Qishloq Ovozi (Archive)

Going to buy sugar in Uzbekistan? Do you have enough money? The price has gone up. Way up.

Do you have anything else to do today? Standing in line for sugar can take many hours.

Do you have your documents? Can't buy sugar without proper ID.

For those in Uzbekistan with a sweet tooth, these are hard times. It seems there is a sugar deficit in Uzbekistan and it's unclear whether it is natural or artificial.

People in Uzbekistan are accustomed to sugar prices rising in the summer but previous years have never been like the last few months.

RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, Radio Ozodlik, has been tracking the price of sugar as it has gone up and lines to purchase this basic product have grown longer.

The price of sugar is fixed by the government and should sell for no more than 2,800 soms per kilogram, a little more than $1, which it was as of early May this year. By mid-July the price had jumped to more than 6,000 soms in some areas.

And that's when it's available.

In A Jam

Uzbeks expect the price of sugar to rise at this time of year because the jam-and-preserves' season is about to begin. Every year, when the fruit ripens on the trees and in the fields of Uzbekistan it heralds the start of jam making and storing fruit in jars as part of the coming winter's supply of provisions.

The people who control Uzbekistan's sugar industry (and we'll get to them in a moment) know this and implement the annual price rise knowing they have a seller's market.

This year, however, there is also a shortage of sugar (and we'll get to that also in a moment) and because of that a hoarding mentality has broken out in the country.

The long lines to buy sugar, in which people wait six hours or more, are a consequence of this, because there also now appears to be a limit on how much sugar can be purchased at each visit: 1 kilogram.

Ozodlik spoke with people who said some people selling sugar were breaking up the kilograms into smaller quantities of hundreds of grams, in little baggies.

Does this sound like another, illegal business?

In the first half of July, tax police raided markets and bazaars and uncovered 38 places engaged in illegal sales of the substance and seized 66.8 tons of "illicit" sugar. A person identified only as "A. Botirov" was caught in possession of 2.2 tons of sugar, which he was selling "without any documents" at a price of 5,500 soms per kilogram.

Fights have broken out at sugar lines across the country and some merchants trying to sell sugar at bazaars, without some form of security force or the police nearby, have been mobbed by desperate glucose-craving crowds.

The Fergananews.com website reported that in a district of Tashkent local leaders have organized sales of sugar outside apartment complexes. And before any transactions are made, sellers are requiring customers to show their documents proving they live in the area.

The problem is so serious and so widespread that state media has been forced to report about it.

And what state media says is that the scapegoat, I mean responsible party, is the Khorezm-Shakar (Khorezm-Sugar) company, the country's biggest supplier of sugar. The shortage is the fault of Khorezm-Shakar because their factory produced only 250,000 tons of sugar this year, 100,000 tons less than last year.

An unofficial version of the sugar deficit finds the cause of the shortage is due to Bahodir Karimjonov, alias Baho-Shakarchi, leaving the country. In recent years Karimjonov held a virtual monopoly over Uzbekistan's sugar industry, functioning as the sole licensed importer and distributor.

Karimjonov was also rumored to have been a close business associate of recently fallen presidential first daughter Gulnara Karimova, which probably explains why Baho-Shakarchi recently fled Uzbekistan.

This version of Uzbekistan's sugar deficit proposes that without one single and obvious sugar baron in the country there are now several individuals/groups competing to take over Karimjonov's former empire. This has caused a break in the supply chain, causing the current sugar situation.

And of course, Uzbek authorities and others ascribe the problem to simple greed by unscrupulous individuals who are withholding their sugar supply to drive up the price.

Whatever the cause, shortages of basic goods have evolved into big social problems in the Central Asian states in the past and Uzbekistan, despite the "iron-fist" reputation of its leader, President Islam Karimov, has been no exception.

-- Bruce Pannier, with contributions from Khurmat Babajonov of RFE/RL's Uzbek Service

Recently, in the village of Poloson, in Uzbekistan's section of the Ferghana Valley, the faithful had gathered for Namaz at the local mosque. As Friday Prayers ended the imam spoke his final words of the service, then advised his congregation to purchase lottery tickets and said an example of the prizes, a car, was parked right outside the mosque.

Yes, Uzbekistan has lottery fever these days, but it not entirely by choice, it seems.

RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, Radio Ozodlik, has been receiving some irate calls from citizens, and dubious answers from officials, about the "Farovonlik" (Prosperity) lottery going on in Uzbekistan.

In April, Russia's Central Bank reported some $6.6 billion was sent from Russia to Uzbekistan in 2013. Millions of people from Uzbekistan work as migrant laborers in Russia and there are hundreds of thousands working in other countries who are also sending money back home.

There is only one bank in Uzbekistan that handles these remittances: Agrobank.

Uzbek citizens inside Uzbekistan and working in Russia have contacted Ozodlik to complain that when people in Uzbekistan go to pick up the money sent to them from abroad they are required by Agrobank to purchase at least one lottery ticket at a cost of 5,000 soms (a bit more than $2 at the official rate).

One person from the Kokand area said it had been that way for the last five months. "Every time you go to get money you are obliged to get a lottery ticket," the person said. "If you don't buy a lottery ticket you don't get money. We already have five tickets at home."

This person noted that they only go to pick up money sent to them from abroad once a month but "some migrant laborers send money to relatives every 10 days or even every week."

And the lines to collect money are apparently always very long, with one person saying they showed up in the morning and finally received their money after 4 p.m. So after all that wait, and faced with the possibility of not getting any money at all, few seem to refuse to play the lottery.

Ozodlik contacted a representative of Agrobank, who denied anyone was being forced to buy lottery tickets. "Clients purchase lottery tickets as they wish. We have no instances of forced sales, and we have this under strict control," the representative said.

One person did complain about not wishing to buy a lottery ticket and was directed to the bank's manager on the second floor. "He told us a directive came from above that for every monetary transfer one lottery ticket needed to be sold," the person said.

But of course...there's more.

Earlier, an employee at an Agrobank branch in Andijon Province said employees of the bank were also obliged to buy lottery tickets.

The head of Agrobank said from his office in Tashkent that no employees were forced to buy tickets and went so far as to say some employees not only did it "voluntarily" but on occasion even brought their families to the bank for the joyous moment when the ticket or tickets were purchased.

Some teachers in Khwarezm and Bukhara provinces have told Ozodlik they too are forced to play the lottery and have at times have even been given lottery tickets instead of their salaries.

There are 10 million tickets that need to be sold. The population of Uzbekistan is officially at just over 30 million people but anywhere between 4 to 8 million are outside the country working as migrant laborers. So on average, there's one ticket for roughly every 2.5 people.

The winning numbers are scheduled to be announced in December. The prizes include 40 new cars, which admittedly, few of those playing could likely ever afford to buy.

For those in Uzbekistan who claim they were forced to buy their tickets and doubt their chances of winning, they might find comfort by speaking with some of the millions of citizens of neighboring Tajikistan who have been forced to buy shares in the Roghun hydropower plant project during the last few years.

Oh yeah, that's right. Tajik officials said they were buying those shares voluntarily too.

-- Bruce Pannier, with RFE/RL's Uzbek Service