Qishloq Ovozi (Archive)

RFE/RL's Kazakh Service, known locally as Azattyq, is currently holding an interesting contest called "Kvartirantting Armany" (Lodger's Dream, or Mechta Kvartiranta in Russian) that encourages people from Kazakhstan to blog about their experiences in trying to obtain their own home or flat.

The short articles also contain some personal history from these people, all of whom have grim tales to tell of their efforts to find a permanent dwelling.

I was curious, why this topic? Why now?

People in Kazakhstan have experienced problems with their homes before, mostly due to accepting credit they couldn't repay or simply being swindled. And it has sparked local protests, but they always fizzled out eventually.

So I spoke with Azattyq director Torokul Doorov. He told me that in recent months the service has been receiving all sorts of complaints from people in Kazakhstan about their housing problems. "Practically every other day we get such reports."

The problems vary.

The case of Gulzhaz Abzhamalova in Kazakhstan's central Karaganda Province is an unfortunately all-too-familiar story around the world. She and her three children, now 11, 8, and 6 years old, moved into an abandoned flat in the industrial town of Satpaev. Her husband died five years ago and she has tuberculosis and cannot find work, so the vacated flat was their only option. She moved into the flat despite warnings from friends that the building was also home to alcoholics and homeless people. But she said there was no other choice, occupied one of the flat, and has done what she could to fix the place up and make it look something like a home.

Authorities finally noticed her presence and have ordered her and family out of the building, although those same authorities cannot offer Gulzhaz an alternative place for her family to live.

Further to the southwest, just some 20 kilometers outside Kazakhstan's biggest city, Almaty, there is a different problem for some residents of the town of Koyandy. Authorities recently declared 167 homes in the town were built on land belonging to the government and private entities and ordered the destruction of those homes.

The residents of these homes say they were given the land because they are "Oralmany," ethnic Kazakhs who came to Kazakhstan after 1991 independence. The Kazakh government encouraged Kazakhs in countries such as Mongolia to come their nominal homeland and offered the "returnees" incentives, such as land for a home.

In Koyandy, an Oralmany organization called Zhana Kadam distributed the 96 hectares of land to 180 of the returnee families in 2004. The problem was that 32 hectares of that land was not the organization's land to give.

So, after a decade, the families unfortunate enough to have built their homes on these 32 hectares are being evicted and their homes razed.

Up north by the capital, Astana, schoolteacher Kamar Dosmaganbetova and her family are among many who could not afford the high cost of housing in Astana and chose instead to build a home on the vast empty expanse of land outside the city. She said that after arriving in the town of Ondiris in 2007, parents of her students told her that people could simply build a house out on the steppe. Dosmaganbetova's family was even able to obtain a loan for construction material and built a house on the outskirts of Ondiris. Their home is modest, not even a shower and they depend on a stove for heat.

Lately, she has been receiving phone calls from the local authorities telling her she must vacate her illegal dwelling. She said apparently the land her home is built on belongs to a local businessman who also happens to be, according to Dosmaganbetova, a lawmaker.

Saule Igisinova never says exactly where in Kazakhstan she lives. But she recounts how after she married and had her first child the small flat where the new family lived was clearly inadequate. "We started to suffocate from the cramped space," she recalled. With "barely enough money to make ends meet," she and her husband decided "with a heavy heart" to move in with "the parents."

Saule said later, after the couple had another child, she decided to look into housing loans provided under the "young family" program. "We were a young couple, young specialists, with a higher education" and "a lot had been written and advertised about it." She and husband decided to look into the loans for young families. They discovered after checking the documents carefully that if they took the loan they would end up paying twice the original cost of the flat.

Saule's problem was solved when an elderly "auntie" died and left her and her family the two-room flat auntie owned. Now with three children, Saule said that of course the children are growing and it's getting a little cramped but we're not crying or complaining..."

