Tenure and Transition:Tenure and Transition: Kyrgyz Pastoral Land Management Kyrgyz Pastoral Land Management

and the Soviet Legacyand the Soviet Legacy

Jake FlemingUW - Madison

April 2008

100 mi

Jumgal region, Kyrgyzstan

summer sitewinter site

CIA 1982

Song Kol area20 km

Kochkor

Chaek

JumgalKochkor

Kyz ArtKyz Art

Naryn

Song Kol area20 km

Kochkor

Chaek

JumgalKochkor

Kyz ArtKyz Art

Naryn

sovkhoz

firma firma firmafirma

Land reform – mid 1990s to present

• Open competition among all interested citizens, administered by village, rayon, or oblast’, depending on pasture location

• Individuals lease a pasture for 5 to 49 years, receive documentation, and pay rent annually to government land registry

• 2005-2008: Chemonics project “Land Reform and Market Development” - “the use of transparent auctions and tenders

has stimulated land market activity”

“The task, therefore, as in other states, was to privatize, put land in the hands of individuals, and make farms responsible for their economic activity.” Bloch & Rasmussen 1998

Land reform – mid 1990s to present

• Open competition among all interested citizens, administered by village, rayon, or oblast’, depending on pasture location

• Individuals lease a pasture for 5 to 49 years, receive documentation, and pay rent annually to government land registry

• 2005-2008: Chemonics project “Land Reform and Market Development” - “the use of transparent auctions and tenders

has stimulated land market activity”

“The task, therefore, as in other states, was to privatize, put land in the hands of individuals, and make farms responsible for their economic activity.” Bloch & Rasmussen 1998

THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN MUCHTHIS DOESN’T HAPPEN MUCH

Informal extralegal pasture management and a local Soviet legacy

• Government plays little role in land management – no auctions, no mapping, no documentation, no rent

• Some local officials choose not to enforce the laws• Persistence of Soviet arrangements – the same

shepherds in the same places• Spatial organization of herding...

INSTEAD

3

4

2

1

2

1

3

4

1

2

3

1 winter site1 summer site

Grazing at Kyz Art

Informal extralegal pasture management and the local Soviet legacy

• Government plays little role in land management – no auctions, no mapping, no documentation, no rent

• Some local officials choose not to enforce the laws• Persistence of Soviet arrangements – the same

shepherds in the same places• Spatial organization of herding...• Not static, but change is driven by local needs, not

land reform: ancestral land claims, kinship links, tourism

INSTEAD

Comrade, come join our collective farm! 1930

“The link from village to capital...was tenuous, perforated by long distances, bad roads, poor communications, and grievous misunderstandings of what it meant to rule in a communist way.”

Kate Brown, A Biography of No Place 2004, p 38

Jeffrey SachsJoseph Stalin

Acknowledgements

Matthew Turner, Leila Harris, Robert Kaiser, Karl Zimmerer

University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA)

Ak Jol Bazarov, Aida Jumasheva, Myrzabek Ozubekov, Aidai Osmonalieva, the herders of Kyz Art and Kol Ukok

The End