Kyrgyzstan uncovered 
By Karin Palmquist

There are places you love and you can't really explain why. Places that can't be called anything but backwards. Frozen in time they remind you of a different world order, of systems enforcing truths long forgotten. They remind you not of times that were better, just times that lasted for a long time. You love those places, but that doesn't mean you love them every day. 

For me, Kyrgyzstan, a tiny state in the heart of Central Asia, is such a place. When empires fall in other places, the new rulers decisively rename all the streets. They sling a nose around the heads of all statues and pull them down. In the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, Lenin still stands in the town square and the country is run with an exhausting bureaucracy that would make its former Soviet leaders proud. 

Not really sure of what to put up instead, the Kyrgyz propped up another monument next to Lenin and let him stand where he was. After 70 years of Soviet indoctrination, Kyrgyzstan is slow at switching gears.

I came to Kyrgyzstan on a two-month assignment for a Washington, DC newspaper. I came in search of a story. I'd get my story. I'd get the whole naked truth.

I had spent a couple of months in Kyrgyzstan before, in the fall of 1999. Now it was January 2002 and I was back. The place had changed. All places changes with time, but in this case the changes were flagrant. The war in Afghanistan had thrust the whole Central Asian region into the spotlight. The American president had learned the names of a whole bunch of new countries and Kyrgyzstan, often confused with Kurdistan, had gotten a place on the map. 

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan were used as refueling stops for long-range US bombers and as strategic bases for dropping American Special Forces into Afghanistan. And on the airfield just outside of the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, the coalition, in other words the Americans, were building a 37-acre base to accommodate more than 2000 soldiers. For a moment, the Central Asian 'stans' were Bush's new best pals. 

When my colleague Miia and I got there, around seven hundred and fifty Americans were already in the Kyrgyz capital, along with 250 French, and a few Spaniards, Norwegians, Danes, Australians and Koreans. 

For Kyrgyzstan the base was a big deal. When the Soviet Union fell apart and Kyrgyzstan became an independent republic, an inventory showed a budget dependent on state subsidies, no industrial base to speak of and hard-to-exploit natural resources. During the time of the former Soviet Union, state subsidies made up 25 to 30 percent of the country's budget. After independence international donor organizations continued those subsidies and Kyrgyzstan is by now the most aid dependent country of all the former Soviet republics, with a foreign debt equaling the country's GDP. 

The country is in a pretty sorry state. The national airline's fleet of aircraft hasn't been updated since it was part of Aeroflot a decade ago and Aeroflot isn't exactly known for up-to-date machinery. The roads are perforated with potholes you could hide little Ladas in. The nine billion dollars the coalition promised to pour in to the country, as payment for the use of the airport and the purchase of fuel and other supplies, was much needed indeed.

On a two-month trip to Kyrgyzstan there is always a moment, and you are lucky if there is only one, when you wish you had just stayed home. For me, this moment came on a dark February night. 

The special advisor to the president, now the deputy prime minister, had invited Miia and I out to dinner. It was a cold night and the rain hanging in the sky could very well turn to snow if temperatures dropped further. 

After dinner our host insisted we stop by a party to see some of his friends from parliament. 

The Kyrgyz might be Muslim by definition, but they sure like their booze. A legacy from Soviet times perhaps, but even the traditional Kyrgyz drink, of fermented horse milk, has an alcohol percentage similar to beer. In villages we saw kids younger than ten gulping down this yogurt-tasting drink like if it was formula. 

Risking sounding like our mothers, we commented on the fact that the kids were drinking alcohol (and got the evil eye from seven year old boozers hooked on the drink and not about to quit). 

"No alcohol," we got as a response. 
"Oh, surely there is some alcohol in there," we said. We know an alcohol buzz when we feel the Kyrgyz soil swaying under our feet. 
"Oh, just a little bit of alcohol." Well, as long as those little kids only get a little buzz, we suppose it is fine. 

Rarely saying no to a drink, and more often 'Na zdarovje!,' Kyrgyz parties tend to get a bit wet. We felt reluctant to go to a party with members of parliament where there surely would be a lot of alcohol. 

"We have lots of work before tomorrow's interviews," we tried. 
"Oh, we won't stay for very long."

We know how that goes, we sighed. Our host was driving. It was his car and his friends having the party. There was no polite way of saying no. 

He took us through a park on a narrow winding road. Through the trees we could glimpse fields, nice for a picnic on a summer day but now a winter brown and wet from rain. 

The road curved to the right and we stopped in front of a one-story building. The driveway was deserted except for a couple of bodyguards waiting inside a parked car. We nodded at them and they nodded back. Kyrgyz body guards are all of the same cut: grim-looking guys in suits two sizes too small, buttoned with much difficulty and with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Miami Vice meets the Russian mafia. On the chance you do get one of them to smile, all teeth in the upper row will no doubt be of gold. 

We went up to the building and our host knocked on the door. Lots of noise inside. The door opened and two men came outside, wearing nothing else but skimpy little white towels. 

"Uhm, what kind of party is this?" we stammered. 

Hot steam poured out through the crack in the door and turned to smoke in the cold air, partially clouding our vision. Just as well. The male half of the world population might not agree with me, but there is such a thing as showing too much skin. Way too much. 

