Test post. Here we are!

Kalpak – Kyrgyz national hat (left), doppi – Uzbek national hat, and Kyrgyzstan’s flag.

But…

I have long made my mind that, for some reason, United States does not want to accept me on its territory. Why? When I was a high school kid, I applied to FLEX program several times. The program finalists would live in US and study in public high schools there for one academic year. But I failed both times.

When I was studying in Osh State University, Department of World Languages, I applied three times to IREX undergrad program that sends successful applicants to US universities for one academic year. But I failed all three times… even though I had decent essays and comparatively high TOEFL scores. It must be noted that some students, whom I helped to fill out the application forms and in writing essays, were selected to the second round of the competition each time.

I recently applied to Open World Program run by American Councils. The program is supposed to bring emerging leaders from post-communist countries like Kyrgyzstan to US and have them participate in intensive professional development training. The program is funded by Congress and operated by the Open World Leadership Center at the Library of Congress. I applied to Program as a young blogger, as the program has several target groups, and one of them is young people actively involved in New Media.

And I got an email from American Councils that I was selected as a finalist of the Program! Reaction of Twitter community in Kyrgyzstan was fast – my twitter page was full of congratulations and wishes of luck. But here it goes again – the next day, the same person from American Councils emailed me and other 2 active bloggers explaining and apologizing that we were selected not as finalists, but only as alternatives, that the first email was a mere mistake. Now, I get a green light only in case one of the finalists will refuse from participating in Program, which, I feel, is not going to happen. Cuz everyone in Kyrgyzstan, where most people cant afford travels abroad, is tempted to travel to US.

Organizers say that, even though I am on alternative list, I have to fill out the visa form to US. So here I go – sitting in front of my laptop and filling out the visa form offered in the website of the US Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Unsurprisi)ngly, the form requires me to type in dates of my visit to US. I wonder, will it accept “unknown” option?

UPDATE (27/01/2011): I got a call from American Councils that I am on final list. I am going to US soon

So I had to pay $12/year to WordPress to have an option back that binds a domain name to blog. Now it works fine again. However, WordPress acted very strange when I was processing the payment. When I filled out the billing address WordPress requested, I indicated my Kyrgyzstani address and Kyrgyzstan as my country, which, of course, was in the list of counties offered by WordPress itself. But, WordPress kept saying several times  ”Enter a valid country in billing address to finish the payment”. When I indicated a random European country, it worked fine and proceeded the payment.

Is it a WordPress bug or it simply does not send the bill to Kyrgyzstan?

But:

• August 27, Karasuu city, Johongir Bozorov, father of small kids, ethnic Uzbek, sentenced to 23 years;
• September 3 , Karasuu city, 5 people in trial, all ethnic Uzbeks;
• September 13, Jalalabad city, 11 people in trial, all ethnic Uzbeks.
• September 15, Nooken district, 8 people in trial including a human rights defender Azimjan Askarov, all ethnic Uzbeks, 5 sentenced to life (including Askarov), 2 to 20 years, 1 to 9 years.

- September 17, trial of a journalist Ulugbek Abdusalomov, ethnic Uzbek.

All these people are being accused of instigating and participating in bloody June events in Osh and Jalalabad cities of Kyrgyzstan. It must be noted that despite obvious facts (HRW reports, rights activists and journalists’ stories) that government troops and police were involved in criminal actions in June events, non of them are in trial.

Another surprising thing is that many well-educated and open minded people in Kyrgyzstan are silently refusing to accept this truth. No one, except few human rights defenders (Umetalieva, Bagyshbekov, Kabak), are openly discussing this issue. They have been calling HRW and well-respected foreign media biased.

Only international organizations are working in Southern Kyrgyzstan helping people offering them temporary jobs, shelter and helping them build their burnt houses. Yet, Kyrgyz officials are accusing them of “ideological subversion”.

This is what is left of an old good Akaev’s “island of democracy”… who actually did a good job of building an inter-ethnic harmony.

As Sergey Makarov, co-author of the campaign, says “this campaign is aimed to raise tolerance and understanding among youth, and to prevent conflicts, like the one happened in the South of Kyrgyzstan.” Makarov also says that they will send 2 thousand T-shirts to Osh and Jalalabad cities in southern Kyrgyzstan.

And I did not regret it. The Tour’s programme was very interesting and useful. I had a chance to meet with high profile officials at the Foreign Office and get to know closer about the mainstream and new media development in Germany. The programme was also not-overloading with too much work. Therefore, it gave me a great chance to explore the life in Berlin – not only the touristic side of it, but also life of ordinary Berliners, which is usually hidden from tourists, their likes, tastes and culture.

And of course, one of the greatest things about the Blogger Tour was that I met 17 great people, whose company I enjoyed whole 10 days! They were all simple, unique, smart and with a great sense of humor (especially Michael (China), who enjoyed his freedom of speech at the Foreign Office, and Mahmoud from Bahrain, who ended up being our Blogger Papa ). We all ended the Tour not only with strong friendship ties and promises to meet again, but also with an excellent idea of creating a goup blog, which is being discussed and created at the moment, that will be about developments happening in our countries from international perspective, and will have more like a think-tank character. I will write more about it when we launch the blog.

Last, but not least, I want to express special thanks and appreciation to the organizers of the Tour, especially Lisa, Lucien and Deniz, for their commitment in organizing the event and paying great attention and care for every detail, be it big or small. You did an excellent job, my friends!

So here they are – bloggers and organizers… and my dear friends!

Photos and collage made by me.

“Fidelio” by Ludwig van Beethoven. Source of photo.

The Komische Oper is not big. It is small, but very cosy, and its stage is very close to front rows. As I was sitting in the middle of the front row, I felt I was in the action of opera myself. Well, it is not fully applicable to compare it to watching a 3D IMAX movie, but it was smth like that – being very close to the action.

The other thing that made “Fidelio” very special is that producers did a great job in merging old with modern. In the beginning of the opera, when the curtain was taken up, we saw a group of workers in modern clothes with modern tools, like electric drills dismantling the scene, I re-read the name of the opera in the program thinking it was not Fidelio. However, when Marzelline (Karen Rettinghaus) started singing, my journey to a fantastic world of old/modern “Fidelio” began. No words, just emotions.

Deep appreciation and non-stop applauses to Anton Keremidtchiev (Don Pizarro), Mirko Janiska (Don Fernando), Caroline Melzer (Leonore), Thomas Ebenstein (Jaquino), Karen Rettinghaus (Marzelline), Will Hartmann (Florestian) for their excellent voice and acting!

Participants (some are absent) of Blogger Tour 2010 at the Federal Foreign Office with Mr. Michael Zenner, Commissioner for Communication at Federal Foreign Office of Germany

Today was definitely one of the most interesting days of the Blogger Tour 2010, as we spent almost all day at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany meeting with Markus Löning, a new Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid, and Michael Zenner, Commissioner for Communication at Federal Foreign Office.

You may say “so what? what is so special about it?”. Well, for a person like me with international relations and political science background, who is also extremely interested in human rights and media issues, this is certainly a great experience.

Mr Löning, despite he is new to office, told Germany’s commitment in promoting human rights values around the globe. Answering to my questions, Mr Löning expressed deep concern about human rights issues in Central Asian region, where Germany has often to balance between its interests and commitment to promoting human rights values. He told me that he would pay a visit to Kyrgyzstan in near future, and we decided to organize a meeting with Kyrgyz online activists to talk about human rights and freedom of speech in the country.

Mr Michael Zenner, who kindly invited us for a fancy lunch in the Federal Foreign Office, spoke how his office got interested in social media and blogging. We had a graet lunch talk, where we shared with Mr Zenner our ideas and thoughts about the role of social media on our countires. And it seems Mr. Michael Zenner was pleased by the fact that the Blogger Tour 2010 was a great success in many senses, as it was his department at the Federal Foreign Office that initiated Tour, which turned out to be one of the greatest experiences I have ever had as a blogger. Why?

(a.) Cuz I met 14 awesome bloggers from different parts of the world. I could have met 15, but Cuban authorities did not allow a blogger from Cuba to leave the country to come to Germany. (c.) I had a great chance to meet with German foreign policy makers  and discuss with them the issues taking place in Kyrgyzstan and broader Central Asia region, (b.) I had enough time to explore Berlin. Not the touristic Berlin, but the Berliners’ Berlin, which is not globalized yet by bloody tourists coming from all over the world.

After the lunch with Mr Zenner, we had a small roundtable talk about the idea of creating a group blog of participants of Blogger Tour 2010. