Few post-Soviet countries are as comfortable for a Russian-speaker to visit as Kyrgyzstan. This landlocked mountainous country of roughly 5.6 million, wedged between China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, kept Russian as an official language after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Kyrgyz had fallen into disuse during the Soviet era and lacked the vocabulary for affairs of state. As a result, a generation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country still speaks Russian.
Recently, Kyrgyzstan has been growing notably more Russian. Although Kyrgyz has gained many words, speakers and advocates for making it the country’s sole state language, activists from nongovernmental organizations say they noticed a couple of years ago that Russian-language media got suddenly more robust, gaining a crop of new freelance writers who seemed to come from nowhere. The same people seem to be writing for a recently revived Russian-language website called Stan Radar, apparently addressed to the residents of the five post-Soviet “stans”: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Many of the stories on the site emphasize the importance of the Russian language in these countries, as well as the potential economic dangers of not joining the customs union initiated by Russia. The site contains no specific contact information or any other identifying details, and activists say their efforts to find out who owns it have been futile. They have established, though, that the server is located in Moscow.
Another website, the name of which translates as “Eurasians: The New Wave,” brims with articles warning that Kyrgyzstan may face the threat of a Ukrainian-style revolution or a Syrian-style radical Islamist takeover if it fails to form a tighter bond with Moscow. It reveals little about its identity, only that it belongs to a foundation started in Moscow in 2010 “to strengthen the ties between Russia and Kyrgyzstan” and that its “partners” include an organization called Rossotrudnichestvo, or “Russian Cooperation,” a federal agency founded in 2008 to foster connections between Russia and Russian speakers abroad. In 2012 Konstantin Kosachev, a high-level functionary of Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, was appointed to lead the ministry that runs Rossotrudnichestvo, and since then it has really made its presence known in Kyrgyzstan and elsewhere. It organizes cultural events and sponsors Russian-language educational programs, and most important, according to activists here, it works to influence Kyrgyz legislators.
The Parliament of Kyrgyzstan is currently considering two bills, filed simultaneously, that copy legislation passed by the Russian Parliament in 2012-2013. These happen to be two of the Russian laws that drew the most international criticism: the ban on so-called propaganda of homosexuality and the law on so-called foreign agents, which places severe restrictions on NGOs that receive funding from abroad. In Russia the bills were passed separately, but their packaging in Kyrgyzstan is a perfect reflection of the xenophobic world view Russia has adopted and is now imposing on its allies. Both laws, as enacted in Russia and as proposed in Kyrgyzstan, are vague and designed for selective enforcement, but are squarely aimed at shutting out the other, whether defined as a “foreign agent” or someone who has a “nontraditional” sexual orientation.
This us-against-the-world view is an essential component of the “Russian World,” a concept that has been floated by Russian nationalists for years and was picked up by President Vladimir Putin in the speech he gave to Parliament in March announcing the annexation of Crimea. A cultural or even civilizational concept rather than a geographic one, Russian World encompasses all Russian speakers anywhere, according to some, and Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, according to others.
One thing that is certain about the Russian World is that it is not confined to the borders of the Russian Federation. It is an expansionist project, and an opportunistic one. Some of the expansion is aggressive and obvious, such as the annexation of parts of Ukraine and, earlier, Georgia; some of it is stealthy, like the promotion of Russian-style legislation and ideology.
Kyrgyzstan is not the only country to which Russia is exporting legislation. Similar bills are being proposed or floated in such post-Soviet states as Kazakhstan, Moldova and Azerbaijan, as well as Armenia, where restrictions on “foreign agents” and “gay propaganda” are also apparently being proposed as a package. In all these states the pattern is similar: The bills are proposed, and sometimes withdrawn because of international pressure; then they are proposed again — and, it seems, will continue to be proposed until they are finally passed, whether because Western governments become less vigilant or because the pressure from Russia outweighs all other factors.
Kyrgyzstan is a perfect lab rat: It is small and poor and extremely susceptible to Russian pressure.
It is also, unlike its neighbors and Russia itself, not an authoritarian state. Nor is it a functioning democracy: It is, rather like Ukraine, a country with a transitional state of government. It has seen two revolutions in the last decade and is now ruled by a multiparty coalition designed to prevent a return of autocracy. The media here comes under pressure regularly, and one of the country’s most prominent opposition journalists, Azimzhan Askarov, is serving a life sentence for ostensibly inciting mass violence during uprisings in 2010. At the same time, Kyrgyzstan continues to have some independent media that express a variety of opinions. But even 23 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country’s democratic gains are fragile and uncertain — and are at the mercy of the Russian World’s inexorable advance.
Masha Gessen is the author, most recently, of Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot.