The Trader's Association

Lydia sells blankets. Blankets from Turkey, mostly, but also from the UAE, China and Korea. The blankets get to Kyrgyzstan via truck. It is quite a haul and one which crosses many frontiers. The transport doesn’t come cheap, it costs $1/kilo on the ground. In the rare event of an air delivery, the cost rises to $4/kilo.

 

Business for Lydia is not good right now. “It is the crisis.” According to Lydia, with less trade in Russia and Kazakhstan fewer people have business at the bazaar so fewer people come to the bazaar. Everyday she says, “today will be the day I make a sale.” But that did not occur over the course of the three days in which I stopped by to chat. When a couple of other leaders were leaving the bazaar she made conversation and with a grimace asked each in turn if they had made a sale. No one had today. Most made some sort joke or dour comment about the tough times. One such acquaintance said, “Why would I be leaving at 3[pm] if I had any business?” Lydia responded to each such comment with an upbeat chuckle that seemed to thinly disguise a rueful laugh, “Yeah, its really cold. You’re smart to get outta here. I’ll be right behind you.”

 

Though business is slow now, Lydia appears to have built up a decent business for herself. After a shipment arrives she fills four containers with storage in addition to the container she utilizes for retail sales. She is able to let the containers turn over to other merchants as her stock diminishes. With so much warehoused stock, and deliveries arriving every 3 months on average, it is likely that Lydia manages a small but sufficient wholesale business in addition to the everyday retail.

 

Sometimes shipments get caught up on their way to Kyrgyzstan as they cross the considerable number of obstacles and potential delays between Turkey and Kyrgyzstan. The most recent shipment arrived in December four months late. This is almost certainly a problem when you deal in warm felt blankets, an item people usually take care up in late autumn or early winter (Late October-November) here.

 

In addition to being a salesperson, Lydia is an activist or row leader for the traders’ union. The union is not a union in the sense of the United Auto Workers, but it does express grievances and concerns on behalf of the sellers and in moments of stress, coordinates collective action on the part of the sellers. It is a cooperative or trade association of sorts. There are not formal mechanisms or elections to decide who will represent sellers but in each row or section of the bazaar, the more outspoken and socially active sellers become active in the cooperative body, and in a way “represent” their fellow sellsers.

 

The organization negotiates with the administration and the government about issues relevant to doing business in the bazaar. For example, the organization successfully lobbied and negotiated with the administration for price differentiation for the containers. Now containers nearer to the center of the bazaar pay more than those on the periphery. Also, the organization recently negotiated with the government to reduce a tax/permit fee increase which traders have to pay to work. The government wanted to collect a licensing fee of 1500 som (about $35). This would have been a dramatic increase. The organization argued that the increase was excessive and would only prohibit trade and encourage corruption.

 

The traders’ association has also organized collective action, specifically security at the bazaar during the “Tulip Revolution,” which I will call a ‘power change’ because nothing about how government or society operates changed as a result of the “Revolution.” During the power change of 2004, Bishkek was quite unstable. Many townsfolk had journeyed to Bishkek in angry protest and the authorities were reluctant to defend the regime or risk the wrath of the mob by attempting to enforce the law. A great deal of vandalism and looting occurred during the power change. The lawlessness was confined to Bishkek and satellite towns but it was not limited to the very center of Bishkek where the capitol, parliament and central government administrations are located. Dordoi bazaar is somewhat removed from the city and in many ways its geography resembles a satellite town. But there was no looting at the bazaar. Traders established a system of 24 hour guard throughout the bazaar for the duration of the unrest. They protected their property collectively, and almost certainly prevented a massive loss in property and general destruction by doing so.

 

I asked Lydia pointedly about if the traders’ association held any political affiliations. She replied that the bazaar traders just do what they can to protect their interests. They took no side in the Tulip Revolution and do not support one party or another. Rather, the association negotiates with the administration or the government pursuant to their interests. Political parties in Kyrgyzstan are not ideological and most people view them as simply a stage for controlling influence and resources for the President and his allies. As such, the association has taken a pragmatic approach of opposing specific policies but never working to undermine specific politicians. This approach makes sense. The state has made moves that occasionally impinge upon profit or trade but on the whole but has not attempted to control trade flows or force people out of the bazaar. Were the bazaar traders to mobilize in some way they would risk severe backlash. Therefore it makes sense to pursue a more modest agenda of assuring no egregious changes to regulation of the bazaar. It is important to note however, that the bazaar is organized along the lines of self-interest and that it is capable of mobilizing both politically (for economic reasons) in order to negotiate with other powerful parties (such as the administration or the government) and physically, such as when they arranged for traders to guard the bazaar. It stands to reason then, that should the government, the administration or some other power threaten the fundamental interests of the bazaar that there is a strong possibility for the bazaar to mobilize more proactively.

 

Lydia is a card carrying Communist, “because of the ideals of the party.” Though not because she actual aims to bring Communism back to Kyrgyzstan. This sort of fond remembrance intermingles freely with the resignation that the old days of complete social, political and economic stability are not coming back.

 

I also discussed the mosque with Lydia. The mosque was funded by a collection put up by the traders in conjunction with the administration. Though she is herself Russian Orthodox, Lydia is happy to have the mosque active. She believes that people behave better when they believe in a higher power. The mosque serves as a madrassa as well. Students gather daily to learn the teachings of Islam and memorize verses in Arabic. Unprompted, Lydia offered that there were no fanatics at the mosque or in the bazaar. Though Kyrgyzstan has experienced very little in the way of Islamist extremism, the stigma of rigid reactionary interpretations of Islam weighs heavily on how people broach the subject. Often a Kyrgyz believer, when discussing women’s place in the religion, will phrase the point by stating, “Actually, Islam respects women,” despite the fact that no one made an assertion to the contrary.     

Shuttle Trade

A foot injury I sustained while climbing kept me away from the bazaar for the last month. Now I'm back at it and with improved language skills to match my eagerness to get the heck out of my place.

Erbolot is a shuttle trader. He buys goods, mostly clothes, and loads up a taxi to travel to Kazakhstan. There he stores the goods in a container bazaar near Almaty where he can sell the clothes at a healthy 80% profit margin. Erbolot makes the journey about once every 2-3 weeks, though lately the intervals have increased to closer to 4 weeks. The profit margins have decreased toboot, since November they’ve decreased steadily to the current profitability of around 60%. This is still good business but with overhead cost of transport steady at about $200 per trip the monthly rental dues for the container holding at about $70, Erbolot is worried about how his business will be in another couple months.

 

Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, has established itself as a regional financial capital, partly out of necessity in order to lubricate foreign investment in developing Kazakhstan’s rich energy reserves. In recent years, Almaty enjoyed an almost meteoric rise as oil prices were high and global finances were hopefully exploring new markets. Prices in Almaty soared to levels akin to those found in Northern Europe or global city centers: a simple meal at a restaurant could not be found for less than $US 25. As a result of Almaty’s boom, the wholesale bazaar at Dordoi made brisk trade by arbitraging goods between China and Kazakhstan (and often onward to Russia). Affordable Chinese goods are imported to Kyrgyzstan relatively easily. Compared to its Northern neighbors, Kyrgyzstan has fairly workable tariff regime. The border guards are also corrupt at more reasonable than their Kazakh comrades according to many drivers and traders who make a living crossing the borders. As a result, goods arrive in Kyrgyzstan by the truckload from China. Their destination is very often Dordoi Bazaar, conveniently located near major roadways that cross into Kazakhstan and continue on to Almaty.

 

At Dordoi, very often small traders buy the goods in bulk from the Chinese massive wholesalers. These Shuttle traders then stuff a taxi chalk full of whatever goods they have elected to transit. A small industry of porters and clothes compacters earn a living by maximizing the efficient use of space on the part of the shuttle traders.

 

Erbolot manages his risk by only holding about one taxi load of goods at a time. He sells the goods himself to the customer, keeping him well informed about trends in demand and style. He does not own his own taxi. He stays with relatives while in Bishkek. He also has a relationship of mutual recognition with the Kazakh border guards. He provides them with a modest bribe to ease him through the often drawn out border crossing process. With so many small traders transiting the border, almost always with modest cargos, the border guards don’t find it worth their while to impinge trade. Larger transfers are more conspicuous in their flouting the tariff regime and attract more unwanted skepticism on the part of the guards. The gap between the law as written and the law as it is enforced, allows small traders like Erbolot to flourish while larger-scale wholesalers find difficulty. 

Entreprising Academics of the Bazaar

The open aired area near Indira's stall (pictures taken in September)

A self-contained standard container in the heart of the bazaar 

Indira sells everything you need for a comfy bed. She has the sheets, the linens, giant comfortable padding, and the pillows that you need to turn your futon/fold-out with a giant ridge down the center and a saggy middle into a viable vehicle for a good night's sleep. She is located right on a main open space of sorts in the bazaar, right between the mosque and an important transit-way. She works along side many other home-supply retailers that peddle in hard ware, kitchen utensils, bathroom necessities and a variety of other indoor bits, parts and tools. 

This location, though well traveled is less desireable than the initial rows of containers inside the alleyways of the bazaar. The containers are not as deep and the goods must be redisplayed every morning and stored each night as the stalls cannot simply be locked shut at night. They are not self-contained like the containers of the rest of the bazaar. 

Indira is originally from the Talas region, to the West of the capital city but she has lived in or around Bishkek since coming here for university in the 1980's. She graduated with a degree in social sciences and went on to pursue the rough equivalent of a masters. Education was very central to success during Soviet times. Being highly educated, Indira enjoyed a comfortable and challenging teaching position. But after Kyrgyzstan became independent, the prestige and economic viability of her skills crumbled. With a young family to feed and no income to speak of, Indira made a dramatic move. She quit her work as an educator and became a trader at the bazaar. Other traders I have spoke with for shorter spurts have also revealed that they used to have a job for which they had been trained and educated. Elementary school teachers, engineers, professors and dentists all now sell goods at the bazaar rather than ply their trade. It is somewhat ironic and distressing because undoubtedly many of these skills are in direly short supply in Kyrgyzstan. 

She also had to move her family from the relative luxury of a Soviet-built apartment to a self-made home near the bazaar in one of the novastroika (newly built) villages which surround the bazaar. Indira is clearly proud of having built her own house. She mentioned to me four times that she had built the home herself with help from her family. But the pride in being a self-supported and self-made mingles uncomfortably with frustration. Frustration with the geopolitical shifts that brought her plan for a stable but dynamic livelihood crashing down and frustration with the needless layers of adversity she had to overcome to achieve her modest autonomy.

"We don't live, we survive." Is how she put it. This struck me as a little dramatic. As a trader at a fairly central location in the bazaar for several years, Indira had an aire of self-confidence and shrewd manner that suggests she had succeeded in establishing herself above the realm of subsistence. Perhaps because of her former experience with apparent moderate prosperity, Indira is skeptical of her (apparent) economic stability. Even as she interrupts our conversation to bark orders to a helper or yell prices back and forth to her associates across the plaza, she describes herself as beseiged. She pays taxes but feel that she gets nothing in return... she made the money herself, what right does the government have to it. In this country official "corruption" is rife. (I put corruption in quotation marks because while it is real, there is no available alternative or "non-corrupt." Most dealings could be viewed as corrupt at some level so corruption here exists on a scale that should be measured differently than within a more unitary and autonomous state). To employ the model of one of my professors, society inhabits the states and coopts it for its own purposes. The state does little governing as an independent actor along the lines most people ideally envisage the state. So paying taxes and paying bribes and paying fees all begin to inhabit a much-overlapping gray area. And in that context, taxes make the least sense because the revenue is seen as going to the pockets of people that you never even see. Bribes result in tangible results as do fees.

Indira asked me if the government takes money that we make ourselves from us in USA. . It was a straightforward question but a simple yes or no would clearly leave the wrong impression. Of course, yes, I pay taxes. And while surely much of it could be better spent, I don't feel that my taxes simply subsidize the lifestyle of some powerful politician somewhere. I get good courts, fairly honest policing, and a number of services throughout my life. Her impression is clearly that this money is simply money lost. My yes, full of its implications of complete impropriety is not really accurate. But a no would have been equally misleading, we do pay taxes. I tried to explain some of the nuance but clearly I wasn't quite up to the full task.

Orientation

Elzan sells hats at the bazaar. Fresh snow covers the ground and temperatures are dropping; its a good time of year to be selling winter hats. But sales are unsatisfactory. As a CNN addict, I am eager to point to the global economic recession. Elzan shrugs off my prods to for some analysis of the decline. 

He is located at a cross alley of sorts. The main pedestrian avenues of the bazaar run north to south. Due to the shape of the cargo containers which compose the skeleton of the bazaar this elongated rectangular shape is the most efficient use of space. Similar to how in many US urban areas the blocks are composed of houses which face their streets of access and abut another home at a shared reared inner space. So too do the containers abut butt to butt. Intermittently, there will be either a cross avenue or alley so that one can get from one main drag to another. Elzan occupied one such spot. He occupies no container but pays a regular rent for his space which he occupies everyday from sun up to sundown (at least during the short cold winter days).

Rent is $100 a month and earnings are "too few." The hats come from all over but principally hail from Turkey, Iran and China. 

Elzan occupies a very middle post on the bazaar social totempole. In terms of retailers, he has a spot but not a "container." His goods are displayed on a wall. Many who do not own containers provide vital but economically marginal goods and services. There are the tea sellers with their stollers of tea as well as sellers who operate off of a matt. They are highly mobile and able to occupy any space made available by any container being closed for whatever reason. Each table or spread costs a daily rent of 20 som, or about $US .50. Despite the potential to work anywhere in the huge and sprawling bazaar, most sellers with a matt which I have talked to set up in the same space (if located in a less busy area) or in the same basic area if it is a more crowded area. Similarly, the tea sellers tend to work a limited area as well, preferring to limit themselves to one or two "blocks" of the bazaar rather than wandering all around it.

So even the mobile and flexlible sellers at the bazaar seek to ground their trade in a limited geography. In this way they are able to form consistent customers (many of the tea sellers' principle clients are merchants who would like a warm drink but would like to stay at their stall and/or container).

Sellers that operate off of wheel-barrel type stands, mats and small tables also tend to set up in the same area everyday. Gaining knowledge of the flow of a day, the regular pulses of the bazaar and the a basic level of comfort with one's physical and social environment are an important factors for many sellers. Even though their operations are small enough that long-term relationships with clients are unlikely to emerge as a significant financial incentive for occupying the same space every day, other less tangible incentives emerge. Perhaps risk aversion, trying a new spot everyday could be result in low sales. Moving to a new area of the bazaar would take a tole on one's social harmony as well as finding a place that would not ruffle the feathers of pre-established sellers could be stressful. 

I am trying to spend at least two hours a day at the bazaar now and have set a number of people to talk with everyday to help get me out of my complacent bubble (formed by attending to necessary but non-bazaar related errands). So far, it's coming a long. Happy Solstice. The sun will now get higher and the days longer! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

If one were 

Ak Bata v. Kyrgyzgaz

The communities around the bazaar are known as "novastroika" or new construction. Almost all of the so-called villages came into being after independence and sprang up on land that had pretty much been farmland. The situation made land rights a hazy affair. If people moved to the land before privatization but were not supposed to be living there, who owns the land. The state had more pressing matters to attend to than to sort out the legality of new residents during a time when the very basis of the legal framework was in shift. In the context of widespread economic disintegration the population of "squatters" grew quickly. Soon, their were too many to simply evict them. The squatters, well aware of their potentially tenuous position were fairly well organized, united in an interest to hold on to land, sensitive to threats to their situation and, perhaps most important, had little to lose. Eventually the de facto situation gained official recognition by the government and the squatter communities were incorporated as villages. Many of the underlying land issues, however had not been fully resolved.

One area of a village happens to have been constructed over the sight of a gas pipeline. The company which owns the pipeline, Kyrgyzgas, now claims that the pipeline presents a danger to the community. Furthermore they are claiming rights to a swath of land above the underground pipe. They want the residents to leave. However, it also appears that if one pays some 10,000 som (about $US 250) that it will be possible to keep the land.

Residents are concerned by this development. The families are, generally speaking, not well off. But they have invested their time and money into improving their homes and neighborhoods, not to mention the fact that there is a strong sense of community that many are not eager to abandon.

The residents have organized a group to express their concern over the potential ouster. They have hired a lawyer and have met with a judge. The matter is now before the judge with some sort of a decision about the legality of the gas company's claim expected soon.

The families are not hopeful that the judge will decide in their favor. I am not trying to harp on the corruption issue, but judges, like all civil servants make very little in the way of monthly salary and selling out just one or two cases a month can do wonders for their standard of living. The residents also lament that they are not positive about the caliber of their lawyer. Many are not sure what they will do if things go against them. The $250 sum is very high and there seems to be little guarantee that the payment would really resolve the situation. Moving to a new location would also be very expensive and socially undesireable.

Last winter was the coldest on record for decades in Kyrgyzstan and life in the houses of the bazaar ring villages was difficult. By many accounts even harrowing at times. Many I know stocked up on coal and wood to last them through this winter but while so far the weather has cooperated but another sort of trouble may be on the horizon.

Protest in Iranian Bazaars

Here is the times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/world/middleeast/11iran.html?ref=world

The bazaaris are often depicted as being an urban group with economic weight that tends toward greater social conservatism and support of the Islamist laws.

The declining oil prices of the economic contraction are already making for interesting dynamics and already the bazaar offers a decent window on the changes.

Tour De Dordoi

Today Urusbek took me and a family staying at my host family’s guesthouse around the bazaar. Needless to say, being on a sort of guided tour made for more information that I could soak up, organize and coherently present. Regardless, here it goes.

The first two things I noticed while approaching the bazaar were the mosque and containers stacked two high. The mosque is located at a T-intersection where the main road from Bishkek goes past the bazaar and a spur into the bazaar meet. Imams sell religious texts, Islamic trinkets, and symbols of Islamic faith. Though the mosque is only about 3 years old they are already planning on adding another story as soon as next year.

Containers serve as retail and warehouse

The bazaar as a whole is changing, which is to say growing, quickly. Only 5 years ago Dordoi bazaar had almost nothing in the way of permanent structures. Tents were set up each morning and taken down each night to shelter the merchants and customers. Today, the recently standardized international cargo containers comprise the skeletal structure of the bazaar. They are arranged into rows with plenty of walking room in the middle.

Dordoi bazaar is divided into six sections – each owned by a different business man. “They are all very very rich men,” reported Urusbek. Each of these sections tends to specialize in a certain kind of good or source country, for example, there is a Chinese section and a European section. The China section sells cheaply made but extremely affordable goods. The European section sells mostly upper end clothing. We didn’t get into the other sections, but I am sure that it will be cleared up pretty quickly when get back to the bazaar in November.

One area was called Mir Zapat, meaning world of shoes or shoe world. And so it was. Shoe World stretched on and on five or six rows of cargo containers, each row at least 100 meters long. There were shoes from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Vietnam, Indonesia. None of that is surprising anymore in the globalized economy. But consider that Kyrgyzstan lies more than a thousand miles from the nearest deep sea port, and the presence of such a boutique of footwear is impressive.

As we walked around the bazaar, we spotted a number of militsianeri, police officers. Unprompted, Urusbek complained that he despises the militsia. “They are not good guys. All they do is try and intimidate you for money. And they leave all the thieves alone, because they take money from them.” The militsia are hired by the bazaar owners.

After about two minutes Urusbek told us to be really careful because someone who he knew to be a pickpocket was following us – and had been for about the last 10 minutes. After I turned to look at him, he disappeared into a crowd.

The thieves are mostly pickpockets. The ones that Urusbek knows about are all between the ages of 11 and 20. They are experts of their trade. Due to the accumulating complaints of customers about pickpockets, for the last couple year the militsia have rounded up all of pickpockets and detained them for a little while. Urusbek views this action as a half-hearted attempt to intimidate the youngsters. After all, it happens once or twice or year all in one day – they manage this feat because the officers already know who to detain and where to find them. One distinction that I do not completely understand is between the militsia, who Urusbek derides, and the private security company guards that supervise a particular entryway or building and patrol the bazaar at night. These guys Urusbek viewed as honest, “All they do is guard.”

One area that has changed since I last was in Kyrgyzstan is that child labor has been prohibited (and the prohibition quite stringently enforced) at Dordoi bazaar. Last time I was Kyrgyzstan, many teenagers worked as porters moving goods from storage to retailers and transferring purchases form one merchant to another or in the warehouses loading and unloading trucks. The work was hard and the pay, considering the difficulty of the work, was meager. Details on the work and the pay are in the Asambek entry.

The porters haul very heavy loads around the bazaar and are paid based on the difficulty of the load and the distance traveled. If they get to the bazaar before dawn and work until the end of the day (about 10 hours later on average) they might be lucky enough/have worked hard enough to bring in as much as 1,000 som (around $US 30). Most days, however, the take is somewhere between 300 and 500 som ($US 10-15).

Porters haul goods from a storage area to the retail area. Its gets interesting when they meet the crowds.

We arrived at the bazaar late in the day, so by the time we left things were slowing down. Closing time does not occur in a single moment, rather the further removed shops tend to close first. And as a few storefronts close for the day, customers are less likely to visit that area. As crowds diminish, more store owners in that stretch of bazaar are enticed to close for the day. The process rolls from the margins to the center. At moments the sporadic nature of the rolling-close is odd. A main corridor will still be totally packed with customers and almost every shop still open while slightly less central passageways which intersect the main corridor will be totally empty.

As the corridors empty, a great deal of discarded plastic and cardboard is left behind. At this point, one of the few instances of non-glass recycling I have witnessed in Kyrgyzstan occurs. Old ladies and young kids collect plastic bags and cups as well as cardboard and sell it to processors. A kilo of plastic pays 1.5 som (that’s about $US .05/lb), cardboard is worth double. The cardboard is also harder to package and carry to the recycling center. Many of the women also are hired by the bazaar to clean the bazaar before opening the next morning. Whatever doesn’t get harvested for reprocessing is swept up and thrown away.

This shot shows a storage street marginal to the shopping center. Its a big place.

More photos are here.
They are all captioned, which make the gallery more informative than this post.