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By John Valentine
President of the Utah Senate

Kyrgyzstan (the Kyrgyz Republic) is an island of emerging democracy in the heart of central Asia. It is a landlocked country about the size of South Dakota, with a population about the size of Utah. It is a mountainous land with 40 percent of its landmass above 3000 meters (9,900 feet). Needless to say, I felt right at home in the mountains and at the lakes of this jewel of central Asia.

It took me nearly two full days to reach Kyrgyzstan. Why did we go? As I believe I indicated previously, the Speaker of the Kyrgyz’s Parliament, H.E. Marat Sultanov, was our guest in Utah during the last legislative session. Dr. Rusty Butler of Utah Valley State College’s Russian Institute, contacted me before the start of the session about inviting their delegation to Utah as part of their visit to the United States. Dr. Butler’s wife, Dr. Daniell Butler, is the honorary Consulate General of Kyrgyzstan for Utah; they felt it would be an important link between two mountain states. When they were here, Speaker Sultanov extended the invitation to visit his country. I accepted. We were joined by Senator Carol Williams, Majority Leader of the Montana State Senate.

From the moment we flew into the capitol city, Bishkek, we were greeted warmly and with class. Pictured here is the Deputy Speaker of Parliament who met us at the airport at 2:00 a.m. and stayed with us for the entire trip.

While in Bishkek, we met with not only Speaker Sultanov, but also Mr. Almaz Atambayev, Prime Minister, Mr. E. Ibraimov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. K. Osmonaliev, Minister of Education, and numerous Members of Parliament, Mayors, District (County) leaders, educators and students. We also met with our “old” friends from the Kyrgyz’s Judicial branch which we had in the Senate Chambers about a month ago (here and here). Here's a picutre taken in an “Urta”.

I was amazed at the ability of this nation to function on very limited resources. The national budget is about a tenth of the budget of Utah. Wages, especially in the rural area, are also about a tenth of average wages in Utah. You could clearly see that the county had limited resources in the quality of its roads and other public infrastructure. Almost all buildings were Soviet era construction, with many factories shut down and abandoned.

Most men and women in the cities wore Western-style clothing. It changed slightly in the rural area where the clothing was more traditional, especially for women where we saw more head scarfs and traditional Muslim dress. Kyrgyzstan is about 80% Muslim, mostly Sunni.

Men in the rural area wore a while wool pointed hat called a kalpak. On a cold, snowy and windy day by Lake Inyl’chek, wearing a kalpak was very comfortable and almost a necessity. Incidently, beautiful Lake Inyl’chek (pictured here) is the second largest fresh water lake in the world.

Kyrgyzstan has been fighting for a democratically elected parliament since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. They have adopted 3 Constitutions since that time and were involved in a great debate during our stay on yet another Constitution, set for a country wide vote on October 21. If it passes, the President of Kyrgyzstan will dissolve the Parliament and new elections would occur. Keep them in your thoughts. It makes our vote on vouchers this November look very small.




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1 Comments:

 Chang said...

President Valentine:

We at the Open World Leadership Center in Washington, DC wish to thank you and your constituents wholeheartedly for Utah's efforts to strengthen ties with Central Asia through the exercise of public diplomacy.

Peer-to-peer relationships have an immeasurable effect on our program participants who come from countries that are home to some 44 million Muslims.

Utah is making a difference in how America is perceived by these countries. We thank you again.
Sincerely,
Chang Suh
Open World Leadership Center
US Library of Congress
Washington, DC

2/13/2008 11:11 AM  

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