Uzbekistan draws unauthorized power from Kazakh grid, says Kazakh official…again.

Uzbekistan is systematically sneaking electricity from Kazakhstan’s power grid beyond amounts agreed between the two parties, the Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company (KEGOC) claims. Kazakhstan has had tensions with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan off and on for the last ten years on electricity. Basically, there isn’t enough electricity for the latter two states during the winter.

The basic problem is summed up by a 1994 article by Yuri Slezkine, Professor of Russian History at UC Berkeley, called “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism.”

The article elegantly sums up the basic problem of post-Soviet Central Asia in one little paradigm. The Soviet Union was a communal apartment, where each of the national republics had a separate room. They could decorate the room however they liked. The Russians (RSFSR) occupied the amorphous space in the middle and had no decorations. They hung out in the kitchen and got to make the major decisions, but never pretended that they owned the apartment. In the end, “the tenants of various rooms barricaded their doors and started using the windows, while the befuddled residents of the enormous hall and kitchen stood in the center scratching the backs of their heads. Should they try to recover their belongings? Should they knock down the walls? Should they cut off the gas? Should they convert their “living area” into a proper apartment?”

This gets at the heart of the dilemma I’ve discussed before: infrastructure, specifically the electricity grid. On January 6, Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Company (KEGOC) once again stated its intention to exit the Central Asian grid. They’ve threatened this before and with good reason. The system isn’t very good and comes crashing down every winter because they can’t agree on how much they’ll use.

Because of the way the system is set up, Kyrgyzstan would be the most affected if Kazakhstan excused itself from the grid. Bishkek has been experiencing blackouts throughout January because of high demand. Corruption and bad management mean Kyrgyzstan is far from being able to run its own system, even though it has the hydropower.

The Slezkine article highlights the absurdity of the situation, as each state uses their window as a door and won’t negotiate. That is because everyone in the room is desperately protecting their own square foot and believes that power is like electricity: zero-sum.

All this being said, there is some good news, with Tajikistan nearly meeting its own needs this winter and by next winter, all electricity rationing may be over.

Look up in JStor or similar database: Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review, Vol. 53 (1994), 414.