Kyrgyzstan: The aftermath of public uprising

In the past week, the attention of Kyrgyzstani bloggers has been very firmly centred on political events in this small, mountainous Central Asian country. All over the country, memorials have been held for those people who died in clashes between government and opposition on April 7 and April 8.

Sergei Vysotsky, a tireless resource for events happening in the Issyk Kul region of the country, reports on a recent fund set up by the No.6 Chekov Secondary school in Karakol. The fund is aimed at helping families of the six former residents of the region who lost their lives in the clashes [ru]:

“Our pain is very sincere, we express our deepest condolences to the bereaved families,” the School's Director Raisa Karimova told blogger and journalist Vysotsky. “Our team has decided to transfer one day's salary into the Fund for Children left without Fathers,” she continued. “Maybe our modest contribution ammounts to nothing more than a drop in the ocean, but without such drops, the sea cannot happen.”

The fund has already raised 7 thousand soms ($160).

Another user, optimist summed up the mixture of emotions that accompany a revolution in a brief, multi-coloured post [ru]:

“There is so much I want to write about the recent “events” in my country. But the words won't come together as a sentence: Chaos, demonstrations, looting, murder, provocation, press conferences, toadying, lying, patriotism, blood, violence, tears, drunkenness, robbery, guard, the crowd screams, photographer, the area, fear, shots, money, slander, soldiers, flag, smoke, rain, Twitter, border, night, uncertainty, hope …”

Hope is indeed a running theme as bloggers attempt to come to terms with life under the newly installed provisional government of the country.

But other bloggers are more critical of the state of politics in Kyrgyzstan. Theseabiscuit accuses the provisional government of direct involvement with the attacks and looting that dissolved all sense of order in Kyrgyzstan [ru]:

“The people should probably not be blamed for these acts,” theseabiscuit judges. “In any case, the driving lever of the revolution is always the elite. Until the elite alter, in both form and substance, nothing anywhere will work.”

In a post titled ‘My Soul aches for my native kyrgyzstan”, Adilets charts [ru] the downfall of the Bakiev regime as beginning in the second half of 2009, and attributes it to their ‘growing confidence’ after this period. Adilets also celebrates the scrapping of the 60 tiyin (USD 0.01) charge for mobile connections, an unpopular trademark of the ousted President's reign.

English language blog thespektator writes of the bizarre link between the Bakievs and English football club Blackpool F.C, while aidea manages to salvage some humour from a tragic situation, adapting an old soviet idiom and considering revolution as a rite of passage in the country:

“Every Kyrgyz man,” the user writes, “should, over the course of his life, build a house, plant a tree, raise a son and break into the White House.”

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