TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, Jan. 12 (AP) — The end of the Soviet Union a
decade ago sent ethnic Russians
streaming out of Central Asia's steppes, leaving behind war, shriveling
salaries and neighbors suddenly
resentful of their former colonizers.
Yet many more quietly stayed behind. Some could not afford the journey
to Russia. Others saw little point
in leaving these sunnier lands they have called home all their lives
for Russia's frigid expanse.
An estimated 3 million to 4 million ethnic Russians live among the 55
million people in the five young
Muslim nations of Central Asia, some anguished, some angry, some resigned,
some resourceful. They are
shaping a new role for themselves, coming to terms with depleted influence
and security and the fading
use of their native tongue.
Irina Prokofieva tutored generations of children in Russian verbs and
Pushkin's poetry in Uzbekistan's
capital, Tashkent. Her pension now is the equivalent of just $4 a month.
She has no known relatives in
Russia.
She has found a welcoming hearth in the city's Orthodox Church, where
she supplements her income,
despite an ailing back, by mopping the marble floor, and she frequents
a Sunday school that was prohibited by the Soviet government.
In Tajikistan's capital, Dushanbe, three Russian women with Tajik husbands
gather some afternoons on a park bench to share financial woes and debate
how to educate their bicultural children.
Nationalists in Russia, panicked by their country's population decline
since the Soviet collapse, are urging that these ethnic Russians be brought
back "home." But the government has exhibited no interest in a repatriation
drive and little concern about the Russians who suddenly found themselves
"abroad" in newly independent nations.
"We know not to expect anything from the Russian government," said Sergei
Ezhkov, an outspoken Russian journalist and an activist in Uzbekistan who
helped repatriate 5,000 fellow Russians in the early 1990's. "They don't
lift a finger."
Some politicians in Moscow want the Russians to stay in Central Asia.
They fear that the reduced Russian
presence has allowed the region to slip out of Moscow's sphere of influence
and into American hands.
The United States interest in the oil- and gas-rich region has led to
foreign aid and NATO exercises in
Central Asia in recent years. In a sign of shifting allegiances, Uzbekistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan
welcomed American troops for the military operation in Afghanistan.
The countries' impoverished governments hope the decision will endear
them to Western investors. But
Russian officials insist that cooperation with Russia is the only salvation
for Central Asia's ailing
economies.
Russians once ran most of Central Asia's news media, universities and
factories. Fearing a backlash from
native ethnic groups, an estimated four million have left since independence.
The exodus had a debilitating effect on the five countries' economies,
and locals started urging the
remaining Russians to stay.
In Tajikistan, a five-year civil war and the ensuing political chaos
hastened the Russians' departure.
Russians have retained some government posts in Kazakhstan, which shares
a long border with Russia and where ethnic Kazakhs form less than half
the multicultural population.
Turkmenistan's population is heavily Turkmen, and its authoritarian
president's antiforeigner policies and
struggle with Moscow over Caspian resources have alienated many ethnic
Russians.