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
