Asambek

Asambek recently moved away from the boroughs surrounding the bazaar. He is not exactly thrilled about it. His siblings are living on their own or with other relatives. At 19 he has been uprooted from his community and friends at the bazaar boroughs and, to add insult to injury, must live alone with his mom. This is perfectly normal here, just a bit boring. Asambek had come to know his borough of Ak-Bata as home though he came there only seven or so years ago from a small village. During the late 1990s the government of the Kyrgyz Republic was in the process of putting the finishing touches on the extraction of the government from ownership in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. His mother and father worked on the kolkhoz, or collective farm. His father managed the herds of cattle and sheep. His mother worked in the fields – it was not entirely clear to me in what capacity.
The government sold the livestock and stopped paying the salaries of the workers. There was nothing to sustain them in the place they had called home on the South shore of lake Issik-Kul. Fortunately Asambek’s aunt made a living vending cigarettes and lemonade at the Dordoi Bazaar, just North of Bishkek. Getting started was simple enough, all one had to do was buy some cigarettes in bulk and buy some lemonade and walk around the bazaar with a tray similar to those carried around sporting events.
Entry into this line of work was so simple that quite quickly there were too many cigarette and lemonade vendors. Profits dried up. Around this time Asambek’s father died, devastating the family not only emotionally but financially as well. Asambek as well as his two older brothers and older sister had to drop out of school and begin working just to get by. His brothers were old enough to look for work at construction sites abroad, which they did. They worked in Russian cities of Siberia newly relatively flush with cash from rising oil prices. His sister and mother went to work for his aunt, who had astutely moved out of the vending business and into the lemonade making business.
Asambek, along with a couple of neighbor boys, scoured the bazaar for discarded cups and bags. These they sold to his friend’s mother. She washed the cups and sorted the bags for resale. The cups were sold to the lemonade or tea vendors and the bags back to merchants. Asambek and his friends could make about 50 som/day (a little less than $US 2) doing this.
Asambek and his friends were in this line of work for 3-4 years. About two years ago Asambek graduated to work loading and unloading cargo trucks. This job offered much better pay but much more strenuous working conditions. The work day typically started at 07:00 and lasted until sometime between 17:00 and 19:00. The regularity of the work ebbed and flowed along with the wholesale trade at the bazaar but most weeks they had to be there at least six days. These regular workdays earned each porter about 200 som (~$US 8). In addition, however, once or twice each week the boys were required to work through the night, that is from 07:00 one day until 07:00 the next. “That is really, very hard,” he said of the long shifts. His eyes and the serious pause for emphasis underscored the point. I responded saying that I can’t imagine, it must have been extremely difficult and tiring though obviously I can’t really relate to that kind of exertion. “Yes, it was.”
The 24 hour shifts paid 400-500 som.
Other days the “night bazaar” demanded their presence. The night bazaar, apparently (Asambek was unsure) is when Kazakh traders come to Kyrgyzstan to buy wholesale goods. Waking up to work at 2 or 3am is no simple task. The only way to work is to walk and the temperatures last winter stayed around -15 to -30 degrees at times. The bazaar cannot cease to function because of a cold snap.
Asambek is in another line of work now and hopes to work in the service or tourism industries.