I spent the night here at the Limonova apartment, about a 10-minute walk from Nina's. Like Nina, they are Russians, although both Nastia (20) and Liza (17) were born here, and their mom Tatiana was born in Uzbekistan. It's a curiosity for me at this point, 10 days into my stay here. The people I meet take pride in the multi-ethnic character of their nation, but they identify personally along mono-ethnic lines. I don't want to misrepresent Tajiks, and my impressions reflect my limited experience. There's always a danger of misrepresenting a complex society by generalizing about "how people are". But from what I've gathered, people tend to marry within their ethnic groups (obviously, there are exceptions). Even Russian Tajiks here seem to maintain conservative dress. Nastia says the Russian Orthodox community is pretty small, and Armenians and other Christians go to her church. Khujand, the 2nd largest city in the country, is about 15 minutes away, and Nastia's family went to midnight Easter services there.
There is great incentive here for Tajiks to speak Russian (and almost all do in this region) because of the economic opportunities in Russia. There is a lot of labor migration to Russia...in fact some of Nina's friends have suggested that labor migration has made a sizable impact on the population. Unemployment is a huge issue here, and many people head to Russia for work. It seems every other person I meet has a family member abroad (Russia, the US, the Emirates) trying to earn money.
Liza attends a Russian university 30 minutes away in Kyrgyzstan, and our friend Mamura is applying to the American University in Bishkek (the Kyrgyz capital). People here believe that English is a critical skill for economic advancement. No one I've met studies Mandarin. In fact, they speak in disparaging tones about low quality of the Chinese goods that are everywhere here. Still, people acknowledge that the few roads of high quality are often due to Chinese labor.
I should devote a blog entry to the potholes of Chkalovsk. They're something to behold. Cars weave a serpentine path down city streets to avoid the large and/or deep ruts. It's kind of comical, except for the speed at which some of these guys drive. For every Russian Lada, there's a second-hand Mercedes. I've even seen a Hummer, and Nastia says there are two Porsches in town. There's some suspicion, obviously nothing I can confirm, that people who have those cars get them through illicit means involving agricultural products from regions further south. No country is free of this problem and its nefarious effects of end-users and their communities.
We're going to head out for errands in a little while. It is usually well above 80 degrees by 10:00 a.m., and I can only guess at the daily highs since I've spend most mid-afternoons indoors thusfar. I say, bring on the heat.
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