm belonging to the ‘XXII Party Congress’ collective farm. ‘Dar’yon ravon ast… bo iflosiho’, published in Khorpushtak 20, October 1986, 2. 71 Cartoon by A. Nural’tsev, Khorpushtak 1, January 1991, 10. 72 Cartoon by H. Baqoev, Khorpushtak 14, July 1989, 1. 73 Cartoon by H. Rasulov, “Woods Clear Cut to Fulfil the Plan,” Khorpushtak 6, April 1989, 2. 74 Unsigned cartoon of a broken down canal, Khorpushtak 2, February 1990, 3. 75 Cartoon by A. Nural’tsev, Khorpushtak 1, January 1991, 10. 76 Cartoon by A. Nural’tsev, Khorpushtak 4, April 1991, 10. 77 Weiner, A Little Corner of Freedom, 409–428. 78 Cartoon by Yu. Anisimov, Khorpushtak 3, February 1967, 3. 79 G. Scherbatov, “Tadzhikskii aliuminievyi: god rozhdeniia – 1975i,” Agitator Tadzhikistana 9 (April 1975): 23–26 (interview with aluminium plant director S. M. Makhkambaev). 80 Riccardo Mario Cucciolla, “Aleksandr Minkin: A Pioneer of Investigative Journalism in Soviet Central Asia (1979–1991),” Journalism 21, no. 11 (2020): 1727–1742.

6 What is in the air? Citizen science, eco-internationalism, and urban air pollution in Bishkek and Almaty Xeniya Prilutskaya Introduction In a Facebook group for Kazakh people living in Germany (‘Germanıadağy Qazaqtar - Deutsche Kasachen’), one member posted the picture of a ­transparent jar with the following label: Air of Kazakhstan: in the case of nostalgy open immediately! Content: 20% air of the cities of Kazakhstan, 25% mountain air of Medeu ­(mountain range), 5% smell of beshbarmak (traditional meal), 5% smell of hot fresh baursaks (traditional pastries), 10% smell of the steppes, 35% ­hospitality spirit of Kazakhstan.1 Albeit in a joking way, this post demonstrates the lay perception of a good combination of air. Especially appealing here is the idea that good air, or the air that a person from Kazakhstan with homesickness allegedly wants to inhale, consists not only of clean mountain air, but also the air of the steppes, the smell of special foods and even the smell of cities. Considering that this air can be quite polluted with fine dust particles and/or allergens, the idea of ‘good air’ here does not equal the idea of ‘clean air’. The ‘good air’ here has parallels with traditional ideas in Central Asia that the smell of a hearth and the smell of a fire are something good and hence cannot be harmful. To go further, special kinds of smoke such as burning Peganum harmala (adraspan in Kazakh, adyrashman in Kyrgyz)2 and juniper (archa in Kyrgyz) are often still perceived as healing in Central Asia. These fumes can be used for cleansing from diseases and evil spirits, and these plants are sold in bazaars. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, sales increased as the disease was affecting the respiratory tract, traditionally treated with such smoke. But industrial smoke also does not necessarily have a bad reputation. In November 2013, I attended a veterans’ gala of the Soviet-built metallurgical steel mill in Central Kazakhstan (Temirtau).3 I witnessed a discussion between two old retired metallurgists about their experiences at the plant: ‘If smoke comes out of the chimney, this means the plant is working and everything is fine’, said one of them. ‘I do not agree. If smoke comes out, it means DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-9

What is in the air?  151 the filter does not work, and we all have to avoid going through this area’, said the other metallurgist. The first comment reflects an idea of chimney smoke as a symbol of industrial progress, common during a long period throughout Soviet Central Asia. However, his colleague’s answer reflects a change in the perception of the same phenomenon, perhaps drawing on new information about air pollution, its health effects and awareness of the need to fight it. In this chapter, I discuss how new knowledge about urban air pollution in the large Central Asian cities of Almaty and Bishkek is generated. Who is behind this new consciousness? The actors are mainly activists: some of them actively produce air quality data, figures, and their interpretation. By doing so, they practically introduce a new language for describing air pollution. There are also activists that raise environmental awareness through advocacy, social networks, and education campaigns. I discuss the role of two activists in depth: Pavel Alexandrov and his project AirKaz.org based in Almaty, and Maria Kolesnikova and the NGO MoveGreen in Bishkek. I use these examples to reflect on current changes in the perception of urban air pollution. These perceptions have evolved quite independently of state institutions, borders, and languages in many ways. Citizen science projects on civic air pollution monitoring have influentially challenged the state hegemony of knowledge on health and environments in this way.4 New forms of knowledge partly stem from a global climate change ­discourse, which is gradually penetrating Central Asian discussions. This is heavily impacted and moved forward by the regional (e.g. Kyrgyzstani and Kazakhstani) interaction of environmental organisations and activists’ organisations. It is also driven by cooperation with international organisations such as UNEP or US embassies. This is a continuation in the framework of eco-internationalist initiatives, which met with success in the case of the anti-nuclear movement ‘Nevada-Semipalatinsk’ against nuclear tests on the territory of Kazakhstan during the Soviet era or the framework, conceptually opposed to ‘eco-nationalism’, which did not lead to ecological mobilisation in Central Asia in the Soviet period or the early post-independence period.5 However, currently in Central Asia, there are activist movements that use eco-nationalist discourse, in both urban and rural areas.6 My analysis focuses on people’s perceptions of air pollution as a threat from the urban environment. This can be experienced as smoke – visible, felt by the nose or even by suffocating. It can also be experienced as dust which one can see, touch, and even collect. This can be fine dust (or particulate matter PM 2.5): such fine dust is highly dangerous, but almost invisible, as it can be observed only from a distance, from an aeroplane or from the mountains. People may also identify pollution as smog, consisting of fine dust and drops of fog, which can be both visible and invisible, and can be dangerous. Industrial air pollution can be air with particles of sulphur, nitrogen, and other pollutants and can be visible as a colour, sometimes sensed as a smell. All of these forms can quickly disappear, evaporate, be blown away, and become harmless to a particular local site. But if accumulated in the body, the particles can block

152  Xeniya Prilutskaya blood vessels and lungs.7 In Central Asia, the concentration measurements of pollution particles used to be done by state hydrometeorological services. I discuss how their tasks have been partly taken over by activist civic projects, NGOs, and individuals that I was accompanying closely during my field work. For nine months in 2018–2019, I observed various professional and semiprofessional groups and individuals in environmental activism in the two large cities of Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan). I conducted participant observation, that is, I spent some months with the activists at their workplace every day and, if possible, participated in their activities. I also monitored activities for months, conducted interviews and sometimes had conversations with other activists who did not have a working office, through Facebook and Instagram. Air pollution, smog, and smoke in Central Asian cities Almaty and Bishkek are both largely chess-board Soviet-built cities. Located around 200 km from each other, but separated by state borders, these cities have many similarities geographically, historically, and demographically. With roughly similar populations (about 1 million residents in Bishkek, or 1/6 of the country’s population, in Almaty – about 2 million, or 1/9 part of the country’s population), the cities share a history as capitals of Soviet Republics. They have a higher concentration of urban elites and intelligentsia, as well as share the current status of a metropolis and business centre. Although Almaty is no longer the capital of the state, as Bishkek still is, as the second most important city for Kazakhstan, it still retains many links to the government apparatus. For many residents, who were born in Almaty or Bishkek, or who moved there in Soviet times and after independence, these cities were ‘Garden-cities’ (Gorodsad in Russian), located close to the mountains, with ‘air like in a forest and birds singing’.8 Pollution in these Central Asian cities comes from Soviet-inherited ­coal-based industry, heating plants and private households, as well as from burning waste in landfills. In conditions of high humidity and poor ventilation due to new buildings, these cities have experienced a large increase in the number of cars and poor control of car emissions. Among the discussions of whether the air has become worse recently and why, there is the idea that there is a gradual effect of climate change and temperature increase, which can change the ventilation flows between the city and the mountains. The idea of air pollution in the form of smog took hold worldwide after the 1952 Great Smog incident in London, during which about 4,000 people died when weather conditions changed the usual smog to sulphuric acid.9 In Central Asia, air pollution began to be mentioned in the late Soviet period (1980s), when it was only defined as emissions from industry and as a section of public health.10

What is in the air?  153 The topic of smog and its health impact recently arrived more broadly in public discourse and is spreading. More and more residents in Almaty and Bishkek get outraged by smog and have developed different ways of dealing with it. Some people immediately explain everything through the ‘failing state’ and ‘lack of civilisation’. Others try to decide who is guilty (kto vinovat in Russian), what has changed, how it used to be before and why it got worse. Until 2019, the official line was that the greatest impact comes from cars, their quantity, and bad gasoline quality. Indeed, the growing number of cars and population in Almaty and Bishkek in recent years allowed for the argument tying up the deterioration in air quality and number of cars. However, after the first set of public data was collected and published in 2018–2019, it showed that fine dust was mainly a seasonal problem associated with coal-based heating. The activists saw the car argument as an attempt to shift responsibility from the city government to the population. In addition to normalising the language of air pollution, civil society actors have since then been trying to shift the focus back to the responsibility of the state. In particular, they saw state responsibility for the use of coal by the city’s thermal power plants (both in Almaty and in Bishkek), bad power plant equipment, and in delays in moving to gas heating. Air pollution is highly seasonal, and so is resistance to it. In summer, there is practically no smog in Bishkek and Almaty, and practically no one is interested in this topic, except for the most ardent activists. Even they often seasonally stop their activities because they cannot attract enough attention. The thermal power plants are switched off, and the number of cars in Bishkek decreases because many people leave for a summer break. In Almaty, residents stop the winter drive to school; hence, there are fewer cars on the streets. When I started the project in 2018, I assumed that there would be some difference in the perception and operation of knowledge about air ­pollution between Bishkek and Almaty since these are different states and types of government, albeit sharing a Soviet history, Turkic roots and the use of the Russian language as the main language of communication between urban activists. However, my research showed that although knowledge about air moves in different information fields, activists function in the same ­evidence-based paradigm, using similar languages to address air pollution and to anchor this concern in both Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani societies. This language affects public perception in a very similar way. In both cases, the idea of smoke as a threat is almost a radical and disturbing turn against earlier traditional ideas of beneficial and pleasant fumes. NGOs to some extent communicate and exchange information between the two cities, and often use similar sources in their information developments, such as popular explanations of what fine dust is. In both cities, the topic triggers youth and artists. They may work independently from each other, but still ­produce similar images of people being forced to live and love in smog (see Figures 6.1 and 6.2).

154  Xeniya Prilutskaya

Figure. 6.1 A viral 2019 videoclip contained the pun (in Russian): ‘Almaty – the city that managed’/‘Almaty, the city that smogs’. @Pankirey, ‘Almaty, gorod, kotoryi smog’, YouTube videoclip, August 29, 2019, https://youtu.be/ wDe6JAGJ98I/

Figure. 6.2  A viral meme attributed to Maksat Bolotbek from Bishkek recites (in Russian): ‘I am happy I breathe the same air as you’. Bermet Borubaieva, Facebook, December 7, 2019, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid= 3848081655218076&set=a.342165832476360/

Citizen science in Central Asia US embassies install air pollution sensors in their offices all over the world, to monitor air quality on the territory of embassies and to issue recommendations to their citizens. At the Beijing Olympics in 2008, a team of US

What is in the air?  155 bicyclists followed their physicians’ recommendation to protect their lungs from ­particulates, which might affect their performance. When they arrived at the ­airport, they wore black respiratory masks – many years before the ­pandemic. This event was broadcast and the feelings of national pride of Chinese ­people were stirred up by seeing American athletes trying to protect themselves from Beijing air.11 For a long time, the air quality sensor at the US Embassy in Bishkek was the only one in the entire city. When the MoveGreen NGO started their campaign, the embassy supported them, funding air quality ­projects,12 now also doing so across Central Asia to enhance regional and international cooperation. The data from such sensors is a base for new forms of knowledge about air quality. It is now being generated by various local citizen science projects. The first citizen science projects on simplified air monitoring began to appear in the late 2000s around the world, parallel to growing awareness of air ­pollution and its adverse health effect. This became an alternative to the data of official government sources, which are often expensive, difficult to use, non-transparent, sometimes not public, or not reflecting the true state of affairs.13 Such monitoring, information, and advocacy exist in various forms: either as separate websites explaining how to assemble sensors (luftdaten.info), as applications (Blue App, AirVisual) broadcasting air quality data online along with the weather, or as microblogs or pages on social networks (Weibo, Twitter, Facebook). In Almaty and Bishkek, air monitoring started almost parallel in 2015–2016 with the initiatives of Almaty Urban Air (AUA), MoveGreen and AirKaz.org. The scientific concern about the kinds of low-cost sensor data produced this way is their instability and unreliability: for instance, fine dust PM 2.5 can mix with moisture and affect the figures shown. However, popular trust or distrust towards such data depends on the country, broader public and institutional trust, and the history of both the kind of pollution itself and its data collection. In some cases, both the official state statistics and data from non-official sources can be questioned. For example, in China, citizens tend to trust data, which is at least based on official statements, or the official version.14 In my case studies in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, trust in the state is at a very low level and civic initiatives may be more trusted. The Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani state meteorological agencies (Kazhydromet and Kyrgyzhydromet) collected air quality data on different kinds of pollutants over many years. But they did very little to interpret it and develop measures to improve air quality. Only specialised institutes used their data. By producing ‘rival’ forms of air pollution data, different civil projects pressured these agencies to make this information publicly accessible. Almaty: citizen science, knowledge production, and air pollution language The project AirKaz.org has been operating since 2017 to monitor, display, and accumulate data on air quality in Kazakhstani cities (with the vast majority in Almaty), and some cities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. When one opens the

156  Xeniya Prilutskaya website AirKaz.org, right under the map of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and data from sensors, one can read the opening text: ‘Particles 2.5: what is it, where does it come from, and why is everybody talking about it’.15 One needs some time to understand and to get used to these terms. They are unfamiliar not only to people who are not interested in discussing air quality, but also to people who live in regions with good air quality and never hear or use the terms. But when the meaning of these figures gets clear, readers may get worried or even scared. The information about PM 2.5 is cited on AirKaz.org16 as taken from the Russian science blog Geektimes, which, in turn, uses the US Environmental Protection Agency pictures, WHO reports, and other papers. The AirKaz.org developer took this information from English-speaking sources online. This or similar information is applied in many citizen science projects since the goal is to explain air pollution in simple terms, introducing an issue and mode of understanding that recently became fashionable. The PM 2.5 rates, displayed by the AirKaz.org map, are shown for certain cities (in May 2021 – 11 cities in Kazakhstan, Bishkek, Osh, and Khujand). They update every five minutes, there is a timeline and it is possible to track changes in readings over the last 24 hours. At the beginning of the project, only Almaty was on the map; then, Karaganda, Astana, and Bishkek were added. PM 2.5 data is displayed as numbers and uses the AQI (air quality index) colour scheme developed in the United States.17 The colours range from green (good) to brown (hazardous) and are guided by the values recommended by the WHO, where readings up to 25 μg/m3 are considered ­excellent air quality.18 If one observes the map of Almaty with air quality indicators, one can see how smog moves around the city, where there is less of it during the day. So, one can adjust the route through the city or plan to move to a part of the city with less smog (although in winter almost the entire city plunges into smog at different times). Housing closer to the mountains traditionally costs more than housing in the centre. However, even within the central city itself, it is now possible to plan better living conditions with this map. Pavel Alexandrov is the founder of this site, as well as developer and assembler of the entire network of these sensors. He is an ordinary resident, who got interested in collecting air data. He had some technical background and became a hobby-engineer-turned-activist, who migrated to Almaty from another region of Kazakhstan with his family in search of a better paid job. His interest was triggered by the view of thick smog instead of mountains from his windows. In a short period from late 2017, this single person with a project idea was able to influence awareness in the city. It brought attention both to problems with air quality, and to problems with the city management and the work of public services. In this sense, this project can be referred to as a citizen science project with a big impact on public discourse. When Pavel created this website, there was already the AUA website and application, initiated by Assiya Tulessova (another activist from Almaty) and the US Embassy. This did not gain such a spread and popularity as AirKaz.

What is in the air?  157 org, although they used expensive professional sensors. AUA was an NGO initiative with a legal status, started in 2015. It gradually lost some power but remained a core background actor for air activism in Almaty. Pavel said that initially he was inspired by their activities, but created the sensors and the website by himself and for himself. IT engineering was his hobby, and he was doing this in the way he liked.19 The AUA project in 2015 showed him that there are both possibilities and an interest in tracing air pollution. Pavel created this network of sensors monitoring air quality over Almaty out of sheer enthusiasm and out of his anxiety as a recent migrant to the city, seeing the city covered by smog. He assembled sensors: buying parts of them on the Internet and assembling them according to available instructions online, connecting them through Wlan, coding a website to give access to their readings, and developing a network in this way. Pavel presented himself as an independent actor, who wanted to get more information on smog and to make it accessible for others.20 He thought that it would attract the ­attention of many other people and they would actively engage with this ­system. The  first sensors cost 17 dollars for the parts and he was spending his own money. Three years later, they cost around 130 dollars, with sensors of better quality and measuring more parameters, a nice cover-box, and the name of the project on the cover. Now other partners are paying the costs of the parts and helping to develop the network further by installing the sensors at home. Pavel collected data for 12 months, from March 2017 to March 2018 and then analysed them to see when the peak of air pollution in Almaty was. He then published the first graphs on his Facebook page.21 The data demonstrated that the peak of PM 2.5 pollution was in winter, when the coal heating plants are operating. At the same time, the city mayor declared that, based on the statistical data, the main PM 2.5 contributors were cars (80%).22 Based on or motivated by Pavel’s data, a series of journalists’ investigations and articles appeared in late 2018.23 They showed that the city administration changed their attitude, and their estimated cars’ impacts slowly decreased (first down to 70%), when mentioned in mayor’s claims.24 By 2019–2020, the reports moved to treat the pollution as equally coming from cars, the power plants, and other polluters, such as individual households and kebab (shashlik) houses using coal, as well as waste landfills with incinerators. Under the influence of activists’ discussions of AirKaz.org figures, this was a significant change in the perception of the polluters’ impacts. It was also a big achievement that the city administration generally acknowledged (in a very subtle way though) that state services could be wrong, and that civil monitoring could be taken into account. The fact that Pavel practically proved that the coal-power plants are the main PM 2.5 polluter brought him immediately into the camp of opponents of these plants, fighting for the conversion of coal-based heating to gas. This heated a further issue between civil activist campaigns and many other actors.

158  Xeniya Prilutskaya Practically, all of the further discussions on heating referred to Pavel’s site and his data, which was clearly represented and easy to digest. The website could demonstrate concentrations of pollution on the map and how it changed over time. This is how the website came to play a huge role in visualising air ­pollution and associated problems. Apart from official reports, the visualisation worked well for the city residents, who were using and actively reading social networks such as Facebook and Instagram. Images of thick smog and the relevant data started popping up on social media, scaring Almaty residents, even those older residents who used to say that Almaty was the ‘greenest’ city of the Soviet Union. Thus, since 2017, online publications and comments have been getting more anxious and invoke other images such as ‘hell’, ‘ecocide’ or ‘Chernobyl’. City residents started to question the akimat (city administration) for reactions, explanations, and measures against pollution. It was Pavel and not the state meteorological service, who publicly provided the first graphs showing the peak of pollution in fine dust. In this way, he initiated the public discussion and put Kazhydromet in a position when they had to respond to the demand for information. Akimat of Almaty city, how would you comment on this data, eh? Kazhydromet RGP,25 we are waiting for your comment on this data!26 In contrast to Pavel’s data on fine dust in micrograms per cubic metre (PM 2.5), Kazhydromet, the successor of the Soviet meteorological service, used other indicators in their calculations, the so-called maximum permissible concentration (PDK, or predel’no dopustimyie kontsentratsii in Russian). This PDK is the allowable pollution rate in micrograms per cubic metre, which in Kazakhstan is estimated by state services (often inherited from Soviet measurements). In the case of fine dust, it is 35 micrograms per cubic metre (the safe pollution rate estimated by WHO is 25). All measurements are made relative to this one unit. For instance, by Kazhydromet measuring, ‘three’ would mean 105 micrograms per cubic metre. On Pavel’s site, this means the orange colour, or ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’,27 while Kazhydromet does not offer an interpretation of this number, apart from ‘three times exceeding PDK’. The interpretation scale was one big step in the popular understanding of what pollution rates mean: Pavel created a better language to understand the data. The first Kazhydromet reaction to Pavel’s success in early 2018 was the accusation that his sensors did not pass the certification process, a criticism spread in a subtle way through social networks. With the help of Assiya from AUA, who already knew the procedure of certifying sensors, since her NGO had the same certification issue, Pavel got the sensors certified. In April 2018, Kazhydromet wrote a statement to the police and the police checked the ­legitimacy of Pavel’s data, following up an accusation of spreading disinformation. But the police saw and acknowledged the certificates for sensors as a proof of legitimacy, and the accusations did not go any further.

What is in the air?  159 Finally, a dialogue has begun with Kazhydromet regarding data on air pollution in Almaty. To be honest, it started in a little strange way… With their statement to the police. Your deeds are wonderful, Lord….28 After this first rather unpleasant encounter with Kazhydromet, Pavel had a meeting with the employees in Kazhydromet, and they appeared to be ready for a dialogue. Charges were dropped and a cooperation began.29 After a while, Kazhydromet began to use Pavel’s data in their measurements and statistics, and in spring 2020, Pavel and Kazhydromet officially entered into a datasharing agreement. Now, the Kazhydromet information is being released in digital form and is easily available to lay residents. In this way, this individual’s citizen science project challenged the hegemony of state services in providing information. But Pavel’s main achievement was a big influence on ­public information and interest. Residents can trace the air pollution figures for longer periods and can compare for various cities. The scary photos made by citizens can be easily linked to his figures, and questions can be raised with the city government. This information is used also in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan: the initiative has an international effect. Data sharing changes the knowledge landscape and production in a broader sense. A Bishkek NGO and eco-internationalism Meanwhile in Bishkek, air monitoring started with MoveGreen, an NGO which was led by Maria, a young woman who had focused on the quality of the air and advocacy in Bishkek since 2016. This NGO did not exclusively monitor, publish, and interpret data, like Pavel’s citizen science project did. It was a full-scale environmental NGO, which was cooperating with different organisations regionally and internationally, and it was changing the air ­pollution perception in Bishkek in a slightly different way. When MoveGreen as an organisation emerged in late 2011,30 information and concern around air pollution in Bishkek were very low. In the media, the public discussion grew with varying intensity from 2012 to 2017. The small number of publications covering air pollution issues became more numerous. For instance, the online source Sputnik (Ru.sputnik.kg) published only one article in 2014 and one in 2015, then four in 2016, 16 in 2020, and by January 2021, the website had 60 articles on this topic in total.31 Another online source KaktusMedia (KaktusMedia.kg) started publishing on smog in Bishkek in 2018 and had 153 articles by January 2021.32 MoveGreen was founded by a foreigner from Australia, who came to live in Kyrgyzstan for a while.33 Her goal was to promote environmental education, with a focus on youth. Nowadays, the staff is not numerous, but Maria has been its youthful and energetic leader since 2016. MoveGreen started by raising various topics: environmental education, the involvement of volunteers, the study and rescue of rare animal species, climate change, and waste separation. The topic of greenhouse gases was also among their first topics. When Maria joined the team, their activities became more focused and began

160  Xeniya Prilutskaya to crystallise around air quality monitoring.34 It is evident that the discussion of air pollution started at around the same time in different sites, with AUA in Almaty in 2015, MoveGreen in Bishkek in 2016 and AirKaz.org in 2017. Apparently, something was changing around this time. It is unlikely that air pollution itself became tremendously worse exactly in these years. As fully-fledged NGO, in 2016, MoveGreen started to use various methods to attract the attention of the general public and local authorities on social media, through the development and promotion of civic air quality monitoring. At some point, the same questions appeared as in Almaty: who is to blame for air pollution and who is responsible for air monitoring? The answers revealed the problems of poor state management of the environment inherited from the Soviet past. The state service of Kyrgyzstan such as Kyrgyzhydromet, but also the State Agency for Environmental Protection and Forestry (GAOOSLKh) and State Environmental Technical Inspection (Gosekotechinspektsia) were forced to acknowledge the absence of proper monitoring and pollution control technologies. The head of the Environmental Monitoring of the Environmental Development Office, Bekbolot Mamatairov is sure that the research and observation of air pollution is the task of ‘Kyrgyzhydromet’, therefore it is not the competence of the Environmental Monitoring Office. […] Head of the Department of Observation of Pollution of Natural Environment ‘Kyrgyzhydromet’ Lyudmila Nyshanbayeva said that they also have no opportunity to fully track the level of air quality in Bishkek, due to the lack of modern equipment. […] It turns out that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ (u semi nianek ditia bez glazu in Russian). State Agency for Environmental Protection and Forestry (GAOOSLKh), ‘Kyrgyzhydromet’, State Environmental Technical Inspection (Gosekotechinspektsia): - who is responsible for clean air in Bishkek?35 Thus, the work of Kyrgyzhydromet was questioned immediately. In Bishkek, MoveGreen started to buy and install air sensors, with the support of the US Embassy and Soros foundation. MoveGreen was not assembling the sensors, like Pavel did alone with AirKaz.org, but developed a network of purchased professional sensors all over the city: this was possible through their cooperation with international donor organisations and other regional organisations. In June 2018, MoveGreen began to cooperate with AirKaz.org, too. The eco-activists plan to install such sensors in different parts of the city and develop a mobile application that they hope will help to correct the situation with environmental pollution… […] Today, such observations in the country are not conducted – there is no necessary equipment. Information from the sensors will be

What is in the air?  161 explored by an environmental engineer, which will later present a minireport on air purity in the capital.36 This was happening in parallel to activities in Kazakhstan. Although just like in Almaty, this data was not officially recognised for a couple of years, it was a turning point from the abstract discussion of dirty air, to specific data and further to the discussion of the specific impact on public health. In December 2017, the Kyrgyzstani segment of social networks began to discuss the problem of smog over Bishkek. This question was raised at the meeting of the Jogorku Kenesh (Parliament). Prime Minister Sapar Isakov ordered to prepare solutions.37 In this quote, Sputnik mentions the Jogorku Kenesh (Parliament of Kyrgyzstan) and Prime Minister, as reacting to residents’ queries. The timing of December 2017 is clearly connected to Maria’s MoveGreen activities, as they began with their monitoring right before the winter 2017–2018. Thus, although December 2017 was not the very start of public interest, it was the start of active public discussion between activists and state institutions, a real impact of MoveGreen and Maria in particular. Conclusion In this chapter, I showed the change in the perception of air pollution in two big Central Asian cities, Bishkek and Almaty over the last eight to ten years. There is much that unites the history of air pollution activism in Bishkek and Almaty. The time frame of discussions about air began around 2016–2017 in both cities. The pattern of activism was also very similar. In both cities, unflattering images of urban smog sparked interest in the data, and the data, in turn, led to questioning government agencies. After it turned out that there was practically no air data in either Bishkek or Almaty, a monitoring network was created. The next issue was to discuss the causes of smog and ways to c­ ombat it. Currently, MoveGreen and AirKaz.org often work jointly on projects. There are also activists in Bishkek who have been developing their own private monitoring, which, however, has not reached the sophistication or popularity of Pavel Alexandrov’s project. In sum, eco-internationalism has been developing well in Central Asian cities. At the end of the day, a closer look at these trajectories makes it difficult to evaluate what exactly changed the air quality debate and/or what sparked the interest in air pollution in these two urban environments. Bishkek and Almaty are more than 200 kilometres away from each other, so not sharing the same air pollution sources. They are situated in two different countries, but the urban population is working and living in similar conditions and information flows. On the one hand, we see something more global happening, that is

162  Xeniya Prilutskaya climate change discussions and the pollution patterns of air are changing. On the other hand, it is exactly the local perception of air pollution that changed drastically. This happened under the influence of local activists seeking out global ideas and organisations, raising environmental awareness of climate change discourse and technologies of dealing with air pollution. As we saw in the case of Almaty, single new local citizen science projects influenced this process dramatically. When residents get a hold of figures for air quality, they acquire the political courage to fight against state inertia, neglect and for better health conditions. Another possible way for citizens to fight for their own rights and clean air would be the eco-nationalist agenda, as in cases when local ecologies and their resources (such as land, water, and forests) are regarded as an important part of ethnic and national identities that should be protected and preserved, along with public health (cf. Aitpaeva and Féaux de la Croix, this volume). But as we also saw, whether as individual eco-entrepreneurs or NGO leaders, urban activists like Pavel and Maria chose to grow quite different kinds of eco-internationalism. Notes 1 Kairat Kussainov, Facebook, September 19, 2018, accessed January 29, 2023, https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1910886738977915&set= pcb.2105927182759572 2 I conducted my interviews in Russian. Activists in Bishkek and Almaty use Russian, Kyrgyz and Kazakh, which is why I give some quotes in Russian and some in Kazakh or Kyrgyz. 3 Interview courtesy of Dr Tommaso Trevisani, see Tommaso Trevisani, “The  Veterans’ Gala: the Use of Tradition in an Industrial Labour Conflict in Contemporary Kazakhstan,” Central Asian Survey 38, no. 3 (2019): 381–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937.2019.1609905 4 Cf. Watters (this volume) on the effectiveness of civic science in protesting toxic effects of oil and gas fields in Kazakhstan. 5 Edward Schatz, “Notes on the ‘Dog that didn’t Bark’: Eco-internationalism in Late Soviet Kazakstan,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22, no. 1(1999): 136–161. https:// doi.org/10.1080/014198799329620 6 Eva-Marie Dubuisson, “Whose World? Discourses of Protection for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources in Kazakhstan,” Problems of Post-Communism 69, nos. 4–5 (2022): 410–422. https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2020.1788 398 7 Daniel Vallero, Fundamentals of Air Pollution (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008). 8 Interview with an Almaty resident, March 2018. 9 Hongtao Li and Rune Svarverud, “When London Hit the Headlines: Historical Analogy and the Chinese Media Discourse on Air Pollution,” The China Quarterly 234 (2018): 357–376. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741017001400 10 For example, documents from the late 1980s mention pollution in two ways: either in applications for obtaining permitted emissions of pollutants into the ­atmosphere by industrial enterprises, or in reports on the state of air protection work for industrial enterprises. See TsGA RK (Central State Archive of the Republic of Kazakhstan), f. 2258, op. 1, d. 36, l. 125. 11 Julie Sze, Fantasy Islands: Chinese Dreams and Ecological Fears in an Age of Climate Crisis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015).

What is in the air?  163 12 In September–October 2022, I also supported one such project ‘Ecolab for Beginners’, a series of workshops for schoolchildren in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, where they learnt how to assemble non-professional air pollution sensors. 13 McKenzie F. Johnson, Corrie Hannah, Leslie Acton, Ruxandra Popovici, Krithi K. Karanth, and Erika Weinthal, “Network Environmentalism: Citizen Scientists as Agents for Environmental Advocacy,” Global Environmental Change 29 (2014): 235–245; Teresa Schaefer, Barbara Kieslinger, and Claudia Magdalena Fabian, “Citizen-Based Air Quality Monitoring: The Impact on Individual Citizen Scientists and How to Leverage the Benefits to Affect Whole Regions,” Citizen Science: Theory and Practice 5, no. 1 (2020): 1–12; Matteo Tarantino, “The Multiple Airs: Pollution, Competing Digital Information Flows and Mobile App Design in China,” in The Local and the Digital in Environmental Communication, eds. J. Díaz-Pont, P. Maeseele, A. Egan Sjölander, M. Mishra, and K. Foxwell-Norton (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), 69–87; Samuel Kay, Bo Zhao and Daniel Sui, “Can Social Media Clear the Air? A Case Study of the Air Pollution Problem in Chinese Cities,” The Professional Geographer 67, no. 3 (2015): 351–363. 14 Tarantino, “Multiple Airs”. 15 AirKaz.org, accessed November 27, 2020, https://airkaz.org/almaty.php 16 AirKaz.org, accessed May 19, 2021, https://airkaz.org/pm25.php 17 Real-time Air Quality Index (AQI), accessed May 17, 2021, https://aqicn.org/ here/ 18 Air Quality Index Scale and Color Legend, accessed May 19, 2021, https://aqicn. org/scale/ 19 Giperborei, “Skol’ko let dyshat’ smogom? - Pavel Alexandrov. Giperborei Nº 50. Interv’iu,” Youtube, October 19, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=HsuwEXdSQ0k 20 Interview with Pavel Alexandrov, January 8, 2019. 21 Pavel Aleksandrov, “Saitu Airkaz.org,” Facebook post, March 21, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=355721914922046 &id=100014527214182 22 Tengrinews, February 20, 2017, accessed May 29, 2021, https://tengrinews.kz/ kazakhstan_news/bauyirjan-baybek-imet-mashinu-eto-ne-prestijno-312567/ 23 V. Boreiko, “Smog ob”ediniaet liudei,”Liven. Living Asia, December 22, 2018, accessed May 29, 2021, https://livingasia.online/2018/12/22/smog-obedinyaet-lyudei/; V. Boreiko, “Kak programma akimata ‘spalila’ Baibeka,” Liven. Living Asia, December 29, 2018, accessed May 29, 2021, https://livingasia. online/2018/12/29/programma-akimata-spalila-baibeka/ 24 A. Usupova, “Smog v Almaty: situatsiiu ob”iasnil akim Baibek,” Tengrinews, December 7, 2018, accessed May 29, 2021, https://tengrinews.kz/ kazakhstan_news/smog-v-almatyi-situatsiyu-obyyasnil-akim-baybek-359176/ 25 Republican State Enterprise (respublikanskoie gosudarstvennoie predpriiatie). 26 Comment to: Aleksandrov, “Saitu Airkaz.org”. (Name of poster withheld.) 27 Air Quality Index Scale and Color Legend. 28 Pavel Aleksandrov, “Nakonets-to nachalsia dialog,” Facebook, April 26, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=370950733399164 &id=100014527214182 29 Interview with Pavel Alexandrov, January 8, 2019. 30 OSOO, “Obshchestvennoe Ob”edinenie ‘MoveGreen’ (MuvGrin),” accessed July 9, 2021, https://www.osoo.kg/inn/02009201110128/ 31 “Smog nad Bishkekom,” Sputnik, January 8, 2018, accessed December 9, 2021, https://ru.sputnik.kg/trend/smog_Bishkek_20180108/ 32 Kaktus Media, accessed December 9, 2021, https://kaktus.media/?label=10010 33 “O nashei komande,” MoveGreen, accessed July 9, 2021, http://movegreen.kg/ about/

164  Xeniya Prilutskaya 34 “Chem my dyshim, bishkechane?,” MoveGreen, September 20, 2017, accessed December 9, 2021, http://movegreen.kg/en/2017/09/20/chem-my-dyshimbishkechane/ 35 “Vopros nedeli: kto otvechaet za chistyi vozdukh v Bishkeke?,” Sputnik, January 13, 2016, accessed December 9, 2021, https://ru.sputnik.kg/vopros/ 20160113/1021546078.html 36 “Posmotrite, chem my dyshim! V Bishkeke ustanoviat datchiki zagriazneniia vozdukha,” Sputnik, September 24, 2017, accessed 9 December, 2021, https:// ru.sputnik.kg/society/20170924/1035367839/v-bishkeke-ustanovyat-datchikizagryazneniya-vozduha.html 37 “Smog nad Bishkekom”.

Part III

Enspirited nature

7 Get set! Horse training as a discontinuous action A Central Asian physiology that forces nature, but in tune with the seasons Carole Ferret Horse training had been thought through and carefully standardised since ancient times. As early as the fifteenth century BC, the Hittite treatise of the Mitannian Kikkuli described the training of chariot horses with unparalleled thoroughness. For a period of about 7 months, every step, every rest, every meal, every watering and every bath of the trained horse is here prescribed with an astonishing accuracy, unique with regard to this subject, not only in those distant times, but in all times.1 In particular, this training includes weight-loss and sweating sessions, using blankets in a warm stable.2 In Central Asia, horse training techniques have not been set to paper, and they are known only to practicing specialists in the field. My analysis ­therefore will be based almost exclusively on my personal fieldwork conducted from 1994 onward among horse trainers, mostly in Kazakhstan, but also in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. I focus here on training horses for competitions of Central Asian equestrian games, and not on the first breaking-in of young horses. I will describe the original know-how of the trainers, based on i­diosyncratic conceptions of equine physiology, which they put into practice in order to obtain maximum physical efforts. How do they proceed with getting the best out of natural living beings? I will consider one aspect of Central Asian relations to the environment by examining how humans act with other living beings rather than what they think of them. In other words, it will be a matter of action and not of ontology. Indeed, unlike Descola,3 I think that in order to study relations to the environment, modes of action are at least as significant as modes of identification. Studying the way in which horses are trained allows us to show an original way of dealing with nature, thus revealing an essential aspect of Central Asian relationships with the environment.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-11

168  Carole Ferret The Central Asian art of training and its two types of knowledge Central Asian pastoral peoples have created a unique horse civilisation with its own techniques.4 In ancient times, Pliny the Elder reported that: The Sarmatians get their horses into training for a long journey by giving them no fodder the day before and only allowing them a small amount of water, and by these means they ride them on a journey of 150 miles without drawing rein.5 Isn’t it amazing how simple restrictions on food and water can increase an animal’s strength tenfold? This training method may seem quite strange to us: on which principles is it based? In the Middle Ages, reports from Chinese embassies at Mongol courts highly prized Mongol hippological methods.6 In particular, they noticed that the Mongols imposed periods of tethering and a strict diet on their horses, depending on the season. According to the Hei ta shih lüeh written in 1237: Military horses were fattened in the spring and not exercised at all. In the fall their diets were severely restricted, which caused the excess fat to drop off and the flesh to become lean and hard. By then, when the horses were used in military campaigns, their endurance had been greatly enhanced.7 Another Chinese text of the sixteenth century entitled I su chi by Hsiao Ta-heng described the restrictive measures used by the Mongols. In the fall the horses were fat and were ridden as much as 10 miles a day, after which they were fettered tightly by the forelegs from evening to morning to prevent movement. During this time they were not fed or watered. Only after this period were the horses turned out to pasture. This routine would be followed for 3–5 days or 8–9 days. It was claimed that a horse conditioned in such a manner could enter into battle and remain fit for 8–10 days even without sufficient food or water.8 Today, horses have lost their crucial military role, but their training for e­ questrian games, though neglected as a topic by written sources, has similarities with the medieval one. In particular, we find the same salient elements: tethering, diet, and sweating. Among several equestrian games currently played in Central Asia, the most popular ones are long-distance races (băǐge in Kazakh, baǐge in Kyrgyz; or Kyr. [at] chabysh, Kaz. shabys, Turkm. chapyshyk; Kaz. zharys, Kyr. zharysh), and goat-grabbing (kȯkpar [tartys] in Kazakh; Kyr. kȯpkȯru̇ or kȯkbȯru̇ ; Taj. kūpkorī; Kyr. ulak [tartysh]; Uzb. and Taj. uloq; Turkm. ovlakgapdy; Taj. buzkashi equivalent to the Afghan bozkashi), a kind of rugby on horseback.9

Get set!  169 In the long-distance races, half a dozen to 100 young riders compete in parallel to ride as fast as possible over 20 or 30 km, depending on the age of the horse (Figure 7.1). In the goat-grabbing, eight to 100 shabendoz10 competitors fight fiercely to catch a goat carcass, get out of the scrum and drop it in a goal. Since 1990, these equestrian games have experienced a strong development, encouraged by state authorities, as manifestations of national culture. They are part of a significant ritual economy, taking place in public or at private festivals which can sometimes be grandiose and very expensive. Even more than the players themselves (even if they win), the organisers of the games gain prestige through their ostentatious generosity.11 These two types of equestrian competitions were originally held for ­different occasions. Băǐge were formerly linked to the most solemn funeral ceremonies (as, celebrated one year after the death), while kȯkpar accompanied family celebrations (toǐ) earlier in the life cycle: birth, circumcision, marriage. At present, both differ mainly in their geographical location, their human and equine participants, and the qualities that they must display. The long-distance horse race is practised in the regions of nomadic ­pastoralism in the northern half of Central Asia, while goat-pulling is played mainly in the southern part, in sedentary oases. In Northern Turkmenistan, Yomut races are also run on long distances, similar to the Kazakh băǐge, whereas in the region of Ashgabat, Teke races are, on the contrary, run on short ­distances. Nevertheless, Teke horse training has similarities with the common Central Asian method. In kȯkpar, mature men violently fight, solidly dressed, and heavily equipped on robust stallions. In băǐge, frail teenagers are mounted on fine steeds, males

Figure 7.1 Băǐge (long-distance horse race), Southeastern Kazakhstan, August 2013; photo C. Ferret.

170  Carole Ferret and females, sometimes yearlings, often without saddles, boots or headgear. They must be as light and as discreet as possible, so as not to interfere with their mount which runs towards the finish. The kȯkpar is a demonstration of strength, the băǐge, a demonstration of lightness. Although these two games require different qualities from horses, their training is based on the same physiological principles. Băǐge and kȯkpar are physically very demanding for horses. Actually, they represent terrible ordeals, for which horses must be prepared, and from which they must recover. Therefore, they require special training. They are deeply different from the ordinary use of horses for guarding or transport, where it is enough to capture a gelding in the pasture, to make it work a few days, and then send it back to the pasture without any peculiar precaution, because this physical activity does not differ drastically from their natural way of life. But to sustain a full gallop over several dozen kilometres, to enter an ­indescribable scrum, to withstand the blows of opponents, to hold the shock without failing or falling, to start at the quarter turn and to stop dead in one’s tracks: all that requires qualities out of the ordinary and a peculiar training intended to draw the maximum from the animal, in other words: to force its nature. ­ umerous The consequences of insufficient training can be fatal. Injuries are n in the kȯkpar, among men and horses. And it is not uncommon that at the fi ­ nish of the băǐge, an animal collapses, struck down by the effort. The ­frequency of these accidents is one of the arguments that led me to hypothesise a possible origin of horse racing. As part of the funerary cult, horse racing would have been a way to kill them without spilling blood, motivated by the desire to ­provide psychopomp mounts to accompany the deceased in the afterlife.12 In Central Asia, there are two kinds of specialists in horse training and each has his own skill. On the one hand, there are the trainers themselves, who are often also the owners of horses. They know how to dose food, water, work, and rest, and how to distribute them opportunely in time in order to get the best from each horse, according to its individual characteristics. The trainers are called atbegī in Central and Eastern Kazakhstan, (at) seǐne in the West, bapker in the South, saǐapker or zaǐapker in Kyrgyzstan or (at)seǐīs in the region of Turgaǐ, seǐis in Turkmenistan.13 Most of the trainers I interviewed are independent. They are all men, as horse training is an exclusively male activity. They each own and train a few racehorses. They usually have other livestock, sometimes another job. In the 1990s, racing was a way for them to earn a living, including owning one or more vehicles. They are often passionate about horses since childhood and have learned to train them from their father or a parent, first learning as a jockey. On the other hand, the connoisseur or synshy (synchy in Kyrgyz) do not train themselves usually, but they have a knack for judging the quality of horses and for predicting with uncanny accuracy the order of finish at races. They assess the qualities and defects of a horse at a glance, but also guess its origin,

Get set!  171 whether it was raised in the mountains or in the plain, whether it should run over short or long distances, etc. To sum up, trainers are those who go into action, they master specific ­know-how or, in other words, ‘procedural knowledge’.14 Connoisseurs are those who know: they are able to see signs, clues and interpret them. They master predictive knowledge, based on intuition, in other words, ‘conjectural knowledge’.15 The skills of connoisseurs and trainers are differentiated, but they can sometimes come together in the same person. For instance, the Kyrgyz trainer Obolbek explained to me: The saǐapker must have a good eye. He needs intelligence and experience. I don’t hesitate to reveal my training secrets, because they are theoretical. Knowing secrets is not enough. What is difficult is to have an eye. You have to know how to look in a practical way. You can’t learn everything at once. You learn little by little. The horse doesn’t talk. It won’t say what is wrong like a patient would to a doctor. The saǐapker has to see right away what is right and what is wrong, and what training this horse needs. Horses cannot speak, but they give clues. The trainer must observe and i­nterpret them in order to understand everything they express through these signs. Ideally, he must therefore combine conjectural and procedural knowledge. Training is not conceived as an apprenticeship for the horse, but rather as a physical conditioning. It aims to prepare the body of the horse for extraordinary efforts. Its functioning reveals an idiosyncratic conception of physiology that applies not only to horses, but also to humans. The crucial significance of tethering Paradoxically, training a horse means first to tie it up, as the local terminology shows. Training for races as well as preparing the horse for a long journey is called baaǐyy in Yakut, a word which literally means ‘tying’. In Mongolian, the trainer is called uǐaachin, that is to say ‘the one who ties the horse to the tether’ (uǐaa). The process is also called soǐlgo.16 Soyilğa. […], this involves a good deal more than simply tying the horse up. It is a tethering and fettering ‒ often with the saddle still tightly girthed ‒ in such a way that the animal is allowed little or no freedom of movement over varying lengths of time. It also permits the herdsman to monitor closely all food and water intake; thus, it is a type of forced conditioning. Soyi- is glossed in a variety of ways, meaning ‘to keep a horse tied up and on a special diet to prepare it for a race; to tie up a horse in the sun (in order to dry); to let a horse cool off’.17

172  Carole Ferret Both words are sometimes used in conjunction, and then express the total process of putting a horse into the proper condition. In Kazakh, the same process is expressed by the word qangt͡ aru which means ‘to tie a horse by hanging the reins on the pommel of the saddle; to leave hungry’ (kangt͡ aru in Kyrgyz). For Qaldybaǐ, owner of a kȯkpar horse in Southern Kazakhstan, the word qangt͡ aru has two meanings. It refers to the fact that when the horse is sweaty after work, race or kȯkpar, it is tied up short for two or three hours, so that it cannot eat or drink. ‘I don’t unsaddle it, but I loosen the girth. I keep the bridle on and attach the reins to the saddle so that it cannot lower its head to eat’. But qangt͡ aru also refers to a phase of training when the horse is made lean after a period of fattening. The expression tanga͡ tyru ‘to wait for the dawn’ is used as a synonym of qangt͡ aru. It describes the attitude of the horse that stays tied up all night without eating or drinking. In Kyrgyz, kuu mamy ‘the dry [white?] tethering post’ refers to the traditional method of training, and the verb suutu means both to train a horse, to tie it, and to cool it.18 The Kyrgyz trainer Obolbek explains: A racehorse spends a lot of time tied up, without eating, hungry. This gives it stability, constancy, firmness to gallop over long distances. For example, if you train a horse at 8 pm, it will stay tethered until the next day without food or water. It is necessary to accustom racehorses to hunger, they will be more enduring. In Central Asia, horse training is thus conceived primarily as the art of tethering. And it can be assumed that this Turkic-Mongolian conception of tethering also induced one of the meanings of the Russian word vyderzhka, once synonymous with training. This association between horse training and tethering seems odd because we spontaneously associate sports training with physical exercise, with ­movement. In fact, tying is the first gesture that manifests the human grip over the animal. It begins the process of taming and breaking-in. From the first month, foals are tethered to the zhelī19 so that their mother can be milked. Tethering also occurs at the beginning of the breaking-in process and afterward, whenever the horse needs to cool down and calm down. Thus, the crucial moment is no longer the capture or even the tethering, which manifest human domination, but more exactly the duration of keeping tethered. So a second reason why this action of keeping tethered may be ­surprising is that it corresponds to what I call a ‘passive action’.20 It is an action that prevents. It prevents the horse from moving, from eating and from drinking. Once the horse is tied up, the trainer does not do anything more and does not ask anything from the horse either. Both of them are just waiting. And yet this inaction is not neutral; it leads to a transformation of the horse. The pastoral societies of Central Asia all practice extensive husbandry where the herds of horses graze freely on pastures. In an open space, where enclosures are rare, there are two ways to control the mobility of horses in order

Get set!  173 to have permanent mounts: tethering and hobbling. Hobbling only hinders the animal’s movements and does not prevent grazing, whereas tethering, if the rope is short enough, prohibits both movement and feeding. The grass of the steppe being the main if not the only food of livestock, tethering means depriving them of food. So, tying a horse involves three actions: immobilising it, starving it, and making it thirsty. In the Altaic horse civilisation, tying up horses after work is an ­imperative obligation. It is the first concern of the rider as soon as he has set foot on the ground. Testimonies are numerous on this subject, from Yakutia to Turkmenistan, in travellers’ reports as well as in the field.21 Observers are surprised to see saddle horses tied up all night without food in the freezing cold.22 Under no circumstances should a warmed-up horse be allowed to eat and even less to drink. The Yakuts define precisely the number of hours that a horse must remain tethered according to the journey made, its fattening condition and the season.23 Tethering is literally an axiom of the Altaic use of the horse. The principle of tethering before or after the effort is not limited to horses. It also applies, for example, to Mongolian pack camels, put on a diet for ten days before being used in caravans or for three days before nomadisation, to Yakut hunting dogs and even to humans.24 A strict, contrasted, and well-ordered diet Training is a serious matter, which must be done in a professional way. This is evidenced by the various meanings of the Kazakh verb baptau which means ‘to care for, to fatten an animal; to train (a racehorse, a hunting dog, a bird of prey); to do something skillfully, carefully, according to the rules’.25 Training is viewed above all as a conditioning of the horse’s body. All trainers emphasise physiological processes and pay relatively little attention to behavioural learning (Figure 7.2). Training begins with a fattening phase (onga͡ ltu ‘fattening, gaining weight’ in Kazakh). Nūrbol, a trainer from the Kegen region, fattens his băǐge horse in winter. During this first stage, he keeps it constantly in the stable. The horse does not work at all and it is fed abundantly. Every day at 9 am, Nūrbol waters it and then gives it 8 kg of barley; at 11 am, 12–20 kg of hay; at 5 pm, he waters it again and then gives it 8 kg of barley and 12–20 kg of hay. The horse walks out only to drink and is thus overfed until February in a way that Western equestrians would find staggering.26 Tīleubek describes the following diet for the 40-day fattening of his kȯkpar horse. At 7–8 am, he takes it to drink, lets it roll around, then ties it up in the shade and gives it 3 kg of wheat. At 12 am, he gives about 5 kg of hay (dry clover if possible). Around 7–8 pm, he waters it, gives it 3 kg of cereals. Then, he lets it digest for two hours, tied up short. Finally, at 10 pm, he gives it 7–8 kg of hay. At night, it is tied up with a rope long enough to allow it to lie down, but not more. It does not go anywhere. He specifies that he gives spring wheat (sown in March, harvested in autumn), which is more

174  Carole Ferret

Figure 7.2 Kȯkpar horses with nosebags and blankets in a truck after the event, Uzbekistan, Tashkent region, March 2009; photo C. Ferret.

digestible, because if sown in autumn, wheat thickens the blood of the limbs and could cause ­lameness. In Turkmenistan, some trainers give sorgo, but also with precautions. Quantities depend on the animal’s condition and ‘strength’. Some trainers gradually increase the ration to the maximum the animal can swallow. ‘Some horses are able to eat 15 kg of grain, but not all of them can swallow that ­ ossibilities’, much, some don’t even make it to 5 kg. Each one according to his p explains a trainer of the Kazygurt District. Trainers take pride in a gluttonous horse because it is a sign of strength. In Ashgabat, Gelde explains that from April 20, he feeds his Akhal-Teke horses with the first and last cut of alfalfa, which is a ‘bitter, salty’ food. Then, the intensive fattening takes place from May 20 to June 20. He then gives them very rich food: sesame, oilseed meal, eggs. The horse is fed to ‘saturation’ according to Terkesh. This diet is called ýilik doldurmak ‘marrow filling’. The force-feeding is often enriched with unusual feeds for herbivores: raw eggs, rendered mutton fat.27 Others also give carrots, beets, or apples to their race horses. Watering is limited, sometimes supplemented or replaced by mare’s milk, or even kumys, slightly fermented and alcoholic, although horses do not ­appreciate this drink. But it is supposed to give them strength.28 Năcībolda in the Marqaqol District waters his racehorses alternately with green tea and water, if necessary by thirsting them, if the horses refuse to drink tea. Training is a process of drying out the body. As a rule, horses in training do not graze; they are fed dry feed. And they must get used to consuming small amounts of liquid. A horse that drinks little on its own initiative indicates that it is ready.29 Its manure must also be quite dry.

Get set!  175 The fattening phase takes place during the summer shīlde, the hottest 40 days of the year, which runs from June 25 to August 5. My informants explain that a horse should fatten up precisely during this hot period (zhazghy shīlde) because ‘that’s when the bones expand’ and ‘the fat goes into the bones’. The shīlde is a period described as qasiet, ‘healthy, with special virtues’.30 Fattening can also take place during the winter shīlde (qys shīlde), the coldest 40 days of the year, from December 25 to February 5, according to a smaller number of trainers. ‘In winter, fattening and training are faster, because the horse eats its fat faster and finds its shape faster. The cold makes the bones tighten up’, explains a kȯkpar trainer from the Kazygurt District. The second phase of the training consists on the contrary of a weight-loss treatment. This phase, called ‘cooling’ (suytu), corresponds to a process of lightening and of degreasing. During this period, the qazy, the costal and ­ventral fat, must be reduced to avoid the risk of tearing during the race. The duration of the suytu, which can be adjusted, is about 30 days for kȯkpar, 40 days for băǐge. If there is not enough time to ‘cool’ the horse properly, express procedures can be used: tying the tongue or giving a cold bath for several hours. Some trainers abruptly remove the grain ration and feed only hay ‘so that the weight loss goes faster’ and straw that ‘consumes the fat’ during a period of qangt͡ aru (‘tethering’) that lasts two weeks. Put on a diet, the horse ­consumes its inner fat. It only goes out once a day, to roll, but sometimes it is so fat that it does not manage it the first few days. Other trainers decrease the grain ration more gradually, giving, for example, 4 kg instead of 6. According to a trainer in Turkestan District, ‘if the horse has a lot of fat, therefore a lot of heat, it will want to cool down, therefore eat less by itself’. For horses put on a grain-free diet for two weeks, their ration is then re-established, then decreased, so that after a month, it is about 4 kg of cereal per day. Once the horse has been first fattened and then slimmed, the physical exercise can begin. The horse, which has remained motionless for a long time, begins to walk, at first cautiously, at a walk. The distances are gradually increased, as well as quickening the gaits. Each trainer has his own method. Some do ten days of walking, ten days of trotting and ten days of galloping, increasing the distances covered. Nūrbol reserves the big gallop for the last two weeks, increasing the galloping distance from 1 to 35 km. During each training session, the horse gallops gently for 1 or 2 km, then more quickly ‘at its own request’; it finishes with 1 or 2 km of canter and is brought back to a walk or a small trot. A fit horse loses its belly and eats less; it does not consume all the hay it is given. Others prefer to alternate one day at a slow pace and one day at a fast pace. In the Naryn region, Obolbek trains his race horses every other day. He strives to teach the horses to gallop evenly and to save their strength. If they gallop hard from the start of the race, they will burn out. In any case, a tethering time is always respected after work. And the ­trainers are careful to give the feed in a precise order, which is generally as follows:

176  Carole Ferret hay – water – grain. Indeed, the feeds are considered to have different values that cannot be mixed with impunity: hay is a ‘neutral’ element, while water is a ‘cold’ element and grain a ‘hot’ element. This is why, after work, which ‘heats up’ the horse, it is necessary to first respect a time of tethering and then start by giving a neutral food. Central Asian societies share a similar system of classifying human foods as hot and cold, which is also present in Iran, for example.31 The adjectives ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ should not be understood literally, as they do not indicate the temperature of the dish, but rather correspond to its caloric content. In fact, the criteria are multiple and variable: not only the energetic value, but also the humidity, the taste, the colour, the species, the sex and the age of the animal eaten, the cooking method, etc. For instance, horse meat is always ‘hot’, beef is ‘cold’ (unless it is grilled) and mutton is rather ‘neutral’. Fatty foods such as nuts and cream are considered hot, while most fruits, vegetables, and other dairy products are considered cold. Black tea is considered hot and green tea, cold (although drunk hot), because it lowers blood pressure. In fact, this classification of foods corresponds to a classification of diseases also divided into ‘hot’ and ‘cold’. Overheating illnesses can be caused by eating too much ‘hot’ food and cured by a diet composed of ‘cold’ food. Conversely, cooling diseases, which are even more numerous, as many ills are attributed to the cold, may be cured by a ‘hot’ diet.32 This division of food into hot and cold is therefore the basis of a whole Central Asian physiology, a way of governing bodies (whether human or animal), which is used not only in the field of sports training, but also in medicine. Bad fat and good fat In order to run fast, a horse needs to get rid of excess fat. That is why tethering and starvation are key milestones of training. But if you go into the details of what the trainers say, you will discover an original concept of physiology, more subtle than a simple fight against fat, and even more complex than a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fat. The horses are very fat in the fall, but if you make them run fast, they will be dead before three days, because their fat is not solid. […] After three or five days or after eight or nine days [of training and tethering] the fat has solidified on the back; the belly is small but strong; the rump is large and solid. Before it was a false fat, (from) green grass; now this fat has solidified and condensed. It will be able to run with all its strength, without running out of breath.33 In Southern Kazakhstan, several trainers explained to me that they do not like to give barley to their kȯkpar horses because it does not allow a good fattening. It provides fewer calories than wheat, a so-called ‘heavy’ feed. ­ ‘Barley is used when fattening a horse for sale because it is a deceptive grain,

Get set!  177 it makes the horse fat and bloated. It gives it volume, the appearance of being fat. But in reality, it gives less calories’. Barley makes the horse swell, but does not allow the fat to go into the bones. However, it may be suitable later on, once the horse is already trained. A lack of tethering can damage the fat. A qyzyl maǐ horse ‘with red fat’ is a fat horse, which has remained for a long time in the same place without ­moving, and which is suddenly asked to work hard. This may give it a heat stroke, which is seriously detrimental to its health, and sometimes fatal. About an insufficiently trained horse that died of exhaustion during a race, the Kyrgyz also say: kyzyl maǐ bolup kalgan ‘it fell kyzyl maǐ’.34 Iudakhin’s dictionary (1965) defines kyzyl maǐ as ‘sickness of a horse which manifests itself by the weakening of the limbs and the loss of hair and tail hair; exhaustion, overexertion’. A horse can also become kyzyl maǐ if it has not been tied up after work and has drunk cold water. It is noticeable by the fact that it eats poorly, sweats a lot, and quickly loses weight; its coat is bristly and loses its shine.35 This is often an incurable defect. Even if well fed, such a horse may never be in a good condition and will lose weight as soon as it works. Damaged horses, spoiled by insufficient tethering, can be cured by opium, or more precisely, the crushed head of the poppy put in hot water. Another remedy is to make it drink green tea, a ‘cold’ food. Other trainers try to cure it by making it sweat, then keeping it tied up for a long time. What is the point of fattening horses first and then starving them? In fact, fat is not considered bad in itself,36 but its location is decisive. The succession of fattening and degreasing processes does not aim to make the fat disappear, but to move it from the surface to the interior of the horse’s body, transforming it into marrow. For the Central Asian trainers, the strength of the horse lies in the marrow of its bones. Whether in băǐge or kȯkpar, a champion does not win with his muscles, but rather with his marrow. ‘The bone marrow is important, because if the bones are strong, the kȯkpar horse will not fall when others push it in the scrum’, says a trainer in Turkestan District. ‘A horse that has no marrow in its bones is not strong enough. When it gallops, its limbs are weak, floppy’, says another in Kazygurt District. And a Turkmen trainer in Daşoguz District: The racehorse must have marrow in its bones. Otherwise it will be weak. You can see this when you pull it by the tail, left or right. If it follows the movement, it is bad. Its hind legs are not stable, they float. There are other subtleties about fat. An important distinction, commonly made by Kazakh trainers, but totally unknown in the specialised literature, separates horses into two types of constitution: qara ettī ‘black meat’ and qyzyl ettī ‘red meat’ – or qyzyl ash ‘hungry red’ or maǐ ettī ‘fat meat’.37 Every horse belongs to one of the two types, but does not necessarily transmit this characteristic to its offspring. It can be determined on foals by touching the fatty areas: under the mane, on the ribs and on the belly. The qara ettī horse is more

178  Carole Ferret beautiful externally; it has a compact body and round forms, but its meat is devoid of fat and it tires quickly. The qyzyl ettī horse is lean in appearance, but its meat is fat and its thinness does not prevent it from being sometimes as strong as the first. This distinction thus reflects two types of internal and external constitution, one compensating for the other: the one that is lean on the outside is fat on the inside and vice versa. The physiology of these horses is different and they require different training methods. Dark meat horses are considered easier to train. They do not need to be trained intensively; they can sometimes be left to graze. Their fattening state is more visible. To train them, you just have to gradually increase the distance to cover each day. Finally, these horses are more likely to show the good care they have received through their results. Red (or fat) meat horses require more rigorous training and long ­tethering sessions. Even though they may look lean and sweat less in training after a few nights of tethering, this does not mean that their internal fat has been reduced sufficiently; you can see this because after exercise, their coat becomes oily. So trainers distinguish ‘falsely fat’ animals that need to be treated gently and ‘fake skinnies’ that need to be treated hard. This distinction between red meat and black meat horses is only pragmatic and not normative: no trainer believes that one type is superior to the other, but simply that they should be trained differently. A tasty sweat Sweating activates the conditioning of racehorses because it draws moisture, fat, and salt out of the horse’s body. Furthermore, the quality of the sweat ­signals the horse’s readiness. This is why trainers taste their horses’ sweat. They also observe when the horse sweats, where it sweats, and the shape of the sweat marks. Terkesh insists on the fact that the horse sweats evenly over its whole body. Ṁusīlīm notes that the sweat should roll off in round drops without leaving any marks, while on some horses, the sweat marks form diverging lines, which is not a good sign. Trainers usually use blankets to activate sweating.38 Obolbek covers his race horses with one or two blankets in cloth, wool, or felt. After training, he tastes the sweat and waits until it is no longer salty. This is a criterion showing that the horse is ready for the race.39 Obolbek explains that sweat contains salt; sweating draws the salt out of the body. With a scraper, he removes the sweat as soon as the training is over; otherwise afterward, the salt may be reabsorbed. The blanket should cover the entire body and be tightly closed. It is necessary that all areas of the body sweat; otherwise, the areas left dry will be painful the next day. After sweating, the horse is lighter, relieved and it feels alert. But sweating should not be overdone because it is tiring. Obolbek gives salt to his horses during the other seasons, but not during training because it softens the muscles.

Get set!  179 Once the horse is already well trained, it does not sweat anymore during training, but rather two or three hours later. At that moment, pure salt comes out and it is necessary to remove it immediately with a scraper. Later, when it is dry, Obolbek removes it with a brush so that nothing remains. After a month of training, the sweat is less salty. Moldaraly also trains his horses in the evening. He first gallops the horse without a blanket. Then, once it starts to sweat, he wraps it in a kiīz (large piece of felt) to activate sweating. He lets it go at its own pace, then gallops it at high speed over rough terrain. He stops it when it is evenly covered with sweat. This first session is called bīrīnshī ter alu, ‘to remove the sweat for the first time’. The next day, the second session (ekīnshī ter alu, ‘to remove the sweat a second time’) takes place, with half an hour of moderate canter and then an hour of fast galloping. The horse knows by itself when it is tired and is stopped as soon as it slows down. During this second session, the horse should sweat less than the first time. If the horse is fat, it needs seven sweat sessions, done every three days; otherwise, four or five sessions are sufficient. After this training, the horse should have lost its belly. At this point, Moldaraly trains it without a blanket. Every three days, he gallops the horse on a 3-km track, making it do 5 laps the first time, 10 laps the second time, 15 the third time. The sweat is said to be successively ‘foamy’ (kȯbīk ter), ‘bitter, salty’ (ashchy ter) and then ‘sweet’ (tăttī ter). When the sweat becomes less salty, it means that the horse is ready. I met Kazakhs from Mongolia who distinguished five kinds of sweat, excreted successively. First the ‘swampy’ sweat (batnaq ter) which mixes with the dirt of the hair and rids the skin of its impurities. Then after three or four training sessions appears the ‘foamy’ (kȯbīk ter): flakes of sweat with a salty taste come out under the bridle and between the thighs. This ­ oisture. second excretion rids the fattest parts of the body of superfluous m The next sweat is ‘watery’ (su ter). This abundant sweat, which is not salty (like water), is supposed to be emitted by the muscles. Finally, ‘beaded’ sweat (monshaq ter) indicates that the horse’s preparation is complete. It appears in small, round, shiny droplets on the horse’s rump. They said that ‘swampy sweat comes from the skin, foamy sweat comes from the fat, watery sweat comes from the meat, pearly sweat comes from the bones’. These successive sweats are thus supposed to have a deeper and deeper origin. All the c­ omponents of the body, from the most superficial (the skin) to the deepest (the bones), lose their moisture. But the horse should not be pushed to the fifth kind of sweat, the so-called ‘black sweat’ (qara ter),40 an abundant excretion that is a sign of overtraining. Central Asian trainers (including Mongolians) are the only ones to taste the sweat of their horses, to distinguish so many kinds of sweat and to make it an essential criterion of the horse’s progress. In the early nineteenth century, English trainers subjected their horses to a severe regime that shared some similarities with this one: they sweated them in order to get their flesh off,

180  Carole Ferret galloped them in heavy clothes and kept them under blankets in overheated stables.41 But these training methods changed after 1845 and, as far as I know, contemporary veterinary science does not confirm the effectiveness of these practices. Conclusion: a discontinuous action Central Asian horse training is composed of alternating contrasting phases, playing on food, watering and exercise. There are successive periods of ­fattening where the horse remains motionless, and periods of slimming where it works more while eating less. The horse fit for băǐge or for kȯkpar is not simply a horse ‘in condition’; it is, more precisely, a horse successively fattened and thinned. The axiom of tethering, before and after physical effort, is explained by thermal considerations. To make a fat horse gallop would be to risk overheating it. To water a horse heated by work would give it a thermal shock, because of the contrast between the hot and the cold, which should not be next to each other. The different feeds absorbed by horses have different hygrothermal characteristics (ranking them from coldest to warmest, and from wettest to driest: water – pasture grass – hay – cereals). This is why they must be distributed aptly, timely, and in a precise order. Similarly, the different activities of horses (grazing, eating, drinking, exercising) correspond to different hygrothermal processes (movements of heat and moisture) and must be carried out under certain circumstances and in a certain order. Each in its own way, tethering and sweating allow the horse to dry out and become lighter. In Central Asia, the dual opposition of hot and cold, and of dry and wet inspires not only the training of horses but also cooking (in the classification ­ edicine. of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ foods regardless of their actual temperature) and m It can be compared to the Chinese categorisation of yin-yang or to the ancient theory of humours of Hippocrates and Galen.42 These correspondences between categories would, according to Descola’s terminology, be part of an analogical ontology. However, they apply here to both human and animal physicalities. We could also mention a phenomenological approach of thermoception (sense of temperature) in Western sports (distance running, martial arts, and boxing) that also notes the valorisation of sweat.43 However, in Central Asia, this physiology based on hot and cold is more a way of governing the bodies of others (whether human or animal), than of experiencing one’s own body. This is why I would interpret Central Asian horse training more readily within the framework of the anthropology of action, as a striking example of a salient mode of action on a living being. Altaic training is characterised by the fact that the phases of physical exercise and feeding are dissociated. As a rule, a working horse is not fed much during periods of exertion. Western riders, considering that feeding results in a gain of calories and exercise in a loss of calories, try to balance the daily energy balance by constantly proportioning

Get set!  181 these two elements: the more a horse works, the more it is fed and, if it stays in the box, its ration is decreased. Among the Turkic-Mongolian peoples, this balance is done over a longer period of time: not daily but annually, which leads to the opposite result: the more it is fed, the less it works. More exactly, the year is divided into periods of fattening, when the horse does little exercise and is fed abundantly, and periods of slimming, when the horse, while working more, is fed less. This alternation represents what I call a ‘discontinuous action’ because we observe a succession of contrary excesses, instead of a continuous temperance or a linear progression with a parallel increase of effort and feed.44 This discontinuous action, by its very contrasts, is supposed to favour a physiological process of transformation. Trainers describe a dual movement of elements: water moves from the inside to the outside of the horse’s body, while conversely, fat migrates from the surface to the inside of the body, turning into bone marrow, which is believed to make champions win. A discontinuous and contrasted action is necessary to operate this dual movement. Moderate dieting could only lead to moderately fat condition. Only an alternation of excessive dieting, in one direction and then in the opposite direction, is thought to move fat inward. So the horse looks externally slim, dry and fit, while it is internally fat, firm, and strong (the model of the băǐge horse being always lighter than that of the kȯkpar horse). This tour de force is achieved by dint of excess, in one direction and then in the other. Training is discontinuous and is made of interventionist actions, which put the horse’s organism to the test and force its nature to get the best out of it. Nevertheless, a good băǐge horse or kȯkpar horse is supposed to feel what it needs: it eats gluttonously during the fattening period and then restricts itself in water and food, not finishing its ration during the slimming period; it also knows how fast and how far to gallop without becoming exhausted. So when the trainer manoeuvres the horse’s body, he acts on it and with it at the same time. This first tension shows the inanity of a simplistic dichotomy between subject and object, which must be understood as syntactic and not ontological categories. In addition, there is a second tension to note. While these training actions are interventionist and do force the horse’s nature, they are nevertheless carried out in accordance with the natural rhythms of the environment. The continental climate of Central Asian regions determines very contrasting seasons, with great variations in natural nutritional resources for the livestock, whose condition naturally knows big fluctuations. Living organisms need to build up fat reserves during the warm season in order to withstand the rigors of winter. Here, humans do not mitigate this alternation due to natural conditions. On the contrary, they accentuate it by setting it up as a training method. It is significant that fattening takes place precisely during the 40 warmest days of the year (shīlde). Training, as a physiological process, must take place in conjunction with the seasons. The example of Central Asian horse training thus offers a model of discontinuous action upon nature, where, far from correcting natural variations by tempering them, humans take advantage of them by exacerbating them.

182  Carole Ferret Trainers informants First name, date of birth, district

Southern Kazakhstan Anarbek, 1938, Kazgurt Ămīr, 1915, Kazgurt Oraz, 1953, Shymkent Qaldybaǐ, 1943, Kazgurt Tīleubek, 1962, Turkestan X, 1952, Tolebi Zholtaǐ, 1933, Kazgurt Zhambyl Region Eduard,?, T.Ryskulov Zaurbek, 1951, T.Ryskulov Zhanybek, 1953, T.Ryskulov Almaty Region Askar,?, Zhambyl Bolat, 1970, Zhambyl Ghabit, 1959, Zhambyl Melīs, 1967, Zhambyl Moldarălī, 1931, Raǐymbek Nūrbol, 1970, Raǐymbek Zhakhsybaǐ, 1977, Raǐymbek Eastern Kazakhstan Ṁusīlīm, 1936, Zharma Năsībolda, 1928, Markakol (Kurshim) Qaǐdolla, 1961, Zharma Săbidolla, 1949, Zharma Chuǐ Region, Kyrgyzstan Beshembek, 1966, Alaṁud ̇un Bolotbek,?, Kant (Isyk-Ata) Ergaly, 1945, Kant (Isyk-Ata) Naryn Region Asanbek, 1939, Naryn Obolbek, 1947, Naryn Ashgabat Region, Turkmenistan Amankuli, 1951, Ashgabat Gelde, 1951, Ashgabat Daşoguz region Hudaǐnazar, 1962, Gubadag Terkeš, 1960, Daşoguz Notes 1 Bedřich Hrozný, “L’entraînement des chevaux chez les anciens Indo-Européens, d’après un texte mîtannien-hittite provenant du 14e siècle av. J.-C.” Archiv Orientální 3, no. 3 (1931): 439.

Get set!  183 2 Hrozný, “L’entraînement des chevaux”: 437; Kikkuli, L’art de soigner et d’entraîner les chevaux. Texte hittite du maître écuyer Kikkuli. Trans. E. Masson (Lausanne: Favre, 1998), 47. 3 Denying one of the principles of sociology but also of structuralism, he writes: ‘I had strayed off course primarily by seeking to define modes of identification, in other words ontological matrixes, starting from relational processes that were expressed by institutions […] I have accordingly had to reject the sociocentric assumption and opt for the idea that sociological realities (stabilized relational systems) are analytically subordinate to ontological realities (the systems of properties attributed to existing beings).’ Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2013 [2005]), 124. 4 Carole Ferret, Une civilisation du cheval. Les usages de l’équidé, de la steppe à la taïga (Paris: Belin, 2009). 5 Pliny the Elder, Natural History. Trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), VIII-65. 6 Ruth I. Meserve, “The Traditional Mongolian Method of Conditioning Horses and Preventive Veterinary Medicine,” in International Symposium of Mongolian Culture, ed. J. Zhang (Taipei: ROC, 1993), 484–501. 7 Meserve, “Mongolian Method,” 492. 8 Meserve, “Mongolian Method,” 492. 9 I use the Library of Congress system for the romanization of words written in the Cyrillic script, including non-Slavic words. 10 I use Kazakh spelling, unless otherwise indicated. 11 Carole Ferret, “Course à la mort ou quête de respectabilité : le bäjge en Asie ­centrale,” Ethnozootechnie 82 (2008): 129–145; Carole Ferret, “Le kôkpar, un jeu sérieux. Démêlage d’une mêlée hippique centrasiatique,” ethnographiques.org 36 (2018). 12 Ferret, “Course à la mort.” 13 N.A. Baskakov, B.A. Karryev and M.Ia. Khamzaev, Turkmensko-russkii slovar’ (Moskva: Sovetskaia ėntsiklopediia, 1968); A.L. Dobrosmyslov, Skotovodstvo v Turgaiskoi oblasti (Orenburg: Izdanie Turgaiskogo oblastnogo statisticheskogo komiteta, 1895), 128; K.K. Iudakhin, Kirgizsko-russkii slovar’ (Moskva: Sovetskaia ėntsiklopediia, 1965); R.G. Syzdykova, R.G. and K. Sh. Khusain, Kazakhsko-russkii slovar’ (Almaty: Daik Press, 2002). 14 Geneviève Delbos and Paul Jorion, La Transmission Des Savoirs (Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1984). 15 Carlo Ginzburg, “Clues: Roots of an Evidential Paradigm,” in C. Ginzburg, Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013 [1989]), 96–125. 16 A. Luvsandėndėv and Ts. Tsėdėndamba, Bol’shoi akademicheskii mongol’sko-russkii slovar’ (Moskva: Akademia, 2001), 818. 17 Meserve, “Mongolian Method,” 493. 18 Iudakhin, Kirgizsko-russkii slovar’. 19 Kaz. zhelī; Kyr. zhele; Yak. sėlė; Mong. zėl: rope fixed at ground level between two small stakes to which several foals are tied in a row. 20 Carole Ferret, “Towards an Anthropology of Action: From Pastoral Techniques to Modes of Action,” Journal of Material Culture 19, no. 3 (2014): 279–302. 21 Carole Ferret, “De l’attache des chevaux à la fécondation des femmes en passant par la cuisine. Quelques pistes pour l’exploration des notions altaïques de chaud et de froid,” Études rurales 171 (2004): 243–270. 22 Dobrosmyslov, Skotovodstvo, 119; V. Gol’man, “Zametki o konevodstve v Iakutskoi oblasti,” in Pamiatnaia knizhka Iakutskoi oblasti za 1871 g. (SPb: Tipografiia V. Bezobrazova. 1877): 128; J. Kler, “The Horse in the Life of the Ordos Mongols,” Primitive Man 20, nos. 1–2 (1947): 17; A.F. Middendorf, Puteshestvie na sever i vostok Sibiri. Chast’ II. (SPb: Tipografiia Imperatorskoi AN, 1869), 539, 771.

184  Carole Ferret 23 S. Kovalik, “Verkhoianskie Iakuty i ikh ėkonomicheskoe polozhenie,” Izvestiia Vostochno-sibirskogo otdela Imperatorskogo russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva 25, nos. 4–5 (1895): 34. V.L. Seroshevskii, Iakuty. Opyt ėtnograficheskogo issledovaniia (Moskva: Rossiiskaia politicheskaia ėntsiklopediia, 1896), 159. 24 On this practice in caravans, see Antoine Mostaert, “Matériaux ethnographiques relatifs aux Mongols Ordos,” Central Asiatic Journal 2, no. 4 (1956): 284. On preparing for nomadization, see Krystyna Chabros and Sendenz̆avyn Dulam, La Nomadisation Mongole : Techniques Et Symbolique. Papers on Inner Asia, No. 13 (Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1990), 3. On Yakut hunting dogs, see G.P. Basharin, Istoriia zhivotnovodstva v Iakutii (vtoroi poloviny XIX - nachala XX v.) (Iakutsk: Iakutskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1962), 75. On humans, see I. Ibragimov, “Ocherki byta kirgizov. I: Pominki,” Drevniaia i novaia Rossiia 3, no. 9 (1876): 57; and Kovalik, “Verkhoianskie Iakuty,” 34. 25 Syzdykova and Khusain, Kazakhsko-russkii slovar’, 122. 26 Compare these 16 kg of cereals and 30 kg of hay given to an immobile horse with the daily ration recommended in Europe: 2.5 kg of cereals and 7.5 kg of hay for light work; or 5 kg of cereals and 7.5 kg of hay for heavy work. 27 K.  Gorelov, Akhal-tekinskoe konevodstvo Turkmenskoi SSR. (Ashkhabad: Izdanie narodnogo komissariata zemledeliia Turk. SSR), 30; Henri Moser, Le pays des Turcomans (Paris: Plon, 1899), 24. 28 L.F. Bezvuglyi, Otchet po proizvedennomu v 1914 g. obsledovaniiu z­ hivotnovodstva v Pishpekskom uezde Semirechenskoi oblasti (Petrograd: M.Z. Departament zemledeliia, 1916), 73; A. Kaller, “Kirgizskii sposob prigotovleniia loshadei k ­ skachkami vo Vnutrennoi kirgizskoi (Bukeevskoi) Orde,” Zhurnal Konnozavodstva 1 (1885), 64. 29 Dobrosmyslov, Skotovodstvo, 127. 30 About shīlde (chilla in Uzbek), see also Dağyeli, in this volume. Forty is a ­significant number in Central Asian cultures, as evidenced by the ceremonies that take place 40 days after birth and 40 days after death. This number sometimes denotes the idea of multitude, but here it refers to a specific period of 40 days. 31 Christian Bromberger, “Eating Habits and Cultural Boundaries in Northern Iran,” in Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, eds. Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994), 185–201. 32 Ferret, “L’attache des chevaux.” 33 Henri Serruys, “Pei-Lou Fqng-Sou 北虜風俗: Les Coutumes des Esclaves Septentrionaux de Siao Ta-Heng 肅大亨,” Monumenta Serica 10, no. 1 (1945): 149. 34 G.N. Simakov, Obshchestvennye funktsii kirgizskikh narodnykh razvlechenii v kontse XIX - nachale XX v. (istoriko-ėtnograficheskie ocherki) (Leningrad: Nauka, 1984), 83. 35 V.Ia. Benkevich, “Nabliudeniia, materialy i zametki, sobrannye v Kirgizskoi stepi,” Vestnik obshchestvennoi veterinarii XVII, nos. 18–23 (1905): 801–804; 877–880; 955–963; 1031-1038; 1034. 36 On the contrary, fat is highly valued in Central Asia, as a source of strength and wealth (about the taste for fat in Uzbek cuisine, see, for example, Russell Zanca, “Fat and All That: Good Eating the Uzbek Way,” in Everyday Life in Central Asia: Past and Present, ed. Jeff Sahadeo and R. Zanca (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007), 178–197. 37 These colours can be understood here both in a literal sense (a meat with fat is lighter) and in a figurative sense. Qara has many connotations in Turkic languages, including ‘big,’ while qyzyl can mean ‘thin’ (A.N. Kononov, “Semantika tsvetooboznacheniia v tiurkskikh iazykakh,” in Tiurkologicheskii sbornik 1975 (Moskva: Nauka, 1978), 159–179). 38 Kaller, “Kirgizskii sposob,” 62; Gorelov, “Akhal-tekinskoe konevodstvo,” 30. 39 Bezvuglyi, Otchet, 74.

Get set!  185 0 In this case, qara does not denote a colour but connotes quantity. 4 41 Roger Longrigg, The History of Horse Racing (New York: Stein and Day, 1972), 96, 152. 42 Ferret, “L’attache des chevaux.” 43 J. Allen-Collinson, A. Vaittinen, G. Jennings and H. Owton, “Exploring Lived Heat, ‘Temperature Work,’ and Embodiment: Novel Auto/Ethnographic Insights from Physical Cultures,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 47, no. 3 (2016): 283–305. 44 Ferret, “Anthropology of Action.”

8 Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way? A dialogue between activism and engaged scholarship Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix Jeanne:

 ulnara Eje,1 I’m basically still really fascinated by the difference I G see in how people treat holy sites with such respect, and sometimes fear – like an elder relative, in many ways? There is such a stark contrast with how people treat environments elsewhere in Kyrgyzstan, when people just have to, or want to maximise taking as much as they can – without giving back, or more longer term appreciation or forms of care. How do you think about this, make sense of this?

This email question in 2021 was the beginning of a dialogue with Gulnara Eje, who has been my teacher and close colleague for almost 20 years. Ever since my first fumbles with all things Kyrgyz and Central Asian, she has been a stalwart and challenging supporter. Dr Gulnara Aitpaeva has been my usta, one of my master teachers. She is an accomplished philologist and researcher trained in the 1980s at the prestigious Moscow State University. Since I arrived with UK-style training in history and anthropology, we come from quite different research traditions. We share much, but our cosmologies and values do not overlap neatly. It is these differences, and sometimes tensions in perspective that sparked our interest in generating the dialogue below. We conceived our dialogue both as a form of intellectual exchange that we have long cultivated, and as a way of deepening a conversation. We also think of it as an act of translation and comparison, moving between different thinking traditions. We consider Kyrgyzophone fields that engage with spirituality and ethnic or national identities, often as an urgent practical matter with political implications.2 These concerns are echoed in a more distanced, sometimes more theoretical manner by Anglophone writers who explore cosmologies or ‘ontologies’, identities and moral concepts implicated in these ways of imagining and understanding the world. This dialogue is also a result of our concern about a rapid decline in freedom of speech, not least in relation to environmental concerns, under a government that invokes Kyrgyz values as a basis for their repressive and discriminatory policies. We took starkly different ways of engaging with Kyrgyzstan’s environment as our starting point: the many recent conflicts around resource extraction DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-12

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  187 and the reverence shown for sacred sites (mazar) in Kyrgyzstan. How do local concepts and practices around enspirited landscape points relate to other ways of relating to environments, such as glacier protection activism, the ­popularity of big dam projects, or investing in intensive forms of pastoralism? In live conversation, email exchanges over two years (2021–2023) and a rapidly sprawling text draft, we attempted a bilingual dialogue between Kyrgyz and English. Because of this mixed approach, readers will find us shifting between more colloquial and more academic conversation styles. We mixed Kyrgyz and English in order to explore concepts rooted in these language-traditions. We were also interested in what is lost and gained by using particular languages, and in how moving between different articulations could cast light on different ways of thinking. What happens to concepts such as ‘mamile’ or ‘relationality’, ‘agency’ and ‘kasiet’, ‘ethics’ and ‘siyloo’, ‘extractivism’ and ‘kayip duino’ in our acts of translation? How can we articulate relations to the world around us – through Kyrgyz and English? What might be the consequences for different forms of environmental concern and activism? As Gulnara noted, this concern turns up in quite different registers in Kyrgyzstan. For example, using and caring for sacred sites are practices and ways of thinking rooted in folk culture. Glaciers might also be considered sacred zones, and then they can be protected as sacred sites through rituals, blessings, and sacrifices. However, forms of concern that identify as ­‘environmental activism’ are based on a Western approach to action and influence, for instance, writing grant projects, and organising public debates and meetings. This dialogue is not intended to be a full socio-philological research piece on Kyrgyz- and English-language concepts, nor a full discussion of Kyrgyzstani politics. It is intended as a reflection that connects our biographies, an exploration of Kyrgyz-language folklore and initiatives by Kyrgyz experts on tradition (saltchylar), and how these ideas and activities intersect with political events in Kyrgyzstan. Since this is an exploratory conversation, it is not a ‘neat’ text that ties everything up with a bow. Like any relationship, including the most respectful friendship, it has its unevennesses. Meetings between a senior Kyrgyz and a junior Scottish colleague  fter secondary school graduation I definitely preferred to study Gulnara: A folklore and literature (‘an imaginable reality’) rather than examining issues of real contemporary life. My initial research interest was Kyrgyz folklore and the Kyrgyz historical novel. I defended two dissertations, wrote the required monograph and taught a variety of folklore and literature courses. However the time came, when I started feeling that something essential was missing. Using the words of Boris Pasternak this ‘something’ could be described as

188  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix a ‘warm breath of life’. This feeling and my search for a ‘warm breath’ pushed me to start a new life cycle which could be called ‘an anthropological exploration’. In 1999, I created the Kyrgyz Ethnology Department at the American University of Central Asia. Together with two colleagues, I subsequently founded the Aigine Cultural Research Center with the mission of expanding research into less well-known aspects of the cultural and natural heritage of Kyrgyzstan, integrating local, esoteric, and scholarly epistemologies relating to cultural, biological, and ethnic diversities. I encountered many bright discoveries and wonderful people on the anthropological path. I’ve known Jeanne for so long that I made some efforts to remember our first meeting. We met in those years when foreign scholars were no longer a rarity in Kyrgyzstan, but they were not as many as in subsequent years. It was important for me to see Jeanne’s desire to speak Kyrgyz. At that time, I had two exemplary standards in the knowledge of the Kyrgyz language, the geographer Nick Megoran and the anthropologist Madeleine Reeves. Jeanne’s Kyrgyz language was not that perfect at that time, but I was touched by her soft purposefulness, sincerity, and shyness for something she should not be shy for. I have been communicating with many foreign scholars, who come to the country for a relatively long period of field study. Having diverse long-time communications, one naturally develops indicators for evaluating the human behaviour of foreign colleagues. Such an indicator for me is the scholar’s attitude towards the family in which they lived as well as the people who helped them to organise and conduct field study. In this regard, Jeanne has become an excellent example of a non-consumer attitude towards local people. By a non-consumer attitude, I mean that a scholar continues to communicate and, if possible, take care of those who have helped them to enter the local contexts and culture. Empathy is an essential human feature, which helps an anthropologist to be successful. I have been communicating with Jeanne for such a long time to be sure that Jeanne possesses this quality that allows her to maintain both human connections and professional collaborations. Jeanne:

 hen I first met Gulnara Aitpaeva, I was in my late twenties and, W quaking in my boots, about to embark on my first ever ethnographic fieldwork, in Kyrgyzstan. Gulnara Eje was well-known as the director of the Aigine Cultural Centre in the capital Bishkek. Amid all the turmoil and academic break-down of the 1990s, Gulnara Eje had somehow managed to create and maintain a thriving research outfit. She also dedicated herself wholeheartedly to supporting and teaching in programs like summer-schools on anthropology in Eurasia, which I was lucky to enroll in. I felt humbled many times by Gulnara Eje’s lively mind, her generosity of spirit, her unbounded curiosity, and her willingness to lift a little bit of my ignorance around all things Central Asian – in particular,

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  189 the Kyrgyz language. I felt honoured to be taken seriously. After finishing my thesis work, Gulnara Eje continued to advise and support my research on ageing and later Central Asian team-work e.g. on the Syr Darya river and urban air pollution. Together, we have sustained an evolving relationship, and used it to connect to other people and ideas. Kyrgyz and English articulations of being in the world As discussed in this book’s introduction, ‘relating’ in English means making connections, be it between ideas, or between self and something else: a person, thing or process. The question what we think the world is made of, and how we relate to different kinds of forces in it, brings up the question of what we consider a subject, or a (relatively) passive object. We chose the term ‘force’ here to avoid having to decide whether something can be an actor (an entity with agency, possibly person-like) or is ‘only’ an object with particular properties that happen to radiate an effect. So, for example, whether in Kyrgyz or English – people most of the time don’t consider stones as full decision-­making beings. But they can experience stones as potentially powerful nonetheless, in one’s hand as a tool, as part of a healing ritual, or in a deadly landslide. The debate on whether agency implies ‘intentionality’ and free will, the debate on upholding human exceptionalism or accepting a range of intelligences among living beings is enormous, and can only be touched upon lightly here.3 What we focused on in our conversation is what we observe h ­ appening among Kyrgyz-speakers, and what concepts, ways of talking about and being with humans and the ‘natural’ world around them the Kyrgyz language ­suggests. We reflect less on English concepts because readers will be more familiar with these, and because a degree of reflection is inherent in the act of translating concepts from Kyrgyz into English. Kyrgyzstan is a de-facto multilingual and multi-ethnic state, with large Russophone and Uzbekophone minorities, among others. We focus here on Kyrgyz because this is where the largest cohesive contingent of Kyrgyz-speakers live, in an area where the ­landscape is suffused with predominantly Kyrgyz place-names, for instance. Kyrgyz has also been one of Gulnara Eje’s main passions, and something we have been able to share with each other. Kyrgyz belongs to the Altai group of languages and evolved as a Turkic language into modern Kyrgyz from the ninth century onwards.4 Its story in the Soviet period was ambiguous: this was the period of most explicit statefunded study of the language and codification e.g. of spelling norms5 and formal teaching at schools. At the same time, Russian was forcefully promoted as the language of ‘civilisation’ and culture in the Soviet period, to the point that some Kyrgyz parents refused to teach their children Kyrgyz. Amid a revival of all things ‘national’ in the late Soviet period, from the mid-1980s onwards, there were attempts to save Kyrgyz from its feared extinction.6 Since ­independence, the hierarchy of languages has changed dramatically: Russian is

190  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix still considered a language of economic and educational opportunity – not dissimilar to the role of English. Speaking good Kyrgyz meanwhile has become a matter of quite explicit public pressure and state policy, causing both pride and shame among speakers with different skill sets. Other languages associated with different ethnicities in the country receive far less attention and support, for example, in the media space.7 Gulnara: D  uring the period of perestroika, and especially after gaining independence, funding for research and teaching in higher education in Kyrgyzstan collapsed. Almost at the same time, literature on Kyrgyz history, language, culture, and spirituality began to proliferate. In most cases, this literature was produced not by professional historians, philologists, or anthropologists, but by amateurs – people who had been interested in Kyrgyz history or culture for many years, now taking advantage of the new freedoms of speech. Gradually, certain practices were activated that helped to restore and update the language, even inventing new words and lexical structures. For example, people expanded the repertoire and use of Kyrgyz through reviving and broadening practices like pilgrimages to sacred places, the promotion of indigenous spirituality,8 studies of the core epic Manas,9 or promoting philosophies like traditional forms of o˙z-ara zhardam, that is, reciprocity in everyday life.10 This linguistic revival around holy sites was documented e.g. in Kyrgyz glossaries by Aigine.11 A very special group of books on Kyrgyz ways of life is made up of those by spiritual practitioners, who claim that they get knowledge not from archives, observations or communication with other people, but directly from kaiyp duino – the invisible/hidden/secret world.12 Sometimes these people are called ayanchilar, spiritual messengers.13 One of the first initiatives to present an alternative Kyrgyz history (something we might describe as ‘decolonising’ now) came from such spiritual messengers. The question how to live well, how to relate to each other, in and through Kyrgyz and other languages and cosmologies, is both crucial and complicated. It is crucial and complicated in relations between people – and between people and the non-human elements we depend on, and interact with in so many ways. Jeanne: So how do ideas of ‘relating’ work in Kyrgyz language and practices? Gulnara: I n the modern identification of the Kyrgyz, there is often an idea that we are a collectivist society, although the Kyrgyz have been living in a relatively liberal and democratic country for 30 years. This version of collectivism demands a rather rigid type of mamile (relation, attitude), or relations of mutual obligation and mutual responsibility. There is an old Kyrgyz concept: ‘ene sutun aktoo’ – ‘to accomplish work pleasing/in accord with mother’s milk’. This concept is the foundation for mamile not only to the mother, but to

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  191 relatives and one’s native land in general. Children are considered tied to lifelong service for being born and nourished by their mothers’ milk. Tuuganchylyk (family relations) and zherdeshtik (supportive relations between compatriots) are still at the heart of Kyrgyz society. The predominance of ‘we’, i.e. family, kinship or compatriot relations, when a compatriot is almost like a relative, can be seen in many cases. Kyrgyz people often pride themselves on widespread, in-family support, particularly for the elderly. However, this idea of mutual service does not translate universally into welfare for senior citizens and other family members. There are also problematic sides to such solidarities, as discussed below. Some of the political corruption in the country is based precisely on the greatest value of the Kyrgyz, tuuganchylyk. I do not say this to excuse corruption, nor to ignore the many non-Kyrgyz citizens excluded from these circles, but simply to explain how traditional norms have affected republican politics. Protest against extractivism or environmental harm in Kyrgyzstan can also be based on kinship. This is especially noticeable in cases when a new mine is being opened near a village, and closely related villagers stand against it.14 Another example is the 2023 public outcry against the transfer of the Kempir-Abad water reservoir to Uzbekistan. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, like many other post-Soviet countries, Kyrgyzstan has been grappling with unsolved boundary problems with its neighbouring countries. In an effort to resolve such issues with Uzbekistan, the current political leadership of Kyrgyzstan decided to cede Kempir-Abad to Uzbekistan, even though Kempir-Abad was not initially considered a controversial case. All the initiators of the protests against the transfer were imprisoned.15 Currently, after six months in the prison, it is mostly relatives who openly and regularly support them. If relatives demand freeing their daughters, brothers, and husbands, it is regarded as a cultural norm from all sides involved.  o how do ‘spiritual messengers’ engage with these concerns? How S do they conceive of relations between humans and other beings? Anthropologists might talk about these dimensions in terms of personhood, reciprocity, and recognition. Considerations of these relations are now often framed as ‘multi-species-anthropology’ or (more inclusively, e.g. for ancestors and other spiritual beings in our case) – more-than-human anthropology.16 How do people and other beings figure in the world spiritual messengers frame? Gulnara: T  he writings of Kyrgyz spiritual messengers may be seen as a signal of crisis in the human dimension of the Universe, particularly, a socio-political crisis and as the attempt to resolve this crisis through influencing human beings. Bringing ayanchilar into the conversation, I do not consider them as ‘true spokespersons’, who possess

Jeanne:

192  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix an ultimate truth about Kyrgyz ways of life. I see their books as one of the sources illustrating and explaining the nature of modern Kyrgyz nationalism. Kyrgyz cosmology as understood by these indigenous thinkers is a big topic, so I will just discuss the basic idea of kayip duino (the secret world) and touch upon some examples here. Ergeshbay Ajibaev taught physics in secondary schools for 40 years. At the beginning of 2000, his life changed dramatically, as he began to receive information from invisible forces that he initially did not understand. Gradually, he learned that these were ayian (spiritual messages) and started writing down all the messages. With supporters, between 2008 and 2017, he published books such as Zhan duino ilimi (ruxtar menen syrdashuu) (‘The science of the soul (sharing secrets with spirits)’).17 Messengers such as Ajibaev recognise Aalam, the Universe, as an archive, and urge us to use it for developing new local histories. The archive, in this case, consists of petroglyphs, stones, and drawings on them, which provide new information. To consider kayip duino as the source of information and knowledge is traditionally Kyrgyz, in the sense that it was a very typical frame for Kyrgyz culture before the Soviet era. Spiritual messengers are not specifically focused on environmental or climate change questions. However, since kayip duino is considered a world of living creatures, like human beings, they should be treated exactly like the world of living beings, with love and care. The idea of a balance between action and reaction in relations with the ­environment is a basic and key idea coming from kayip duino.  hese admonitions sound like a kind of ‘law’, a reward and punishT ment system. Or perhaps like a kind of natural law of consequences: there is no intent to punish, but if you put your hand in the fire, then – it will hurt! Is there also an aspect of care, what anthropologists might call ‘generalised reciprocity’ – giving freely, both on the part of the human and non-human entities? Is it a space where one does not count what one gives or takes exactly, as in the ‘mother’s milk’ idea? Gulnara: T  he mother’s milk (ene sutu) idea is a pretty specific one; it is mostly restricted by kinship and motherland concepts. All landscape spaces are thought of as spaces of relationship, or at least they used to be. The relationship is articulated differently in different kinds of places. For example, when visiting a grave, people make seven flatbreads or slaughter a sheep – this is a way of showing respect for the grave, spirits, and ghosts. Or when land is cultivated, it should be watered, softened, and fed in time, and then a good harvest will come out. Otherwise, there will be no harvest. These are forms of care. Jeanne:

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  193 We could also take normative ideas about how to treat water as an example. The most important taboos related to water are expressed through proverbs like ‘Suu syilagan zor bolot, suu kordogon kor bolot’ (One who respects water will be blessed, and one who insults water will be poor). One of the most popular pieces of Kyrgyz poetry is called Akkan Suu (Flowing Water). It has many variations, but the most famous and full version was created by the ­outstanding akyn, poet, musician, and philosopher Zhengizhok (1860–1918): Water does not say “Go away!”, When people bathe in it. Water cleanses filth and dirt. O living flowing water! Even if you flow day and night, You do a lot of things for us. We don’t know the price for you, On the contrary, we scold you, Desecrating your soul. We do not make a pilgrimage to you. One, who respects water, will be great, And one, who treats it badly, will be at a loss, Will become his own enemy. Think about my words in your mind I say all this for a reason.18 Another example of kinship-like relations is the term ‘Lake Mother’ (Köl Ene) to honour the holy lake Ysyk-Köl. In the past, Kyrgyz people did not immerse themselves in Ysyk-Köl because the water would be dirtied. Even now, many old people do not go down to the lake, to keep the lake clean. But it is also true that now thousands and thousands of holiday-makers from Kyrgyzstan’s cities and abroad bathe in the lake. There is a similar pattern when it comes to animals. The famous Kyrgyz epic Kojojash or the saga Karagul Botom precisely describes the relationship between man and animal and puts reciprocity at the centre of the game. But what does the appearance of such works thousands of years ago mean today? Even then, humans apparently preyed on nature, and needed teaching through proverbs, sagas and epics to curb their behaviour. Jeanne:

 nd it is not only the visible and living world that needs to be A shown respect, right? Respectful, equitable relations also have to be established and maintained with deceased ancestors, if I understand well enough. Could we say that quasi-kin relations extend to the afterlife? And that these spirits are present in the landscape, which means you should be careful about places that are known as places of encounter with spirits – of which there are many in Central Asia?

194  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix Gulnara: T  here is a common saying: ‘If the ancestors are not honoured, nor will the ­living’ (Arbaktar danktalmaiyncha, tiruulor barktalbait). This view of the need to maintain relations and mutual responsibilities with the dead predates Islam. Even now, it is one of the most enduring beliefs, with rituals such as ‘sending out the smell’ (zhyt chygaruu – cooking special fatty foods, which feed the ancestors with the smell). For example, in spring 2021, seven to twelve men performed several rituals in Talas and Alay. They went to specific holy places, performed rituals, appealed to the spirit guardians of those places and prayed for peace for the Kyrgyz people and independence of the Kyrgyzstani state. The participants said they wanted to travel to pay their respects to those sites and the ancestors (atalar) buried there. Jeanne: So spiritual messengers and other Kyrgyz citizens hold up the value of ‘balance’ and honouring our natural environments. But how does this affect actual decisions, e.g. on mining ventures, or the use of pesticides that affect the water quality of rivers and holy lakes? The debate on how to respond from a position of Indigeneity, while making a living in the context of global capitalism and its basic extractive mode (if modified with a bit of ‘wilderness’ conservation or protective legislation) brings together many Indigenous concerns, from Asia to Africa to the Americas.19 As elsewhere, experts on tradition and interpreters of cultural practice and past ways of life do not always agree on the proper path forward. How do you see advocates of traditional Kyrgyz ways of life position themselves on these questions? How do they influence environmental movements and politics? Gulnara: T  here were hard debates in the early Kyrgyz post-Soviet society, on how land, which had all been State property, was going to change legal status. One of the first post-Soviet spiritual messengers, Omurbubu Begalieva, received an opinion from the Universe on the legitimacy of private land ownership: ‘People can improve their relationship with the earth only by accurately and correctly analyzing the connections of the earth in the universal unity along with keeping the earth sacred. Then the earth will begin to present its wealth to people based on the righteous views and compassion of the people’.20 Some traditional experts in principle consider it right to use natural resources. But at the same time, they do not see the legal and technological readiness in society for the kind of development that would still respect Mother Earth (Zher Ene). In 2020, we held focus group discussions in Aigine with three dozen people who are widely considered saltchy, specialists of tradition. We discussed the issue of processing natural resources: it was clear that there were conflicting views on this. Some participants argued that natural resources should not be

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  195 touched. Others were of the opinion that humans should make use of, develop and benefit from natural resources. In other words, in this context, the contradiction you asked about was clearly observable. The arguments for not touching natural resources were stated as (a) reluctance to use natural sources in the current conditions of lawlessness and lack of environmental protection; (b) the dominance of bribery (corruption) and neglect of the interests of local communities near the natural resources; (c) harmful methods of making use of natural resources. Participants brought up the following reasons for the duty and need to tap natural resources: first, supporting the state budget to solve national problems and second, providing income to local residents to solve their issues. In other words, it became obvious that among these Kyrgyz citizens, highly concerned with pastoralist ways of life as they were, there was still no unified approach or position on how to manage and interact with Kyrgyzstan’s ­environment. Within each focus group, we found radically different opinions. The divergent judgement of the traditional experts on the extraction of natural sources demonstrated that, in practice, there are no grounds to talk about a single traditional ideology. At the same time, both sides inevitably used traditional ideas (arguments) and terms. On the one side, they say, ‘OK, Mother Earth holds these treasures for the good of the people’. On the other side, they argue, ‘Mother Earth is sacred (yiyk) and should not be mined’. Another point to mention is the tensions within the same person’s position. Often, this can be noticed with people in positions of power. They secretly visit mazars, to help realise their career ambitions. But when it comes to political decisions, they move away from the traditional concepts associated with mazars, and traditional virtues and duties. Jeanne:

 here is one other question. I find it kind of a painful question. T It is one that I  have had in my heart and wanted to ask you for a long time. The practitioners and thinkers you discuss all identify strongly as Kyrgyz, and work through the Kyrgyz language. There is even the term Kyrgyzchylyk (Kyrgyzness) as a way of life guided by spiritual practices. This is also sometimes described as a religion equivalent or parallel to Islam.21 How do you, and how do these thinkers understand the relevance of Kyrgyzchylyk for the many people who are not Kyrgyz-speaking, but have maybe been living on the territory of Kyrgyzstan for generations? I feel this is an important issue to raise, because we are in a phase of belligerent national consciousness that can be quite xenophobic (even if the ‘others’ are your neighbours). There have been significant interethnic tensions, including the deaths of several hundred people.

Do you think that it makes sense to compare what is happening in Kyrgyzstan to other areas of the world that we might describe as ‘settler societies’ such as South Africa, or much of South America, where Indigenous and

196  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix First Nations groups are reclaiming their land and other rights, also through asserting their cosmologies? I see this movement as really important, and righting many terrible historical injustices. At the same time, this change has raised lots of c­ onflicts: not only with the most recent, often white, settlers, but also between different Indigenous groups, who all have their own histories of more or less recent settlement. In Kyrgyzstan, we have the quite special situation that the most recent settlers, i.e. people of Russian and other backgrounds, are no longer much in power. How do the very positive ideas of harmony between people and their environments, which at the same time identify so strongly as Kyrgyz, relate to the more exclusionary edge of trying to re-establish Kyrgyz ways of doing things? How does thinking in terms of kayip duino, tuuganchylyk, and mamile relations work in these contexts?  his question is not as painful as it is a complicated one. It is like a Gulnara: T silk cocoon, which must be carefully unwound in order to see the meanings and connections. In order to address how ideas about Kyrgyz practices affect non-Kyrgyz people, I want to focus on how ideas of Kyrgyzness have been articulated by successive republican governments. There are many struggles happening between different Kyrgyz ­factions, and I think that is the real root of the problem, including the attitude to other groups in the country. From time to time, certain Kyrgyz groups attempt to exclude other Kyrgyz, not only minorities, from political power and economic resources. Kyrgyz must change their attitude to each other, to be able to also respect the rights of other groups. When academician Askar Akaev unexpectedly became the first president of newly independent Kyrgyzstan in 1991, there were many hopes for a better and even happy life. Hopes were largely spurred by the personality of Akaev, who was young and did not belong to the party elite. The national ideology that Akaev built was based on concepts like the ‘Seven Testaments of Manas’ and ‘Kyrgyzstan is our common home’ (the latter, an idea of non-ethnic citizenship and belonging). But of the two, the precepts of the Kyrgyz epic Manas were accepted and used much more. I do not think this was the intention of the Kyrgyz majority, but it happened because of the historical situation at the time. The first years of Kyrgyz independence were the years of the total collapse of our former life’s foundations, on the one hand, and the discovery of the ‘big world’, on the other. Representatives of all ethnicities found themselves in extremely difficult social conditions. Many ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, Koreans, Germans, and others began to leave for their ‘historical homeland’ in (then richer) Russia, Germany, or Korea. Large numbers of Kyrgyz citizens migrated in those years within the country, as well as abroad. Gradually, the proportion of Kyrgyz in the population

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  197 increased and the ‘Seven Testaments of Manas’ became more important than ‘Kyrgyzstan is our common home’: the ethnic principle of citizenship began to prevail over the civic principle. Kyrgyz nationalism began to dominate in politics, history, culture, and education. The political strategists of the first President Askar Akaev also revived traditional institutions of governance, such as kurultai assemblies, as ­ a cultural heritage. The political technologists of the second President Kurmanbek Bakiev totally politicised and manipulated the institution of kurultai. Then, Almazbek Atambayev’s government initiated and financed the organisation Kyrk Choro (Forty Warriors), an idea taken from the epic Manas. In subsequent years, this organisation began to persecute Kyrgyz girls who married foreigners and LGBT communities as ‘Western perversions’. Nevertheless, the forms of ‘Kyrgyzness’ offered from above by the political authorities have penetrated well and are quite widely supported by the Kyrgyz majority. In 2020, I conducted a study of Kyrgyz traditionalist groups, which are the backbone of Kyrgyz nationalist movements in politics and cultural life.22 A written survey of 97 people shows that, to these traditionalists, the core value is ethnicity: in their understanding, ethnicity is an a priori given value, which was preserved for centuries. Therefore, everything related to the ethnic group also acquires a value character: language, norms of behaviour in family and society, and governing systems. They seek to protect and develop cultural capital in many forms, from socio-political structures, crafts, foods, family relations and parenting, art, sports, games, clothing, religious and spiritual beliefs. They mobilise for the protection, demonstration, and promotion of cultural capital. The trigger for this mobilisation is their sense of a threat to ethnicity, language, and family norms. For traditionalists, it is not individuality that is valuable, but the ethnic and regional affiliation of people, including politicians and officials. This relationship can be extended to the ancient division between ‘ours’ and ‘alien’: nonKyrgyz are basically strangers for traditionalists. At the same time, traditionalists are comfortable with quite different religious orientations. Ayanchylar, or spiritual messengers, represent one of the forms of modern cultural capital in Kyrgyzstan: their books are written in Kyrgyz and focus on the issues of the Kyrgyz world. According to the logic of the ‘secret world’ they describe, all living beings require mutual caring and respectful attitude. Jeanne, you asked: what does this attitude mean for relations with other ethnic groups and kinds of citizens? The idea of building mutually beneficial relations between different ethnic groups is present in books on kyrgyzchylyk, just as ideas of equality are spelled out in the Constitution and other laws. If you would like to clarify whether such equality actually exists, I would respond ‘somehow’. There is no such equality in the socio-political domain, judging by the composition of elected deputies or appointed officials. The current system for entering political or governmental structures is based on very Kyrgyz relations and negotiations

198  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix that only few representatives of other ethnicities can enter into. At the same time, there is, for example, also no gender equality among the Kyrgyz officials. There are various gaps as well as opportunities to engage in the culture of the various other ethnic groups in the country, but there is no big support for this from the state. In business, there may be no quantitative equality, but given the ratio of businessmen to the size of a particular ethnic group, Russians, Uzbeks, Uighurs, and Dungans are quite prominent. In the field of education, there are schools throughout the country in both Kyrgyz and Russian, the ­latter dominating in Bishkek. These facts hardly confirm equality of opportunities, which is affected by a variety of factors. For example, repeated attempts to remove Russian as a second official language have failed due to the presence of a large Russian diaspora, many Russian-speaking Kyrgyz, and Russia as an influential regional actor. Many Russian citizens have now taken refuge from the war with Ukraine, precisely in Central Asia and the Caucasus, adding a new dimension to these relations. As a person observing the bearers of spiritual Kyrgyzchylyk, I see a connection between this layer of culture and the struggles over direct ­ the Constitution and state control since 2020 in the country. These are two sides of the same coin. A clear connection is seen through the focus on Kyrgyzness, on trying to build an ‘exclusively’ Kyrgyz system of governance.23 In this sense, the process can be called ‘decolonisation’, i.e. an attempt to get rid of external forms of governing. The current version of our Constitution was significantly revised in 2021 to include more Kyrgyz traditional concepts and values. At the same time, it is no coincidence that this new version has been nicknamed khanstitution, well reflecting the trend of strengthening one-man rule. We now see violent and purely political solutions to many issues; we see a surge in the persecution of activists and journalists. The most striking example is the transfer of the Kempir-Abad and other reservoirs to Uzbekistan in the face of an unprecedented crackdown on protests. The victims of these authoritarian policies have been primarily Kyrgyz themselves. In these cases, Kyrgyz are confronted with Kyrgyz, not like Native Americans with white people, as in the United States. Kyrgyz-Kyrgyz confrontations often happen around environmental issues. The country is in a contradictory process of ‘political decolonisation’, losing land at the hand of a self-proclaimed nationalist government. State agencies are also persecuting Manas reciters like Doolot and the bard Bolot, who dared to take the activists’ position. In Kyrgyzstan, we see how the political and cultural fields shape and can reinforce each other, for example, in addressing environmental concerns. Nation-building based on the ethnic principle has led to a situation where in cases such as Kempir-Abad, it is Kyrgyz citizens who take much responsibility and have been dying for their country, water and environment. It seems that relationships with other ethnic groups are more easily manageable for the Kyrgyzstani government.

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  199 Conclusion: the end of a conversation, as the start of a conversation?  or me, working on the dialogue with Gulnara Eje reaffirmed the F open ­atmosphere cultivated at the Aigine Research Centre. Our conversation clearly showed the struggles with ‘strongman’-style nationalism and the more positive versions of asserting values that Gulnara Aitpaeva describes above. We tried to ‘stay with the trouble’, and with each other, as Donna Haraway would put it.24 At the end of this dialogic process, I feel both the inclusive and the exclusive impetus of thinking through ‘relations’ and tuuganchylyk. I love that different Kyrgyz idioms and practices so strongly shape an idea of interdependence with the non-human world around us. That interdependence is not always ‘nice’: it can include fear of snakes, spirits, and other forces we have little if any control over. But there is lots of scope for appreciation, like in Zhengizhok’s poem, and for interdependency in terms of care. I think at the end of the day, all these registers come into play – just like with human relatives, maybe? You might care for, be fearful of, and also feel grateful to a spouse, child, or authoritative elder. And you can have the worst fights and forms of violence – in the family. For me, this dialogue unfolded lots of unexpected nuances. We both came to face many more questions and angles, than we had space to express here. Gulnara: I consciously took the position of following the questions put to me, and, in this sense, of being led, which is somewhat unusual for me. This dialogue was not easy, despite the fact that I was open to any questions and turns. The reason is not in my position at all, but, probably, it is in the different focuses we have on the topics raised. For example, Jeanne is concerned with the issues of other languages and ethnic groups in the country, while I think the core problem that affects everything else, is among the Kyrgyz themselves. I appreciate very much, Jeanne, your openness and understanding, which allowed me to talk about sources that are not typically considered by researchers and to explore Kyrgyz nationalism outside the generally accepted framework of interethnic relations. This frame is well developed, internationally recognised, and it is considered to be ‘correct’. In no way do I deny its importance and necessity. My point is that the current specifics of relations in the country, including attitudes towards the environment, require a different focus. A different language of reflection might be more productive. In spite of our slightly different focuses, we made our way through this difference and were able to build a conversation. It seems to me that the direction we have taken, applying some anthropological concepts to Kyrgyz folk thoughts – and vice versa? – might be fruitful for both enriching anthropological ­theories and transforming Kyrgyz self-consciousness.

Jeanne:

200  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix Notes 1 Eje in Kyrgyz is a respectful term for an older female relative, and by extension, teacher or other senior woman. 2 Although there is also a Russophone field and literature in other Central Asian languages on these topics, we do not have the space to discuss these fully here. Important contributions include A.A. Suleimenova, Dukhovnost’ v kul’ture kazakhov (Almaty: KazNU, 2002), 240; A.Kh. Daudov, A.A. Andreev, V.A. Shorokhov, D.G. Yanchenko, “Problema identichnosti v sovremennom Tadzhikistane,” Politėks 10, no. 2 (2014). https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/problema-identichnosti-vsovremennom-tadzhikistane-yazykovye-politicheskie-religioznye-sotsialno-ekonomicheskie-faktory-vliyaniya. D.N. Allayarova, Khudozhestvennyi fol’klor uzbekov i formirovanie natsional’noi identichnosti (Tashkent: Abdulaziz Mansur Institute of History, 2011), 42–47. 3 Prominent examples include Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010). Bruno Latour, “Facing Gaia: Six Lectures on the Political Theology of Nature,” in Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, Edinburgh, February 18–28, 2013. http://www.bruno-latour. fr/sites/default/files/downloads/GIFFORD-SIX- LECTURES_1. Tim Ingold and Elizabeth Hallam, Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 4 B. M. Yunusaliev, Kyrgyz Dialectology (Frunze, 1971), 57. 5 S.M. Abramzon, Kyrgyz and their Ethnogenetic, Historical and Cultural Ties (Frunze: Kyrgyzstan Publishing House, 1990); M. Zhirmunsky, Introduction to the Study of Manas (Frunze: Kyrgyz Branch of the Academy of Science, 1948); I.A. Batmanov, A Brief Introduction to the Study of the Kyrgyz Language (Frunze: Kirgizgosizdat, 1947). 6 T. Sydykbekov, Til kenchi sozdou. T. Sydykbekov, Men ming zhil zhаshadym (Bishkek: Akyl, 1998), 452–465; G. Aitpaeva “The Language Issue in the Years of Perestroika in Kyrgyz Soviet Republic (1986–1989).” Academic Review of Kyrgyz National University, vol.4 (Bishkek: Kyrgyz National University press, 2013). 7 G. Ibraeva and S. Kulikova, History of Development and Current State of the Media in Kyrgyzstan: Research Results (Bishkek: Salam, 2002). 8 B. Dubashev, Science of Kut (Bishkek: Abykeev, 2012); Shaidoot The Lessons of the Time, II Spirits in the Invisible World (Bishkek: Uluu Toolor, 2016). 9 A. Jakshylykov, The Kyrgyz Way – Generosity, Traditionalism, Beauty (Bishkek: Biiktik, 2006). 10 J. Sadyr uulu, Friendship – Conflict (Bishkek: Maksprint, 2013). 11 G. Aitpaeva, Sacred Sites of the South Kyrgyzstan: Nature, Manas, Islam (Bishkek: Maksprint, 2013), 230–237. 12 E. Ajibaev, The Science of the Soul (Sharing Secrets with Spirits) (Bishkek: Mega Format, 2018); A. Sariev, The Green Book I. Kyrgyz Will Lead the People to Goodness (Bishkek: Biiktik, 2004). 13 Literally, ayan is the imperative singular present tense of the verb aeo- ‘to have pity.’. The direct meaning is to ‘take care, beware, be careful’. In a wider sense, the ayanchil is the one who has the capacity to understand signs, to receive spiritual messages. 14 On long struggles over the Kumtor gold mine, which operates on top of a glacier, see Amanda Wooden, “Another Way of Saying Enough: Environmental Concern and Popular Mobilization in Kyrgyzstan,” Post-Soviet Affairs 9, no. 4 (2013): 314–353. 15 Viktor Mukhin, “Kamni vmesto plodorodnykh zemel’. Chem grozit Kyrgystanu poterya Kempir-Abada,” Kloop, 17 October, 2022, accessed April 5, 2023,

Relating to people, homeland and environment the Kyrgyz way?  201 https://kloop.kg/blog/2022/10/17/kamni-vmesto-plodorodnyh-zemel-chemgrozit-kyrgyzstanu-poterya-kempir-abada/ 16 S. Eben Kirksey and Stefan Helmreich, eds., “The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography,” Cultural Anthropology 25, no. 4 (2010): 545–576; Laura A. Ogden, “Understanding Multispecies Ethnography through ‘Human–Dog Relations,’”. Society and Animals 26, no. 5 (2018): 513–531; Keith H. Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2009). 17 Ajibaev E., The Science of the Soul (Sharing Secrets with Spirits) (Bishkek: Mega Format, 2018). 18 Original in: Zhenizhok Akkan Suu // https://elbilge.ucoz.ru/publ/­kyrgyzcha/ yr_sanat_terme/akkan_suu/20–1-0–266. The original reads: Bashyn salsa: “Tur, Ket!” dep/Unchukpagan akkan suu!/Irik menen chirikti/Taza kylgan akkan suu. /A janybar, akkan suu,/Kunu-tunu aksang da,/ kadyryngdy bilbeibiz. Kongulungdu kir kylyp,/kaira ozungdu tildeibiz./ Jok degende bir jylda, zyiarat kylyp zhylda,/ zyiarat kylyp zhyrboibyz./Suu syilagan zor bolor,/ suu ­kordogon kor bolor/ozuno ozu zhoo bolor./Akyl menen oilop al,/aitkan jokmun tim gana! Translation from G. Aitpaeva and A. Abdrakmanova, Traditional Life of Water in Kyrgyzstan: Everyday and Ritual Practices, in Living Heritage Series. Water: Interconnectivity between Intangible Cultural Heritage and Science (Jeonju: ICHCAP, 2022), p. 128. 19 Arturo Escobar, Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2018). Marisol de la Cadena, Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2015). C. Verharen, F. Bugarin, J. Tharakan, et al., “African Environmental Ethics: Keys to Sustainable Development through Agroecological Villages,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 34, no. 18 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10806-02109853-4. Shazia Rahman, “The Environment of South Asia: Beyond Postcolonial Ecocriticism,” South Asian Review 42, no. 4 (2021): 317–323. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/02759527.2021.1982613 20 Begalieva, Aalamdan kelgen kattar, 65. 21 At the same time as widespread interest in all things ‘Kyrgyz’ grew, so has interest in Islam. The vast majority of ethnic Kyrgyz consider themselves Muslim and find Kyrgyz and Central Asian modes of engaging with holy sites and ancestors compatible with Islam. Nevertheless, many Islamic authorities and missionary movements speak against these practices. Sergei Abashin, “A Prayer for Rain: Practicing Being Soviet and Muslim,” Journal of Islamic Studies 25, no. 2 (2014): 178–200; V. M. Artman, “Nation, Religion, and Theology: What Do We Mean When We Say ‘Being Kyrgyz Means Being Muslim?’” Central Asian Affairs 5, no. 3 (2018): 191–212; Alima Bissenova, “Central Asian Encounters in the Middle East: Nationalism, Islam and postcoloniality in al-Azhar,” Religion, State and Society 33, no. 3 (2005): 253–263; Kristina Kehl-Bodrogi, “Islam Contested: Nation, Religion and Tradition in Post-Soviet Turkmenistan,” in The Postsocialist Religious Question: Faith and Power in Central Asia and East-Central Europe, ed. C. Hann et al. (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2006) 125–146; Mukaram Toktogulova, “Islam in the Context of Nation-Building in Kyrgyzstan: Reproduced Practices and Contested Discourses,” The Muslim World 110, no. 1 (2020): 51–63. 22 The research project “Mapping and network analysis of traditionalist groups in the Kyrgyz Republic to form a dialogue and promote a culture of non-violence in the country” was conducted with the support of UN Women Kyrgyzstan in 2020. 23 Saltanat Liebert, “The Crisis of Democratic Governance in Kyrgyzstan: Exploring the Limits of Inclusivity.” Central Asian Survey 40, no. 1 (2021): 58–74; Asel

202  Gulnara Aitpaeva and Jeanne Féaux de la Croix Doolotkeldieva, “The Politics of Ethno-Nationalism in Kyrgyzstan: The Case of the 2020 Elections,” Nationalities Papers 49, no. 3 (2021): 477–495; Hélène Thibault, “Ethnic Conflict and Nation-Building in Kyrgyzstan: The Case of the Uzbek Minority,” Nationalities Papers 48, no. 4 (2020): 631–647. 24 Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (Durham, NC, London: Duke University Press, 2016).

9 The bee-human Imagining a new Qazaq identity in Oralkhan Bökei’s novel Atau-Kere Laura Berdikhojayeva

In the 1970s, the appearance of a new creature – an Africanised hybrid bee – caused turmoil among the public. Initially brought by the Brazilian government from East Africa in 1956, several colonies of an African breed of bees (Apis mellifera scutellata) had escaped the hive,1 moving rapidly from South to North America. The biggest threat was thought to come from their high reproduction rate, turning ‘local’ breeds of bees, once brought by European settlers to the New World, into Africanised hybrid bees. These hybrids were thought to reproduce and incorporate the more aggressive behaviour of African bees, who were reported to quickly attack anything that moves. Although movies, books, and press reports greatly exaggerated the danger associated with African bees, in effect, they brought bees to increasing public attention.2 News of the supposedly aggressive hybridised bees reached Soviet readers through the widely distributed popular-scientific journal ‘Nauka i jizn’ (Science and Life).3 Although there is no recorded case of so-called ‘killer bees’ travelling to Eurasia (and they would not survive the climate), it is not surprising that the story of the hybrid bees captured Bökei’s imagination. Bökei transplants killer bees to Altai Mountains in his novel Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water) or Qauipti Budan (Dangerous Hybrid), which was serialised in 1989 in the literary journal ‘Jūldyz’ (The Star) and then published as a book in 1990. He sets his bee-inspired story in the Mūztau or Belukha peaks, a range of the Altai on the border of Qazaqstan and Russia. Since the eighteenth century, the region had been a home to Russian settlers: stationed colonial officers as well as Russian old believers (Russian: starovertsy, kerjaq in Qazaq) who escaped persecution in Russia. As a result, the region not only turned into a cultural contact zone between various Qazaq and Russian communities, but became famous for honey bees (Apis mellifera mellifera) introduced from Russia and technologically savvy apiculture.4 In Qazaq, Atau-Kere refers to the religious ritual practice of giving a sip of water to the dying person right before their final breath.5 It can also be used as a curse: ‘Atau-kerendi ishkir!’ (May this be your last meal). In the novel, AtauKere is used in both of these connotations: as a meaningful cultural practice as well as a curse directed at people who drink alcohol. The subtitle of the novel Qauipti Budan (Dangerous Hybrid) refers to the actual hybrid bees that the DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-13

204  Laura Berdikhojayeva antagonist of the novel Yerik uses for his own material gains, even to the point of risking the life of his mother. Bökei uses the image of the hybrid bee as a symbol to suggest the danger of a certain type of hybridity to national culture. Yerik’s hybridity is as deadly a threat to the Qazaq culture, as large volumes of bee venom are to the human body. At the same time, Bökei suggests that Qazaqs should become Ara-Adam, Bee-Persons, balancing adaptation and closeness to one’s cultural ‘nature’. Bökei used the story of the Africanised bees to explore the formation of hybrid identities in the context of Soviet Qazaqstan. As his earlier literary works show, he had already long been interested in the interaction between human and non-human worlds, and the importance of such interaction in the making of the Qazaq identity. However, in Atau-Kere, the question of Qazaq national identity gains urgency in the context of perestroika. The multi-ethnic Altai, where the author was born and which he knew intimately, appears to offer a fertile ground for cultivating these themes and such an imaginative narrative. In Atau-Kere, he seems to have found ways to explore his potential topical spread in full, demonstrating what literature can do in bringing politically and economically significant topics together. In this chapter, I will closely read Bökei’s novel from the perspective of postcolonial ecocriticism. Engaging with the concept of ‘hybridity’ suggested by Homi Bhabha in the context of Soviet nationality politics, I argue that Bökei’s Atau-Kere/ Dangerous Hybrid provides a peculiar formulation for the articulation of Qazaq national ­identity, grown at the sometimes beneficial, sometimes dangerous intersection of human and non-human worlds. The writing context Oralkhan Bökei (1943–1993) was a Qazaq writer and playwright who, as many other Soviet writers, started his literary career as a journalist in the ­sixties of the twentieth century. Born and raised in Shyńghystai village of the Qatonqaragai region in Eastern Qazaqstan, Bökei was deeply familiar with the Altaian world. The year he was born, his father Bökei was sent to the front in the Second World War. As a token of her hope that her husband would return from the war, Bökei’s mother named the baby Oralkhan. Oral in Qazaq means ‘to come back’, or ‘to return’ and khan is a Turkic title given to a ruler. Indeed, Bökei, Oralkhan’s father, did come back from the war safe and sound. His father is usually described as a stern person who did not speak much, but who exhibited exceptional oratorial qualities when he did. His father is said to have been known for his recitation of Qazaq epic and lyrical-epic poems during wedding parties, while his mother entertained with her beautiful singing. As the only son among five girls, Bökei seems to have been raised mostly under his grandmother’s care.6 Like many writers of his generation, Bökei, too, gained much of his p ­ ractical training as a journalist in regional newspapers. After leaving school in 1961, he first worked as a tractor driver and then became a senior instructor for Young

The bee-human  205 Pioneers at his old school. From 1963 onwards, he attended a ­part-time j­ournalism course in Almaty, while his main journalistic life was anchored in his native region. He then rose quickly from jobs as a proofreader, translator, and editorial assistant of regional newspapers, to manage literature sections of major newspapers. It was also during these years that his short stories were first published in regional newspapers and drew attention from writers in Almaty. Being noticed by established writers and gaining their patronage was an important factor for young writers like Bökei to succeed. Bökei found his patron in the prominent Qazaq Soviet writer Sherkhan Mūrtaza (1932–2018), who invited Bökei to stay in Almaty. From 1968, he was thus appointed to lead the prose departments of national newspapers, then first assisting, and finally replacing the chief editor Sherkhan Mūrtaza himself at the most prestigious newspaper ‘Qazaq ádebieti’ (Qazaq literature). It is often noted among Qazaq writers that the 1980s under their leadership were the most fruitful decade in promoting national literature. Although his career flourished during these years, his personal life was marked with melancholy, loss and the deaths of his closest people. He married a woman named Aiman with whom he fell in love while working at ‘Eńbek tuy’. Nevertheless, their inability to conceive children turned into a source of anxiety and unhappiness. It is no coincidence that the discontinuity of the patrilineal family line is one of the recurring themes in his works. To make things even worse, he would be subjected to pay a state fine for not having children. After 20 years of trying to have children, Oralkhan and Aiman’s love story ends tragically: Aiman commits suicide leaving behind a note which says: ‘Oralkhan, be happy. Don’t blame yourself. There is no need to look for someone responsible for my death’. Shortly after this, his younger sister passed away, and while he was recovering, his elder sister and both of his parents died too. Bökei himself passed away at the age of 49 during a work trip to Delhi in 1993, leaving behind a rich legacy and distinctive contribution to the development of Qazaq literature. One of the last of Bökei’s works, Atau-Kere, encapsulates Bökei’s ­ideological and aesthetic position. It is not only the fact that he writes in Qazaq which is remarkable for the time, but in a fully formed, literary poetic Qazaq ­language. Told from the perspective of a third-person omniscient narrator, the story begins with Yerik – the antagonist of the story – travelling from the Altai Mountains to his native village to sell honey. Since he moved to the mountains in order to do beekeeping, a yearly summer visit has become a tradition for Yerik. He encounters his childhood friend Taghan. Used to pursuing his selfish materialistic interests, Yerik seizes his opportunity by ‘enslaving’ and exploiting Taghan, making him do household chores and build a bridge in return for shelter and alcohol. Lost and wasted, Taghan agrees to this ­arrangement. However, the story takes an unexpected turn when Yerik’s mother, the ethnic Russian Niura Fadeevna, recognises in Taghan a long-lost son of her late husband’s friend. Niura Fadeevna (also known as Nürke kempir) transmits her intact memory and intimate knowledge of ancestry to Taghan. She heals his

206  Laura Berdikhojayeva alcoholism through this connection to his ancestral past and who he once was, as well as herbal treatments. Nürke kempir thus undermines her son’s harmful intentions. As Taghan recovers, he regains his confidence and dignity back to finally realise the purpose of his life and the way out of misery. He ‘accepts citizenship’ in the country of the Shal (old man) who lives in the mountains with his two adopted children, named after heroes of Qazaq oral literature. The story ends on a happy note for some and on an unhappy note for others. Two influences are visible in Atau-Kere and Bökei’s work more generally: the Qazaq contemporary historical novel and the Russian Village Prose writing. Bökei’s arrival on the literary scene coincides with the Brezhnev period (1964 to mid-1980s). Usually associated with economic stagnation, this period was also one of stability and a cultural revival of all Soviet nations. Although the Moscow Party leadership became increasingly Russified, the principle that each republic’s First Secretary of the Communist Party should be from the ethnic majority of that republic was strictly followed: Qazaqstan’s leader Kunaev held his post from 1965 to 1986.7 The relaxation of many controls on the production of culture encouraged the development of national art, music, literature, and cinema, around which a republican intelligentsia consolidated.8 While these concessions were meant to secure loyalty to Moscow, national movements emerged which opposed not only increasing Russification, but also the ideas of nationhood advocated by local leaders. This led to a marked pluralism, not only in literary forms, but in the points of view represented within each of them.9 During the 1960s, when Bökei’s short stories first appeared, Qazaq novels explored the lives of significant historical figures and events. After the all-Union success of M. Auezov’s novel The path of Abai (Abai joly), a group of Qazaq writers produced works that attempted to remind Qazaqs of their own glorious past, while still stressing the ’progressive’ function of Russian culture. Drawing inspiration from Qazaq oral literature, authors like I. Yesenberlin, Á. Kekilbaev, Á. Álimjanov, M. Magauin, A. Seidimbekov, S. Mūrtaza, and T. Álimqūlov developed a new genre that inspired pride in national history in late and post-Soviet Qazaqstan.10 In Russia, such concerns smoothly moved to the realm of ‘Village Prose writing’. Derevenskaia proza, which Parthé calls ‘the most aesthetically ­coherent and ideologically important body of published literature in the second half of the twentieth century’,11 was a literary form generated from many writers’ increasing dissatisfaction with the achievements of Soviet modernisation projects. They offered a critique of Soviet projects such as collectivisation campaigns, the building of hydroelectric dams, and especially of the destruction of ‘the’ Russian village that they understood as the ‘essence’ and purity of Russian culture. Many of these writers had rural backgrounds and experienced these destructions themselves, making it difficult to ‘draw borders between fiction and non-fiction’.12 The Russian authors found a panacea for remedying the ills of modern society in the idyllic life and peace of the distant past. They sought to restore human dignity preserved in places and times ‘far away from Moscow’ in iconic village settings untouched by most aspects of

The bee-human  207 twentieth-century life.13 As Parthé comments, there is a connection between Village Prose and the revival of Russian chauvinism, which the derevenshchiki gave a fresh breath to.14 Even when they were critical of Soviet modernising projects, their attitude towards Central Asian republics tended to be imperialist and colonial.15 Several Village Prose writers such as Vasilii Belov, Viktor Astafiev, and Valentin Rasputin were affiliated with extreme Russian nationalist groups.16 By contrast, non-Russian writers, too, commented on the damage Soviet policies caused to the environment and local living conditions. Nature and landscape featured heavily in the national cultures of a number of republics from the 1950s onwards, in part because praising the physical landscape was then a politically safer space for national affection than highlighting national heroes.17 Later on, in Qazaqstan, the disappearance of the Aral Sea and nuclear tests in the Semey province similarly served as focal points to local activists and writers such as O. Suleimenov. Bökei’s works are influenced by and closely engaged with these two movements in Qazaq and Russian literature. Bökei enters into dialogue with the writers of both historical novels and also with derevenshchiki to deliver ‘truth’ to the Soviet regime, and express his anti-colonial/anti-Soviet stance. But unlike the Qazaq writers who mostly chose to write historical novels, Bökei’s work directly explored the contemporary condition of Qazaq society.18 For him, the Soviet style of history-writing has been central to the making of the Qazaq Soviet Man. His choice of featuring the historian Taghan as a protagonist is intentional, an allusion to the fate of the repressed Qazaq Soviet historian Ermūkhan Bekmakhanov himself (1915–1966). Bökei attributes the source of destruction and loss of Qazaq identity to the particular way of relating to nature, to the environment with which Qazaqs come into contact. A Qazaq can only be a Qazaq when he or she is in a symbiotic relationship with their environment. However, in order to reclaim his identity a Qazaq man or a woman needs to remember the presence of the memory of the past, which is both glorious and traumatic. Hybridity: the making of Soviet mimic men In his book The Location of Culture, Indian-British scholar Homi Bhabha (1970) analyses the process of the construction of the British colonial discourse in an Indian context.19 According to Bhabha, Western colonial representational discourse operates within the framework of fixed categories. These categories posit ‘unitary’ and ‘original’ racial/cultural/historical others who are imagined to be entirely visible and knowable.20 The objective of colonial discourse is to construe the colonised as a population of degenerate types on the basis of racial origin, in order to justify conquest and to establish systems of administration and instruction.21 As Loomba suggests, one of the most striking contradictions about colonialism is that it both needs to ‘civilise’ its others and to fix them in perpetual ‘otherness’.22 This ambivalence lies at the heart

208  Laura Berdikhojayeva of the colonial discourse and shapes cultural negotiation. Bhabha argues that mimicry – a process of constructing ‘a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect’23 – turns into one of the most elusive and effective strategies,24 functions ‘as a complex strategy of reform, regulation and discipline’25 as well as a subversion, ‘a threat to both “normalized” knowledge and disciplinary powers.’ 26 Warning against the danger of falling back in the framework of binary oppositions that reproduce the colonial logic, he proposes the concept of the ‘Third Space’ to explain the process of cultural negotiation. In this in-between, hybrid space, the fixity attached to the symbols and meanings of culture is deconstructed and can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricised, and read anew.27 ‘Hybridity’ deforms and displaces, and reveals the assumptions of colonial identity and its repetition of discriminatory identity effects.28 Such revelations can enable an alternative interpretation illustrated best in the examples of anti-colonial movements such as Négritude and Gandhi’s concept of ahimsa. They hybridised Western colonial and indigenous ideas, even to assert cultural alterity or insist on an unbridgeable difference between coloniser and colonised.29 Although Bhabha’s notion of hybridity is helpful in analysing the process of cultural negotiation in general, I admit, as Ella Shohat suggested, the need to ‘discriminate between the diverse modalities of hybridity, for example, forced assimilation, internalised self-rejection, political co-optation, social conformism, cultural mimicry and creative transcendence’.30 Without such discrimination, Bhabha’s formulation of hybridity tends to reproduce the anthropocentric understanding of culture which was at the heart of Western colonial discourse. Such differentiation allows us not only a different look at the process of cultural negotiation from different locations, but also a space to claim for a notion of culture that foregrounds the agency of nature and non-human worlds in the construction of culture. I find Bhabha’s analysis of hybridity revealing for the making of the Qazaq Soviet man, which is at the heart of Bökei’s novel.31 Francine Hirsch calls the Soviet approach to transforming the population in the 1920s ‘state-­sponsored evolutionism’. This Soviet version of the civilising mission was grounded in Marxist conceptions of development through historical stages and early European anthropological theories about cultural evolutionism.32 By characterising ‘backwardness’ as the result of sociohistorical circumstances rather than innate racial or biological traits, Soviet leaders maintained that all peoples could ‘evolve’ and thrive in new Soviet conditions.33 The creation of national identity was assumed to be a necessary step on the road to Communism, after which an international Soviet culture would emerge. As Hirsch’s analysis shows, early Soviet nationality policies were a mechanism of disciplining, controlling and deliberately reforming non-Russian people and identities.34 Through korenizatsiia (nativisation) policies, the Soviet state mobilised local administrative cadres, who played a decisive role in ‘Socialist construction’. Unlike in African and Indian contexts, Soviet policies of the 1920s encouraged the development and use of ‘national’ languages, although at the same

The bee-human  209 time a growing number of Russian skilled workers and administrators were sent from Central Russia.35 As a result, the Qazaq language came to function as a national language that spoke in Russian-Communist terms, for instance, in Soviet Socialist Realist literature. Stalinist purges, debaysation, collectivisation and the catastrophic subsequent famine that took over 1 million lives in Qazaqstan made the 1930s one of the traumatic moments in Qazaq history.36 The forceful abandoning of nomadic pastoralism as a way of life transformed the way Qazaqs saw themselves, and fundamentally transformed the relationship between Qazaqs and their environment.37 Soviet policies since Khrushchev brought back the superior position of Russian culture. The Russian language was to play the role of a lingua franca for all Soviet nations.38 Of particular significance was Khrushchev’s Secret Speech of February 1956 which signalled relative openness and pursued a utopian programme of reforms.39 The passivity of Qazaq intellectuals to de-­ stalinisation urges was symptomatic of the deep social and ethnic fragmentation within the Qazaqstani population largely caused by Khrushchev’s Virgin Lands Campaign initiated in 1954.40 Around 1–2 million Russian and Ukrainian ­settlers sent to cultivate the land emptied by the famine were told that they were travelling to entirely unpopulated land only to discover the members of the ‘traitor nationalities’ deported by Stalin in 1940–1944 upon their arrival. There erupted mass fights and riots between the Kazakhs, Chechens, Ingush, Poles, and settlers often caused by alcohol and over a shortage of work and consequent competition for employment.41 As a result, not only the urban spaces, but the auls of Northern Qazaqstan became increasingly Russified. As Edgar argues in her recent book,42 a primordialist and racialised u ­ nderstanding of ethnic nationality became a dominant discourse in the second half of the twentieth century.43 During the Brezhnev era, Russian became more than a lingua franca: it was promoted as the best language to express communist ideas, while Russian culture was upheld as a model. Paradoxically, thus ‘greater mastery of Russian would enhance the development of non-Russian nationalities’.44 Although conceptualised differently in different periods, Soviet nationality policy operated within a discourse that created fixed categories for Central Asian societies, as in Bhabha’s reconstruction of British imperial policy. Becoming a Soviet person required one to display Bolshevik-made categories, while remaining distinct from the ‘Russian elder brother’. No matter how diverse the population was within Russia, in relation to the smaller Soviet republics, Russia, as in the good old imperial days, positioned itself as ‘European’. The ‘internationalisation’ of culture, Soviet style, largely meant a Russification of culture. The true Soviet person was somebody who spoke Russian, and who got assimilated into Russian culture. All in all, the making of the Qazaq Soviet person was the making of a mimic person. Bökei’s novel captures the essence of the creation of a Qazaq mimic person, and offers a fruitful ground to connect the process of Soviet ‘internationalisation’ with cultural ‘hybridisation’. As my analysis in the following sections shows, Bökei does not only explore

210  Laura Berdikhojayeva the conditions for the making of the Soviet colonial man, but also presents his own alternative vision for reclaiming one’s dignity. He finds his path in remembering the past made forgotten by the Soviet state, and reconstructing a new Qazaq national identity that locates the making of the national culture as a negotiation between human and non-human worlds. Qazaq Soviet hybrid: a case of the broken In the first part of the novel, we are drawn into the world of Bek-arqa village to meet the antagonist Yerik and protagonist Taghan in a drunken condition. Once very good childhood friends, now they feel quite antagonistic, as their nicknames show. As soon as Taghan recognises Yerik, he asks: ‘Qarabauyr, is that you?’45 The word qarabauyr has three meanings with double connotations. It literally means ‘a black liver’ or ‘a black kin’, figuratively somebody stone cold or cruel, even to their own blood-related kin. In its second meaning, it refers to any small bird, and the third use is very specific to the Qatonqaraghai region, where qarabauyr is a type of steppe polecat, Mustela Eversmanii.46 It takes some time for Yerik to realise that this homeless drunkard is his childhood friend Taghan, whose childhood nickname was Qarabura. This name is a compound word: qara as used in qarabauyr means ‘black’ and bura refers to a male camel at the peak of its sexual potency. In Qazaq cultural understanding, it is believed that the closer an animal is to the ground, the more dangerous it is. The steppe polecat is thus of low status and feared, compared to the admired, important role of camels for nomads. It is only through the spark in his eyes that Yerik recognises Taghan. He fears Taghan’s spark, which seems to promise the existence of some remaining spirit in this broken man. At this stage in his life, Taghan’s body is ‘exhausted like Germany during Hitler from harsh violence, incongruous attack, and pointlessly cruel wandering’47 or like ‘an eroded steppe that turned into a salt marsh’.48 Taghan’s homeless wandering is a symptom of his identity loss. Unlike the protagonists of Village Prose whose return to their native village is nostalgic, and who usually ends up finding a house (a physical structure) that has an air of Russianness preserved there, Taghan remains homeless, his only goal being alcohol. The focal point of the novel is Taghan’s life story and search for self, which we hear through his soliloquies. He attempts to process and make sense of what had happened to him, not only as an individual, but as a part of a collective. He always starts his speech with Nege biz osyndaimyz? [Why are we like this?] and brings up socially and politically significant topics, and how these conditions shaped the nature of the Soviet man. The first is about the current lost condition of Qazaq people, whom he calls dübara. Falling into a dübara condition refers to the loss of one’s identity between two or more things, or sides, or viewpoints. The second biggest issue in these monologues is the environmental disaster that humanity faces at the present moment. The question

The bee-human  211 itself signals the communal nature of the problem, including the Qazaq reader as well. Both of Taghan’s early monologues end up blaming his condition on others: ‘Osy küiki tirlikke dushar qylgan myna meni atarga oqtary joq sender, men …. senderge eregesip, yza bolgan soń amalsyz ishem’ [‘It is you, who has no bullet to shoot me, who made my life this harsh… I drink, unwillingly, out of anger and out of spite to you’].49 Not long after, Yerik makes him sleep in a cold shed. Next morning, Taghan is woken up by a bucket of cold water poured on him by Yerik. To which Taghan replies: ‘I thought you were a Gestapo [agent]’ [Seni gestapo eken dep oilasam] Zakhar [the host]: ‘What a poisonous tongue’ [Tiliniń udaiyn] Yerik: ‘He has nothing except for his tongue. If he continues like this, he will lose it too.’ Taghan has no fear of that, as he already feels: ‘Men qazir de jym-jyrtpyn, joqpyn, sondyqtan da eshnárse de qorsynysh emes’. [I am already silent, I already do not exist, therefore nothing is fearful.]50 Taghan’s past journey to becoming a truly Soviet man evokes an image of a mimic man discussed by Bhabha. Born in the village, he traversed the development of any good Soviet man, like Bökei himself, by moving from a ‘backward’ rural place to the urban centre, where he pursued his dream of becoming a h ­ istorian. He became a paragon of the ‘ideal Soviet man’ who saw the benefits of Soviet infrastructure. ‘At first they praised me saying that I was a saint, a born genius’. [Eń aueli sen áuliesiń, tua talantsyń dep ishi kepkenshe maqtady.]51 He acquired this head-spinning and eye-opening realisation after he wrote his first dissertation in which he analyses the socio-economic situation of Qazaqstan in the 1930s and 1940s. However, he was not allowed to defend as the title turned out to be judged ‘poisoned with nationalist i­nterests’.52 He was sent to the labour corrective medical facility under the false claim that he was an alcoholic, and that’s how he turned into a real one. After being released from the facility, Taghan wrote his second d ­ issertation on the ‘History of the nationalities who inhabited Altai’. That’s when he was summoned by the KGB, and that’s how he could not do much but to ­disappear.53 The author’s choice to portray the fate of a historian like Taghan reminds us of the tragic fates of Qazaq Soviet historian E. Bekhmakhanov (1915–1966), who was sent to the Gulag because of his dissertation work, in which he described the resistance of Kenesary Qassymov in the nineteenth century as a national-liberation movement.54 During the war, Bekmakhanov was one of the authors of the first History of the Kazakh SSR; for it, he collaborated with prominent Soviet historian A.M. Pankratova, who then pleaded for his release after Stalin’s death.55 At the time of the publication of the novel, Bekmakhanov’s name must have been familiar to Qazaq readers. The dissertation titles that Taghan wrote sound quite similar to Bekmakhanov’s. As a truly

212  Laura Berdikhojayeva Soviet person, Taghan/Bekmakhanov justifies the success of Soviet vision of Socialist humanity; from another viewpoint, though, he poses a threat to the functioning of the system as he reveals the ‘truth’ of the regime. In the novel, Taghan uses Russian Soviet historiography itself to unmask the nature of Russian imperial expansion.56 Taghan uses Russian sources to present an alternative historical narrative. His subversive findings are thus interpreted as a sign of ‘bourgeois nationalism’. What Bökei implies here, as Bhabha, is that the native, despite full acceptance of colonial culture, can never be equal. He is treated as different, as not being in the position to make such claims. For colonial authorities, the displacement/mimicry of authoritative knowledge is a sign of threat; therefore, this knowledge is denied. For Taghan, the ­absurdity lay in the fact that he was accused of being a nationalist, whereas Russian ­scholars  making imperialist statements like the one he finds in his sources are not.57 Taghan’s journey through the Soviet institutions is torturous, a journey of ‘almost’ becoming a Soviet man, but also of failure of ­becoming one. After arriving in the Altai as an alcoholic, Taghan attempts suicide, but then starts asserting his identity. After such a cathartic experience, Taghan reveals a new vision of himself in the world while surrounded by the mountain ‘Mūztau’. We are again offered his monologues: The Nature-creator is never disorderly, she is always beautiful, she is not always loving, she is honest and smart, therefore she does not make mistakes like humans. Nature is alive eternally. We need to learn from nature not to tell lies and not to deceive. Her (nature’s) heart is pure.58 Having lived all his conscious life in the city, Taghan thus finds a source for an alternative existence that he was blind to before. ‘Of course, existence is full of people who have ears but are deaf, who have eyes but are blind [qūlaghy barkereń, janary bar-soqyrlar]’.59 The Soviet-style hybridisation deprived humans of their senses and orientation. The only way out of this condition is by claiming the memories of oneself and one’s community from the past. In this collective cultural memory, Qazaqs have always been in contact with nature. Being or becoming a Qazaq requires one to recognise the role of nature in the making of culture. Collecting scattered knowledge about Qazaqness, Taghan constructs a way of life that accentuates the mutual and interconnected existence between human and non-human worlds. In the absence of ancestors who would show the path, horses are portrayed to carry the ancestral memory in their genes. However, not every horse can play this role. For example, tired with Yerik’s treatment of him as a ‘slave’, Taghan wants to be like an arghymaq (stallion), but in his addicted condition he is nothing more than a draught horse (eńbek aty).60 Taghan’s inability to identify himself with the arghymaq signals the loss of knowledge that would allow the establishment of such a relation. For the narrator, Taghan is an arghymaq who can become one – if treated accordingly. Taghan’s dignity is restored through old man Shal who

The bee-human  213 treats him as deserving of the treatment of the descendant of aqyns (poets), thus ‘a superior breed’ (tekti adam). However, as Taghan’s lost and alienated condition testifies, regardless of the subversive nature of the hybrid culture, Taghan is no way able to exercise his agency in a Soviet context. Any attempt to claim his autonomy is punished: he is either sent to the medical facility under false claims or imprisoned or his life is threatened by the KGB. In other words, hybridity in the colonial context foregrounds the coloniser’s agency, and Bökei’s portrayal of Taghan reveals the impossibility for an indigenous man to be the one to define the content of the hybrid culture unless it disavows that culture totally in order to reconstruct a new one. Reverse hybridisation: a seed of subversion? Although interethnic marriages were common among Qazaqs, at least among intellectuals (mainly between Qazaq men and Tatar women) during the preSoviet decades, it is during Soviet times that interethnic marriages gained political significance. From the mid-1930s, the Soviet state celebrated mixed marriages as a proof of the unbreakable ‘friendship of nations’ and as a sign of the imminent appearance of a ‘Soviet people’. From the 1960s, publications consistently touted mixed marriages as a proof of the success of Soviet nationality policy and as a harbinger of the consolidation of an overarching Soviet identity.61 The progressive role of interracial marriage unions was particularly stressed between Central Asian Muslims and Europeans (Russians and other non-Asians such as Ukrainians and Latvians) as an important force for ‘modernising’ Central Asia and bringing this historically ‘backward’ region into the Soviet mainstream.62 The theme of interethnic marriages was one of the defining features of the Socialist Realist novels of the 1930s. In these novels, along with the Russian woman who is usually portrayed as an object of love for the protagonist, the Russian man had to be the model of imitation for a Qazaq man. In contrast to such portrayals, Bökei’s novel reverses the roles. His character, Niura Fadeevna, intervenes as a hybrid, unplanned and not envisioned by the Soviet state, only to reverse this process. Nürke kempir, who once was known as Niura Fadeevna, comes from the community of Russian Old Believers known in the Altai as kerjaq people and marries a Qazaq man, Qandauyr. Nürke kempir recalls that it was the tsar who sent them to settle the Altai.63 Her daughter-in-law is astonished to see a Russian woman who seems Qazaq ‘if it was not for her Russian face, and who never uttered a single word in Russian’ since Aina became a daughter-in-law of the family’ [Türińiz bolmasa, sizdi orystyń qyzy deuge kisiniń sengisi kelmeidi. Men osy üige kelin bolyp tüskennen bastap, öz tilińizde lám dep söilegenińizdi estigen emespin].64 Nürke kempir prays five times a day, and always adds her ‘Allah’ and ‘Bismillah’ blessings to her everyday words. She learnt about Islam from her father-in-law, whereas her husband Qandauyr was an atheist who died at the front during the Second World War. At the same time, for Aina, Nürke

214  Laura Berdikhojayeva kempir does not belong to any nation; she belongs to the nation of mothers: ‘Siz…apa…siz orys ta, qazaq ta emessiz…siz basqa bir ūltsyz…ol ūlttyń aty aiyauly ANA’ [‘You, apa, you are neither Russian nor Qazaq….You belong to a completely different nation…this nation is called dear MOTHER’].65 Rather than playing a modern civilising role, Nürke kempir has become ‘traditional’ in the Soviet sense. For someone who meets Nürke kempir for the first time, such a depiction of a Russian woman is ironic and calls for a hysterical laugh like that of Taghan’s: ‘Hi-hi-hi, orys namaz oqidy’ [‘Hi-hi-hi, a Russian in Muslim prayer’].66 Nürke kempir is assigned the role of a preserver of culture, of cultural and historical memory of Qazaqs. She is depicted as a source of ancestral knowledge, the only person who knows Taghan’s ancestral lineage or shejire. Upon seeing Taghan in his current condition, she feels pity that a descendant of a tekti (highbred, aristocratic blood) family is wasting his life and the talents that came with his blood. She feels a debt to Taghan’s parents who saved her life numerous times, thus undertaking to heal Taghan from alcoholism. Besides being a preserver of cultural memory, she is the only remaining witness for the calamities that befell Qazaq people in the twentieth century. There is a chain of horrific and tragic events that shaped the atmosphere of the century and Nürke kempir’s life; thoughts of these still disturb her sleep.67 It is during the hunger years which followed collectivisation, especially the year of 1932, that life turned into a nightmare. She especially cannot forget the faces of ‘children, men and women, old women and men who were GRAZING on the grass of the green jailau like animals’ [Ásirese jailaudyń jap-jasyl shalghynyna malsha JAIYLGHAN bala-shagha, áiel-erkek, kempir - shaldardyń sol kespiri men ūsqyny kündiz esinen, tünde tüsinen shyqpaidy].68 The hunger years were followed by the Stalinist Great Purges during which her husband would be imprisoned and exiled, and later by the Second World War, which again took away the lives of many men, including her husband’s. Although Nürke kempir could survive only because she was rescued and supported by Taghan’s mother, Analyq (which literally means Motherhood, and always comes in capital letters) and father, Köken, the account on some level specifies her outside position to the tragic events that befell Qazaqs.69 Here, Bökei seems to be intending three narrative goals. First, by allowing the Russian woman to tell a story of the Qazaq tragedy, he uses the Soviet state’s mechanism of knowledge production against itself. As the case of his fictional historian Taghan exemplifies, Soviet power accepts the knowledge as credible and non-punishable if articulated by a Russian. However, Nürke kempir’s words can be trusted by Qazaq readers as those of a senior woman. Second, by amplifying Nürke kempir’s presence, Bökei emphasises the absence of Analyq, who could represent the mother culture, and her silence. Third, he connects the possibility for Nürke kempir to outlive every other Qazaq and to survive with her privilege of being Russian. The reason for such a claim is built upon the narrator’s reminder of Nürke kempir’s Russian background every now and then, and creating more ambiguity in her narrative role. The readers

The bee-human  215 find clarity towards the end of the story, which is also the end of Nürke ­kempir’s life, as she starts to become the Russian Niura Fadeevna again. On her deathbed, Nürke kempir starts speaking Russian, crossing herself and ­conversing with her own ancestors.70 To make things even clearer, Aina finds an icon well hidden inside the sandyq, a chest Qazaqs keep locked with for their valuables. In Taghan’s eyes, Nürke kempir instantly turns into Niura Fadeevna. Her Russianness did not go away anywhere; it was there all along, operating underneath, well kept behind the sandyq, but rendered neutral or invisible in the same way Soviet power neutralised its Russian-centred politics. However, unlike the Soviet state power, Nürke kempir gains the narrator’s admiration and appreciation for undermining the dominant Soviet politics. She plays a key role in Taghan’s journey to regain his health as well as his ancestral memory. A racial hybrid as a threat to the nation? Taghan’s antithesis, and the anti-hero of the novel, Yerik symbolises the s­uccess of the Soviet colonial ideology. Born from a Russian mother and a Qazaq father, his visible racial and ethnic hybridity acts as a barometer of power imbalances. His mixed physical features attract a lot of women. His wife Aina was also attracted because of his handsome appearance: ‘he was a brunette, shapely, and most of all his eyes - his European green eyes that are uncommonly located on his Asian face and black curly hair’.71 His mixed identity is portrayed to possess certain unexplainable and unconscious privileges that one can see he has access to. Aina comes to realise his half-Russian identity only after meeting his mother. Bökei seems to describe this as an extraordinary case as Nürke kempir, being herself of Russian origin, raised Yerik to speak Qazaq as his mother tongue. When Bökei published his novel, Qazaqs were a minority in the republic and the majority of Qazaqs could not speak Qazaq: it must have been a painful topic for Bökei. He seems to imply that hybridity is something unavoidable, and that the opportunities and dangers lie in the ends to which it is used. Yerik’s Russian identity definitely gives him a privileged position within the Soviet establishment as the type of person the state wants to make. The ends that Yerik chooses to make use of his hybridity do not seem to challenge the power dynamics in which he exists. Rather, Yerik selfishly makes use of his privileges, for example, having goods such as hybrid bees from America, delivered from the city by helicopter. The other danger in Yerik, according to Bökei, is his disregard for tradition and misuse of culturally significant objects. For example, he inherits from his father a qorzhyn,72 a woven bag used by nomads on the move. Yerik however uses it to carry honey, beer, and vodka, all of which are associated with Russian culture. Appropriating significant cultural objects for practices that deny their importance, Yerik’s hybridity is threatening to the idea of national culture. Above all, what is threatening about Yerik is his belief that claims power over nature, similar to the idea of a Soviet person assuming control over nature. Yerik adopts Africanised hybrid bees to produce more honey. For the

216  Laura Berdikhojayeva author, the danger of hybrid characters like Yerik does not seem to be linked to their biological hybridity, but what matters is the end to which their hybridity is put. Yerik’s greed and his heartlessness dominate everything that he is surrounded with; even his relationship towards his own mother seems to signal that he failed to learn from bee cultivation. For the author, Yerik seems unable to establish a beneficial dialogue with the non-human world, not even learning from his bee cultivation, as we will see below. An alternative existence: the anti-colonial path ‘in harmony with nature’? By analysing the portrayal of Taghan, Yerik, and Nürke kempir in previous s­ ections, I attempted to show the making of a diversity of hybrid characters in the Qazaq context of the novel. Bökei finds an alternative path in returning to the structures of identification and of relations that once played an important role to Qazaq experience of oneself and the other. Unlike the Soviet conception of Qazaqness as backward, and human mastery above nature, a new identity, as Bökei suggests, can be based on the Qazaq way of life, in harmony with nature. As Bökei explains, in Qazaq understanding, nature is a source of creation which is referred to as Tabighat Ie73 or Tabighat jaratqan,74 and nature is a Mother referred to as Tabighat-Ana.75 We are told: Nature never discloses her own secrets…However, if you disclose it, it is another disaster. The reason why it is a disaster - Mother-nature loses its honor and authority, therefore she will be angry. Let’s say that now the number of natural disasters have increased, who knows what end is waiting for us; there has to be a reason for such a rage?! Of course, she is angry.76 Underlying Bökei’s understanding of nature is the belief that nature has a spirit, and a capacity to punish. Thus, Bökei introduces the Qazaq belief in the spirit (ie or kie)77 of natural beings that we encounter in Qazaq mythology and oral literature.78 Bökei’s alternative path to making a national identity is represented with the Shal (old man), a hunter who lives in the mountains. Shal does not have any name; he is just like any old Qazaq man who could play the role of the aqsaqal (white beard), an elder who guides the community. Meeting with Shal, Taghan finally has a conversation with somebody who understands his pain: his soliloquies finally turn into a dialogue. By bringing Shal into the picture, Bökei seems to suggest a way to restore the lost patrilinear transmission of culture. The distant past of Qazaq people turns into a radiant past. It is not ‘backward’ as Soviet historiography wants Qazaqs to believe. Near Shal’s dwelling is a jailau (summer pasture) where people breed horses, and provide the nearby sovkhozes (state farms) with qymyz (fermented horse milk).79

The bee-human  217 In  this vast expanse, Bökei describes ‘these horsemen leading peaceful life, without breaking the continuity of their ancient ancestors, completely unaware of nuclear bombs and cold war aggressions that threaten humanity’s existence. They appear to be the only remaining protectors of this serene area’.80 The narrator seems to be aware of his own romanticisation, since soon enough he realises that this perceived peaceful world cannot exist in isolation from the rest of the world.81 Taghan and Shal share the concern about the future of their nation. Shal, a war veteran, a traumatised former Soviet man, adopts two children from the orphanage. He names them Qozy Körpesh and Bayan Sūlu after the hero and heroine of a Qazaq love epic poem. In Shal’s traditional Qazaq lifestyle, culture and nature do not work against each other, but shape each other. This dynamic is manifested in the relationships with horses, dogs, and insects. In Shal’s universe, there is communication and giving between humans and animals. When he says ‘moq-moq’, his horse approaches him, and he invites his dog with ‘ka-ka’.82 Unlike Yerik who refused to share a seat on his horse, Shal offers Taghan a ride. Through such treatment, Taghan regains his humanity back. Unlike Yerik who sees bees only as a monetary resource, for Shal and his disciple Taghan, bees offer a model for a society which keeps intact its own cultural values, lifestyle, and worldview. In the words of the narrator: The bee-world is a world of ideal social organization. They are nature’s creation, and no matter how human beings think of themselves as having the reasoning skills and consciousness, bee dedication to keep their order unchanged is going to remain mysterious to humans: they do not allow any change in the way they live, how they reproduce, and to their ‘construction-composition’, do not break any of the organizing principles of their society, and keep up with that for centuries. There is much to learn for humans from the world of bees who kept their ancestral action (qimyl-áreket), thinking-reasoning, customs and traditions in one direction.83 The inner world and labour organisation of the bees were not affected by ­anything. Only the outer form of their hives was civilised, residing in the wooden hives. Although they are hybrids, the inner domain of their society preserved its cultural foundations.84 For the author, the bee community’s culture offers a model of social organisation. Qazaq society, that Taghan is a member of, needs to learn from the bee society that kept intact its inner structure. Only by recognising the possibility of the hybrid existence between humans and non-humans and acknowledging the omnipresence of nature, Qazaqs can claim an alternative path for their existence, becoming an Araadam (bee-human). Having hesitated between going back to the city and joining Shal, Taghan finally decides to stay and teach Shal’s children history, thus making use of his Soviet education. Taghan wants to support Shal in his purpose ‘to bring up the

218  Laura Berdikhojayeva generation of pure and proud Qazaqs who are free from the impacts of nuclear disaster, polluted air, from alcohol and from the enmity of the society’ [‘Men qazaqtyń atom apatynan da, bülingen auadan da; ishimdik pen aiyaqtan shalar aghaiyn alauyzdyghynan da ada, taza da tákappar ūrpaghyn tárbieleimin’].85 Thus, he obtains ‘citizenship’ in Shal’s country. His initial apprehension later turns into an opportunity. In his last monologue, the readers are led to believe that Taghan has fully recovered from alcoholism. Here, he equates his becoming an alcoholic with other occurrences in society such as disliking one’s own language, or ­trading with customs and traditions learnt from Qazaq elders (Ishimdikke salynu, ana tilinen jerinu, dástür men saltty saudalau da solai).86 Taghan turns into a model of a liberated Qazaq for younger generations. Conclusion Describing the Indian Chipko forest protection movement of the 1970s, Ramachandra Guha writes that ‘the ecological crisis in Himalaya is not an isolated event [but] has its roots in the [modern] materialistic civilization [that] makes man the butcher of Earth’.87 The ecological crisis that Qazaqstan faced in the course of the twentieth century has its roots in a broader modern world order that cannot be studied in isolation from the history of colonialism. In this chapter, I analysed Oralkhan Bökei’s novel Atau-Kere or Dangerous Hybrid, drawing on concepts of hybridity in postcolonial studies. I argued that there are parallels between Bökei’s portrayal of differently situated hybrid characters in the process of making a Qazaq Soviet human, and colonial subjectivities, as described by Homi Bhabha. By creating characters who manifest the effects of Soviet colonial politics in the Altai, he charts how Qazaq society lost touch with its own nature and its environment. Depending on the location, hybridity can take many different forms. Taghan, as one of its faces, captures the tortures and sufferings of the Soviet colonial man: no matter how hard he tried to assimilate and become a Russian, he is ultimately denied human dignity, as his national and racial otherness continue to be viewed as a threat to the regime. Nürke kempir is another face of Soviet hybridity, but one who reversed the expectation of the Soviet state. As a Russian woman married to a Qazaq man, she was expected to play a progressive role in her husband and family’s life by bringing Russian culture. Instead, she lived as a traditional Qazaq, though as the end of the novel suggests, one can never rub out one’s own original culture from oneself. Nevertheless, Nürke kempir’s care and memory preservation are the key for Taghan to restore his sense of self. Yerik, in his turn, is an entirely negative hybrid. True to Soviet ideals, he assumes a role as the master of nature, interpreting this as a materialistic and exploitative approach towards others, both humans and non-humans.88 Bökei himself was called the Būgy-Adam (A Deer-Man) of Mūztau by Qazaq literati. He sees a path for Qazaqs’s restoration of themselves in a notion of identity that is supported by a close relationship between culture

The bee-human  219 and nature. His path is not the one yearning for the return of the past, rather the revival of the repressed memories of the past, which is here and now, for the benefits of the present condition of Qazaq identity. Being and becoming a pastoral nomad is one of the available options. For Bhabha, cultural negotiation is based on human culture (itself a central concept of Western and Soviet ­colonial discourse), whereas for Bökei, human culture is a part of nature: only by acknowledging positive interactions with the non-human world can humans live a better life. His characters believe in the kie (spirit) of nature, and they adopt models for being in this world from animals and insects. Qazaqs must learn, particularly from the tenacity and adaptation of bees, Bökei urges his readers. What Qazaqs need is to become an Ara-Adam (a ‘bee-human’), postcolonial Qazaq people. Notes 1 Mark L. Winston, Killer Bees: The Africanized Honey Bee in the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992). 2 Ibid., 7. 3 Oralkhan Bökei, Atau-Kere (Qauipti budan) (Nur-Sultan: Foliant, 2022), 69. 4 D. Gritsenko et al., “Genetic Investigation of Honeybee Populations in Kazakhstan,” bioRxiv, February 2023. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.02.08.527617; N.A. Kolesnikov, T.N. Kireeva, and O.L. Konusova, “Beekeeping of East Kazakhstan: Past and Present,” in Conceptual and Applied Aspects of Invertebrate Scientific Research and Biological Education: Materials of the IV International Conference, eds. V.N. Romanenko, Y.V. Maximova, R.T. Baghirov, and E.Y. Subbotina (Tomsk: Tomsk State University Publishing House, 2015), 260–264. 5 The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Qazaq Traditional Culture (Almaty: Sozdik-Slovar, 1997), 368. 6 R. Raqimbekova, and E. Áli, Oralkhan Bökei: Bibliographic Index (Astana: The National Academic Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan, 2013), 4. 7 Jeremy Smith, Red Nations: The Nationalities Experience in and after the USSR (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 217. 8 Ibid., 218. 9 Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), 235. 10 Áuelbek Qońyratbaev and Raqmanqūl Berdibai, Klassikalyq zertteuler. Fol’klor jane adebiet turaly zertteuler, Volume 16 (Almaty: Ádebiet álemi, 2013), 366; also: Diana Kudaibergenova, “‘Imagining community’ in Soviet Kazakhstan. An Historical Analysis of Narrative on Nationalism in Kazakh-Soviet Literature,” Nationalities Papers 41, no. 5 (2013): 839–854. 11 Kathleen Parthé, Russian Village Prose: The Radiant Past (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), x. 12 Ibid., 81. 13 Clark, Soviet Novel, 241. 14 Parthé, Russian Village Prose, xi. 15 Solzhenitsyn’s Matriyona’s Place (1963) exerted great influence not only on Village Prose writers but on the spread of hostile sentiments towards Qazaqstan, where he was in exile between 1950 and 1956. Although formed over years, his position on Russia’s future is articulated well in his essay “Rebuilding Russia” (“Kak nam obustroit’ Rossiu?”) which was published in 1990, the year when Atau-Kere was republished.

220  Laura Berdikhojayeva 16 Parthé, Russian Village Prose, 92. 17 Smith, Red Nations, 261. 18 Serik Qirabaev, Talantqa qūrmet. Zertteuler men maqalalar. [Respect to the Talented. Research and Articles] (Almaty: Jazushy, 1988), 177. 19 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2012). 20 Ibid., 97. 21 Ibid., 101. 22 Ania Loomba, Colonialism/postcolonialism (London: Routledge, 2002), 171. 23 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 124–125. 24 Ibid., 122. 25 Ibid., 122. 26 Ibid., 123. 27 Ibid., 55. 28 Ibid., 159. 29 Loomba, Colonialism/postcolonialism, 172. 30 Ella Shohat, “Notes on the ‘Post-Colonial’.” Social Text 31/32 (1992): 110. 31 Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014): 24. 32 Ibid., 7. 33 Ibid., 9. 34 Ibid., 102. 35 Smith, Red Nations, 112–113. 36 Sarah Cameron, The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018), 5; see also: Niccolò Pianciola, “Famine in the Steppe. The Collectivization of Agriculture and the Kazak Herdsmen 1928–1934,” Cahiers du Monde Russe 45, nos. 1–2 (2004): 137–192; Isabelle Ohayon, Sedentarizatsiia kazakhov pri Staline: Kollektivizatsiia i sotsial’nye izmeneniia (Almaty: Sanat, 2009); Robert Kindler, Stalin’s Nomads: Power and Famine in Kazakhstan (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018). 37 Cameron, The Hungry Steppe, 2. 38 Smith, Red Nations, 209. 39 Ibid., 189. 40 Zbigniew Wojnowski, “De-Stalinization and the Failure of Soviet Identity Building in Kazakhstan,” Journal of Contemporary History 52, no. 4 (2017): 999–1021. 41 Smith, Red Nations, 196. 42 Adrienne Edgar, Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples: Ethnic Mixing in Soviet Central Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2022), 5. https://doi. org/10.1515/9781501762956 43 The notion of nationality became racialised even though race was not a part of the people’s lexicon. 44 Smith, Red Nations, 221. 45 Bökei, Atau-Kere, 20. 46 Regional Dictionary of Qazaq Language (Almaty: Arys, 2005), 824. 47 Bökei, Atau-Kere, 20. 48 Ibid., 21. 49 Ibid., 50. 50 Ibid., 56. 51 Ibid., 161. 52 Ibid., 161. 53 Ibid., 198. 54 Yuriy Malikov, “The Kenesary Kasymov Rebellion (1837–1847): A National Liberation Movement or ‘a Protest of Restoration’?” Nationalities Papers 33, no. 4 (2005): 569–597.

The bee-human  221 55 Harun Yilmaz, “History Writing as Agitation and Propaganda: The Kazakh History Book of 1943”, Central Asian Survey 31, no. 4 (2012): 409–423. 56 Bökei, Atau-Kere, 197–198. 57 Ibid., 198. 58 In Qazaq: ‘Tabighat jaratqan alqam-salqam bolmaidy, ol- ámise ádemi, ámise süimeidi, ári shynshyl, ári aqyldy, sondyqtan da adamdar sekildi qatelespeidi. Tabighat - máńgilik tiri, ötirik aitpaudy, aldap-arbamaudy tabighattan üirenu kerek, öitkeni ONYŃ (tabighattyń) jüregi taza.’ Capitalisation in the original. Ibid., 170. 59 Ibid., 171. 60 Ibid., 188. 61 Edgar, Intermarriage and the Friendship of Peoples, 2–17. 62 Adrienne Edgar, “Marriage, Modernity, and the ‘friendship of nations’: Interethnic Intimacy in Post-War Central Asia in Comparative Perspective,” Central Asian Survey 26, no. 4 (2007): 581–599. 63 Bökei, Atau-Kere, 40. 64 Ibid., 39. 65 Ibid., 44. 66 Ibid., 79. 67 Ibid., 108. 68 Ibid., 112. 69 Ibid., 108. 70 Ibid., 216. 71 Ibid., 31. 72 Ibid., 6–7. 73 Ibid., 26. 74 Ibid., 170. 75 Ibid., 34. 76 In Qazaq: ‘Tabigat eshqashan da öz qūpiasyn ashpaidy... Alaida, tym-tym ashyp tastasań, taghy pále. Pále bolatyn sebebi - tabighat-ana abyroidan aiyrylady, sodan soń ashulanady. Aitalyq, qazir jer betinde tabighat apaty tym köbeiip ketti, tübi nege aparyp sogharyn kim bilsin; bekerden-beker möńkitindei ne körindi. Ashulanady ghoi jaryqtyq’. Ibid., 34–35. 77 Ibid., 178. 78 The brilliant Qazaq folklorist and mythologist Serikbol Qondybai delves deeper into this topic in his 16-volume collection: Serikbol Qondybai, Tolyq shygharmlar jinaghy (Almaty: Arys, 2008). 79 Bökei, Atau-Kere, 54. 80 Ibid., 55. 81 Ibid., 55. 82 Ibid., 167. 83 Ibid., 62. 84 Ibid., 64. 85 Ibid., 182. 86 Ibid., 191. 87 Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 179. 88 In this volume, see Moon’s chapter for more caring moments of Soviet notions of ‘mastery over nature’ and environmental policy, and Aitpaeva and Féaux on divided opinions and struggles around the role of ethno-national values and natural resource exploitation; see Aitpaeva and Féaux.

Part IV

Threats from nature

10 Climate disaster or anticipated crisis? Ways of knowing the environment in pre-Soviet Central Asia1 Jeanine Dağyeli Central Asian climate and environment were a problem, at least if one f­ollows the debates in colonial circles as well as their occasional reverberation among reform-minded, local intellectuals at the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. The arid region appeared to be a mismanaged landscape to colonial administrators, European explorers, and scientists, deforested and increasingly barren because of irresponsible land and water use by indigenous populations, endless destruction from wars, and fatalistic neglect.2 Moreover, Central Asia seemed to be suffering from an ever-drier climate and would in the course of time inevitably turn into a desert. In imperial Russian environmental discourse, Central Asia served as the looming backdrop of what might happen to similar steppe regions within the imperial heartland if no counter measures were taken. Central Asia was thought to have been better supplied with water in ancient times, and remained now – in this alarmist ­discourse – little more than a desert threatening the neighbouring steppe soils with drought, dust storms, and hot winds from the east.3 Blaming climate, some considered Central Asia ‘doomed’, and anticipated desiccation up to a complete desertification of the region. This inevitable destiny would turn all financial efforts to improve Turkestan’s economy a mere waste of money and resources.4 What unsettled those observers most was the expectation that the climate-induced desiccation would not stop at the borders of Russia’s newly acquired Central Asian dominions but would wreak havoc on agricultural lands in Russia proper. From the very beginning of ploughing up the PonticCaspian steppe, each failed harvest was perceived as an outcome of climate change allegedly caused by ruthless deforestation. In this narrative, the Central Asian drylands served as a deterrent example of what might become of the Russian steppe.5 To save it from a similar fate, the admonishers recommended tree planting to substitute purportedly destroyed forests and thus attract rain.6 After advocating ‘reforestation’ on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, the trope of a paradise lost of forests, fertile soils, and plentiful water was projected onto Central Asia. Archaeological discoveries of ancient cities and irrigation canals buried under desert sand or long fallen dry were understood as material verifications of the desiccation scenario.7 Only few contemporary scholars, among DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-15

226  Jeanine Dağyeli them the geologist Willi Rickmer Rickmers, were sceptical about this decline narrative.8 It either escaped the advocates of agricultural ‘improvement’ or did not fit their outlook that the main threat to the steppe soils did not derive from a drier climate or nomadic mismanagement, but from the radical makeover of the steppe from pasture to agricultural fields which resulted in wind and water erosion.9 Similarly, large infrastructural projects like railway and nautical construction initiated by the colonial government advanced sand drift because Saxaul trees and other ground cover were removed and used as convenient heating or building material.10 Although the exact ramifications of climatic changes during the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, especially those caused by the end of the Little Ice Age, are still debated, the effects of anthropogenic interventions are undisputed.11 Furthermore, by solely mulling over the potential menaces emanating from Central Asian steppes and deserts, large parts of other local ecosystems were ignored in this discussion. While oases with their long agricultural traditions would at least dot the omnipresent steppe as a picturesque eye soother, mountain regions, swamps, piedmonts, and riparian zones hardly figured prominently in the environmental imaginary.12 The perception of colonised environments as purportedly degraded was by no means particular to the Russian discourse but followed a familiar colonial trope, namely that putatively inapt or irresponsible local communities were unable to manage their environment properly which resulted in degradation and the ensuing ‘necessity’ for colonial powers to intervene.13 Obviously, this narrative provided a handy justification for different forms of violence exerted in the appropriation of land or the handling of resources. Thus, Nick Middleton argues that desertification became the first global environmental issue discussed within and among imperial regimes.14 Rooted in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European perceptions of ‘useful’ environments, this trope proved hard to vanquish and occasionally resurfaces in academic writings as well as development and policy approaches.15 More than 100 years later, we know that the worst-case scenario of a completely desiccated, inhabitable Central Asia has not come true, and where large-scale desertification did progress, as in the case of the Aral Sea, it is due to developmentalist, anthropogenic rather than climatic impacts or traditional land and water use schemes. The recent debates about the Anthropocene as a new, man-made geological era have spurred interest in climate as an agent of history. At the same time, it engendered a heated academic debate as to the informative value of climate data for social and political history as well as about the term Anthropocene itself, which some authors criticise as veiling ­racialised, exploitative relations by levelling all differences through the term of the unmarked ‘human’, the Anthropos.16 If our own contemporary climate change with all its impacts on livelihoods made researchers more sensitive towards the share past climates had in shaping human practices and historical events, this chapter asks about the relations of local populations with their climate and weather, especially their situated knowledge and what this meant

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  227 for resilience or vulnerability in the face of meteorological vagaries. It is meant as a first step towards a reconfiguration of past lifeworlds in Central Asia, and specifically in the former Emirate of Bukhara, by privileging the perspective of situated, rural knowledge and practice. For the predominantly agrarian and pastoral societies in the lowlands of the region who were dependent on sufficient water supply in an arid climate zone, weather in all its variability was of crucial importance; livelihoods and economic activities were fundamentally dependent on functioning water supply systems in most localities. Pastoralists were even more vulnerable in the face of weather-induced harm because herds, once severely diminished, take years to recover. This chapter seeks to put rural human agency centre stage by exploring the interface of local and colonial environmental knowledge regimes, and how this perspective may recalibrate our understanding of the exceptionality of environmental hazards. Historical sources from Central Asia at the turn from the nineteenth to the twentieth century refer relatively often to unfavourable weather but these observations do not easily translate into well-founded statements about climate change during the end of the Little Ice Age. The ways in which people experienced and then narrated weather events in historical sources pose challenges. They usually leave much space for interpretation as to what an author might have meant by talking about weather in terms like ‘extreme cold’, ‘hot winds’ or ‘sudden frost’. For many parts of the world, historical sources provide only discontinuous information, based on diaries, memoirs, the occasional casual note in a historiographical work or traveller’s account and, additionally for later periods, newspaper articles. As a rule, only exceptional weather is noticed, although some newspaper articles create the impression that the correspondent was desperate for news and meticulously took down even the most unspectacular weather.17 Often, historical sources are not able to cover a weather event completely, either for the lack of a macrolevel perspective that would complement the micro-level, because of the literate milieu usually being detached from the most affected rural environments, or because the significance of specific weather phenomena escaped the attention of the respective author. Aside from material considerations, an environment has also aesthetic and imaginary properties, and valuations or devaluations are shaped according to distinct preferences. The visible and sensational impressions lend themselves to interpretation. For both agriculturalists and pastoralists, knowing and categorising weather and environment was a necessity both for being in this world and for making sense of it. Sense-making of weather events, embodied knowledge and the handling of environmental damage were imbricated with cultural, social, and religious perceptions of how nature should be.18 This chapter is also meant as an intervention by positioning itself beyond the dualistic debate of pro and contra climate data in history writing. Focusing on how meteorological events and the natural environment were experienced and integrated locally, it weaves together the data we have on past climate and environment in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Central Asia,

228  Jeanine Dağyeli and local embodied knowledge, sources that are often ignored in scientific ­literature and habitually derided as superstition in colonial ethnography. An important aspect in this endeavour is to consider the historicity of the science data itself, especially in a colonial, hierarchical context such as in Central Asia. Far from being objective numbers derived from unbiased measurements, all data and the processes of its generation need to be taken into account. Now that ever more reliable scientific methods for measuring past climatic fluctuations enable new insights, novel contributions to historic changes, ­sudden large-scale migrations, and shifts in economic patterns have been made where climate-related data has been considered.19 Integrating meteorological data means much more than just adding data on climate and weather to knowledge already gathered from conventional historical sources. To assess scales of impact on human and animal populations or the vegetation, one needs to learn about the livelihoods of different living beings, their adaptability, promotive and detrimental conditions. This equips us with a more holistic assessment of past lifeworlds which were often built upon very immediate, sensory experiences of the elements. Weather and climate were not solely meteorological realities but tangent to human and non-human interdependencies across the mundane and supernatural. Rating a year’s weather as good or bad depended not least on the economic activities of the assessing individual and his or her previous experiences as well as cultural and religious views of how ‘proper’ weather and environments should be like. The degree to which weather, climate or other factors are to blame for disasters conventionally labelled ‘natural’ is difficult to pin down, and for Central Asia, we are just beginning to weave sources together. Most authors who talk about historical crop failures and famines are careful to treat climate only as one factor among others without privileging it over other factors. Mike Davis, for instance, made a very clear argument that the devastating famines that ravaged parts of India, China, Brazil, and East Africa between 1876 and 1900 were not primarily caused by weather phenomena, in his case the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. While this recurrent meteorological phenomenon caused the failure of harvests, it was due to poor or adverse administrative relief operations and occasionally even deliberate passiveness on part of the ruling colonial elites that millions of people died from starvation, epidemics, and harsh conditions in compulsory labour.20 Steven Serels equally stresses that Sudanese cattle herders were well adapted to dealing with an environment of nearly permanent crisis, and traditionally had developed various ways of coping with droughts. Only a combination of drought, colonial restrictions on pastoralist movement, plus the imported rinderpest disease on top finally led to the economic collapse and famine.21 While these and other authors integrated climate data of various provenance to argue their respective cases, others have been more sceptical about this implementation, fearing climate determinism, lopsided and over-simplified cause-effect argumentation as well as a neglect of political, economic, and cultural factors.

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  229 O’ Gráda, while agreeing that it takes a concomitance of crop failure, poor infrastructure, and other risk factors such as war to turn a drought into a ­famine, questions whether it is mainly the poor food allocation that is to blame.22 His macro-scale analysis leaves little space for local agency, though, and the exact shares of each destabilising factor are hard to assess on a general level. Roy adds an interesting dimension by allotting cultural values like communal obligations for charity (instead of demanding relief from the state) a more prominent role. In his argumentation, he seeks a middle path between putting the major blame on colonial rule because, as he argues, famines would have been more frequent then, and so-called natural causes.23 Again, for Central Asia, these aspects have not been looked at empirically so far. Le Roy Ladurie shows how unexceptional weather and meteorological events (rather than climate) may indeed influence paths of history, sometimes in gruesome ways, but equally that people in affected areas were often quite adept at dealing with meteorological circumstances and in longer perspective continued their affairs without major impairment.24 At the heart of the debate as to which degree (if at all) climate and climate changes predetermined human history lies the question of human agency and adaptability, and which space is allotted to non-human factors in shaping history and socio-cultural behaviour. The second important factor is scale. What might matter to an individual or a community in a year or a lifetime, and alter destinies in tragic ways might look like a minor impairment when regarding one or more centuries. Relational ways of experiencing the environment Large, continental semi-arid and arid landmasses like those of Central Asia are susceptible even to minimal environmental change. Various data derived from tree-rings, sediment and pollen analysis, and fluctuations of glacier thresholds and lake levels all point to a climate change in Central Asia starting around the mid-nineteenth century with warmer and dryer weather gradually replacing the hitherto predominant Little Ice Age. According to this data, Central Asian glaciers had reached their maximum extent by the late eighteenth century; for the first half of the nineteenth century, observers univocally confirmed gradual glacier retreat and loss of mass.25 People, however, experience weather, not ­climate. In retrospect, meteorological phenomena may be characterised according to certain scientific principles but this was not necessarily the way affected people thought of and made sense of them. Even if, for example, the series of unusually harsh winters with black frost followed by drought that hit East Bukhara in the 1880s were a result of climate change at the end of the Little Ice Age, they were experienced as successive disastrous weather, not as part of a larger, changing meteorological pattern.26 Most of the little attention that environmental issues and change during the nineteenth century receive relates to Russian Turkestan. In this chapter, rural populations of the Emirate of Bukhara will be the vantage point. During

230  Jeanine Dağyeli the period in question, the emirate consisted of provinces of contemporary Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and, to a lesser degree, Turkmenistan. It was a vassal state of the Russian Empire that had already conquered the neighbouring Khanate of Kokand between 1868 and 1876 as well as the former Bukharan province of Samarkand, including the strategically important headwaters of the Zarafshan River. The vassal status officially ceded all decision-making on ­external affairs to Russia but left the internal affairs on Bukharan terrain to the emir, although even this limited autonomy was in practice often undermined. The popular colonial environmental imaginary of the Emirate of Bukhara as consisting of oasis settlements huddled around water sources, while the rest of the territory was an empty, hostile desert traversed only by the occasional caravan and roamed by hardy but ruthless nomads found its native counterpart in the binary distinction of ‘the blossoming’ (obod) and ‘the waterless’ (be-obon), i.e. the steppe or desert.27 These expressions hardly veil their origin from Persianate, sedentary elite writing. What is hidden by this dualistic image, however, is the shifting nature of the obod and be-obon in an ecosystem so much dependent on irrigation. If neglected, obod places turn into be-obon within a very short time, while in many places new irrigation infrastructure makes the steppe obod. Lands that lay fallow not for soil recovery but due to neglect or because they had never been cultivated were labelled ‘dead’ (mavot), and bringing them (back) to life (ihya’ al-mavot) was perceived a great merit and resulted in certain property rights.28 These shifts did not only affect the land itself and the economic possibilities it promised for humans but also the fauna and flora around them. Drought was not an exceptional situation for Central Asians. A survey of narrative sources and documents, travellers’ accounts, newspaper articles, and books for extreme weather events during the half-century between 1867 and 1917 reveals at least eight noteworthy droughts, some of them lasting for years, and 14 extended and excessive cold winter seasons. Little to no rains during the dry season are normal and anticipated in arid Central Asia. There are fine-tuned semantic differences in local languages to distinguish different degrees of soil dryness. The one that results from a lack of atmospheric water is called quruqchiliq in Uzbek and khushkī in Tajik. Both terms designate a continuum between seasonal expectable weather which may or may not develop into a (mild) drought. Precipitation deficiency is explicitly called beboronī (lit. without rain) and leaves the soil parched, literally thirsty (atshon). While these terms were also applicable to drought caused by desiccated sandy soil or shifting sands, the latter were specifically called moving sand (regi ravon) and its effects zharoghan – sandy soil that cracked from drought, or qumlik (‘sandiness’, lands buried under sand). Only the word qaht and its derivatives qahot and iqhat denote severe, exceptional drought. These cognates imply failing rains that result in scarcity and famine. Beyond a pure description of a weather event, however, they also have religious undertones. The failing rain is understood to be withheld by God as a punishment for moral shortcomings of the

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  231 afflicted communities. Religious specialists would then need to be involved to prove communal repentance and ask for relief. The assessment of a year’s weather as drought was also contingent upon local expectations and economic practices. When, for example, the Zarafshan River whose water was used for irrigation showed an unusually low water line around the year 1860, the wheat harvest from irrigated fields in the wider Bukharan oasis failed. For the affected farmers, this was a bad drought year. The same region had seen enough rains during winter and spring, however, to make the grain harvest from rain-fed fields in the piedmonts of the oasis satisfactory, and farmers growing rain-fed wheat would have judged the year in much more favourable terms.29 The case of the large-scale exodus of Central Asian Arabs from the Emirate of Bukhara to Afghanistan shows that meteorological data may alert us to possible factors that usually remain outside of the horizon of documentary, narrative, and similar sources. Being estimated at some 50,000 people in 1820, visitors after 1873 found them to be few, and no longer the major sheep breeders of the region. In their oral accounts, Arab émigrés rationalised their migration by stressing that they did not want to live under the rule of infidels after the Russian conquest, and the subsequent annexation of their native Samarkand region in 1868. Thus, they had fled to the Afghan province of Qataghan and elsewhere.30 Combining this narration with sources on administration and weather captures a richer picture, however. The winter of 1870 was cold but without snow (the aforementioned black frost), and resulted in low water levels in the irrigation systems. The year 1871 was a drought year in the Emirate of Bukhara with famine, possibly a spin-off from the devastating drought that caused the great famine in Persia between 1870 and 1872.31 The following year’s harvest was also bad. The situation in the food market escalated after the Russian colonial administration introduced a new tax system with cash payment instead of in-kind which became effective in 1872. The whole undertaking was a complete fiasco and resulted in a flood of petitions, poverty, crime, and emigration – apparently also of most sheep breeding Arabs of whom very few remained in the Samarkand region after 1873.32 Those who continued in the steppe of Bukhara were severely hit by the extreme frost that lasted from the second half of December 1900 into April 1901. Next to a large-scale loss of animals, the cold also killed several young shepherds while in the steppe with their animals.33 These sad events show how imbricated natural and human-induced phenomena could lead to a spiral of rural exodus, pests, and famine. This was even more likely when detrimental weather was aggravated by locust plagues, food speculation, dysfunctional, destroyed irrigation infrastructure, and wildly inventive taxation. An integration of meteorological, narrative, documentary, and other data may also help to shed light on other disasters if we consider that weakened human and animal populations are more susceptible to sickness, and that often plant diseases point to previous specific weather phenomena that allowed certain pests to develop. In 1888, Bukhara saw an extraordinary increase in

232  Jeanine Dağyeli infestation with the Guinea worm (Dracunculus medinesis, or locally rishta). Although the nematode was endemic in Bukhara, benefitting from the system of public water supply through open reservoirs that were flushed only every other week during summer, the numbers in 1888 exceeded normal infestation rates by far, and the combination of rishta, food and water scarcity made people vulnerable to the cholera and influenza epidemic of 1888/1889 that ravaged the region.34 The drought of 1888 had forced city inhabitants to empty the water reservoirs to the ground where more of the worm larvae clustered. The winter of 1888/1889 had been cold with abundant snowfall in the mountains, and the spring of 1889 brought much rain, resulting in high levels of stagnant water in Bukhara by May. Because of this, initially the epidemic was thought to be an untimely onslaught of the annual malaria or typhoid fever. The morbidity was estimated at 50%, and some observers suspected a conjuncture of two or more pathogens early on.35 While an influenza-like pandemic rapidly spread across Russia and finally across the globe, there has been considerable hesitation as to whether the Bukharan case was really the origin of the disease or indeed connected to the pandemic at all.36 Making the environment better: scales, measures, and melioration The trope of an environment per se in need of improvement, whose alarming state is aggravated by indigenous mismanagement and unhygienic, diseaseprovoking behaviour, shines up in many colonial reports on Central Asia. Environmental imaginaries, often taken so much for granted, are very much shaped by cultural perceptions of how nature should look like, and which events are considered natural. The view of sand, for example, was not equally menacing for all observers. When the Tatar student Galimjan Barudi travelled to Bukhara in 1875 to pursue his studies, he perceived the sandy environments he traversed between Katta Qurghan and Bukhara in quite a different way from the hostile, barren image evoked by Europeans. He recalled instead ‘an idyllic journey, a soft sand landscape bordered with mulberry trees on both sides, or else with gardens and running water’.37 The British traveller Annette Meakin was among the few foreign travellers who did not only see mismanagement, but admired local achievements in artificial irrigation whose grid of channels suffused the cultivated areas and caused her to state that ‘there is nothing more remarkable in the whole of Turkestan than its wonderful system of canals’.38 Much in line with European (and ultimately ancient Greek) perceptions of how the climate shaped the human, ‘national’ character, Franz von Schwarz, otherwise a rather unsympathetic observer, even found the Central Asian climate healthy because of its excessive aridity, ‘as can be gleaned from the florid looks and the relative longevity of the natives’.39 If the environmental imaginary depends on the individual observer with his or her cultural background, meteorological data can be helpful to even narrative biases in sources, order observations, and distinguish the exceptional from

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  233 the recurrent. First explorations into Paleoclimatology, the ­reconstruction of past climatic patterns and weather variability prior to the period of instrumental measuring date back to the early twentieth century.40 The climate period between the fifteenth/sixteenth century and the 1850s which tended to be cooler and more humid has been called Little Ice Age and was postulated for the entire northern hemisphere.41 This theory became heavily contested, first for its generalisations, and second for the static impression it evoked.42 Both the Little Ice Age and its successor period are by now understood as processes, including slightly differing temporalities for different parts of the northern hemisphere. For Central Asia, the end of the Little Ice Age has been set at around the 1850s to 1900s.43 Shorter periodic climate oscillations besides this general climate pattern have been attested for Central Asia by Machatschek who sees a cumulation of dryer and hotter years during the last decades of the nineteenth century.44 The problem with these assessments is that in comparison with other regions, especially Europe, Central Asia‘s past climate is relatively poorly researched, and beyond that, data generation relies on a narrow basis with ‘most studies rely[ing] on essentially the same data sets and hence are potentially sensitive to observational biases and time-series inconsistencies’.45 Weather stations which carried out series of scientific measurements opened in 1877 (Tashkent), 1879 (Alma Ata) and 1886 (Naryn) on the initiative of the Russian Academy of Sciences.46 Franz von Schwarz, astronomer of the observatory in Tashkent between 1874 and 1890, mentions that upon the instigation of the governor-general of Russian Turkestan von Kaufmann, 27 meteorological stations had been established in Turkestan between 1876 and 1882. Their number was reduced to only half under his disinterested successors and he, Schwarz, had to fight hard for their preservation.47 Ultimately, the meteorological project came to nothing. Schwarz had to leave Turkestan in 1890 after numerous affronts from his superior General Stanislav I. Zhilinskiĭ, a geodesist who had served in Turkestan for more than 30 years. An adherent of the desertification scenario, Schwarz saw no future for Central Asia. He ascribed the progressively dryer and hotter climate to an unpropitious ratio of precipitation to evaporation which would eventually lead to a complete desertification of the area.48 Although we might find his assumption exaggerated and even hilarious today, his and similar prognosis were in vogue during his time.49 Progressive desertification due to frequent drought and sand reclaiming previously cultivated lands (qumliq) was recognised as a problem by contemporaries, even those who were not adherents of the desertification hypothesis.50 Schwarz was not the only one to measure temperature, air pressure, humidity, and wind intensity in Central Asia. The geologists Alexander Lehmann and Willi Rickmer Rickmers, the orientalist Nikolaĭ Vladimirovich Khanykov, and others included meteorological data in their respective books.51 There has been no attempt to compare, calibrate, and make systematic use of these data so far, an enterprise which would also go beyond the scope of this chapter.

234  Jeanine Dağyeli One of the most poignant impressions for contemporaries was the ­ice-sheet dynamics in the major mountain systems of Central Asia, although their observations were contradictory. Overall, there was an understanding that the climate was getting dryer but opinions diverged as to the cause-and-effect relations. The geologist Ivan Mushketov who observed water dynamics in Central Asia for several years, and compared his findings with maps from an 1842 expedition, noted in 1877 and 1879 that water became increasingly scarce in the transition zone of the Zarafshan range and the Kyzylkum steppe. He ascribed this gradational aridness to annual glacier growth.52 Other colleagues argued for the very reverse: a climate warming would lead to glacial recession and consequently a temporary rise in Central Asian lake levels. The Russian explorers Lev S. Berg and Alexeĭ P. Fedchenko commented upon the correlation of rising lake levels with glacial recession.53 Berg explicitly noted that the rise of lake levels must have begun already more than 20 years ago, i.e. at some time before 1880. Dendrochronological data confirms a climate warming during the nineteenth century.54 The tree-ring data also supports the hypothesis of weather extremes during the period under observation: out of 25 supra-regional pointer years in the time span between CE 618 and 2000, nine occurred between 1790 and 1917.55 Glacial recession short term resulted in a rise of water levels in lakes and rivers but meant a threat to the livelihoods of people depending on their water in medium or longer terms. The putative threat of desiccation and a general dislike that colonial personnel had for the Central Asian environments called for melioration measurements. Fostered by the belief that forests were the quasi ‘natural’ shape of any landscape, including the steppe, and that only trees would be able to attract rain, break the wind, and reduce the vulnerability of ploughed up steppe soils to wind and water erosion, experiments with anthropogenic forest belts started in the nineteenth century. Apart from native species, New World species like Osage Orange (Muclura pomifera) or Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia), and Asian species like Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) were chosen. They were drought- and cold-resistant, and had the capacity to act as windbreaks or stabilise disturbed soils. Maclura pomifera was introduced to Yalta in 1833, and used as windbreak on the Russian steppe.56 Later, it was widely planted in the Russian parts of towns of post-conquest Central Asia.57 In a melioration project between 1897 and 1901, Robinia pseudoacacia and Ailanthus altissima were also introduced to the Zarafshan range and the Ferghana Valley on hillside agricultural lands to stabilise the soil after mudslides. The project had prominent support from the head of the Department of Agriculture and Real Estate, Stanislav Iu. Rauner, and the governor of the Ferghana and Syr-Darya province, Nikolai I. Korol’kov.58 Many of the new plantations would not survive long because of alkaline soils and cutting for firewood. The unflinching, continuous effort to ‘meliorate’ the steppe by planting trees where none had grown before and where they did not fare well mirrors the Slavic and German settlers’ aesthetics of an ideal landscape, shaped by their own origin in forested territories.

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  235 This contrasted sharply with the preference of pastoral communities for open landscapes which they both adapted to and crafted actively through recurrent grazing of their animals, and periodic burning of the vegetation to stimulate the growth of fresh grass and prevent shrubs or trees.59 The anticipated crisis Far from planting trees to putatively stabilise the weather, people living and working in the arid regions of Central Asia had long adjusted to a climate of recurrent drought. Less of a sudden, unexpected catastrophe befalling humans, livestock, and crops, drought was always looming, if not this year, then in the near future. People lived and coped with a constant, anticipated, potential crisis. Making use of numerous practices across the socio-cosmic field,60 rural populations were by no means ignorant and helpless in the face of extreme weather events. Besides rituals directed at the supernatural like rain prayers, sacrifices or processions, much local knowledge was based on environmental observation. This knowledge was often devalued in colonial sources. Communities possessed, however, localised ways of reading phenological signs. They were able to draw conclusions from previous seasons and adapt their annual production cycle accordingly. One body of weather knowledge came from divination, and a symbolic reading of the scripture. The other one was rooted in practice, and in the intimate acquaintance with the non-human world.61 When snowfalls failed in the Alai Mountains and the Ferghana Valley in December 1905, farmers worried about the water supply for next spring. Some experienced elders explained to a Russian correspondent of the newspaper Turkestanskie Vedomosti that people would sow only half of their land if snows also failed in January and February. Otherwise, the water for irrigation would not suffice in the dry season.62 Their statement points to a certain recurrence of failing winter snows, local experience with, and habituation to such weather events. Sowing only half of the land prevented the waste of seeds when a harvest on the complete acreage was unlikely. Withheld seeds could furthermore serve as an emergency reserve in case of food insecurity. Much of the knowledge that came down to us was recorded in ways that make them look normative and static where there was probably much more practical variability. A western wind in the Zarafshan Mountains was claimed to herald spring rain in March, while cloud banks on the southern horizon announced April rains. The annual hot western wind (garmsil) was preceded by fog in May and June in the upper mountain ranges. If the heat was carried to the mountain tops, local inhabitants would expect flooding and mudslides because the snow thawed under the ascending hot air.63 The first arrival of storks in the year was considered not merely a forecast of imminent spring but also a herald of stormy, rainy days, a prediction that naturalist Alexander Lehmann considered to be true.64 Observations of other birds were used as well to make weather predictions. The return of the European Roller in spring

236  Jeanine Dağyeli was taken as a signal for the end of morning frosts, and indicated that vines buried for protection during winter could be safely unearthed, while the arrival of siskin and hoopoe announced the onset of spring, and the preparation for the coming agricultural season.65 Other beliefs were closer to weather lore. If the sky was cloudy during the last hours of the month of Saur (= Thaur; April 21–May 21), the winter was said to be prone to much snow and cold. If October came with cold and snow, the whole winter was likewise assumed to continue in that vein. Since this and similar knowledge was predominantly noted down as a curiosity, it lacks all of its social context which makes it difficult to assess how seriously it was taken and how meticulously observations would take place. A complex way of counting time and seasons used predominantly in areas of contemporary Tajikistan was called hisobi mard, a calendrical system modelled on the parts of the human body.66 It was a highly specialised way of calculating seasons that only few men commanded. Next to them, specialists called khisandon, literally calculators, were entrusted with weather forecast. They were often recruited from the ranks of mullahs or other learned men. Their equivalent among the nomadic Kazakh in the Emirate of Bukhara was called isypchi.67 These specialists guarded their expert knowledge as a secret and only passed it on to their male offspring.68 Besides weather forecast, the range of responsibilities of a khisandon comprised setting the dates of religious holidays based on the observation of the moon phases, and of determining the correct time for sowing various grain types.69 Similar meteorological knowledge circulated among Kyrgyz pastoralists as can be gleaned from a poem by Togolok Moldo:70 The winter’s heart – that’s forty days // When cold will rule night and day. // There’ll be flurries of snow and mist // The land will wane and disappear. // There’ll be hardships in wintertime // During the winter’s chilliest time. // Cattle and men will bear the brunt of it, // It will be hard indeed. // This stretch of time has forty companions71 // Through them the year comes to its end // During six days (their name is kırdach) // The cold will sweep along and rumble and rattle // Eating away the fat from men and beast // Ruining all things in its wrath. // Seven more days – Apkıt Sapkıt72 – // It’s still chilly winter. // The snow melts in piebald spots // Freezing again at night into solid ice. // And then in their footsteps will come // Adi’s six children // And Jedi’s seven sons.73 // Six, seven, then thirteen days, // The frost again steps up its strength // And when these thirteen days have passed, // Bowing down on the yurt, in comes Üt // And in the midst of it, in comes disease.// Üt itself lasts fifteen days, // No more, no less, quite exactly. // When intense cold descends upon all for good // When animals have no more fat, // The epizootic swoops down. // One slaughters the scraggy cattle // Hauls it away and throws it to the dogs.

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  237 // The careless owner will be left // With just a few breeders; // And once deprived of a mount to ride // He’ll use the saddle as a pillow.74 Stephanie Bunn praises this poem as an expression of the environmental ­ isdom of nomadic Kyrgyz who tried to be prepared for the dreaded jut.75 Jut w or yut designates a sudden freezing of the pasture after a short thaw resulting in an ice cover on the grass. Although animals would otherwise be able to find fodder beneath the snow, they cannot penetrate the ice. Jut is one of the most menacing weather events for pastoralists in Central and Inner Asia, threatening the life of animals and the existence of the entire herd.76 Bunn however misreads the word Üt, the Kyrgyz form of Hut (Hūt, the zodiac month of Pisces) as jut.77 Rather than a warning of an exceptional if irregularly recurrent winter disaster, the poem shows the knowledge of the writer (and probably of his compatriots) concerning the natural course of temperatures, weather, and human as well as animal conditions during winter as experienced in his mountainous homeland.78 The period of Üt/Hut tends to return severe frosts throughout the northern hemisphere. In the official zodiac calendar that was in use in Central Asia, Hut is fixed and lasts from February 20 to March 20. For local calculations of season and predictions of weather, its period was more flexible, though. In rural almanacs from the Pamir region, the period called Hut was ahead of the zodiac month by around two weeks.79 Togolok Moldo’s poem also demonstrates the relational character of Hut by allotting it only 15 instead of 28 days. It seems that the name of the month moved in local conception from signifying a fixed time period in a calendar system to a symbol of severe weather during the final winter period, and could thus within certain limits wander around the zodiac calendar to accommodate regional or zonal variances. For agriculturalists, Hut, even if accompanied by severe cold, was an important month during which first mundane and spiritual preparations for the coming cultivation season started. Specific taboos applied to Hut, and hospitality was suspended. Sanctions were imposed on those who disrespected the custom or were unaware of it. The ‘normal order’ of mutual visits and hospitality was only restored through a ritual of first-footing at the daybreak of the spring equinox, Nouruz.80 Equally, the numbers in the poem hold cultural significance. The most ­conspicuous among these is the number 40 as in the term chilla. Derived from the Persian word chil or chilhil (40), the term chilla when used for weather signifies both the hottest and coldest times of the year throughout Central Asia.81 The winter chilla is roughly set around December 25 and carries on until approximately February 1. Obviously, the 40 days of the chilla relate less to a concrete number of days but have to be taken as a relational concept as well. Seven is another numeral with a symbolic value.82 Similar to the seven days of Apkıt Sapkıt or ‘Jedi’s seven sons’, perceptions about seven-day periods of cold existed in other local, oral almanacs throughout Central Asia. Prominent

238  Jeanine Dağyeli among them were the days of Piri zan (literally, old woman), or Ajuz(ak), who symbolised the last cold days of winter that preceded the spring equinox.83 A poem performed during Hut rituals that was recorded in the 1950s among sedentary agriculturalists in the Garm region of Tajikistan refers to an ‘old woman’ (kampir) that is put into a chest in its refrain. This is most probably an allusion to Piri zan and the final, even if not eternal, overcoming of winter.84 Similarly, other seasons or weather would occasionally be embodied by anthropomorphic figures and enspirited as agents that could be negotiated with. Spiritual beings of translocal significance like the Islamic prophet Khizr, patron saint of husbandry, and local figures like embodiments of drought (Sust Khotin) and wind (Yalli Momo) were part of a natural-supernatural web of relations that needed to be sustained properly in order to secure supernatural and ultimately divine benison. The idea of mutual sustenance looms large in drought processions dedicated to Sust Khotin during which the scarce, valuable water was sprinkled around, and sweets were offered while songs asked for rain. Similar rituals took place to pacify Yalli Momo who was considered responsible for prolonged wind. These practices of weather magic belonged to a religious repertoire that included prayers to God, sacrifices and the employment of the ‘rain stone’ (yada) that was equally said to bring relief in cases of drought.85 Interestingly, the embodiments of adverse weather all seem to be old women (similar to the folk aetiology of many illnesses) which opens an entirely new set of questions as to the cultural age and gender bias in presocialist spiritual life in Central Asia. Conclusion The patchy picture that emerges when making Central Asia-related climate data and historical records speak to each other indeed suggests a change of climate during the nineteenth century with implications for water security, grazing capacity, and the cultivation cycle. In historical sources, the late 1870s to 1920s show up as a period of permanent rural crisis. Series of unusually hard winters that decimated animal stocks correlated with years of drought, aestival heat waves, torrential rains, and crop failure. These entailed follow-up damages like locust invasions, pests, and diseases, and added to scarcity or famine.86 Contemporaneous as well as later writings often attribute the crisis to poor human performance, either from the administrative, governmental side (both the local and the colonial), or from the side of the population that refuses certain measurements while not dealing with the environment properly. It would thus be misleading to see the origin of rural crisis in exceptional weather events only. The statement about human failure, however, also needs further examination as it sounds conspicuously close to conventional clichés about ignorant rural populations, and failed state care in pre-socialist Central Asia. In fact, primary sources sometimes do suggest local administrative efforts to alleviate the brunt of a failed harvest or other difficult circumstances. Similarly, they show that local populations were by no means ignorant of their environment and

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  239 its weather. They possessed a repertoire of knowledge across the ­socio-cosmic field that included practical work, observation, experience, calculation, divination, and ritual that helped to prepare for, and alleviate difficult circumstances. Meteorological knowledge was also asymmetric knowledge. Like other embodied, situated knowledge, it was spread unevenly among the population, forming a continuum from the everyday to expert knowledge. From the sources, it becomes quite apparent that only a combination of unfavourable weather and poor or even detrimental administrative response created crisis, while relief measures taken by the government or local persons in charge could prevent dire outcomes. The sources clearly demonstrate that there was no single cause-effect crisis initiated by weather or even by climate but a complex and well-established net of responses and interaction between various actors, including the non-human. Judging from the frequency of documented, late nineteenth-century rural discontent after drought, flooding or similar detrimental weather events, several possible scenarios seem plausible, and demand further investigation. Either established mechanisms seem to have gone awry by that time or were simply not adjusted to respond adequately to climate change at the end of the Little Ice Age. Or, expectations concerning effective state interventions that local populations had towards their own and the colonial administration had changed over time, possibly under the impression that established practices were not or no longer sufficient. Notes 1 I am very grateful to the editors and co-authors of this volume, as well as to the members of the research group ‘The Politics of Resources’ at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient for their insightful comments and critique of earlier drafts of this chapter. The research for this chapter was undertaken within this research group between 2014 and 2018. 2 Contemporary travellers’ accounts teem with this idea. See also Jennifer Keating, “Amid the Horrors of Nature: ‘Dead’ Environments at the Margins of the Russian Empire,” in Empty Spaces: Perspectives on Emptiness in Modern History, eds. Courtney J. Campbell et al. (London: University of London Press, 2019). 3 David Moon, The Plough That Broke the Steppes. Agriculture and Environment on Russia’s Grasslands, 1700–1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 91, 128, 144. 4 Most notably, Franz von Schwarz, Turkestan, die Wiege der indogermanischen Völker (Freiburg i.Br.: Herdersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1900), 584. See also Fritz Machatschek, Landeskunde von Russisch Turkestan (Stuttgart: Verlag von J. Engelhorns Nachf., 1921), 64–65 for a more balanced view. 5 There is an interesting argument which cannot be detailed in this chapter that the steppe might receive a positive recognition and a central place on the Russian cognitive map because of recent political ambitions to shift the national founding myth further away from the Kievan Rus, see Ekaterina Filep and Christine Bichsel, “Towards a Research Agenda on Steppe Imaginaries in Russian and the Soviet Union,” Geography, Environment, Sustainability 11, no. 3 (2018): 39. 6 The terminology of climate change was used by contemporaries who deplored a change for the worse. See Moon, The Plough that Broke the Steppes, esp. chapter 4. 7 A. Chaikovskii, Turkestan i ego reka po Biblii i Gerodotu (Po povodu Amu-Dar’inskogo voprosa) (Vladimir, Pechatnia A. Parkova, 1884).

240  Jeanine Dağyeli 8 Willi Rickmer Rickmers, The Duab of Turkestan. A Physiographic Sketch and Account of some Travels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913). 9 Heinrich von Ficker, Zur Meteorologie von Westturkestan (Vienna: Denkschriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1908), see also Moon, The Plough That Broke the Steppe, 23–24. Similar ideas about desertification and the environmental ‘decline’ already experienced in the Ottoman territories, the Middle East and North Africa were articulated in other European countries. Fear that a similar ‘fate’ awaited Europe if it did not stop deforestation pervaded academic thinking in the early nineteenth century. See Diana K. Davis, The Arid Lands. History, Power, Knowledge (Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 2016), 64–67. 10 See Jennifer Keating, On Arid Ground. Political Ecologies of Empire in Russian Central Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 39–40. 11 See E. Lioubimtseva, R. Cole, J.M. Adams, and G. Kapustin, “Impacts of Climate and Land-cover Changes in Arid Lands of Central Asia,” Journal of Arid Environments 62 (2005), as well as Alexander Chibilev and Sergei Levykin, “Virgin Lands Divided by an Ocean: The Fate of Grasslands in the Northern Hemisphere,” trans. and annot. David Moon, in From Exploitation to Sustainability? Global Perspectives on the History and Future of Resource Depletion, eds. Bernd Hermann and Christof Mauch (Halle: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina and Stuttgart: Wissenschaftliche Verlagsgesellschaft, 2013). 12 Compare Diana K. Davis, “Imperialism, Orientalism, and the Environment in the Middle East,” in Environmental Imaginaries of the Middle East and North Africa, eds. Diana K. Davis and Edmund Burke III (Athens: Ohio University Press), 1. 13 See for colonial North Africa Davis, The Arid Lands, and Davis, “Imperialism, Orientalism, and the Environment,” as well as her book Resurrecting the Granary of Rome: Environmental History and French Colonial Expansion in North Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2007). It may be an interesting note that the Russians followed French colonial politics in North Africa closely. See also Vandana Swami, “Environmental History and British Colonialism in India: A Prime Political Agenda,” The New Centennial Review 3, no. 3 (2003): 113–130, and Atul Arvind Joshi, Mahesh Sankaran and Jayashree Rathnam, “‘Foresting’ the Grassland: Historical Management Legacies in Forest-Grassland Mosaics in Southern India, and Lessons for the Conservation of Tropical, Grassy Biomes,” Biological Conservation 224 (2018): 144–152 for similar misconceptions in ­colonial South Asia. 14 Nick Middleton, Deserts: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 107, Swami, “Environmental History”. 15 See Lioubimtseva et al., “Impacts of Climate and Land-cover Changes,” 286, Joshi et al., “‘Foresting’ the Grassland”. 16 The number of contributions makes an overview increasingly difficult but the ­following works offer good introductions into the topic and an array of different strands of argumentation: Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Critical Inquiry 35, no. 2 (2009): 197–222; Michael Balter, “Archaeologists Say the ‘Anthropocene’ Is Here – But it Began Long Ago,” Science 340 (2013): 261–262; Noel Castree, “The Anthropocene and Geography I: The Back Story,” Geography Compass 8, no. 7 (2014): 436–449; Guido Visconti, “Anthropocene: Another Academic Invention?,” Rendiconti Lincei 25, no. 3 (2014): 381–392; Hannah Gibson and Sita Venkateswar, “Anthropological Engagement with the Anthropocene: A Critical Review,” Environment and Society: Advances in Research 6 (2015): 5–27; Donna Haraway, “Staying with the Trouble,” in Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism, ed. Jason W. Moore (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2016), 34–76; Jason W. Moore, “The Capitalocene, Part I: On the Nature and Origins of our Ecological Crisis,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 44, no. 3 (2017): 594–630; Giovanna Di Chiro, “Welcome to the White

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  241 (M)Anthropocene?,” in Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment, ed. Sherilyn MacGregor (London: Routledge, 2017), 487–505. 17 For example in a series of reports from the Ferghana Valley published in the newspaper Turkestanskie Vedomosti, no. 2 (1905): 7. The correspondent in the city of Andijon seemed to be quite bored with his place of work and recorded temperatures, precipitation and wind intensity of several days in a manner that ­suggests the need to produce news without having necessarily something newsworthy to tell. 18 This can be seen most pointedly when exceptional weather or other environmental events suggest that the ‘natural order’ has been disturbed and humans have morally failed. See Jeanine Dağyeli, “The Fight against Heaven-Sent Insects: Dealing with Locust Plagues in the Emirate of Bukhara,” Environment and History 26, no. 1 (2020): 92–93. 19 Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts. El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (London and New York: Verso, 2001); Richard Bulliet, Cotton, Climate, and Camels in Early Islamic Iran. A Moment in World History (New York, 2009); Sam White, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire. Studies in Environment and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Alan Mikhail, ed., Water on Sand. Environmental Histories of the Middle East and North Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); Nicola Di Cosmo, “The Ecology of Chinggis Khan – What Climate Science Can Tell Us About the Mongol Conquest,” Lecture held on 4 June, 2014 in the Academy of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation Berlin by invitation of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, accessed 10 December, 2022, http://www.lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung. de/the_ecology_of_chinggis_khan_what_climate_science_can_tell_us_about_the_ mongol_conquest?nav_id=5015 20 Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts. 21 Steven Serels, Starvation and the State. Famine, Slavery and Power in Sudan, 1883– 1956 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 22 Cormac O’ Gráda, “Making Famine History,” Journal of Economic Literature 45 (March 2007), 10. 23 Tirthankar Roy. “Were Indian Famines ‘Natural’ or ‘Manmade’?” LSE Economic History Working Papers 243 (2016): 4, 23. 24 For example, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Times of Feast, Times of Famine. A History of Climate since the Year 1000 (London: Doubleday, 1971); Eric Swyngedouw, “Depoliticised Environments and the Promises of the Anthropocene,” in International Handbook of Political Ecology, ed. Raymont L. Bryant (Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publ., 2015), 131–145; Moore, “The Capitalocene,” or Di Chiro, “Welcome.” 25 R.L. Berg, Po ozeram Sibiri i Srednei Azii. Puteshchestviia L.S. Berga (1898–1906 gg.) i P.G. Ignatova (1898–1902 gg.) (Moscow: Gos. Izdat. Geograficheskoi Literatury, 1955); Olga Solomina, Roger Barry, and Maria Bodnya, “The Retreat of Tien Shan Glaciers (Kyrgyzstan) Since the Little Ice Age Estimated from Aerial Photographs, Lichenometric and Historical Data,” Geografiska Annaler: Series A, Physical Geography 86, no. 2 (2004), 205–215; Olga N. Solomina, E.A. Dolgova, and O.E. Maksimova, Rekonstruktsiia gidrometeorologicheskikh uslovii poslednikh stoletii na severnom Kavkaze, v Krymu i na Tian’-Shane po dendrokhronologicheskim dannym (Moscow and St. Petersburg: Nestor Istoriia, 2012); Olga N. Solomina et al., “Glacier Fluctuations During the Past 2000 years,” Quaternary Science Reviews 149 (1 October 2016), 61–90’ Stanislav Kutuzov and Maria Shahgedanova, “Glacier Retreat and Climatic Variability in the Eastern Terskey-Alatoo, Inner Tien Shan Between the Middle of the 19th Century and Beginning of the 21st Century,” Global and Planetary Change 69, nos. 1–2 (October 2009), 59–70; Katy UngerShayasteh et al., “What Do We Know About Past Changes in the Water Cycle of Central Asian Headwaters? A Review,” Global and Planetary Change 110, Part

242  Jeanine Dağyeli A (November 2013), 4–25; Chiyuki Narama et al., “The Lake-level Changes in Central Asia During the Last 1000 Years Based on a Historical Map, Last accessed 10 December 2022, http://www.chikyu.ac.jp/ilipro/page/18-publication/ workshop-book/workshop-book_individual%20files/1–2_Narama.pdf 26 Black cold or black frost means a dry freeze without snow or hoarfrost which leaves the earth, trees, grass, and other plants more vulnerable to the cold and wind than if they were protected by a snow cover. Black frost results in internal freezing and successive death of the plants. The term is used verbatim in Central Asian languages, for example, as qara suıq in Kazakh or qorasovuq in Uzbek. 27 Both words are of Persian origin but were used in Chaghatay as well. 28 The term ‘dead land’ is an old legal definition far beyond Central Asia. See Yvon Linant de Bellefonds, “Ih.yā’,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 3, 1053– 1054 (Leiden and London: Brill, 1986); Anne-Marie Delcambre, “Mawāt,” in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., vol. 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 869–870; Baber Johanson, The Islamic Law on Land Tax and Rent (London: Croom Helm, 1988), 11–12; Ildikó Bellér-Hann, Community Matters in Xinjiang 1880–1949: Towards a Historical Anthropology of the Uyghur (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 106. 29 See Leonid N. Sobolev, Geograficheskie i statisticheskie svedeniĭa Zerafshanskom okruge (St. Petersburg: Tip. Imp. AN, 1874), 107. 30 Thomas J. Barfield. The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan. Pastoral Nomadism in Transition (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 7, 15. 31 See Xavier de Planhol, “Famines,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, online edition (2012). Available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/famines. Last accessed December 10, 2022 32 Barfield, The Central Asian Arabs, 15–16. 33 See Muh.ammad Sharīf-i S.adr-i Z. iyā, The Personal History of a Bukharan Intellectual, ed. Edward A. Allworth (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 184–185. 34 The exact nature of the epidemics that hit Bukhara is difficult to assess without further detailed study. Both Aini and Muh.ammad Sharīf-i S.adr-i Z. iyā call it vabo’ which was at their time used as a generic word for epidemic diseases, including cholera, pestilence, and influenza (Sadriddin Aynī, Yoddoshtho (Dushanbe: Adib, 1990, 146), Muh.ammad Sharīf-i S.adr-i Z. iyā, The Personal History, 135). 35 See Oscar Heyfelder, “Die Sommerepidemie in Buchara und die Influenza des Winters 1889/90,” Unsere Zeit. Deutsche Revue der Gegenwart 1 (1890): 187, and David Patterson, Pandemic Influenza 1700–1900. A Study in Historical Epidemiology (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986), 52. 36 See Patterson, Pandemic Influenza, 53–57. Recently, there have also been speculations that yet need scientific confirmation that this pandemic might have been caused by a coronavirus, and that there was a possible zoonotic origin, see Gina Kolata, “An Undiscovered Coronavirus? The Mystery of the ‘Russian Flu’,” New York Times, February 15, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/ health/russian-flu-coronavirus.html 37 Allen Frank, Bukhara and the Muslims of Russia. Sufism, Education, and the Paradox of Islamic Prestige (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012), 99. 38 Meakin, In Russian Turkestan, 12. 39 Schwarz, Turkestan, 529, my own translation. Schwarz continues upon this positive note on the following pages with rather negative impacts the Central Asian climate allegedly has on humans, especially Europeans. 40 See Le Roy Ladurie, Times of Feast, 7–22. 41 See, for example, Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate made History, 1300–1850 (New York: Basic Books, 2000), Jean M. Grove, The Little Ice Age (London: Taylor & Francis, 1988). 42 Michael Mann, “Little Ice Age,” in Encyclopedia of Global Environmental Change. Vol. 1, The Earth System: Physical and Chemical Dimensions of Global Environmental

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  243 Change, eds. Michael C. MacCracken and John S. Perry (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2002), 504–509. 43 Chen, Fahu et al., “Humid Little Ice Age in Arid Central Asia documented by Boston Lake, Xinjian, China,” Science in China Series D: Earth Sciences 49, no. 12 (2006): 1280–1290; Yanan Li et al., “Presumed Ice Age Glacial Extend in the Eastern Tian Shan, China,” Journal of Maps 12, no. 51 (2016): 71–78. 44 Machatschek, Landeskunde, 66–67. 45 Unger-Shayesteh et al., “What Do We Know,” 5. Part of their primary data is accessible from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (www. ­ noaa.gov). 46 Jürgen Böhner, Säkulare Klimaschwankungen und rezente Klimatrends Zentralund Hochasiens (Göttingen: Göttinger Geographische Abhandlungen, 1996), 11. 47 Schwarz, Turkestan, 552. 48 Schwarz, Turkestan, 578–582. Yuri Bregel (Bibliography of Islamic Central Asia. Vol. 3 [Bloomington: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, Indiana University, 1995], 1862–1865) lists a range of works that solely debated the Central Asian desertification scenario. Additionally, many contemporary works touched upon the topic more cursorily. 49 Machatschek, Landeskunde, 64–70 mentions some prominent adherents while ­disproving the desiccation theory on the basis of meteorological data. 50 N.N., “Qumliqdan mudāfaca,” Tarjumān 40, December 31, 1887, 2. 51 Karl Ernst von Baer and Gregor von Helmersen, eds. Alexander Lehmann‘s Reise nach Buchara und Samarkand in den Jahren 1841 und 1842, reprint of the 1852 edition (Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1969), 185–192, 293–296; Rickmers. The Duab of Turkestan, 488–498; Nikolai V. Khanykov, Opisanie Bukharskogo khanstva (St. Petersburg: Tip. Imp. AN, 1843), 38–47. 52 Ivan V. Mushketov, “Geologicheskaia ekspeditsiia na Zarafshanskii ledniki,” Izvestii I.R.G.O. 17, no. 2 (1880): 1–4. 53 Schwarz, Turkestan, 581, Berg, Po oziram, 262–279. Schwarz bases his argument on Mushketov’s and Dmitrii L. Ivanov’s expeditions but does not give a proper source. Ivan V. Mushketov’s “Puteshestvie v Alai i Pamir’ v 1877 godu,” Zapiski I.R.G.O. 39, no. 2 (1912): 1–99 or Mushketov, “Geologicheskaia ekspeditsiia” are likely candidates but none lends itself to Schwarz’s argument about glacial recession. 54 Jan Esper et al., “1300 Years of Climatic History for Western Central Asia Inferred from Tree-Rings,” The Holocene 12, no. 3 (2002): 267–277; Jan Esper et al., “Temperature-Sensitive Tien Shan Tree Ring Chronologies Show Multi-centennial Growth Trends,” Climate Dynamics 21, no. 7–8 (2003): 699–706. 55 Esper et al., “1300 years,” 275. 56 Natalia A. Martynova et al., “Introduction of Maclura Pomifera (RAF.) C.K. Schneid, Moraceae Link Families Under the Conditions of the Botanical Garden of the NRU ‘Belsu’ (Belgorod, Russia),” EurAsian Journal of BioSciences 13 (2019): 983; Barbara Sudnik-Wójcikowska et al., “Dynamics of the Flora of Windbreaks in the Agricultural Landscape of Steppes in Southern Ukraine,” Biodiversity: Research and Conservation 1–2 (2006): 79. 57 Maclura Pomifera still lines streets, for example, in the formerly Russian part of Samarkand. 58 See Vadim A. Lipin, “Raunery – u istokov lesnogo khoziaistva Rossii,” Izvestiia Sankt-Peterburgskoi lesotekhnicheskoi akademii 232 (2020): 268; Abdushukur A. Khanazarov et al., “Man-Made Green Monuments of Central Asia: Some Examples of Uzbekistan,” Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Forstwesen 154, no. 6 (2003), 226–228. 59 David Moon, “Planting Trees in Unsuitable Places. Steppe Forestry in the Russian Empire, 1696–1850,” in Eurasian Environments, ed. Nicholas Breyfogle

244  Jeanine Dağyeli (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2018), 41; Jennifer Keating, “‘There Are Few Plants, But They Are Growing, and Quickly’: Foliage and the Aesthetics of Landscape in Russian Central Asia, 1854–1914,” Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes 37, no. 2 (2017): 174–189. 60 See Roland Hardenberg, “Introduction: The Study of Socio-cosmic Fields,” in Approaching Ritual Economy. Socio-Cosmic Fields in Globalized Contexts, ed. Roland Hardenberg (Tübingen: University of Tübingen, 2017), 7–35. 61 Compare Carole Ferret (this volume). 62 Turkestanskie vedomosti no. 2 (January 1905). 63 Georgii A. Arandarenko, Dosugi v Turkestane, 1884–1889 (St. Petersburg: Tip. M.M. Stasiulevicha, 1889), 287–288. 64 Baer and Helmersen, Beiträge zur Kenntnis, 187. 65 Usta Dzhakhonov, “Zemledel’cheskii narodnyi kalendar’ i schet vremeni u Tadzhikov Sokha,” in Etnografiia Tadzhikistana, ed. Boris A. Litvinskii (Dushanbe: Donish, 1985), 89. See also Makhmadnaim R. Rakhimov, Zemledelie tadzhikov basseina r. Khingou v dorevoliutsionnyi period (Stalinabad: Izd. AN Tadzh. SSR, 1957), 163–165 for the interpretation of phenological signs in eastern Tajikistan. 66 Aleksei A. Bobrinskii, Gortsy verkhov‘ev Pĭandzha (Vakhantsy i Ishkashimtsy) (Moscow: no publisher, 1908), 98–102; Mikhail S. Andreev, Tadzhiki doliny Khuf (verkhov’ia Amu-Dar’i). Vol. 2 (Stalinabad: Izd. AN Tadzh. SSR, 1958), 135–156; Wolfgang Lentz, Zeitrechnung in Nuristan und im Pamir (Berlin: De Gruyter in Commission, 1939), 57–64; Dzhakhonov, “Zemledel’cheskii narodnyi kalendar’,” 87–88; Mahmudjon Sh. Kholov and Khursheda A. Kaiumova, Metrologiia i khronologiia vostochnoi Bukhary i zapadnogo Pamira (Dushanbe: Donish, 2013), 122–138. 67 This word should probably be read ysypshy and might stem from the root ysy-: to warm up, to heat. If this etymology proves to be correct, calculating the onset of spring would have been seen as one of his most important tasks. 68 Arandarenko, Dosugi, 286–287. Compare also Lentz, Zeitrechnung, 63 where the experts for calendar calculation are called hisobgar. 69 Arandarenko, Dosugi, 286–287. Dates were possibly determined by means of phenolocial and meteorological observations but Arandarenko remains silent about the details here. 70 Togolok Moldo (1860–1942) was an eminent poet and singer of the Kyrgyz Manas epos from the Naryn region; see Hu Zhen-Hua and Guy Imart, A Kirghiz Reader (Indiana: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 1989), 126–127. 71 The 40 companions refer to a 40-day period (called childe in Kyrgyz, and chilla in Persian and Uzbek) during the coldest and the hottest time of the year. Sometimes, the chilla is extended to an 80-day period and divided into a great and a little chilla. 72 Apkyt-Sapkyt were six or seven days considered the end of the winter although the weather continued to be cold and even freezing. See Konstantin K. Iudakhin, Kirgizsko-russkii slovar/Kyrgyzcha-oruscha sözdük. Vol. I (Frunze: Glavnaia redaktsiia Kirgizkoi Sovetskoi entsiklopedii, 1985), 61. 73 Adi and Jedi may be either dialectal or corrupt versions of the Kyrgyz words for six (alty) and seven (jeti). 74 Zhen-Hua and Imart, A Kirghiz Reader, 124–125. I have slightly altered their translation. 75 Stephanie Bunn, “Küt and Dzhut: Food and Famine in Central Asia,” in The Exploitation of the Landscape of Central and Inner Asia: Past, Present and Future, eds. Michael Gervers et al. (Toronto: Toronto Studies in Inner and Central Asia, 2008), 20. 76 Compare the contribution of Isabelle Ohayon in this volume. 77 See Iudakhin, Kirgizsko-russkii slovar, 327.

Climate disaster or anticipated crisis?  245 78 The coincidence of jut/yut and the month of Hut were also known among other Central Asians. Among Tajiks living in the mountainous fringes of the southern Ferghana Valley, a ‘bad’ Hut was said to bring yut and was called ‘killer of goats’ (buzakush); see Dzhakhonov, “Zemledel’cheskii narodnyi kalendar’” 88. 79 Lentz, Zeitrechnung, 55. 80 Rakhimov, Zemledelie tadzhikov, 187–188. 81 See Liudmila A. Chvyr, “Tri ‘chilla’ u Tadzhikov,” in Etnografiia Tadzhikistana, ed. Boris A. Litvinskii (Dushanbe: Donish, 1985), 69–77. The term chilla can also be used for a number of other ritually marked periods, e.g. after giving birth or after a case of death. 82 See Annemarie Schimmel, Die Zeichen Gottes. Die religiöse Welt des Islams (München: Beck, 1995), 117–118 for numerals and their symbolic meanings in the wider Islamicate world. 83 Anna Krasnowolska, “Pir-e Zan,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica 2010, last accessed 10 December, 2022, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/pir-e-zan 84 Rakhimov, Zemledelie tadzhikov, 189–191. 85 Compare Ádám Molnár, Weather-Magic in Inner Asia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994). 86 See Muh.ammad Sharīf-i S.adr-i Z. iyā, The Personal History, 124, Wolfgang Holzwarth, “Community Elders and State Agents: Īlbēgīs in the Emirate of Bukhara around 1900,” Eurasian Studies 9, nos. 1–2 (2011): 242, 248; Jeanine Dağyeli, “Weapon of the Discontented? Trans-river Migration as Tax Avoidance Practice and Lever in Eastern Bukhara,” Transcultural Studies 1 (2017): 178–180, and Dağyeli, “The Fight Against Heaven-Sent Insects”.

11 The power of apricot Border disputes, land scarcity, and mobility in the Isfara River basin1 Asel Murzakulova Following the collapse of the USSR, land, and water disputes in c­ ommunities on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border intensified along with the spatialisations of new national states. Conflicts along borders in the Isfara River2 Valley have occurred with varying frequency since Soviet times. The main outbreaks of violence happened in the upper zone of the Isfara River basin (Vorukh rural district of Tajikistan – Ak-Sai rural district of Kyrgyzstan), as well as in the middle zone of the basin (the rural districts of Surkh and Chorku, Tajikistan – the rural districts of Ak-Tatyr, Samarkandek of Kyrgyzstan). Since independence, the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remains little ‘materialised’: borders are not physically represented and signalled. One can find border infrastructure only at the four official border crossing points along 970 km of borderlands. This is an unusual situation: these countries put in place much more infrastructure along borders with Uzbekistan and China, as well as with Afghanistan (for Tajikistan) and Kazakhstan (for Kyrgyzstan). The contested borderland areas of Central Asia have predominantly been studied with a focus on state spatialisation and community dynamics,3 interethnic division,4 state interests,5 international aid and irrigation disputes,6 or the geography of access to natural resources7 and infrastructural change.8 This chapter takes a different angle: to understand the political dynamics in the Ferghana borderlands, I discuss a particular case of non-human agency. I explore the web of environmental processes in the contested areas through the life cycle of the apricot tree. By focusing on the environmental stresses experienced by this tree, I show how interactions with the tree challenge the ongoing political process dominated by states, forcing local people to act according to apricot cultivation interests. This chapter fills a gap in Central Asian Studies which is the virtual disregard for other than human life-forms on political dynamics in the region.9 And yet, the apricot tree is an important actor in post-independence border dynamics between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. This case demonstrates the importance of studying the environmental history of disputed areas. This approach can help to redefine the perception of border conflicts. It shifts the dominant analysis based on state interests, e.g. of the conflict escalations between 2015 and 2021, towards a more complex web of DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-16

The power of apricot  247 climate shocks, the erosion of border water infrastructure, mobility, and local economic and environmental priorities. The life cycle of the apricot tree involves rural residents in everyday routines of cultivation and harvest, or when trees become sick, experience acute thirst, insect infestation, freeze in spring, or lose their fruit. These processes show how apricots shape the behaviour of people in contested areas, by forcing some family members to migrate, by negotiating apricot prices in transborder bazaars and cooperating on watering apricot tree even during conflict escalation. This dynamic challenges the policies of appropriation and protectionism in contested territories. This dynamic I call the power of the apricot. This chapter draws on 15-month ethnographical research which was carried out between 2015 and 2021 (around 20 visits, the longest was 60 days and shortest 15 days). The research data included in-depth interviews and observation at transborder bazaars in the Isfara River basin, along with participation in apricot watering, harvesting, and drying. After field research in September 2022, violence spread along the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan borderland on an unprecedented scale. It was the largest international military clash since the countries’ independence: more than 100 people were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced from both sides.10 The military conflict physically destroyed villages where this research was carried out: data presented here do not capture dynamics during and after this conflict. To protect respondents, I anonymised the data and used pseudonyms for all names. The landscape: rivers, borders, apricots The Isfara River basin lies in the southwest of the Ferghana Valley, an ancient agricultural oasis covering 22,000 square kilometres, populated by 15 million people and shared by Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan (Figure 11.1). The Isfara River basin belongs to the Syrdarya River, receiving water mainly from snow fields and glaciers.11 The Isfara is formed in the vicinity of Vorukh exclave (Tajikistan), at the confluence of two smaller mountain rivers flowing from the glaciers of the Turkestan ridge. The river passes through Ak-Sai ayil aimak (Kyrgyzstan rural municipality); and on to the Isfara District of northern Tajikistan, then joining the Great Fergana Canal in Uzbekistan, finally entering the Kairakum water reservoir in Tajikistan. The major irrigation system in the study area was built as a Soviet state project for specific agricultural production. During decollectivisation in the 1990s, this plan was replaced with market demands, causing deep agrarian changes in the now disputed territories. Kyrgyzstan followed the path of radical liberalisation reforms: each rural resident received a private land plot.12 In Tajikistan, diverse forms of collective dehqan (Tajik: peasant) farms survived.13 The latest decree on land reform in the study area in 2016 distributed land shares among the workers of the remaining collective farms. The major

248  Asel Murzakulova

Figure 11.1 Location of the region under study in the Ferghana Valley. Map by Evgeny Shibkov.

difference between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is that in Tajikistan dehqans can lease their land, but they cannot sell it as villagers in Kyrgyzstan can. The greatest result of these reforms for the villagers was the right to choose how to use land and what to grow. For example, Surkh in Tajikistan had specialised in growing tomatoes and other vegetables for local canning factories during the Soviet period. After independence, these canneries, like many industries, were in crisis. As in Kyrgyzstan, the expansion of new apricot orchards was partly the local answer to broader crises of the post-socialist economic transformations. Figure 11.2 shows changing land use in the villages of Kara Bak (Kyrgyzstan) and Lyakon (Tajikistan). The striped parts show the area where apricot trees were growing when the main irrigation network was completed in 1970. The areas with apricot trees in 2016 are highlighted in gray. The situation in 2016 shows an extensive shift from the cultivation of forage crops, grains, and vegetables to apricot cultivation.14 Alongside China and the Middle-East, Central Asia is one of the ancient centres of apricot cultivation.15 The apricot tree (Prunus armeniaca) spread from Central Asia and China to Europe by Silk Road.16 Now, Central Asia is globally the richest centre of apricot diversity, including four eco-geographical subgroups with different distributions of apricot varieties.17 The Isfara River basin is characterised by the cultivation of the following varieties: Mirsanjali, Kandak, Khurmoi, Baboi, Supkhoni, Isfarak, and Tadzhaboi.18 During the Soviet period, in addition to traditional apricot varieties, new cross-breeds were created and propagated to suit different climates.19 Gareev Botanic Gardens and nurseries in the Ferghana Valley were important sites for apricot grafting

The power of apricot  249

Figure 11.2 Land use situation in the village of Kara Bak (Kyrgyzstan) and Lyakon (Tajikistan) in years 1970 and 2016. Map by Evgeny Shibkov, based on Source Esrl, DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, Eartstar Geographics, CNES/Airbus DS, USDA, USGS, AeroGRID, IGN, and the GIS User Community. The figure was first published in Asel Murzakulova, ‘Challenges of social cohesion and tensions in communities on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border’, UCAMSRI Research Paper 4 (2018).

and selection for Kyrgyzstan. In Tajikistan, apricot saplings were p ­ roduced by the Gafurov Institute of Horticulture and Vegetable, also in a similar area.20 But sapling production was not completely under state control: ‘folk breeders’ (narodnye selektsionery) played an important role, specifically in the preservation of traditional varieties, and later also the conservation of Soviet hybrids. After independence, state-owned system of sapling production was largely destroyed in Kyrgyzstan, while in Tajikistan, most of the nurseries survived, but underfunded: most of the recent new varieties have been produced and preserved by ‘folk breeders’. Dried apricots constitute the largest export good from border regions in north Tajikistan.21 According to Kyrgyzstani authorities, Batken District (covering the part of Isfara River basin) produces 20,000 tons of apricots each year, of which 75% is exported to a processing plant in Isfara District, Tajikistan.22 Extensive entrepreneurial networks have emerged around this industry, across borders. According to my respondents, the most important difference between apricot and other fruit trees in the study area is that the trees are not demanding on the soil quality and are drought-tolerant. Therefore, apricots grow all along the river basin. In recent decades, villagers have also begun to actively cultivate the slopes of hills and middle mountains for new apricot orchards (Figure 11.3).

250  Asel Murzakulova

Figure 11.3 Apricot trees in the Isfara River basin, Ak-Sai. Photo by Murzakulova 2018.

Life cycle of apricot tree and human mobility in the Isfara River basin I often heard my respondents talk about life in the valley as linked to the life cycle of an apricot tree. A good season with a good harvest makes people’s lives more predictable for a certain period. As Aizhamal told me when we went up to her orchard in the Kyrgyzstani village of Kara-Bak: I will start selling dried apricots closer to September, before the children go to school, to buy clothes and school supplies for them. I always keep about 30 kilograms in reserve until spring, I sell about 70 kilograms gradually depending on the need for cash, it helps if I need to make some contributions to toy [traditional ceremonies] or buy something for children and family needs23 Aizhamal’s village is located in the middle reaches of the Isfara River and borders with the Tajikistan village of Lyakon. She is raising two children alone. Like most of her fellow villagers, her income consists of selling apricots, livestock-derived produce, and small earnings such as mending clothes. Aizhamal bought saplings for her garden in the Isfara market, the nearest town of Tajikistan, from a seller who has a good reputation among her fellow villagers, who had already received harvests from the trees they had bought. Apricot growing is a long-term investment, which does not require a large starting capital. The return increases many times during the life cycle of the tree. Saplings in 2015 cost 150 Kyrgyz soms (2.5$). For approximately three years, until the first harvest, watering, fertilisers, and pesticides cost around

The power of apricot  251 60$ for 6 acres of land (in 2015). One can grow four to seven trees on an acre: after three to five years, the tree will give a small harvest of around 15 kg, after seven to ten years, the harvest from one tree can reach around 60–70 kg. After drying, the weight of apricots is reduced by an average 70%. The price for 1 kg of dried apricots depends on quality and fluctuates between 200 and 800 soms (3–12$). But all these calculations that we discussed with respondents omitted the investments that family members make in the form of labour. The cultivation of apricots is not labour-intensive, compared to the cultivation of tobacco or rice, which are also cash crops in the Isfara River Valley. Labour is mostly needed for tree pruning, watering, harvesting, and apricot drying. As the demand for labour increases during these periods, day labourer services (mardokers) are widespread in the valley. However, for smaller gardens such as Aizhamal’s, family members do everything themselves: ‘We planted saplings 8 years ago, they began to bear fruit in the third year, the variety is called mirsanzhalil, my apricot is gold-coloured, as fragrant as fruits from heaven’. Aizhamal speaks about the trees with care: the process of creating her apricot orchard was a great challenge for her. In 2015, there were late frosts in the Isfara River basin; the cold and humid spring contributed to part of the harvest being lost. The humidity leads to the spread of the Kotur disease, which affects stone fruit trees.24 This disease is caused by spores of the fungus Venturia inaequalis, which is spread by the wind and infects trees during flowering and fruit set, resulting in dark warts on the fruit. The disease reduces yields and makes the appearance of the fruit unattractive for sale. This disease is not new to the region: it is more common in the more humid, upper zone of the basin. Along with these extreme climate events in 2015, major changes in crop production strategies also contributed to the spread of the Kotur disease. After independence, apricot cultivation in the Isfara River basin became a monocropping production system for several reasons. The growing market demand for dried apricots and established sales chains to foreign markets made apricots a major cash crop in the valley. Other contributing factors include the overlap of apricot-human mobility dynamics. Since the maintenance of an apricot orchard is cyclical (spring and summer are the main seasons), it fits the family labour distribution ‘planning’. The cultivation of apricot combines well with the timing of people’s wage labour mobility. The villagers plan their absence in the valley for periods when the family needs less labour, while their immobility is associated with periods when agricultural labour is needed. Many villagers became migrant workers since 2000, when the oil boom started in Russia and Kazakhstan. Since then, they have been massively planting their plots with apricot trees. Monoculture plantations on private plots contribute to the rapid spread of the Kotur disease, since the transmission from tree to tree is more intense and does not encounter gaps that could be caused by other crops. As one interviewed agronomyist from Isfara (Tajikistan) told me, one of the biggest factors for the orchards’ vulnerability is that after

252  Asel Murzakulova independence, pests and disease prevention measures became ­ everyone’s ­private concern. Creating and maintaining an apricot orchard increasingly require an influx of cash in certain periods of tree life cycles, as Aizhamal describes: That year we barely managed to get about 30 kilograms, due to illness and frost, we lost most of the harvest. In the village everyone had problems because of this disease, so I started looking for a way to somehow save the harvest. I tried various pesticides, recommended by neighbors and traders in the market. We incurred more expenses and there was no profit. At the beginning of summer, when the scale of the crop’s loss became ­ bvious, Aizhamal’s eldest son, who had just finished 9th grade of high school, o left for work to Russia. Aizhamal associates this decision with a wider set of reasons: the lack of permanent income, her son’s desire to help his mother and compensate his father’s absence, his need to enter adulthood. But as she mentioned above, her budget planning is closely linked to her apricot harvest: this indicates that a good harvest that year could have delayed her son’s early end of schooling and decision to migrate. The life of an apricot tree has launched many processes in Aizhamal’s life: on the one hand, a good harvest can guarantee income, making life in the valley more predictable and reducing her family’s economic insecurity. On the other hand, harvest losses make Aizhamal’s life more connected to the fate of the trees, and more vulnerable to the processes that the apricots are experiencing. Care for the apricot tree is woven into her daily routine, making her life and the tree life cycle interconnected and dependent, in both directions. In neighbouring Surkh in Tajikistan, in the same year, villagers lost 90% of their harvest of early apricot varieties.25 This seriously undermined the hopes of many families who had invested all their efforts in cultivating the orchards. Unlike Aizhamal and the residents of the Kyrgyzstani village of Kara-Bak, residents of Surkh have an accute shortage of land and use the hills and the sunny side of a mid-mountain strip for growing apricots. As the local agronomist Abdurahim aka commented: ‘We have just a mountainous relief that does not allow us to provide every person with land in the valley part. Well, if there is no land, then such a distribution of land at heights is a good opportunity’.26 Surkh’s gardeners have developed several varieties of local apricot, ideal for the climate of the valley. To set up an apricot orchard, people manually clear the ground of large stones and then irrigation is supplied to mountain slopes by an electric pump. Like Aizhamal’s son, Abdurahim aka left for labour migration after graduating from school in the early 2000s: remittances helped him to build a house and support his family. In 2015–2016, the government started distributing lands in Surkh: he received 20 acres of land because his mother had worked for a collective farm. But villagers who did not work in the collective farm or

The power of apricot  253 who did not have relatives who worked in the collective farm could not get a land share. In the village, the main source of livelihood is agricultural activity. If, for example, a teacher works at school, and she does not have a personal plot, a vegetable garden, in general, it is difficult to survive. Because there is very little income. I think that, of course, there was some discontent in the distribution of the land share, and maybe there is still. Because there is very little land available, and there is no one to blame for this.27 Lack of land in Surkh stimulates outmigration to neighbouring Asht District and Kanibadam city. Those who move to a new place bring with them sapling of the apricot tree, which serve as a symbol of hope for a source of income in the new place. At the same time, the ability of apricot trees to grow in rocky and arid soil helps Surkh residents adapt to land scarcity. But they also need to invest, for example, in irrigation expenses. Usually, pumps feed off the subsidised grid; in rare cases, pumps are powered by more expensive diesel ­generators. Studies by local agronomists show that these soils have only 0.5–0.6% of the required nutrients:28 without organic and other fertilisers, it is difficult to harvest a reasonable crop. For Abdurahim aka also, the new apricot orchard is a hope for a more stable future for his children. Thus, the condition of the apricot trees can symbolise the intention of people regarding their future with a focus on development in the valley or outmigration. While one can still find untended gardens in Kara-Bak (Kyrgyzstan), in Surkh (Tajikistan), this practically never happens: those who do not care for their gardens (land) may have their land seized and redistributed by local authorities in Tajikistan.29 In practice, this norm has never been applied because there is an acute shortage of land in Surkh and it is a very valuable resource. In Kyrgyzstan, private land cannot currently be expropriated, although since 2010, the government has been trying to pass such legislation, at least in relation to urban land with high market value. As shown in this section, the seasonal and life cycle of the apricot tree has strongly influenced the family labour distribution during massive agrarian change and the growing labour mobility of rural life. Apricot orchards have empowered land owners, allowing them to adapt to these transformations. Cross-border dried apricot bazaars People living in the Isfara River Valley call their apricot – local gold. This expresses the importance of apricot to the local economy in this arid and ­disaster-prone region of the Fergana Valley. I came to the apricot bazaar in Surkh in the early morning when the trade was just beginning. Even rows of dried and processed dried fruits were lined up symmetrically along which buyers strolled, eyeing the product, and suggesting their ‘own’ price to start bargaining. One kilogram of dried apricots with the stone can be sold for

254  Asel Murzakulova 200 soms ($3), while stoned dried apricot cost 500 soms ($5.5). This price is comparable to the price of one and a half kilograms of meat (based on average prices in 2018). Therefore along with the traditionally widespread animal husbandry, apricot production is attractive. The kandak (sugar) variety is of particularly high value (up to 8$ per kg in 2018). People leave the fruit to dry on the tree and then harvest. This variety is in great demand in Russia, where it is widely used in sanatoriums for the prevention of diseases of the cardiovascular system. Ikhtiyor is a trader at the Surkh bazaar, who has been selling apricots for more than seven years. He started trading after he was deported by the Russian authorities for a minor administrative violation: ‘The only source of income in the village is migration or trade. Since the first way was closed for me, there wasn’t much to choose’.30 According to Ikhtiyor, the bazaar has its own players: large buyers who buy and sort dried apricots with and without stone for further transportation to the markets of Russia and Kazakhstan. Then, there are the average buyers who bring dried apricots to local markets in different parts of the country (Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan) and to the capitals of both republics. There are the villagers who bring one to two bags of apricots from their garden for sale and resellers who buy dried apricots from the villagers’ hands and resell them at the bigger market. Big gardeners usually have their own middlemen who take goods directly from the orchard, bypassing the market. Cross-border dried fruit markets have their own temporality: major market days alternate among the communities of Surkh, Chorku, Isfara (Tajikistan), Samarkandek, Kara-Bak, and Batken (Kyrgyzstan).31 Thus, each trader has a chance to look for the best price during alternating bazaar days, moving from one location to another. At the bazaar, you can sell apricots of any quality. Buyers sort apricots by grade and quality, using machinery in Tajikistan. Both Kyrgyzstan som and Tajikistan somoni are freely used in the apricot trade (Figure 11.4). The economy of cross-border trade in dried apricots is closely intertwined with the local history of labour migration to Russia. During the Soviet period, local collective and state farm workers privately travelled to bazaars in Russian cities to sell dried apricots from their gardens.32 This earlier practice laid the foundation for trans-local trade infrastructure. Until the early 2000s, open borders between Central Asian states kept the rail links with Russia active, so the main cross-border trade pathway went through Tajikistan. Dealers at local bazaars such as Surkh bought apricots from farmers, and labour migrants in Russia sold these through a wide network in Russian food markets. The international labour market regimes built a parallel supply and demand chain of apricots. As Ikhtiyor explained to me, the popularity of certain varieties of apricot in the Russian food market stimulates local villagers to develop and cultivate specific varieties, such as the kandak. However, the apricot trade has been affeced by border militarisation in the Ferghana Valley, which began with Uzbekistan mining borders with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in 2000–2001.33 Uzbekistan also began to hinder railway

The power of apricot  255 t­ransit through their territory from Tajikistan. As a result, the passenger flow following the railways began decreasing; migration and apricot trade routes were re-oriented to road travel through Kyrgyzstan (Figure 11.5). Our conversation with Ikhtiyor took place against the background of ­sporadic conflict between 2014 and 2019 in the upper reaches of the Isfara River. This was provoked by the construction of a disputed road between Ak-Sai, Tamdyk and Kishemish.34 Kyrgyzstan’s government announced the

Figure 11.4 Apricot sculpture in the central bazaar of Isfara city (Tajikistan). Photo by Murzakulova, August 2017.

Figure 11.5  Surkh, dried fruits bazaar. Photograph by Murzakulova.

256  Asel Murzakulova construction of this road, which the Tajikistan’s government considers to be on disputed land, in 2013. The first violent conflict occurred on 11 January 2014 between Kyrgyzstan border guards and Tajikistan border guards over the construction of the road. Zhumaboy Sanginov, First Deputy Governor of Sughd Oblast, talking about the incident, said, ‘The construction of an alternative road, which residents of the Kyrgyz village are talking about, should be made only based on intergovernmental agreements on the delimitation and demarcation of the border. This is our position’.35 In April 2017, a Kyrgyz news agency published a story about an elderly woman, Urulka apa, who lives on Kyrgyzstan’s border with Tajikistan and protects Kyrgyzstan’s border by keeping her father’s apricot orchard from drying up: ‘The Apricot orchard inherited by Urulka apa is the only obstacle for Tajikistan to take the disputed territory’.36 As part of the discourse of protection of national borders, this media narrative speaks to the importance of the apricot orchard as a symbol of belonging to the territory, and of filial loyalty, a core idea for patriotic media discourses surrounding border issues. At the same time, it simplifies processes by painting a picture of a binary opposition between the interests of Kyrgyzstani and Tajikistani people. But answering my question about access difficulties from a neighbouring Kyrgyzstani village to the bazaar, Ikhtiyor was surprised and said: I buy dry apricots from Kyrgyz [in Kyrgyzstan] and then resell them in bulk to Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. It is always different: sometimes the season can turn out good, but sometimes we can sit without work when the harvest is bad. I have friends among Kyrgyz people who help finding a good product, it is profitable to all of us. Asel: ‘So, what is happening between Vorukh and Ak-Sai does not affect the rules of the bazaar?’ Ikhtiyor: ‘Yes, there are fights happening at the upper [zone] (Russian: naverkhu), this applies to them, but we trade here. Better, of course, when there are no conflicts. Look - apricot has no nationality, in our market Kyrgyz people freely sell apricots, also buyers from Kyrgyz villages are free to come.’37 The distance between political processes at the top, border guard skirmishes and the dried apricot trade in the valley allows one to see the parallel political dynamics. Access to the sale and purchase of dried apricots does not depend on the ‘national interest’ and its accompanying institutions. The apricot bazaar continues to operate according to its own rules. People’s relations across borders in a time of conflict are not purely dependent on state or infrastructures: the apricot economy helps us to see beyond this referent field. Saratan – a period of trial for trees and test for humans What would happen to Urulka apa’s apricot trees if she did not water them? Drying is the process by which moisture disappears from the tree, evaporating

The power of apricot  257 water from the wood fibers. The tree changes physically: moisture is removed earlier from the surface layers, while the inner layers retain it. This leads to the formation of internal stresses in the wood and a distortion of the tree. Cracks in wood because of drying make it vulnerable to further environmental stresses and shorten the tree’s life. The drying up of apricot trees in the valley reflects a broader water stress problem. My field observations show that water stress is a multifaceted challenge for borderland villages. The soils are rocky and sandy in the upper and middle zones of basin and can retain little water. After irrigation, moisture quickly evaporates, so low-volume and frequent irrigation is required in these areas. Since the existing irrigation system and methods of water management do not allow the carrying out irrigation properly, water stress became a continual problem of local life.38 The process of liberalising land rights and reforming the water sector adds its own complexity to these challenges. An Isfara water engineer notes the connection between water stress and the consequences of land reform in Tajikistan: We have more water losses since the dissolution of collective dehqan farms. The allocated plots are very small to a maximum of 1 hectare. If at least 5 hectares would have been retained during land distribution, we would have been able to maintain crop rotation. Now one aryq (small earth canal), in some places reaches up to 100 users. We have got difficulties: to measure the volume of water, to provide water in time. If you divert water from canal to your field and your neighbor does same, here is where the problems begin, everyone needs water at the same time. The amount of land does not increase, the number of users increases, and the canal remains the same.39 The most acute phase of tension over irrigation occurs during ‘Saratan’, the traditional designation of the hottest 40 days between June 25th and August 5th. During this period, it is important to water the trees at least four times. During Saratan, there is a high risk of tree death due to lack of watering. A dried-out apricot tree is a big loss to the family budget. Since a tree begins to bear fruit only in its third year, its loss sets back human effort for three years. Saratan is a period of physical trial for trees and a period of testing humans in water management. A saying can be heard frequently in village during this period: ‘the most important thing is to get [safely] out of Saratan’ (Kyrgyz: saratandan chyksak bizge boldu ele). During Saratan, every conversation begins and ends with concern and anxiety for the queue in access to irrigation water. In practice, the presence of a canal and a fixed water supply schedule does not guarantee access to water, for several reasons. Upstream villages can take more water and downstream villages in this case do not receive water. Access to water from transborder canals also depends on the overall political situation: irrigation canals are used as a political instrument between governments.40 The canal in Dostuk village41 (Kara-Bak rural municipality, Kyrgyzstan) flows from the neighbouring Tajik village Karai Baq (Surkh region, Tajikistan).

258  Asel Murzakulova In the summer of 2016, after two irrigation cycles, the water stopped being supplied. The head of the Dostuk village appealed to the Surkh Water User Association (WUA)42 to resume the water supply. He was told that the WUA cannot take care of water for Dostuk village in Kyrgyzstan, as it is not part of the mandate of the WUA. The mismatch between administrative and hydrological boundaries at the regional level is seen as a potential for conflict.43 But as my field data show below, the situation can often be solved at the local level between non-governmental actors across the border. ‘Our gardens began to dry up, I had to find a way out of the situation, and I went to the Karai Baq murab.44 I told him: if you do not give us water, our apricots can no longer be saved’.45 Dostuk villagers also grow maize, vegetables, and other fruit trees, but in his address to the murab, the head of Dostuk village emphasised apricot trees. This shows their symbolic value: behind the apricot trees stands the well-being of the people. In Saratan, well-being depends on the trees’ ability to survive the heat. That night, the murab of Surkh sent water to Dostuk, and the villagers were able to save their apricot trees. As we have seen, because of apricot trees’ water needs, they can increase tension between political institutions on both sides of the border, particularly in the high summer. But at the same time, they can trigger a referential field of common dependency that is able to counter-balance these processes. Apricots represent a common well-being value that can catalyse political acts of solidarity aimed at preserving the trees. This kind of bonding practice on the local level during seasonal extremes like Saratan is mostly based on personal contacts, and a common understanding of the well-being and dependency created by apricot monocultures in the valley. Conclusion This chapter draws attention to the environmental aspects of political d ­ ynamics in the disputed territories on Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan borderlands. By exploring the influence of apricot production, I argue that the apricot tree life cycle produces power relations. In the case of Aizhamal and Abdurahim aka, apricot investments and labour shape local human mobility dynamics: harvest dynamics postpone or reinforce the need to migrate or to stay. At the same time, the power of the apricot helps residents of the valley to adapt to a rapidly changing environment andpolitical dynamics where, along with conflicts in the upper basin area, they must cope with the profound effects of agrarian changes and water stress. But along with this strengthening role, apricot monocropping adds new vulnerabilities. In 2021, early frosts again led to the loss of 90% of the apricot crop.46 This shock, along with the drought and mobility restrictions imposed a year earlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has put widespread and long-term stress on Isfara River basin residents. The apricot helps us to see the diversity and interlinkages of local politics, labour mobility, trade, agriculture, and environmental processes. At a regional level, the apricot is embedded in cross-border trade infrastructures. By alternately shifting the trade day (öruk bazaar kun) between villages

The power of apricot  259 located in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the apricot trade produces its own temporality, where state border conflicts are not necessarily a vital event. Along with creating community-bonding practices, apricot power can also work in the opposite direction, by increasing the irrigation tensions during Saratan, and human dependency on a monoculture. But what makes the power of the apricot different from that of the national state is that it can produce well-being values capable of engendering an act of solidarity at the local level, as in the example of the obliging murab and trusting traders. These dynamics challenge the hegemonic perception of these contested areas as entirely hostile conflict environments. In my view, an analysis of the role of apricots helps us to recognise that in this contested territory, in addition to the politics of land appropriation, state border militarisation, and logics of domination, there are other ­complex environmental, economic, and social processes at work. The focus on the apricot tree life cycle helps us to see non-human power relations, and how people act to support their interdependence with apricots. This often means cooperating with partners across the border, rather than cutting social and political ­connections. Over the long term, the economic and symbolic value of apricots will be high for rural Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, in the face of extreme economic insecurity and fragile human security, exacerbated by border militarisation and conflicts. In a period of such high insecurity, the power of the apricot tree signals hope for communities: difficulties are hopefully temporary. There will be öruk-zar (flowering of apricot trees) in the spring, and with it will come change for better times in the valley. Notes 1 Research conducted in the framework of AGRUMIG project (EU Horizon 2020, grant 822730), ‘Leaving something behind: Migration governance and agricultural and rural change in “home” communities: Comparative experience from Europe, Asia and Africa’. Filed material collected during the University of Central Asia project ‘Improving Stability and better natural resource management in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’, funded by DFID (2015–2020). I would like to thank all my respondents for their openness and generosity, Evgenii Shibkov (for helping to create the map visualising agrarian change), and Guzal Makhamova (for help in the field and with conducting interviews in Tajik). Opinions expressed in this ­chapter are only mine and do not express the opinions of any institution or organisation. 2 The Kyrgyzstani government changed the name of the Isfara River to Ak-Suu River after a series of conflicts. In this chapter, I use the international name of the river – Isfara. 3 Madeleine Reeves, Border Work: Spatial Lives of the State in rural Central Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014); Nick Megoran, Nationalism in Central Asia: A Biography of the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Boundary (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017). 4 Anna Matveeva, “Divided We Fall… or Rise? Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Border Dilemma”, Cambridge Journal of Eurasian Studies 1 (2017): 1–20. https://doi. org/10.22261/94D4RC 5 Timur Dadabaev, “Securing Central Asian Frontiers: Institutionalisation of Borders and Inter-State Relations”, Strategic Analysis 36, no. 4 (2012): 554–568;

260  Asel Murzakulova Mariya Pak, Kai Wegerich, and Jusipbek Kazbekov, “Re-examining Conflict and Cooperation in Central Asia: A Case Study from the Isfara River, Ferghana Valley”, International Journal of Water Resources Development 30, no. 2 (2014): 230–245. https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2013.837357 6 Christine Bichsel, Conflict Transformation in Central Asia: Irrigation Disputes in the Ferghana Valley (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009). 7 Gulzana Kurmanalieva and Wibke Crewett, “Institutional Design, Informal Practices and International Conflict: The Case of Community-based Pasture Management in the Kyrgyz-Tajik Border Region”, Pastoralism 9, no. 15 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13570-019-0145-9 8 Madeleine Reeves, “Infrastructural Hope: Anticipating ‘independent roads’ and Territorial Integrity in Southern Kyrgyzstan”, Ethnos 82, no. 4 (2017): 711–737. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2015.1119176 9 For an exception, see Stefanos Xenarios, Abror Gafurov, Dietrich Schmidt-Vogt, Jenniver Sehring, Sujata Manandhar, Chris Hergarten, Jyldyz Shigaeva and Marc Foggin, “Climate Change and Adaptation of Mountain Societies in Central Asia: Uncertainties, Knowledge Gaps, and Data Constraints”, Regional Environmental Change 19 (2019): 1339–1352; Thomas Bernauer and Tobias Siegfried, “Climate Change and International Water Conflict in Central Asia”, Journal of Peace Research 49, no. 1 (2012): 227–239. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022343311425843 10 Syinat Sultanalieva, “Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan Border Clashes Prove Deadly for Civilians Protect Civilians, Abide by Laws of War,” Human Rights Watch 2022, accessed February 13, 2023, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/21/ kyrgyzstan-tajikistan-border-clashes-prove-deadly-civilians 11 M.M. Adyshev et al., Atlas Kirgizskoi SSR, Vol. I (Moskva: Glavnoe upravlenie geodezii i kartografii pri Sovete ministrov SSSR, 1987). 12 Roman Mogilevskii, Nazgul Abdrazakova, Aida Bolotbekova, Saule Chalbasova, Shoola Dzhumaeva, and Kanat Tilekeyev, “The Outcomes of 25 Years of Agricultural Reforms in Kyrgyzstan”. Discussion Paper No. 162, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (2017). 13 Irna Hofman, “Soft Budgets and Elastic Debt: Farm Liabilities in the Agrarian Political Economy of Post-Soviet Tajikistan,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 45, no. 7 (2018): 1360–1381. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2017.1293047 14 Poplars and apple trees are also found in these plots; visual crosscheck in 2019 showed that majority of trees are apricots. 15 Nikolai Vavilov, Tsentry proiskhozhdeniia kul’turnykh rastenii (Leningrad: publisher Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo, 1926). 16 R. Spengler, F. Maksudov, E. Bullion, A. Merkle, T. Hermes, and M. Frachetti, “Arboreal Crops on the Medieval Silk Road: Archaeobotanical Studies at Tashbulak,” PLoS ONE 13, no. 8 (2018): e0201409. https://doi.org/10.1371/ journal.pone.0201409 17 T. Zhebentyayeva, C. Ledbetter, L. Burgos, and G. Llácer, “Apricot,” in Fruit Breeding. Handbook of Plant Breeding, eds. Marisa Luisa Badenes and David H. Byrne (Boston: Springer: 2012): 415–458. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-1-4419–0763–9_12 18 M. Ergashova, “Genofond abrikosov Tadzhikistana i perspektivy ego ispo’lzovaniia,” Plodovodstvo i iagodovodstvo v Rossii 54 (2018): 200–204. 19 G. Momunova, B. Teshebaeva, and B. Shamshiev, “Ecological-Biological Features Introduced in Kyrgyzstan Varieties of Apricot,” Vestnik OshTU 1 (2015): 161–164. Available: http://vestnik.oshtu.kg/images/Journal/2015-1/prob_estes_nauk/ 21_g_a_momunova_z_a_teshebaeva.pdf 20 Ergashova, “Genofond abrikosov”. 21 Souleymane Coulibaly and Lotte Thomsen, “Connecting to Regional Markets? Transport, Logistics Services and International Transit Challenges for Central Asian Food-Processing Firms,” Central Asian Survey 35, no. 1 (2016): 16–25.

The power of apricot  261 22 Jenish Razakov, “Neobrabotannye batkenskie abrikosy,” Zhany Agym, June 3, 2016. https://m.gezitter.org/economics/50740_neprorabotannyie_batkenskie_ abrikosyi/ 23 Here and after in this section citations from the interview materials, Kara Bak ­village June 2018. 24 Sometimes, the name chotur is used in the local dialect. Local agronomists call the disease parsha in Russian. In English, it is known as apricot scab. 25 Harif NGO, “Razvitie kholodnoi chepochki dlia rannego svezhego abrikosa i ­pozdnei svezhei slivy,” Research Report 2017, accessed February 13, 2023. http:// agrolead.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Study-1-Cold-chain_web.pdf 26 From Interview materials, Surkh, Tajikistan, August 2018. 27 From Interview materials, Surkh, Tajikistan, April 2018. 28 From the materials with employ of meliorative soil station of the Academy of Sciences, Institute of Agriculture of the Republic of Tajikistan. Khujand, 2019. 29 Land Code of the Republic of Tajikistan 2012. 30 From interview materials, Surkh Tajikistan October 2016. 31 According to the Border Law of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, we cannot show the location of social facilities in the border area. Each market is close to the named village. 32 Reeves, Border Work, 101–108. 33 In 2020, Uzbekistan unmined borders in the Ferghana Valley. 34 Reeves, “Infrastructural Hope”. 35 Radio Ozodi, “A Week Was Given to Create Joint Patrol Groups on the Border of Isfara and Batken,” accessed February 12, 2023, https://rus.ozodi.org/a/tajikkyrgyz-dialog-first-results/25224407.html 36 “Urulka apa khranitel’nitsa granits,” Akipress, January 14, 2016 year, accessed February 13, 2023, https://kg.akipress.org/news:629489 37 From interview materials, Surkh Tajikistan October 2016. 38 Compare Dörre’s discussion of local strategies for dealing with water scarcitiy in Tajikistan’s Pamir mountains (this volume). 39 From the material of the interview with the water engineer of the Isfara District Water Department, Isfara city, 2019. 40 S. Olimova and M. Olimov, “Konflikty na granitsakh v Ferganskoi doline: Novye prichiny, novye uchastniki,” Rossiia i Novye Gosudarstva Evrazii 1 (2017): 21–40. 41 The previous name of the village is Suu Bou Kara-Bak, the locals use name Kyrgyz Kara-Bak and Azhy Kara-Bak, the neighbouring village of Karai Bog locals also call Tajik Kara-Bak. 42 Iroda Amirova, Martin Petrick, and Nodir Djanibekov, “Long-and Short-Term Determinants of Water User Cooperation: Experimental Evidence from Central Asia,” World Development 113 (2019): 10–25. 43 Barbara Janusz-Pawletta and Mara Gubaidullina, “Transboundary Water Management in Central Asia. Legal Framework to Strengthen Interstate Cooperation and Increase Regional Security,” Cahiers d’Asie centrale 25 (2015): 195–215. 44 In local Tajik/Uzbek – mirab, in local Kyrgyz – murab: traditionally, a “‘water master’”; in this context, an employee of the WUA, a water engineer. I write “‘local Kyrgyz‘,” because I think in other areas of Feghana, it can also be mirob or other variation. 45 From interview materials with the head of the village of Dostuk, August 2018. 46 From an interview with the representative of Alysh-Dan agro-cooperative in Batken, January 2022.

12 Water and irrigation arrangements in the Pamirs of Tajikistan1 Andrei Dörre

Introduction This chapter sheds light on the social organisation of local communities in Central Asia, and how these communities deal with social and ecological challenges. Taking water as both the entry point of study and a research prism allows us to generate locally informed insights about the social organisation of rural communities inhabiting remote regions in Central Asia such as the Pamirs in Tajikistan and how they address socio-ecological challenges in everyday life. Success stories rarely reach the outside world from Tajikistan, whose external perception, especially in democratic societies, is marked by attributes such as an authoritarian political system, everyday corruption, violence, exploitative working conditions in the cotton sector, and a large wealth gap. The sparsely populated high mountain region of the Pamirs has been economically left behind the rest of the country, and only marginally participates in cross-border exchange relations, despite its proximity to Kyrgyzstan, China, and Afghanistan. Nevertheless, we find in the Pamirs many examples of long-term, functioning community approaches to resource management, especially around water use and irrigated agriculture. Securing water for local food and fodder production is one of the most important factors for sustaining local livelihoods in this (semi-) arid region.2 Inspired by Netting’s 1974 study on village irrigation ‘system[s] nobody knows’ in the Swiss Alps,3 as well as Israr-ud-din’s and Ahmad and others’ research on irrigation arrangements in the Eastern Hindukush,4 I aim to understand how such local-specific, long-term, successfully run irrigation arrangements function and how they are sustained. Empirical data on three differentiated case studies conducted in the western part of the Pamirs is enriched with historical material from archives and historical library collections. The findings reveal how many fundamental everyday-life-related aspects and activities of the studied communities are related to water, and how these communities are organised around common water use arrangements that are based on joint decision-making, shared benefits and responsibilities, and collaborative action. The following section presents a ‘nexus medium’ perspective that was applied for the study, describes the methods and materials used, and introduces the three study sites. I then discuss the findings in two parts: the first DOI: 10.4324/9781003362364-17

Water and irrigation arrangements  263 subsection draws a systematic picture of the manifold meanings ascribed to water by the inhabitants of the chosen communities. The second subsection presents local-specific forms of collective water use and management, and social organisation around irrigation issues. In the conclusion, I reflect on the potentials and limitations of these irrigation arrangements to organise communities and to address socio-ecological challenges, as well as the value of inductive research approaches to study these questions. Investigating local-specific irrigation management arrangements through the prism of water The Nexus medium perspective

One theory-informed way in which water can be used as a prism for s­ cientific investigation is the nexus medium approach.5 This approach represents an inductive perspective that enables findings and results about the lifeworld of people, drawing primarily on the perceptions, understandings, assessments, and narratives of local communities and their individual members. It is also an attempt to contribute an applied approach to the growing scholarship on knowledge production from below in, and about, the Global South and the Global East. Depending on the respective societal and ecological contexts, forests, pastures, water, or any other conceivable substance, matter, or object can be seen as possible nexus mediums as long as they unite multiple vital meanings in themselves and function as connecting nodes between the p ­ eople. The concept rests on three basic assumptions. First, a nexus medium has manifold vital and intertwined meanings for a significant share of a group of p ­ eople. In the study area, this is exemplified by the widely used phrase ‘water is life’, which is also the title of the magazine of a local water management body, an important player in one of the case studies.6 Second, nexus mediums are means by which local communities organise themselves, act together, and through which they interact with their social and natural environment. Third, the approach suggests that the identified resource use and management regimes, as well as organisational arrangements are influenced by – and actively influence – the respective contexts. These arrangements are therefore situated and local-specific. In a (semi-)arid area like the Pamirs, water can be conceptualised as a nexus medium. Although water is abundant in the Pamirs, but its spatiotemporal distribution is very uneven and access to water is often difficult to establish. At the same time, water allows irrigation agriculture for local food and fodder production and the generation of electricity. The labour division within households as well as health- and sanitation-related issues are often strongly related to the availability, quantity, and quality of water. Water often plays a central role in recreational and life cycle events and/or is charged with transcendental meanings. Water can also be locally seen as an important factor for local microclimates or be associated with natural hazards. There are many other meanings that can be ascribed to a nexus medium. These meanings can serve

264  Andrei Dörre multiple purposes depending on the knowledge, understandings, perspectives, and interests of the social group or individuals that are involved in the interactions related to the respective nexus medium. Mixed-methods approach

A mix of qualitative methods, including narrative and semi-structured interviews, a group interview, transect walks, observations, and mapping, was applied during several field research campaigns with a total duration of approximately four months between 2014 and 2018. The interviews included communications with heads of the villages (raiskho-i kishloq),7 representing the formal local administration; heads of farmers’ organisations (raiskho-i khojagi-i dekhqoni); employees of a Water User Association (WUA); and local functionaries such as water masters (mirābon), religious dignitaries (khalifakho), a head of the village youth (rais-i javonon), and village elders (muisafedon/aksaqalkho). The latter are respected for their age, accumulated local knowledge and standing within the respective community. They are treated as local leaders, along with other knowledgeable people such as canal managers (mirjuiyon), local amateur historians, farmers (dekhqonon), and teachers (omuzgoron). The aim of the conversations with local senior persons and household ­representatives was to gather information about the specific socio-economic and environmental conditions, features, and challenges of the studied communities; household livelihoods; and the diverse meanings ascribed to water. These conversations also informed findings on the spatiotemporal variance in water availability; irrigation infrastructure and maintenance; local water management institutions and actors; decision-making and daily tasks of land ­cultivation for food and fodder production. Adopting an oral history approach, elderly people were asked about their experiences, memories, and perceptions regarding the manifold meanings ascribed to water and information about water supply and irrigation in the past, and how this knowledge informs ­current practices. The names of interview partners have been changed or omitted in this contribution to ensure anonymity. The environmental conditions and physical components of the irrigation arrangements were mapped during 12 transect walks, from which I generated schematic maps of the spatial arrangement of the main water sources. These explorative inspections were combined with non-participatory observations of everyday life, local monitoring, and water distribution practices. Finally, historical information was sourced in the Archive of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Archive of the Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg (former capital of the Russian Empire) as well as in different libraries in Tajikistan. The historical research helped to identify place-specific information, contexts, and preconditions for current everyday practices and livelihoods. Reports, statistics, and demographic data from Russian and Soviet administrative and military sources provided useful background information on the historical conditions, ­challenges, and resource management of local communities in the Pamirs.

Water and irrigation arrangements  265 The study sites

The empirical results are mainly based on information from three study sites: the municipality (jamoat) of Porshnev of the Shugnan District ­(nokhiya) located north of the administrative centre Khorog; the village (dekha) of  Sizhd northeast of Khorog at the Gunt River, which is also located within Shugnan; and the village of Shirgin in the Ishkāshim District (Figure 12.1).

Figure 12.1 Location of the three study sites in the western Pamirs. Design: Dörre 2020, based on: Andy Jarvis, Hannes I. Reuter, A. Nelson, and Edith Guevara, Hole-filled Seamless SRTM Data V4.  Tile 51-5, 2008.  Available online: http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/ (accessed on 11 May 2015); OSM Open Street Map Open Street Map, 2017.  Available online: https://www.openstreetmap.org (accessed on 3 May 2017).

266  Andrei Dörre These study sites share several historical and socio-cultural features and l­ egacies important for this study: they lie in an area that historically represented a geopolitical frontier at the margins of the Russian Empire bordering China and Afghanistan and, later on, of the Soviet Union. During the Soviet era, the Pamirs became a showcase for the socio-economic achievements that the leading country of the socialist world was able to attain. Local social organisation and economic affairs in the remote region became largely defined and controlled by the central state. Profound transitions took place under the conditions of the socialist command economy: local farms were collectivised, the means of production were nationalised, the regional economy, including the agricultural sector, was modernised, and cost-intensive infrastructural development and infrastructure repair and maintenance works were initiated and covered by the state. Social services were extensively expanded, and the region received substantial external supplies from the political and economic centres.8 These voluminous state-run supportive measures vanished in the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the outbreak of a civil war in Tajikistan in 1992. Jobs and secure incomes were lost during the restructuring of the command economy, including the agricultural sector. In remote rural regions such as the Pamirs, many additional social challenges, such as limited market integration and low monetary incomes, exacerbated the already existing difficulties people faced.9 Along with labour migration and remittances, the use of natural resources became vital to the livelihood strategies of many rural households. Both the extension of and a return to subsistence farming became unavoidable, especially for people living in remote settlements with little access to markets and waged jobs. These developments were accompanied by the mandatory reorganisation of the former collective and state farms’ agricultural facilities.10 The jamoat of Porshnev consists of nine settlements. In the early twentieth century, there were approximately 280 inhabitants living in 59 households. People mainly cultivated grains such as wheat, barley, millet, and legumes on an individual basis, with few vegetables and livestock.11 With Soviet collectivisation in the Pamirs in the early 1940s, the agricultural sector experienced deep changes. Porshnev was turned into a collective farm (kolkhoz), which was repeatedly restructured and eventually became part of a state farm (sovkhoz).12 At that time, agricultural production was shifted from farming towards animal husbandry under the national planned production system. While the farm had to produce mainly fodder, highly subsidised food products for the people were imported.13 In the post-socialist era, people returned to individual irrigationbased cultivation of grain and legumes, as well as root crops such as potatoes and vegetables, which were widely introduced only during the Soviet era. In 2015, the population of Porshnev had grown more than 30 times since the turn of the twentieth century to more than 8,500 inhabitants forming more than 1,350 households.14 The population of the village of Sizhd has grown more than 13 times, from less than 80 people in the 1890s to over 1,000 people in 153 households in

Water and irrigation arrangements  267 2015.15 In the past, the people of Sizhd cultivated similar crops as the people in Porshnev, and experienced the same fate as the two other study sites: the kolkhoz was turned into a sovkhoz specialised in animal husbandry and fodder cultivation, until land use rights were privatised in the 1990s. The people had to switch back to subsistence cultivation and grow similar crops as in Porshnev.16 As with the previous examples, the people in Shirgin Village experienced a remarkable growth in population, from 110 people at the turn of the twentieth century to nearly 900 inhabitants living in 100-something households in 2015.17 Along with this population growth came the challenge of needing to extend the cultivation of land and irrigation infrastructure, adjusting the corresponding irrigation arrangements to the shifting societal conditions.18 Although all three villages experienced similar Soviet and post-Soviet agricultural regimes, the irrigation arrangements of these three sites differ substantially in terms of the sources of irrigation water, organisational aspects, their administrative scope and spatial scale. I discuss these arrangements below, after introducing diverse meanings ascribed to water by the rural communities. Water and irrigation arrangements in the western Pamirs Meanings ascribed to water by the rural communities

Nearly all households in the three study sites practice irrigation-based ­agriculture for food and fodder production. The only exceptions are the few households consisting of older or sick people that do not have the strength or ability to practise hard farming work. According to local respondents, these households usually receive material support from relatives, neighbours, and the respective community in the form of locally produced goods.19 Water, therefore, has an immediate agronomic value for the entire population of the studied settlements. Another common economy-related usage of water at the local scale is the operation of micro hydroelectric power stations for the ­generation of electricity, as well as of water-driven oil and flour mills used to process local harvests. Several interviewees also mentioned aspects that do not represent an ­immediate use of water, but which can be interpreted as indirect economic meanings attributed to water. Local communities elect individuals to leading positions in autonomous water management arrangements, such as water master or canal master. These receive a collectively borne, partly monetary, partly non-monetary remuneration for their efforts.20 Water is, thus, understood as an immediate economic factor, as well as a means of generating incomes. Regarding the social aspects of water, institutions of water-related collaborative action (khashar; in the Wakhi-speaking village of Shirgin called kyryar), were identified in all three study sites. These are mostly devoted to costly ­construction, maintenance, and repair work on irrigation infrastructure and are usually carried out regularly on long-established dates or during public

268  Andrei Dörre events and festivities such as Navruz (Central Asian New Year around March 20–21, in the Wakhi-speaking village of Shirgin called Shogun). The deliberate pooling of resources minimises individual costs and enables each party involved to gain a greater advantage from commonly shared irrigation infrastructure than would be possible from individual irrigation efforts. In all three study sites, collaborative repairs are regularly carried out before the start of the year’s first irrigation round and if they experience unexpected mechanical damage. Each household of a neighbourhood, or the entire village, sends a volunteer to participate in the construction, repair, or maintenance work that usually takes between two and three days.21 A specific regular collaborative task is pursued in Sizhd Village, where after the end of the irrigation period in early autumn, the farmers collectively clean a culvert that supplies additional water from a neighbouring valley, to help with local water shortages.22 Figure 12.2 shows the collective construction of a connecting path between low-lying and high-lying parts of a village in the district of Ishkāshim. Mukhamedova and Wegerich observed an increasing ‘feminization of ­agriculture in post-Soviet Tajikistan’ due to agrarian reforms and seasonal male labour migration.23 However, in my field sites I observed a widespread gendered pattern of intra-household divisions of water-related chores. The representatives of the WUA and local administration of the municipality of Porshnev

Figure 12.2 Collective construction of a connecting path between low-lying and ­high-lying parts of a village in the district of Ishkāshim. Photograph by Dörre, March 2018.

Water and irrigation arrangements  269 were the only respondents who mentioned that women are ­becoming more and more involved in agricultural tasks that historically were seen as in the male domain.24 Men are usually responsible for supervising the canals, weirs, and sluices outside the immediate farmsteads, while women oftentimes carry out water-related tasks on the farmsteads. This is also evident from ­publicly displayed local irrigation schedules, which mention males as responsible for the spatiotemporal allocation of water.25 However, men do not act independently from their spouses or other female household members. By taking over farmbased agricultural chores, as well as reproduction and care activities, women give men time and space to perform tasks outside the farm limits. Based on my own observations of the activities in the farmsteads, I also consider it very likely that women are directly involved in the negotiation of irrigation entitlements, often having an important voice in the decision-making process within the households. The publicly visible performance of water-related tasks, though, reproduces both the social relations and gender-related positionalities within rural communities and individual households. The meaning of water can be very local-specific and transcendental, so only three aspects were identified that are valid for all study sites. In each case, there are physical landscape elements that are connected to water-related myths and legends, with corresponding toponyms. In Midenshor of the Porshnev Municipality is one of the best known and most revered springs in the Pamirs, named after the scholar and missionary Nazir-i Khuzraw (Chashmai Piri Shokh Nosir), who is seen as having brought the Ismaili faith (a branch of Shia Islam) to the region and is worshipped as a saint.26 In Sizhd Village, people ­worship at a mountain spring that, according to lore, opened hundreds of years ago at a rocky mountain slope at the request of a female descendant of the Prophet Mohammed. The inhabitants still refer to it as Bibizainab.27 Finally, in Shirgin, the people pray at and use a hot spring for healing and personal hygiene. It is said to have been created after the Prophet Mohammad’s son-in-law Ali killed a dragon near the village.28 There are many other places in the Pamirs where water-related landscape elements are charged with transcendental connotations. The second aspect is related to pre-Islamic Zoroastrian principles, which are still widely known and followed in the region. According to these principles, water is one of the four elements of creation and a symbol of life that is honoured throughout the year, as well as being used during diverse ceremonies held for seasonal festivals. Important examples are the common rituals of the symbolic cleaning of water canals, ploughing of the first furrow in the fields (barza-i yakum), and the sending of the first water of the season into the main irrigation canal in spring.29 Also related to pre-Islamic reasoning is the fact that in the popular traditional Pamiri houses (chid), the people worship not only fire, air, and earth, but also water. The mandatory skylight construction called chorkhona (literally ‘four houses’) consists of four concentric square wooden layers, each rotated by 90 degrees, which symbolically represent these four elements.30 During Navruz, some water is poured through

270  Andrei Dörre the opening of the skylight into the main room to bless the household with health, wealth, and joy. Finally, water is also acknowledged to be an environmental force and factor causing useful and detrimental effects. People closely monitor weather conditions such as the precipitation, temperature, and wind throughout the year, to estimate the availability of water in the short, medium, and long term. Precipitation-rich autumn and winter periods are valued because they lead to the accumulation of frozen water in the higher altitudes, which will potentially be available as melted irrigation water during the coming vegetation period. However, in the high mountain context of the Pamirs, larger snow and ice masses, as well as rather rare heavy rainfall can trigger destructive mass movements such as avalanches, mudflows, rockfalls, and slope erosion.31 In such contexts, the institution of the khashar is oftentimes used for complex and cost-intensive infrastructure repair works and preventive measures, such as the establishment of protective structures in exposed locations. These brief observations show that the people of the Pamirs continuously operate with water-related economic, social, cultural-transcendental, and ­ecological meanings and symbolisms in their interactions with each other and with their natural environment. The following section presents three detailed examples of autonomous irrigation arrangements, which I understand to be central means of local social organisation. The supralocal irrigation arrangement of Porshnev Municipality

Irrigation agriculture within Porshnev Municipality historically relied on three natural creeks fed by snowmelt water, which are tapped by several canals that deliver water to the individual fields, orchards, and kitchen gardens of the households. While both the creeks (Tishor Dara and Pashor Dara) provide irrigation water from May until September to the four southern villages of Pashor, Chirudzh, Tishor, and Khosa, the largest of the three creeks (Barchid Dara) provides irrigation water during the same time period to the six v­ illages of Khosa, Midenshor, Buved, Barchid, Kukhk, and Vozm. A small ­number of  households receive water from the Panj River with the use of pumps (Figure 12.3).32 According to local respondents, in the Socialist period, top-down r­ egulations prioritised the fields of the state farm to be irrigated during the day, while private kitchen gardens could only receive water during night hours. Water theft was punished quickly by the state. During the privatisation of land use rights in the 1990s, each farmstead received an arable land plot according to the size of the respective household. Conflicts over the order, time, ­duration of irrigation slots, and the amount of water withdrawn from the canals broke out between the farmers.33 According to the head of the WUA, the ‘law of the jungle took over’,34 meaning that water thievery, self-interest, and competition replaced regulated water use and cooperation. Households led by women, as well as isolated old and sick people, oftentimes emerged as losers from these

Water and irrigation arrangements  271

Figure 12.3 Irrigation water provision of the Porshnev Municipality. Design: Dörre 2021 based on Stéphane Henriod, Utilisation des SIG pour l’aide a la ­ gestion de l’irrigation. Le cas de Porshinev dans le Pamir Tadjik. (Saarbrücken: Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften GmbH & Co KG, 2012); WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality.

discords: their low status was not compensated by functioning authorities to implement an effective regulation that would guarantee equal access to irrigation water. The socio-economic hardships of the post-socialist period, the spatiotemporally uneven distribution of water, and the simultaneously growing number of people involved in irrigation affairs required a locally developed answer to balance the interests of the stakeholders and ­curtail conflicts. While the scarcity and uneven spatial distribution of irrigation water seemed the most pressing environmental constraints for cultivation, the just allocation of irrigation water between upstream users and downstream users became one of the most important social tasks at that time.35 Through grassroots efforts, institutional ­support from the non-governmental Mountain Societies Development Support Programme (MSDSP) and other non-governmental development cooperation organisations, local activists sought to develop a just and inclusive mechanism. Several participatory assessment meetings were conducted to identify irrigation-related strengths and potentials, the most ­vulnerable groups, and the most pressing irrigation-related challenge. The physical components of the irrigation system were assessed and mapped, and older inhabitants were asked for their experiences and memories about historical approaches to ­irrigation management and practices.36 With external support from the experts of MSDSP, local activists used the legal requirements and provisions of the national law ‘On Water User Associations’ as a framework for designing a local-specific irrigation ­management body adapted to the socio-ecological conditions in Porshnev Municipality.37 The outcome of these efforts was the launch of a quickly ­growing WUA named ‘Ob Umed’ (Water is hope) in 2009, serving more than 8,500 inhabitants of the municipality, and with over 1,100 members ­(individual local households) paying a

272  Andrei Dörre monthly membership fee. In this WUA, coordinating the s­ patiotemporal water distribution is carried out by the mirāb (water master). Before implementation, these schedules have to be approved by the local administration of the municipality. To give an impression of what the spatiotemporal irrigation water allocation looks like, the scheme for the Barchid Dara for the period of late spring–early summer will be described. The water distribution from this creek was such that each settlement typically received a three-day irrigation slot with breaks of six days in between. In 2018, there was a ten-day break between the last irrigation slots in May and the first irrigation slot in June. Towards summer, the available meltwater usually decreases and i­rrigation slots need to be of shorter duration at longer intervals.38 The water master is elected by the assembly of the canal masters (mirjuion) for the duration of one year; each settlement of the municipality delegates one mirjui to the assembly. The mirāb is assisted by an advisory body that consists of a congregation of the councils of village elders from the nine settlements. The mirāb reports to the head of the WUA, who, in turn, has a ­so-called assembly of knowledgeable people (majliz-i umumi) at his disposal to help advise and arbitrate. These positions are usually held by men but women are becoming more active and involved in these decision-making bodies. Regarding local water allocation, each settlement has its own internal scheme, as all settlements differ in terms of their physical endowment, the layout of farms and fields, and demographic features. These schedules are designed by the respective canal masters, who are elected by the household representatives of the respective village for the duration of one year. Each mirjui gets advice from a local council of experienced and respected elder persons representing different neighbourhoods in the settlement.39 The fact that the water-related self-organisation in Porshnev goes beyond water as an agricultural input is made clear by the fact that the WUA repaired and restored the local holy spring; the organisation tackling the problem of a reliable and fair drinking water supply; and the villagers using the WUA organisational structure to convene collaborative work at the neighbourhood, village, and supralocal levels, depending on the size of the task.40 These activities have gained notable international recognition: in 2014, the WUA was awarded the Equator Prize by the Equator Initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for its ‘best practice’ activities for rural sustainable development. In order to support economically weak households and those who struggle with the labour shortage caused by migration, sickness, or death of relative, a pilot project developed together with the MSDSP has recently created positions of jointly financed obshoron – literally ‘waterfall; abundance of water’ – at the village level. These individuals take over individual irrigation chores to support the respective households that are often led by women.41 From these local insights, it becomes clear that self-initiated supralocal WUA, which at the same time still depends on external support, addresses many of the socio-ecological challenges outlined above, and acknowledges quite different roles of water that locals value.

Water and irrigation arrangements  273 The interlocal irrigation arrangement of Sizhd Village

Historically, the irrigation arrangement of Sizhd Village relied on two water sources fed by snowmelt: the local Sizhd Dara Creek originating from the Bibizainab Spring, which runs down the hillside north of the village, and an approximately three-kilometre long canal channelling water from the neighbouring side valley of the Mun Dara Creek, to the east of Sizhd (Figure 12.4). In 2002, a subterranean penstock pipe was constructed with the help of the MSDSP to increase the irrigation water supply. It is locally known as ‘the duker’ and withdraws water from the Rivak Dara Creek on the other side of the Gunt Valley (Figure 12.5).42 Three rather small canals fed by the Sizhd Dara Creek usually provide ­irrigation water to the upper northern part of the settlement during the summer. These canals can be used independently from other settlements. However, households that have their agricultural land in the upper part of Sizhd Village have repeatedly experienced the hardships of irrigation water scarcity due to (1) the interplay of a growing number of water users in the area, (2) a limited capacity of the water line, because of recurrent gravitational mass movements covering parts of the Creek, and (3) limited financial and technical means to pump water up from lower water bodies, such as the Gunt River. The Mun

Figure 12.4 Irrigation water provision of Sizhd Village. Design: Dörre 2022 based on a photograph by Dörre, July 2014; and Füssel et al., Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems; Mishkhonov, canal master; Parvonov, former clerk.

274  Andrei Dörre

Figure 12.5 Head section of the culvert in the valley of the Rivak Creek. Photograph by Dörre, July 2014.

Dara Canal is instead considered to be the central water source of Sizhd Village. It has a larger capacity than the channels mentioned before, providing irrigation water from June until September to the lower part of Sizhd using gravitational flow. But its water has to be shared with the settlement of Turbat, to the east. This means coordinating water withdrawal to meet the needs of both settlements. The penstock empties into the main canal in the middle of the village for the benefit of the remaining downstream farmsteads. However, downstream users on the western edge of Sizhd suffer the most from acute water shortages, especially after winters with low precipitation. Receiving a sufficient amount of irrigation water depends on one’s spatial location, since the current infrastructure favours upstream residents. Institutional arrangements are not able to fully compensate.43 In terms of the local irrigation arrangement, the main management responsibility rests with two canal masters. One is responsible for the upper part of the settlement, with nearly 80 households in 2014. The other is responsible for the lower part below the main canal, with an equal number of farmsteads receiving water from the Mun Dara Creek and the penstock pipe. Both are elected by the inhabitants of the respective part of the village for one year and can be dismissed if they do not satisfy water recipients. Both draft the irrigation schedules for the part of the settlement they are responsible for; organise

Water and irrigation arrangements  275 collaborative infrastructural maintenance activities; define fines for breaching rules and schemes; and mediate conflicts that arise.44 Since a formal WUA does not exist, they report directly to the village organisation (VO), which is a selforganised and participatory governance body, initiated in the Pamirs in 1998 by the MSDSP. This administrative body also acts as a formalised local link between the community and the official state administration. Common meetings deal with village issues; every household dispatches a representative to participate in the public decision-making. According to local respondents, the most important water-related topics during these meetings are infrastructure repair and maintenance works, possible extensions of the water supply system, and the payment schemes. The VO collects the irrigation fee from the farmers and forwards it to both canal masters as remuneration.45 Sizhd is the only case study in which ongoing water theft was brought up by respondents, without being specifically asked. To fight the problem of water theft, the canal masters have set a procedure where first-time violators are obliged to pay a penalty to the VO. The second breach of the rules for irrigation water withdrawal is punished with a higher penalty, and a third violation will be reported to the police.46 I interpret the proactive mentioning of water theft as indicating that it is an ongoing problem, especially for downstream abstractors, since they suffer the most from it. However, the existence of gradual sanctions and the respondents’ statements about the wide acceptance of this scheme are indications that a pragmatic approach has been found to deal with this issue. Thus, water-related collaborative activities and self-organisation in Sizhd seem to focus primarily on the economic aspect of the agronomic importance of irrigation water for individual farming activities, as well as on disciplining unsocial behaviour. The village-scale irrigation arrangement of Shirgin Village

Due to the lack of water sources within the settlement area, a technical ­structure for the delivery and distribution of water is also required in Shirgin. Four main canals pipe water from different sources to land plots. The Pirwod is regarded as the oldest canal, stemming from the early nineteenth century. It channels water coming from a glacier-fed creek from May until September using the natural gradient of a steep hill to the north of the village. The small and short Wodgash Canal stems from a snow-fed natural pool and provides water from April to June to a couple of homesteads and land plots located in the east of the village. In the early twentieth century, the Russian Pamir Detachment offered technical support to build the long, partly concrete canal Shgardwod to serve the growing population.47 Finally, the fields of a small western plateau called Late Spring (Pushti Bakhor) are used for fodder crops, receiving water from a canal connecting to the Drizh Creek (Figure 12.6).48 Over time, the community developed a sophisticated arrangement to address the problem of the spatiotemporally uneven water supply. Because there is no overarching institution governing local water issues such as a

276  Andrei Dörre

Figure 12.6 Irrigation water provision of Shirgin Village. Design: Dörre 2020 based on Mirzo 2010; Amonbekov, local guide, farmer; Mudoiorov former teacher, expert on local history; Deronov, teacher.

state-run body or a formal WUA, the village assembly (majliz) became the major decision-making body. It gathers annually around the Navruz festival in March. The assembly consists of the elected head of the village, respected village elders and spiritual leaders, representatives of both the officially institutionalised women’s group and youth group of the village, as well as representatives from each household. The majliz elects and appoints the mirāb, who is responsible for securing the water supply and supervising the main canals.49 When the mirāb identifies infrastructural problems during his daily inspections, he announces a day of collective work. This often occurs in late winter, early spring, and after damages from rockfalls and landslides during the vegetation period (Figure 12.7). The water master also creates the irrigation schedules adapted to different stages of the cultivation period and the amount of available water, subject to approval by the village assembly. The mirāb receives an annual remuneration from each household, calculated on the size or location of land, as in Sizhd. Low payment morale and irrigation water theft exist but are not significant problems in Shirgin. According to local respondents, there are usually only a few defaulters on the payment of the annual fee, and despite water shortages, the local farmers adhere to the jointly agreed water distribution regulations.50

Water and irrigation arrangements  277

Figure 12.7 Fallen rock partially blocking the water flow of the Shgardwod Canal of Shirgin Village. Photograph by Dörre, August 2016.

Farming groups aligned with the gravitational flow of water are headed by sardorkho-i dekhqonon, coordinating the management level below the water master. They are responsible for the supervision of the locks regulating the six secondary canals within the village, as well as for the condition of the canals themselves. In this respect, they perform a role that corresponds to that of the mirjuion of Porshnev and Sizhd. Each secondary canal has four heads that take turns and represent a different subgroup of farmers using the same canal. The sardorkho-i dekhqonon are elected by their group and are responsible for water withdrawal according to the agreed schedules. The water division within these subgroups is negotiated internally. The arrangements are flexible to quickly address changing water availabilities due to weather or damages to the infrastructure. Individual farmers handling the water distribution on their private plots can be seen as the final tier of this irrigation arrangement.51 Different irrigation schedules correspond to different scenarios, depending on the stage of the cultivation period and the amount of water available. The first schedule is used during the beginning of the cultivation period from the middle of April until mid-May in years with an average water supply. All farmers of the village are allocated to two main groups, each consisting of six subgroups of up to ten households. The first main group is entitled to irrigate their fields on odd calendar dates, the second main group on even

278  Andrei Dörre dates. The irrigation entitlement of a group comprises a day irrigation round lasting from 7am to 7pm, and a night irrigation round of similar length. Accordingly, every subgroup has the right to irrigate their fields for two hours during the day and two hours during the night. The water distribution within the ­subgroup is negotiated by its members. A second schedule is used from the middle of May until the main harvest in August. Every neighbourhood receives irrigation rights for one specific day of the week. Within the neighbourhoods, households organise the water distribution themselves. In summers with serious water scarcity, the canal-specific subgroups receive irrigation rights for 24 hours, and have to negotiate the water distribution within their groups independently.52 In my understanding, the irrigation-related activities and self-organisation of the community in all three case studies are linked to the manifold meanings of water. Based on an egalitarian principle, the arrangements provide all households with as equal as possible access to irrigation water for subsistence cultivation, in a situation characterised by both a spatiotemporally uneven distribution and scarcity of water. Through long-term collaborative activities, divided maintenance responsibilities, and the involvement of many household representatives in the overall management arrangement, the arrangement in Shirgin appears to be an exemplary common pool regime. Discussion The case study results show that water plays a key role in the lifeworld, livelihood strategies, collaborative resource management arrangements, and the forms of social organisation of these villages. The three case studies share a similar historical past and similar socio-ecological challenges, including demographic growth, spatial and temporal unequal distribution and scarcity of water, and agricultural practices dependent on irrigation. However, there are also significant differences in the administrative scope and legal status of the irrigation management arrangements, the number of beneficiaries, the degree of involvement of the population in the management structures and practices, and the problem of water theft. One of the central characteristics of the autonomous social organisation approach around water in Porshnev Municipality is the WUA, which is based on a formal national legal regulation that defines the basic requirements, components, and working principles. WUAs are legal persons and transform these regulations and principles into contextualised, local-specific management practices. This supralocal irrigation arrangement includes regulations for determining the head of the organisation and other owners of administrative function; procedural aspects such as elections and collaborative irrigation infrastructure work; as well as channels and interfaces for direct communication with the communities at all levels. It also includes advisory bodies at different levels to regulate responsibilities and accountability. A key aspect is that the WUA of Porshnev Municipality is not a top-down implemented

Water and irrigation arrangements  279 project as seen in many other places in Central Asia53 but originated from the grassroots efforts of local activists. As problem definition and suggestions for new activities have to come from the users themselves, this social organisation highly depends on the active engagement, participation, and cooperation of the inhabitants in water resource governance and management. According to the WUA leaders in Porshnev, this approach has proven successful since the settlements e­ffectively cooperate with each other, sharing labour, time, and other costs. So far, they have managed to solve conflicts over irrigation water without much involvement of external state actors.54 The problem of water theft, which previously existed in the municipality of Porshnev, seems to have been overcome with the re-establishment of finely structured irrigation arrangements. The new obshoron approach attempts to help needy households in the area of irrigation work, which is essential for their survival. In recent years, representatives of this prize-winning WUA have conduct training sessions based on their experiences for interested organisations not only in the Pamirs, but also in other regions of Tajikistan and Afghanistan.55 Sizhd Village works differently: formal irrigation management bodies such as a WUA did not exist in 2014, and within the village there were considerable disparities in the irrigation water supply in 2014 that were partly attributed to water theft. However, the locally accepted institution of gradual sanctions was perceived as an effective preventive instrument and can be understood in Ostrom’s sense as one of the design principles of ‘long-enduring common pool resources (CPR)’.56 The irrigation arrangement in Shirgin also represents both a well-­ functioning common resource management concept and a form of independent social organisation, which includes joint decision-making; sharing of both the benefits and burdens; and prevention of free riding and water theft through social control. Local knowledgeable people explicitly regarded Shirgin’s distribution system of irrigation water as equitable. The arrangement reliably provides ­irrigation water for the local cultivation of food and fodder plants for many years, contributing to food security at the local level. This village’s approach is differentiated and flexible in successfully balancing different interests within the user community and to adapt quickly to the shifting availability of irrigation water. Other important reasons for the low-friction performance seem to be that water access rights are barely contested within the settlement itself, and the fact that the water consumed by the inhabitants of Shirgin is not shared with other settlements. The broad involvement of the community in irrigation management and the system’s adaptability appear to be pivotal factors for its sustainability and resilience in the challenging ­conditions of the region. Land cultivation in the Pamirs requires a functioning technical irrigation infrastructure; its operation, maintenance and development is associated with considerable, individually insurmountable costs. Through local selforganisation, collective structures were created in all three villages to replace the former state farms structures and control of the respective irrigation

280  Andrei Dörre arrangement. Based on local knowledge and also on external expertise and means, ­bottom-up initiatives developed management systems and water distribution schemes that are adapted to shifting social and ecological conditions. These collective arrangements enable people to practise individual farming. By establishing, enforcing, and monitoring balanced and widely accepted water distribution schemes, the general problems of scarcity and unequal spatiotemporal distribution of water is addressed. For the people entrusted with management responsibilities on a full-time basis (as in the leadership of the WUA of Porshnev Municipality) or on a voluntary and recompensed basis (as in Sizhd and Shirgin), there are also positive monetary effects in the form of collectively born fees. The effective curbing of water theft seems to be associated with the broad anchoring of management responsibilities in the local communities, collective common law ownership of the irrigation system, and an effective system of social control. Conclusion The local irrigation arrangements discussed here represent differentiated and socio-ecologically contextualised adaptations, all initiated by the communities themselves, with certain support of external non-governmental organisations. I conclude that the longevity of the presented arrangements suggests that they are not only widely accepted by the respective populations, but also flexible enough to respond to shifting social conditions and deal with environmental hazards such as landslides. Key principles of common pool resource management approaches, cooperation, and mutual support are characteristic of these arrangements. Together, these features lead to the reduction in ­individual risks and living costs, as well as decreasing free-riding through social control. Consequently, collective acceptance of and identification with these contextualised, specific irrigation arrangements have developed. The ­presented solutions promote both the survival of individual households under the challenging conditions in the Pamirs of Tajikistan and a kind of micro-scale ‘hydrosolidarity’57 within the studied communities. The particular strength of the presented cases seems to lie in social assets shared by community members, such as situated local knowledge; the acceptance of clearly defined management structures within widely participatory decision-making; and coordinated collaborative action; as well as sharing of benefits and burdens. At the same time however, local social organisation efforts also face substantial limitations. The challenges that cannot be addressed solely by local efforts include, amongst others, the acquisition of expensive technical solutions for delivering water from distant sources; the structural improvement of the limited wage work opportunities to diversify livelihoods; and a stronger integration of the region into (inter)national market networks. This is where external assistance remains necessary, when requested by the communities. Finally, I reflect briefly on the analytic approach in this study. Irrigation governance and management in Central Asia has been studied by numerous

Water and irrigation arrangements  281 scientists from many disciplines, applying diverse perspectives and emphasising different aspects such as the impacts of institutional change on irrigation governance;58 nature-related transactions and governance structures;59 and the role of gender and authority in collective irrigation systems,60 to mention just a few. This chapter applies the inductive nexus medium perspective, and looks through the prism of water at the social organisation of local communities, and how these communities develop contextualised irrigation arrangements.61 This perspective opposes narrow research focuses on supposedly clearly ­distinguishable technical, legal, or economic aspects of irrigation. It does not seek solutions for already identified problems, but is characterised by a holistic mindset that attempts to understand the issue by explicitly considering the perceptions, assessments, and diverse, oftentimes overlapping, meanings ascribed to water in rural communities. Applying such a bottom-up perspective can provide insights on the potentials, performances, guiding principles, and limitations of local resource management approaches in Central Asia and beyond. The detailed results underline the potential of ethnographic and social scientific research concepts combined with historical research for studies that seek to understand how people’s lifeworld look like, how communal living is organised, and how socio-ecological challenges are practically addressed. Notes 1 This chapter is a revised version of the previously published paper: Andrei Dörre, “Collaborative Action and Social Organization in Remote Rural Regions. Autonomous Irrigation Arrangements in the Pamirs of Tajikistan,” Water 12, no. 10 (2020): 2905. 2 Vincent Fourniau, “Some Notes on the Contribution of the Study of Irrigation to the History of Central Asia,” in Sharing Water. Irrigation and Water Management in the Hindukush, Karakoram, Himalaya, ed. Hermann Kreutzmann (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2020), 32–54; Benjamin D. Koen, Beyond the Roof of the World: Music, Prayer, and Healing in the Pamir Mountains (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); idem, “Water Towers of Humankind: Approaches and Perspectives for Research on Hydraulic Resources in the Mountains of South and Central Asia,” in Sharing Water, 13–31; Ikromiddin Mukhiddinov, Zemledelie Pamirskikh Tadzhikov Vakhana i Ishkashima v XIX-Nachale XX v. (IstorikoEtnograficheskii Ocherk) (Moskva: Nauka; Glavnaia Redaktsiia Vostochnoi Literatury, 1975); idem, Osobennosti Traditsionnogo Zemledel’cheskogo Khoziaistva Pripamirskikh Narodnostei v XIX—Nachale XX Veka (Moskva: Nauka; Glavnaya Redaktsiya Vostochnoi Literatury, 1984). 3 Robert McC. Netting, “The System Nobody Knows: Village Irrigation in the Swiss Alps,” in Irrigation’s Impact on Society, eds. Theodore E. Downing, and McGuire Gibson (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974), 67–75 (quot. p. 67). 4 Israr-ud-din, “Social Organization and Irrigation Systems in the Khot Valley, Eastern Hindukush,” in Sharing Water, 55–72; Zahir Ahmad, Fazlur Rahman, Andreas Dittmann, Kamal Hussain, and Ihsanullah, “Water Crisis in the Eastern Hindu Kush. A Micro-level Study of Community-based Irrigation Water Management in the Mountain Village Kushum, Pakistan,” Erdkunde 74, no. 1 (2020): 59–79. 5 Dörre, “Collaborative Action”.

282  Andrei Dörre 6 WUA OU Water User Association Ob Umed, “Pervyi Poliv: Vozrozhdenie Traditsionnogo Prazdnika,” Ob Khaiot. Informatsionnyi Biulleten’ 2, no. 2 (2017): 3. 7 The chapter introduces several terms that are used by the people of the studied communities. Unless otherwise stated, terms are taken from Tajik. All non-English terms are italicised in the text. 8 Tobias Kraudzun, “From the Pamir Frontier to International Borders: Exchange Relations of the Borderland Population,” in Subverting Borders. Doing Research on Smuggling and Small-Scale Trade, ed. Bettina Bruns, and Judith Miggelbrink (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011), 171–191; Hermann Kreutzmann, Pamirian Crossroads. Kirghiz and Wakhi of High Asia (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015). 9 Kathryn Anderson, and Richard Pomfret, Consequences of Creating a Market Economy. Evidence from Household Surveys in Central Asia (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003); Nora Dudwick, Elizabeth Gomart, Alexandre Marc, and Kathleen Kuehnast, “From Soviet Expectations to Post-Soviet Realities: Poverty during the Transition,” in When Things Fall Apart: Qualitative Studies of Poverty in the Former Soviet Union, eds. Nora Dudwick, Elizabeth Gomart, Alexandre Marc, and Kathleen Kuehnast (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2003), 21–27; Kraudzun, “From the Pamir Frontier”; Kreutzmann, Pamirian Crossroads. 10 Anderson, and Pomfret, Consequences of Creating a Market Economy; Sarah Robinson, and Tanya Guenther, “Rural Livelihoods in Three Mountainous Regions of Tajikistan,” Post-Communist Economies 19, no. 3 (2007): 359–378. 11 Adrian G. Serebrennikov, Ocherk Shugnana (S Kartoiu) (1895), Archive of the Russian Geographical Society, File 74/1/2. 12 B.A. Antonenko, “Sotsialisticheskie agrarnye preobrazovaniia v GornoBadakhshanskoi Avtonomnoi Oblasti,” in Ocherki po istorii sovetskogo Badakhshana, ed. R.M. Masov (Dushanbe: Donish, 1985), 220–253; Pavel A. Baranov, Pamir i ego zemledel’cheskoe osvoenie (Moskva: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo Kolkhoznoi i Sovkhoznoi Literatury, 1940). 13 GKTS Gosudarstvennyi Komitet Tadzhikskoi SSR po Statistike, Gorno Badakhshanskaia Avtonomnaia Oblast’ v tsifrakh v 1987 godu (Dushanbe: Goskomstat TaSSR, 1988); Hiltrud Herbers, Postsowjetische Transformation in Tadschikistan: Die Handlungsmacht der Akteure im Kontext von Landreform und Existenzsicherung (Erlangen: Fränkische Geographische Gesellschaft, 2006); Kreutzmann, Pamirian Crossroads; UNKhU Tadzhikskoi SSR, Sektor Ucheta Naseleniya i Kul’tury, Spisok naselennykh punktov TadzhSSR. (Stalinabad: UNKhU, 1932); WUA OU Water User Association Ob Umed, Nasha Deiatel’nost’ v Tsifrakh, 2018, accessed on 3 October 2020, http://obumed.org/index.php 14 WUA OU, Nasha Deiatel’nost. 15 Head of the Statistical Agency under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, Report on the Number of Households and Population in Rural Areas to 2015 (Dushanbe: HSA PRT, 2015); Serebrennikov, Ocherk Shugnana; UNKhU, Spisok Naselennykh Punktov TadzhSSR. 16 Karl Khudomunov, former water master, state farm ‘Vatan’, Sizhd Village. Personal communication, 2014; Pavel Parvonov, former clerk, state farm “Vatan”, Sizhd Village. Personal communication, 2014. 17 HSA PRT, Report on the Number of Households and Population in Rural Areas to 2015; Andrei E. Snesarev, Statisticheskie svedeniia o pravom berege reki Piandzha v uchastke Liangar–Namadgut (1902), Archive of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, File 115/1/128; UNKhU, Spisok naselennykh punktov TadzhSSR 18 ADC Austrian Development Cooperation, PAMIR Poverty Alleviation by Mitigation of Integrated High-Mountain Risk, FOCUS, and Humanitarian

Water and irrigation arrangements  283 Assistance, Hilfswerk Austria International, Nakshai Idorakunii Ofatkhoi Tabii. Dekhai Shirgin–Dzhamoati Vrang–Nokhiyai Ishkoshim (Khorog: ADC, 2013); Sherali Deronov, teacher, farmer, Shirgin Village, Tajikistan. Personal communication, 2016; Komil Mudoiorov, former teacher; expert on local history, Shirgin Village. Personal communication, 2015 and 2016. 19 Murod Khirzoev, former farm manager and water master state farm “Lenin”, water master, Shirgin Village. Personal communication, 2015 and 2016; Khudomunov, former water master; Bekzod Maklabekov, head of village, farmer, Shirgin Village. Personal communication, 2016; Amir Mishkhonov, canal master, Sizhd Village. Personal communication, 2014; WUA OUA Administration of the Water User Association Ob Umed, Porshnev Municipality, Midenshor Village, Tajikistan. Personal communication, 2018. 20 Khirzoev, former farm manager and water master; Khudomunov, former water master; Mishkhonov, canal master; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 21 Deronov, Teacher; Mishkhonov, Canal master; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 22 Gerrit Füssel, Gulbahor Kaikovusova, Hilde Schaddenhorst, and Tohir Sabzaliev, Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems in the Tajik Pamirs (unpublished manuscript) (Berlin: Freie Universität Berlin, Centre for Development Studies, 2014); Mishkhonov, canal master. 23 Nozilakhon Mukhamedova and Kai Wegerich, “The Feminization of Agriculture in Post-Soviet Tajikistan,” Journal of Rural Studies 57 (2018): 128–139. 24 UNDP United Nations Development Program, WUA “Ob Umed.” Tajikistan (New York: UNDP, 2016); WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 25 Dörre, “Collaborative Action”; Murod Khirzoev, Jadval-i Obmoni (public d ­ isplay of the irrigation schedule of Shirgin Village for mid-April to mid-May). Shirgin, 2016; Yasuhiro Ochiai, “The Current Status of Lifestyle and Occupations in the Wakhan Area of Tajikistan,” in Mapping Transitions in the Pamirs. Changing Human-Environmental Landscapes, eds. Hermann Kreutzmann, and Teiji Watanabe (Cham: Springer, 2016), 181–195; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 26 Daniel Beben, “The Legendary Biographies of Nāsir-i Khusraw: Memory and Textualization in Early Modern Persian Ismā’īlism,” PhD diss., (University of Indiana-Bloomington, 2015); Jovid Khurshedov, local historian, Porshnev Municipality, Midenshor Village. Personal communication, 2018; Konstantin S. Vasil’tsov, “Prirodnye mesta pokloneniya Zapadnogo Pamira,” in Tsentral’naia Aziia. Traditsiia v usloviiakh peremen, Vol. 3, ed. Rakhmat Rakhimov, and Mar’iam E. Rezvan (St. Petersburg: Kunstkamera, 2012), 205–243; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 27 Robert Middleton, Legends of the Pamirs (Khorog: University of Central Asia, 2012); Vasil’tsov, Prirodnye mesta. 28 Abdulmamad Iloliev, “King of Men: ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib in Pamiri Folktales.” Journal of Shi’a Islamic Studies 8, no. 3 (2015): 307–323; Middleton, Legends of the Pamirs; Ivan I. Zarubin, Vypiski o sviashennykh mestakh v Vakhane (1916), Archive of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, File 121/1/361. 29 Larisa Dodkhudoeva, Zinatmo Yusufbekova, and Mumina Shovalieva. National Festivals of the Tajiks Through the Ages (Dushanbe: University of Central Asia, Graduate School of Development, Cultural Heritage and Humanities Unit, 2020); WUA OU, Pervyi Poliv. 30 M.K. Mamadnazarov, and I.I. Iakubov, “Konstruktivnye i funktsional’nye osobennosti Gornobadakhshanskogo stupenchatogo potolka Chorkhona,” in Pamirovedenie (Sbornik statei, Vypusk 2), ed. M.S. Asimov (Dushanbe: Donish, 1985), 183–202; Shahlo Nekushoeva, The Conception of the House in the Shughni Linguistic Worldview (Dushanbe: University of Central Asia, Graduate School of Development, Cultural Heritage and Humanities Unit, 2020).

284  Andrei Dörre 31 Chorali Amonbekov, local guide, farmer, Shirgin Village, Tajikistan. Personal ­communication, 2016; Khirzoev, former farm manager and water master; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 32 MSDSP Mountain Societies Development Support Programme, Tavsiyanoma Oidi Istifodabarii Samaranoki Zamin va Ob dar Dzhamoati Porshinevi Nokhiyai Shughnon (Dushanbe: MSDSP, 2009); Alisher Shabdolov, Incomplete Reforms and Institutional Bricolage in Community-Based Governance of Mountain Irrigation Systems in Tajikistan: A Case Study in the Pamirs (Greifswald: Michael Succow Stiftung zum Schutz der Natur, 2016); UNDP, WUA “Ob Umed”; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 33 Stéphane Henriod, Utilisation des SIG pour l’aide a la gestion de l’irrigation. Le cas de Porshinev dans le Pamir Tadjik (Saarbrücken: Südwestdeutscher Verlag für Hochschulschriften GmbH & Co KG, 2012); Shabdolov, Incomplete Reforms. 34 WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 35 Henriod, Utilisation des SIG pour l’aide a la gestion de l’irrigation; Khurshedov, local historian, Porshnev Municipality; UNDP, WUA “Ob Umed”; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 36 Qodir Iunonov, expert for natural resource management, MSDSP Khorog City. Personal communication, 2016, and 2018; Khurshedov, local historian, Porshnev Municipality; UNDP, WUA “Ob Umed”; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 37 Iunonov, expert for natural resource management, MSDSP; RT Republic of Tajikistan, Zakon Respubliki Tadzhikistan “Ob Assotsiatsii Vodopol’zovatelei” No 11 (2006), accessed February 13, 2017, http://mmk.tj/ru/legislation/legislationbase/2006; WUA OU, Nasha deiatel’nost’; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 38 Henriod, Utilisation des SIG pour l’aide a la gestion de l’irrigation; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 39 UNDP, WUA “Ob Umed”; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 40 UNDP, WUA “Ob Umed”; WUA OU Water User Association Ob Umed, Ob Khaiot. Informatsionnyi Biulleten’, different issues, accessed 01 August 2019, http://obumed.org/index.php/publications; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 41 UNDP, WUA “Ob Umed”; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 42 Füssel et al., Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems; Mishkhonov, canal master; Parvonov, former clerk. 43 Füssel et al., Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems; Khudomunov, former water master; Mishkhonov, canal master. 44 Füssel et al., Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems; Mishkhonov, canal master. 45 Füssel et al., Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems; Mishkhonov, canal master. 46 Füssel et al., Understanding Community-Managed Hill Irrigation Systems; Khudomunov, former water master; Mishkhonov, canal master. 47 The Russian Pamir Detachment secured the border to Afghanistan after the border delimitation agreement with Great Britain was finalised in 1895. 48 Amonbekov, local guide, farmer; Deronov, teacher; Mudoiorov, former teacher, expert on local history; Odinamamadi Mirzo, Wakhan (A Scientific, Historic and Ethnographic Study). Khorog: Irfon, 2010). 49 Amonbekov, local guide, farmer; Deronov, teacher; Maklabekov, head of village, farmer; Mudoiorov, former teacher, expert on local history. 50 Deronov, teacher; Maklabekov, head of village, farmer; Mudoiorov, former teacher, expert on local history. 51 Andrei Dörre, and Chorshanbe Goibnazarov, “Small-Scale Irrigation Self Governance in a Mountain Region of Tajikistan,” Mountain Research and Development 38, no. 2 (2018): 104–113; Khirzoev, former farm manager and water master; Mudoiorov, Former teacher, expert on local history.

Water and irrigation arrangements  285 52 Dörre and Goibnazarov, “Small-Scale Irrigation Self-Governance”; Khirzoev, ­former farm manager and water master; Khirzoev, Jadval-i Obmoni; Mudoiorov, former teacher, expert on local history. 53 Jenniver Sehring, “Irrigation Reform in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan,” Irrigation & Drainage Systems 21, nos. 3, 4 (2007): 277–290; Ronan Shenhav, Stefanos Xenarios, and Daler Domullodzhanov, The Role of Water User Associations in Improving the Water for Energy Nexus in Tajikistan (Dushanbe: OSCE, 2019); Andrea Zinzani, “The Reconfiguration of Participatory Irrigation Management in Water Users Associations: Evidence from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan,” Cahiers d’Asie centrale 25 (2015): 133–153. 54 UNDP, WUA “Ob Umed”; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 55 WUA OU, Ob Khaiot. Informatsionnyi Biulleten’, different issues; WUA OUA, Porshnev Municipality. 56 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 90. 57 Malin Falkenmark, “Forward to the Future: A Conceptual Framework for Water Dependence,” Ambio 28, no. 4 (1999): 356–361. 58 Kakhramon Djumaboev, Ahmad Hamidov, Oyture Anarbekov, Zafar Gafurov, and Kamshat Tussupova, “Impact of Institutional Change on Irrigation Management: A Case Study from Southern Uzbekistan,” Water 9, no. 6 (2017): 419. 59 Ulan Kasymov, and Ahmad Hamidov, “Comparative Analysis of Nature-Related Transactions and Governance Structures in Pasture Use and Irrigation Water in Central Asia,” Sustainability 9 (2017): 1633. 60 Bossenbroek, and Zwarteveen, “Irrigation Management in the Pamirs”; Joe Hill, “The Role of Authority in the Collective Management of Hill Irrigation Systems in the Alai (Kyrgyzstan) and Pamir (Tajikistan),” Mountain Research and Development 33, no. 3 (2013): 294–304. 61 Certain parallels seem to exist with Asel Murzakulova’s approach, as exemplified in her study of apricot cultivation (this volume).

Index

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables and italic page numbers refer to figures. activism and grass roots movements 7; citizen science movement and 7, 91–92, 92, 155–156, 159, 162; dialogue on Kyrgyz vs. Anglo thinking traditions and language 186–187; on Kempir-Abad water reservoir transfer to Uzbekistan 191, 198; kinship and 191; of M. Kolesnikova/MoveGreen (NGO) in Bishkek 151, 155, 159–162; of P. Alexandrov/AirKaz.org in Almaty 151, 155–157, 160–162; persecution of activists 98–99, 191, 198; on urban air pollution 151–157, 154, 159–162; of women against oil production 83, 85–99, 86 Africanised hybrid bee 17, 203–204, 215; see also bees agency: local 227, 229; non-human 13, 16, 108, 189, 208, 246–247, 259 Aigine Research Center (Kyrgyzstan) 188, 190, 194, 199 air pollution: ‘Bucket Brigade’ air monitoring method 91–92; contested measurement of 7; experience of as smoke/fine dust/smog 151–153; health effects of 95–98, 96, 152–153; perception/activism on urban in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan 150– 162; in satirical cartoons 139– 145, 142, 144; urban air pollution 17, 151–157, 154, 159–162 AirKaz.org 151, 155–157, 160–161

Aitpaeva, Dr. G. 186–199 Ajibaev, E. 192 Akkan Suu (Flowing Water, Kyrgyz poem) 193 Alexandrov, P. 151, 156, 161–162 Almaty (city in Kazakhstan), urban air pollution and 151–154, 154; activism of P. Alexandrov/ AirKaz.org and 151, 155–157, 160–162 Amu-Darya delta 11, 31, 34–35, 37–38, 41–42, 44–45, 47; see also Khorezm Archaeological Expedition ancestors: ancestral memory in AtauKere by Bökei (Kazakh author) 213–215; honouring 193–194 Andrianov, B. V. 34–35, 35, 44, 47 animals: satirical cartoons on ecological disruption featuring 135–137, 135–139; see also bees; horse training practices; human-animal relations; non-human actors; Saiga antelope Anosova, S. 84, 86, 88–89, 91 Anthropocene age 14, 18–19, 226 apricot trees and cultivation in Isfara River basin 6, 17, 248–249, 250; contested borders and 246–247, 254–256; cross-border dried apricot bazaars 253–254, 255, 256; disease affecting 251; irrigation tensions during Saratan (hottest 40 days June-August) 257–259; life cycle of trees and family labour/labour migration

288 Index 250–254; as non-human actor with agency 246–247; political solidarity created over 258–259; prices of 253–254; water management issues in drying of 256–257 Aral Sea 1; irrigation projects and 33, 38, 41–42; Khorezm Archaeological Expedition and 33, 41; neardisappearance of 13, 41–42; reversal of Siberian rivers 38, 41–48, 43–44, 46, 60 archaeology: rescue archaeology 31, 33–34, 39, 45, 47; Soviet-era policies on 31; see also Khorezm Archaeological Expedition archival documents 55–56 aridity of Central Asia 9–10, 229 Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water, Bökei) 6, 17, 203–206, 218; ancestral memory in 213– 215; bees in 17–18, 203–204, 215, 217, 219; Kazakh national identity in 204, 207, 210, 212, 215–216, 218–219; literary influences on 206–207, 210; plot overview of 205–206; Soviet cultural mimicry and Kazakh identity in 208–213; see also Bökei, O. (Kazakh author) băıˇge (long-distance horse race) 168–170, 169, 173, 175, 177, 180–181; see also horse training practices Bartol’d, V.V. 32–33, 36 bees 17–18, 203, 215, 217, 219; Africanised hybrid bee 17, 203– 204, 215; see also Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water, Bökei) Beijing Olympics, air quality and 154–155 Bekhmakhanov, E. 207, 211–212 Berezovka, Kazakhstan: activism against oil production in 83, 85–86, 86; relocation of 83, 85–87, 89, 94, 96, 96–99; sickness from oil fields in 95–98, 96; see also Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condesate Field (Kazakhstan) Bhabha, H. 204, 207–209, 211–212, 218–219

Bishkek (city in Kyrgyzstan), urban air pollution and 151–154, 154; activism of M. Kolesnikova/ MoveGreen (NGO) and 151, 155, 159–161 Bökei, O. (Kazakh author) 6, 16–17, 203–209, 211–219; biographical overview 204–205; Kazakh identity in works of 204, 207, 210, 212, 215–216, 218–219; literary influences on 206–207, 210; postcolonial hybridity in works of 203–204, 208–213, 215–218; see also Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water, Bökei); Dangerous Hybrid (Qauipti Budan, Bökei) borders, contested 246–247, 254–256; cross-border relationships and solidarity and 256, 258–259; see also apricot trees and cultivation in Isfara River basin; Isfara River basin Bukharan Emirate, drought in 17, 229 Bukinich, D. D. 33, 35 canals 10, 232; Main Turkmen Canal (MTC) construction 38–39, 39–40, 41, 47 capitalist exploitation 194; climate change and 14 cartoons, satirical see Hedgehog (magazine, Khorpushtak in Tajik) Central Asia: defining of 8–13; environmental conditions 1, 9–10; environmental histories of 11–12; map of 11; post-Soviet censorship and extraction 9; regional and geographical scope 8 Central Asian studies 1–2; critique of 8; irrigation and agrarian history focus in 11; need for more research on environmental humanities in 13, 18–19; need for more research on urban environments 13; power relations and dynamics in 13–14 chilla 237 China 1, 180; air quality in 155; apricot tree and 248; border regions of 246, 262, 266; Chinese medicine and 18, 107, 116, 118–119; climate as factor in historical

Index  289 famines in 228; horse training in Medieval 168; Kazakh migration to 117; Saiga antelope and 107, 110, 115–117, 119; as sphere of influence 8–9 cities, Soviet-era 12–13; see also urban environments in Central Asia citizen science movement 7, 91–92, 92, 155–156, 159, 162 climate change 1, 17, 226–227; capitalist exploitation and 14; colonialism and 14; in mid-19th century Central Asia 229, 238 climate, Central Asian see desertification; weather and weather events collaboration 7, 12; relocations and 85; of water and water management 262, 267–268, 272, 275, 278, 280 colonialism: climate change and 14; Western colonial representational discourse and 207–208; see also Russian colonialism; Soviet colonialism common-pool resources 12 conflict 7, 12; irrigation tensions during Saratan (hottest 40 days JuneAugust) 257–259; over contested borders 246–247, 254–256 crop failures 229, 238; causes of historical 228 Crude Accountability (NGO) 83, 85–86, 88–89, 91–92, 94–95, 96, 97 dam construction: international comparisons of 9; satirical cartoons on in Tajikistan 135– 139; Soviet-era 8–9, 16 Dangerous Hybrid (Qauipti Budan, Bökei) 203; see also Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water, Bökei) decolonisation in Kyrgyzstan 190, 198 dekhans (Uz. dehgon) peasants) 36–37 dendrochronology 5, 234 desertification 10; in Kazakhstan 55–57, 56; Russian colonial anticipation of 225–226, 233–234; see also steppe; weather and weather events disciplines, hyper-specialisation and 4–8 discontinuous action 180–181

drought 1, 17; in Central Asia in 1880s 17, 229–232; local knowledge of in 1880s 235; rituals on 238 dzhut (jut; Qaz, jūt; great freeze) 18, 62–64, 72, 237; see also weather and weather events eco-internationalism 6, 8, 151, 159–162 eco-nationalism 6, 151, 162 ecofeminism 83, 86–88, 90, 97–98 Emirate of Bukhara 17, 227, 229–232, 236; exodus in from in 19th century and historical weather data 231; guinea worm infestation in 1888, 231–232; weather of in 1880s 229 ensiling 65 environmental awareness: on health effects of air pollution 151; pastureland degradation and 56; in satirical cartoons 129, 136– 142, 142, 143, 144, 145 environmental humanities in Central Asia: environmental histories of 11–12, 18; establishing 1–3; need for expanded research on 13, 18–19; as neglected topic 129; regional and geographical scope of 8 equine competitions 13; băıˇge (longdistance horse race) 168–170, 169, 173, 175, 177, 180–181; ko˙kpar (long-distance horse race) 168–170, 172–173, 175–177, 180–181; see also horse training practices ethnicity: interethnic marriage during Soviet era 213; in Kyrgyzstan 196–199 experts and expertise, pastoralism and 72–77 Extract/Protect/Enspirit/Fear categories 15 extractive relationships 14–15; see also Khorezm Archaeological Expedition; Soviet extractivism Facebook 150, 152, 154, 155, 157–158 failed statehood 18, 238 famines: historical weather data on causes of 228–229, 231, 238; in Kazakhstan in 1930s 57, 117, 119, 121–122, 209, 214

290 Index fat, good and bad in horse training 176–178 Féaux de la Croix, J. 186–196, 199 Ferghana Valley: map of 248; see also apricot trees and cultivation in Isfara River basin Flowing Water (Akkan Suu, Kyrgyz poem) 193 food classification in Central Asia 176, 180 food security 17 forage resource management, winter weather and 61–65, 62 forests of Central Asia: colonial forest belt experiments in 19th century and 234; conflict in naming of 12 fossil fuel development: activism against in Berezovka, Kazakhstan 83, 85–99, 86; see also Berezovka, Kazakhstan; Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condesate Field (Kazakhstan) Geographical Information Systems (GIS) 5 glaciers 15, 17–18; colonial observations on in 19th century 234; as sacred sites 187 graphic satire see Hedgehog (magazine, Khorpushtak in Tajik) Great Construction of Communism 36–40, 37, 39–40 Guinea worm infestation (rishta) 231–232 Hedgehog (magazine, Khorpushtak in Tajik) 16, 129; pollution in 139–145, 142, 144; socialist construction via transformed landscapes in 131–134, 132–133; wild animals disrupted by modernisation in 134–139, 135–137 herders: labour culture and conditions in Kazakhstan 65–72, 68, 70; see also livestock and livestock management horse training practices 6, 16, 174; Central Asian pastoralism and 168–169, 172–173; as discontinuous action against nature 180–181; equestrian games and 168–170, 169;

fattening and weight loss cycles in 173–177; good and bad fat and 176–178; sweat and sweating in 16, 178–180; tethering in 171–173, 175–178, 180; trainer informants 182; types of specialists in 170–171; see also equine competitions human-animal relations 3, 167, 193, 235; as de-centering state power 108, 122; discontinuous action against nature and 180–181; Kazakh identity in works of Bökei and 204, 207, 209–210, 212, 215, 217–219; Saigahuman interactions 108–110, 114–123; weather prediction and 235–236; wild animals disrupted by modernisation in satirical cartoons 134–139, 135–137; see also Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water, Bökei); bees; horse training practices; Saiga antelope human-environment relations 3–4, 10; cross-border relationships 256; dialogue on in Kyrgyz vs. Anglo thinking traditions/ language 186–192, 199; discontinuous action against nature and 180–181; forced abandonment of nomadic pastoralism in Kazakhstan and 209; Kazakh identity in works of Bökei and 204, 207, 209–210, 212, 215–219; kinship with landscape spaces and 191–194; Kyrgyz opinions on use of natural resources and 194–195; of local population with local weather 226–227, 229–230, 235–237; non-human animals in 13–14, 167; power relations in 13–15, 108, 122; recasting of relationships in 4–6, 13–16, 18– 19, 108; spiritual messages and 194, 238; see also nature-culture divide; weather and weather events Hungry Steppe (Mirzacho’l, Uzbekistan) 10 Hut (month/period of time) 237–238 hybridity 203–204, 208–213, 215–218

Index  291 indigenous knowledge and cosmologies 13, 32, 195, 238; kayip duino (invisible/secret/hidden world, Kyrgyz) 187, 190, 192, 196, 198; on pastoralism 73 Instagram 152, 158 irrigation systems: ancient irrigation 35–37, 41–42; apricot trees/ cultivation in Isfara River basin and 247, 256–259; Aral Sea and 33, 38, 41; archaeology and 5, 31, 33; Great Construction of Communism and 36–38, 37; local social organisation of 35–36, 262–263, 266, 270–281; oases and 10; Soviet-era irrigation projects 10–11, 16, 31–35, 35–36; supralocal arrangement of in Porshnev municipality (Tajikistan) 270–273, 271; tensions on during Saratan (hottest 40 days June-August) 257–259; village-scale of Shirgin Village (Tajikistan) 275–278, 276–277; in Western Pamirs (Tajikistan) 267–270, 268; see also Khorezm Archaeological Expedition; water and water management Isfara River basin 246; land reform in 247–248; map of 248; see also apricot trees and cultivation in Isfara River basin Ismailism 269 jut/jūt see dzhut Kara Bak (village, Kyrgyzstan) 248, 249, 250, 252–254, 257 Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condesate Field (Kazakhstan) 83–85; sickness from in Berezovka 95– 96, 96, 97–98 Karachaganak Petroleum Operating (KPO) 84–85, 87–90, 94–99, 96 kayip duino (invisible/secret/hidden world, Kyrgyz) 187, 190, 192, 196, 198 Kazakhstan: activism against oil production in Berezovka 83, 85– 99, 86; crackdown on activism in 98–99; famine in 1930s 57, 117, 119, 121–122, 209, 214;

Kazakh identity in works of Bökei 204, 207–212, 215–216, 218–219; Kazakh language 205, 209; pasture degradation in 55–59, 56, 57; perception of urban air pollution in 150–162; Saiga antelopes in environmental history of 107, 108; Soviet-era ‘national’ language policies in 208–209; steppe in 10; see also Berezovka, Kazakhstan; pastoralism in Kazakhstan; Saiga antelope Kempir-Abad water reservoir, transfer of to Uzbekistan 191, 198 Kes’, A. S. 34–35, 35, 42, 44 Khorezm Archaeological Expedition 16, 31; beginnings and context of 33–36, 34–36; fame of 40; Great Construction of Communism and 36–40, 37, 39; Main Turkmen Canal (MTC) construction 38–39, 39–40, 41, 47; reversal of Siberian rivers 38, 41–48, 43–44, 46, 60 Khorpushtak see Hedgehog (magazine, Khorpushtak in Tajik) Khrushchev, N. 35; Virgin Lands campaign of 57, 117, 131–132, 209 killer bees see Africanised hybrid bee kinship: in afterlife 193–194; in extractive relationships 14–15, 17, 191; relationships with landscape spaces and 192–194 knowledge production 11; data sharing and 151, 153, 155–159, 161; procedural knowledge in horse training 171; see also indigenous knowledge and cosmologies; local knowledge ko˙kpar (long-distance horse race) 168– 170, 172–173, 175–177, 180– 181; see also equine competitions Kolesnikova, M. 151, 155, 159–162 Kotur disease 251 Krokodil (Soviet satirical magazine) 130, 136, 145 Kyrgyz language: kayip duino (hidden/ secret/invisible world) 187, 190, 192, 196, 198; tuuganchylyk (family relations) 191, 196, 199 Kyrgyzchylyk (Kyrgyzness) 195–198

292 Index Kyrgyzstan 7, 17; activism of M. Kolesnikova/MoveGreen (NGO) and 151, 155, 159–161; contested border with Tajikistan 246–247; dam construction in 9; dialogue in Kyrgyz vs. English language traditions 186–199; ethnicity and nationalism in 196–199; Kempir-Abad water reservoir transfer to Uzbekistan 191, 198; Kyrgyz opinions on use of natural resources and 194– 195; Kyrgyzchylyk (Kyrgyzness) 195–198; land reform in 247– 248; metrological knowledge of local Kyrgyz pastoralists 236– 237; sacred sites (mazar) in 187, 190, 195; spiritual messages and messengers (ayanchilar) in 190– 194, 197; urban air pollution and 151–154, 154; water in Kyrgyz language and folklore 193; see also Bishkek (city in Kyrgyzstan), urban air pollution and; Isfara River basin labour: Kazakhstan herders and 65–72, 68, 70; labour migration 251– 255, 258, 266, 268 land use history 7, 10–12; local languages and 11–12 language: for describing air pollution 151, 153, 158; dialogue in Kyrgyz vs. English 186–199; Kazakh language 205, 209; local languages 11–12; Soviet-era ‘national’ language policies 208– 209; see also Kyrgyz language Last Meal or Last Sip of Water (Bökei) see Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water, Bökei) Little Ice Age 226–227, 229, 233, 239 livestock and livestock management 57–59, 58; forage resource management challenges and policies and 61–65, 62; herder labour culture and conditions in Kazakhstan and 65–72, 68, 70 local knowledge 17–18; agency and 227, 229; Kazakh and Muslim religious culture on Saiga antelope 120–121; Khorezm Archaeological Expedition and

16; local languages 11–12; of local population on local weather 226–230, 235–239; on nonhuman actors 7, 110, 234–35; pastoralism and 73; persistence of 7; poetry as 236–238; rural knowledge 226–227, 235– 236; scale and 6–7; on water management 7, 17, 35–36, 262– 263, 266, 270–281; on weather vs. Russian colonial 227–228, 230, 238–239 locusts 231, 238 Lyakon (village, Tajikistan) 248, 249, 250 Main Turkmen Canal (MTC) 38–39, 39–40, 41, 47 mamile (relation, attitude, Kyrgyz language) 187, 190, 196 marriage, interethnic during Soviet era 213 meaning and practices, natural objects and 11–12, 15, 189 methodologies see research methodologies mimicry, cultural 208–209, 211–212 Mirzacho’l see Hungry Steppe (Mirzacho’l, Uzbekistan) Moldo, T. 236 MoveGreen (NGO) 151, 155, 159–162 Muslim religious culture, Saiga antelopes and 120–121 nationalism, Kyrgyz 196–199 nationality policies 208 natural disasters 228; see also weather and weather events natural resources, Kyrgyz opinions on use of 194–195 nature-culture divide 4–6; see also human-environment relations Nazir-i Khuzraw 269 nexus medium methodology 262–264, 281 non-human actors 108; agency of 13, 189, 208, 246, 259; attention to in human-environment relations 13–14, 17–18; local knowledge on 7, 110, 234–235; satirical cartoons on ecological disruption featuring 135–137, 135–139; see also apricot trees and cultivation

Index  293 in Isfara River basin; Atau-Kere (The Last Meal or Last Sip of Water, Bökei); human-animal relations; Saiga antelope nuclear tests 6, 151, 207, 217–218 oases 10, 33, 226 oil production, resettlement away from 16; see also Berezovka, Kazakhstan orchard economies 13 overgrazing 55, 109; in Kazakhstan 55–57 Pallas, P. 107, 109, 112, 115–118, 122 Pamirs region (Tajikistan) 262–264, 265, 266; interlocal irrigation arrangement of Sizhd Village 273, 273–275, 274; irrigation and water in Western Pamirs 267– 270, 268; supralocal arrangement of in Porshnev municipality (Tajikistan) 270–273, 271 pastoralism and pastoral areas 10–11; experts and expertise on 72–77; horse training and equine competitions in 168–169, 172–173; indigenous and traditional local knowledge on 73; meteorological knowledge of local Kyrgyz pastoralists 236–237; Soviet-era policies on 55; steppe pastoralism 16; Virgin Lands campaign 14, 57, 59–60, 71, 117–118, 122, 131, 209 pastoralism in Kazakhstan 209; dzhut (great freeze) and 18, 62–64, 72; forage resource management challenges and policies and 61– 65, 62; livestock and 57–62, 58; Soviet-era policies on 55, 57–63 pasture degradation 16; archival documents and actors in study of 55–57; herder labour culture and conditions in Kazakhstan and 65–72, 68, 70; in Kazakhstan 55–59, 56, 57 perestroika 31, 75, 138, 190, 204 plants 10, 231; local knowledge on 7; saxaul shrub 10, 12, 18, 226; see also apricot trees and cultivation in Isfara River basin pluralisation, controlled 4

poetry, as local meteorological knowledge 236–238 policy see Soviet-era policies pollution, in satirical cartoons 139–145, 142, 144; see also air pollution; Hedgehog (magazine, Khorpushtak in Tajik) Porshnev municipality (Tajikistan) 265, 265, 266–269; supralocal irrigation arrangement of 270– 273, 271 postcolonial ecocriticism 17, 218–219 power relations in human-environment interactions 13–15, 108, 122, 258–259 Qauipti Budan (Dangerous Hybrid, Bökei) see Dangerous Hybrid (Qauipti Budan, Bökei) Qazaqstan see Kazakhstan Raso, B. 130 relationships, human-environment: recasting of 4–6, 13, 15–16, 18– 19, 108; see also human-animal relations; human-environment relations relocation of Berezovka 83, 85–87, 89, 94, 96, 96–99, 138; women’s role in 85–87; Zhasil Dala (Green Steppe) campaign for 89, 94 rescue archaeology 31, 33–34, 39, 45, 47 research methodologies 4–8, 18–19; archival documents 55–56; nexus medium methodology 262–264, 281 Rishta see Guinea worm infestation (rishta) ritual, weather and 235, 238 rivers, reversal of Siberian 38, 41–48, 43–44, 46, 60 rural communities, local social organisation of water use 262– 263, 266, 270–281 Russian colonialism: colonial vs. local knowledge on weather 227–228, 230, 238–239; in post-Soviet Central Asia 8–9; Saiga-human interactions under 108, 116–122; see also Soviet colonialism Russian Village Prose Writing 206–207, 210

294 Index sacred sites (mazar) in Kyrgyzstan 187, 190, 195 Saiga antelope 10, 16; fortress conservation-style policies and 16, 116–117; Kazakh and Muslim religious culture and 120–121; poaching of Saiga horns for Chinese medicine 107, 116, 118–119; protection of 120–121; Saiga-human interactions 108–110, 114–123; steppe and 107–114, 108 Saratan (hottest 40 days June-August) 257–259 satire, graphic: satirical press in Soviet Union 130; see also Hedgehog (magazine, Khorpushtak in Tajik) saxaul shrub 10, 12, 18, 226 scale, intersections in 6–7 Shirgin Village (Tajikistan): village-scale irrigation of 275–278, 276–277 Siberian rivers, reversal of 38, 41–48, 43–44, 46, 60 Silk Roads 10, 12, 248 Sizhd Village (Tajikistan), interlocal irrigation arrangement of 273, 273–275, 274 slow violence 2, 13 smoke, as traditional healing method 150, 153 social media 1, 6, 151–152, 155, 158, 160–161 socialist construction 33, 130, 138; ‘national’ language policies and 208–209; satirical cartoons on ecological disruption from 135– 137, 135–139; Soviet-era policies of 33, 130, 138; transformation of natural world as 131–133 Socialist Realist novels 209, 213 soil erosion 61, 117; international comparisons of 9 Soviet colonialism 3; in Atau-Kere (Bökei) 208–213, 215; Saigahuman interactions under 108, 116–122; Soviet cultural mimicry and Kazakh identity and 208–213 Soviet extractivism 9, 13; destructiveness of 31–32, 36, 86–87, 98–99, 138, 225–226, 229, 231, 247, 249; fortress conservationstyle policies of 16, 116–117; resistance to 16; see also

extractive relationships; Khorezm Archaeological Expedition Soviet scholarship on Central Asia 1–2 Soviet-era policies 3, 13, 16; ‘national’ language policies and 208–209; ‘Transformation of Nature’ plans of Stalin 131; on agricultural ‘improvement’ of steppe 225– 226, 234; on archaeology 31–33; destructiveness of 31–32, 36–38, 41–42, 55, 61, 86–87, 98–99, 138, 206–207, 225–226, 229, 231, 247, 249; on environmental groups 129; of environmental protection 6; of forage resource management 61–65, 62; fortress conservation-style 16; Great Construction of Communism and 36–40, 37, 39–40; on industrial pollution 141; on interethnic marriage 213; literary critiques of 206–207; on pastoral areas water resources livestock 55, 57–63; perestroika 31, 75, 138, 190, 204; on protection of Saiga antelope 16, 120–121; Soviet-era irrigation projects 10–11, 16, 31–35, 35–36; Virgin Lands campaign 14, 57, 59–60, 71, 117–118, 122, 131, 209; see also Khorezm Archaeological Expedition; socialist construction; Soviet colonialism spatial scale 15; intersections in 6–7 spiritual messages and messengers (ayain and ayanchilar, Kyrgyz) 190–194, 197 Stalin, J.: ‘Transformation of Nature’ plans of 131–132; MTC construction and 38–41 steppe 10, 88–89; colonial forest belt experiments in 19th century and 234; dzhut (great freeze) in 18, 62–64, 72; Hungry Steppe (Mirzacho’l, Uzbekistan) 10; overgrazing and desertification of 55; Russian colonial decline narrative of 225–226, 233–234; Saiga antelope and 107–109, 107–114, 108; Virgin Lands campaign 14, 57, 59–60, 71, 117–118, 122, 131, 209; see also

Index  295 desertification; pastoralism and pastoral areas Surkh, Tajikistan 246, 248, 252–254, 255, 257–258 sweat, in horse training practices 16, 178–180 Syr-Darya delta 31, 34–35, 36, 38, 41–42, 44–45, 61, 234; see also Khorezm Archaeological Expedition Tajikistan: apricot cultivation in 246, 248, 252–254, 255, 257–258; contested border with Kyrgyzstan 246–247; dam construction in 9; land reform in 247–248, 257; satirical cartoons on dam construction in 135–139; see also Hedgehog (magazine, Khorpushtak in Tajik); Isfara River basin; Pamirs (Tajikistan) tethering, in horse training 171–173, 175–178, 180 time-scales 6–7, 15; intersections of 6 Tolstoi, A. 118–120 Tolstov, S. P. 33–36, 34–35, 38–42, 44, 47; see also Khorezm Archaeological Expedition tugay 12 Turkestan 232; alarmist Soviet colonial discourse on weather of 225; Main Turkmen Canal (MTC) construction 38–39, 39–40, 41, 47 tuuganchylyk (family relations, Kyrgyz language) 191, 196, 199 urban environments in Central Asia 12–13, 17; need for more research on 13; perception of urban air pollution in Kazakhstan 150–162; urban air pollution 17, 151–157, 154, 159–162 Üt (Hut; month/period of time) 236–238 Uzbekistan: Hungry Steppe (Mirzacho’l) in 10; Kempir-Abad water reservoir transfer from Kyrgyzstan 191, 198

vernacular knowledge 6, 9 violence, Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border and 246–247, 255–256 Virgin Lands campaign 14, 57, 59–60, 71, 117–118, 122, 131, 209 water and water management 12; apricot trees and cultivation in Isfara River basin and 256–259; Aral Sea irrigation projects 33, 38, 41; collaborative management of 262, 267–268, 272, 275, 278, 280; Kempir-Abad water reservoir transfer 191, 198; in Kyrgyz language and folklore 193; livestock and 58–59; local knowledge on 262–263, 266, 270–281; water pollution in satirical cartoons 143–145, 144; in Western Pamirs (Tajikistan) 17, 267–270, 268; see also irrigation systems weather and weather events: alarmist Russian colonial discourse on 225, 230, 233–234; animals in prediction of 235–236; aridity of Central Asia 9–10, 229; dzhut (great freeze) 18, 62–64, 72, 237; historical sources/ meteorological data on past 227–228, 231–234, 238–239; indigenous vs. Russian colonial identification of adverse 7, 230, 232, 235, 238–239; knowledge of local population of local weather 226–227, 229–230, 235–237; Little Ice Age 226– 227, 229, 233, 239; in mid19th century Central Asia 229; poetry on as local meteorological knowledge 236–238; see also climate change; desertification; drought; famines Zhasil Dala (Green Steppe, local NGO, Kazakhstan) 84–85, 87–92, 94–95, 97–98 Zhengizhok (Kyrgyz poet) 193, 199