We recognized the men as members of parliament. One we had interviewed earlier in the week; the other we had met at a reception. The second man was easy to recognize. He was one of the largest men I have ever seen, with enormous colored-lens eyeglasses Elton John would have just loved. At the reception he had picked up my thin 6-foot tall frame and spun me around on the dance floor, feet dangling in the air. 

Oh, please don't pick me up again I thought, a vision of me disappearing in between two huge man breasts appearing before my eyes. 

"What kind of party is this?" we asked again. The smell of sweaty flesh and birch wood heating up a wood sauna answered the question.

Then the door opened again and out tumbled three more MPs, with faces glowing from alcohol and the steam from the sauna. One distinct difference: these three weren't wearing any towels. They were completely naked. As in no clothes whatsoever. 

The first two MPs hadn't been exactly quiet about our arrival. I hadn't understood everything, but I was pretty sure I had heard the word 'girls!' in there. The men that just stumbled out must have known we were there; this must be Kyrgyz parliament's exhibitionist branch. 

Nakedness is a weird thing. It's the most natural state of being, and somehow it makes you feel utterly unnatural and awkward. Especially this particular nakedness. There is good naked, and then there is bad naked. Very bad. Very. Bad. 

You try not to look, but somehow your eyes wander towards, um, you know what. Rapid eye movement to a safe point somewhere above the shoulders, and then, as if you have no power over your own eyes, your eyes slowly wander south again. 

Bad as I am at controlling my eyes at the sight of naked parliamentarians, I'm even worse at controlling my facial color. This is not a new thing. It is a defect I've had reason to curse many times in my life. There are people out there who can hold their breaths for ten minutes or longer and start and stop their heartbeats at will. Why can't I control my body color the slightest?

Beet red and unsure of what to say, I stuttered out some greeting phrase. This was bad. One of the new arrivals we had interviewed that day, and here he was, completely nekkid. 

And what was worse, we still had to interview the other guys. How do you do a good interview with someone you've seen naked? How do you keep yourself from slipping up? So, Mr. MP, how about your privates, I mean privatization, of, you know, your assets. So sorry, privatization of your state assets. Jeez. 

And for a reason only twists of fate can explain, you know that interview tape will be the one your manager back home gets a hold of and for unknown reasons decides to listen to. And then, without really finding out the details, he'll decide that you have gone off the deep end of a Kyrgyz mountaintop and all choice assignments from now on will go to other people. 

It was cold out there, the men all agreed. Indeed it was. I was cold in my winter coat and the men, once the heat from the sauna had worn off, looked a bit cold as well. Sweat drops were turning to pearls of ice.

"Yes, let's go inside," our host prodded and his naked friends seemed just a bit too excited at the idea. 

If I had been uncomfortable at first, now I got creeped out. Mixing with the naked, drunken leadership of a country very far from home didn't seem like such a good idea. Have to go. Really. I had wanted to see the world, but not in such detail. Mama, can I go home now?

They insisted. Kyrgyz people pride themselves on their hospitality. Surely we wouldn't cause them the dishonor of leaving without having at least one drink? 

The more we insisted on leaving, the more insistent they got on us staying. Our host showed no signs of wanting to leave. In fact, he was the one insisting the loudest that we stay. We had driven there with him and there was no way to get back without a car. 

There is a first for everything. Kyrgyzstan had seen many of my 'firsts'. The first time I tried fermented horse milk. The first time I saw horse polo played with a sheep carcass rather than a ball. The first time I was offered money for sex. (And not a whole lot of money either. Going up the elevator of my hotel one night, a group of booze-breath French soldiers mistook me for one of the girls from the makeshift brothel set up on the 11th floor by the hotel owner to capitalize on the soldiers' disposable income and bodily needs. "40 bucks? That's all?" Cheap bastards.)

Along the border to China, there are frequent reports of young women being snatched and sold elsewhere. Human trafficking is a flourishing business and you can buy a life for less than my favorite handbag. Anything you want, all night long for $40 in the capital and in the country where inflation is less, anything you want for as long as you want it. 

Not that I know for sure, but if you can buy a girl for $40, you can probably make her disappear for just a bit more. 

Who would miss us if we didn't turn up for our interview the next morning? 

Blame it on seventy years of totalitarian rule, the Kyrgyz are not a people accustomed to question how the state apparatus entertains itself. Whatever happens, you look the other way. It's always safer not to know too much. Young journalist falls from bridge. How unfortunate.

There is a limit for cultural sensitivities and acceptance of your host country's customs. You try for a very long time to be all smiley and polite. Then you stomp your high heel boot in the mud and demand to be taken back to your hotel. When they laugh at your alarm you stomp your foot again. Want to go. Now. 

On the way back I told our host he should have told us what kind of party it was.

"Oh, come on," he grinned, baring way too many teeth, "you're Swedish. You should be used to these things."

Used to what? Saunas? Leering, naked politicians? Mass orgies? 

I spent the rest of the car trip cursing at every 'Swedish' blonde who ever made a porn flick. The Swedish bikini team isn't really Swedish, but try to explain that to a Kyrgyz MP in very broken Russian. Being Swedish, I meet these stereotypes all the time. And that's all they are. Stereotypes. What, no free sex at the airport? No pornographic utopia on earth? How can the world be so cruel? 

The next day we had an interview at Bille Dom, the Kyrgyz parliament. If my manager asks, that interview tape was lost. And that's that naked truth.