Yesey Zhenisuly wrote about having three children and looking for a flat. He said landlords prefer families with no more than two children so he "hides" one of his offspring every time he goes to look at a flat.

Ayatzhan Akhmetzhan wrote that Kazakhs seem to have returned to their nomadic roots since so many now travel from place to place looking for a pasture.

Every Central Asian country has been going through housing problems, but Kazakhstan, economically, is better off than the other Central Asian states. The per capita wage in Kazakhstan is about $8,500 per year, more than three times its counterpart in Kyrgyzstan and more than five times the figure in Tajikistan.

Azattyq has been running the contest for several weeks, posting the blogs in Kazakh and Russian, and is allowing its audience to decide who authored the best article.

The winner receives a new iPad. The last day of the contest in December 1, with the winner announced soon after.

-- Bruce Pannier (with help from Torokul Doorov and Galym Bokash, based on material collected and reported by Sultan Askarov, Svetlana Glushkova, Nurtai Lakhanuly)

Turkmenistan held elections for local and city councils on November 23.

Not surprisingly, they did not receive much media coverage or generate much interest -- after all, Turkmenistan is a country that had 51 candidates running for 50 seats in the 1994 parliamentary elections. (I always felt kind of sorry for the lone loser in that "race," whatever his or her name was.)

Nothing much has changed in Turkmenistan's political and electoral system in the two decades since then -- aside from some cosmetic changes.

RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, spoke with some of Turkmenistan's eligible voters on election day to gauge the level of excitement.

And remember, according to Turkmen election officials, the turnout was 92.76 percent.

A woman in the western Balkan Province said she did not vote.

Asked why she had chosen not to participate in the electoral process, the woman said she had no idea who any of the candidates in her region were. "They have not been out in public. Even in the newspapers, we don't see anything about their plans, their achievements. We don't know them. We don't even know their names," she added.

The woman said she was not the only person in her area who had decided to pass on voting. "There's not much interest. There are entire families who don't go to cast ballots," she said.

But the woman also noted that the entire family did not need to go. Asked if she knew of anyone voting on behalf of an entire family, one of the most prevalent violations in Central Asian elections, the woman replied, "Yes, all the time."

On the other side of Turkmenistan, in the eastern Lebap Province, one man said he did not vote because he was not in his registered district of residence. But he said he had been walking around and passed by some of the polling stations. He said he did not see anyone at the polls until several hours after voting started at 6 a.m. and that over the next few hours he saw only small groups occasionally making their way into polling stations to vote.

The man noted that even the concerts local authorities sponsored outside polling stations did not seem to persuade many people to come and cast ballots.

"They use to give out free food [on election day]," the man said.

OK. Those people were in eastern and western Turkmenistan. Perhaps in the capital, Ashgabat, there was a bit more action?

Sure enough, Azatlyk found a man in Ashgabat who had voted.

Asked what he saw at the polling station, the man replied, "There were some people there [voting], a few." He said one man came and cast votes for himself and "five or six members of his family."

Asked if he knew ahead of time whom he would vote for, the man said he had no idea who any of the candidates were and only learned their names and some information about them from short biographies he received upon arriving at the polling station.

Azatlyk inquired how the man chose whom to vote for, if he did not know any of the candidates.

"I pick the people who have the most humble positions, a teacher or a worker at the local gas distribution plant," he said.

Very proletarian.

One other man from Ashgabat spoke briefly with Azatlyk, saying he had not voted and did not see any reason to do so. He said the whole election process was "staged" and that he, too, had no idea who any of the candidates from his region were.

It's true. Making fun of Turkmenistan's elections is like shooting fish in a barrel. But the November 23 regional and local polls in Turkmenistan are the start of a series of elections in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan over the next 13 months.

The Turkmen poll might be an extreme example of a dubious electoral process in Central Asia, but there are sure to be plenty of questionable election practices to observe in neighboring states in the months to come.

-- Bruce Pannier, with contributions from Muhammad Tahir of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service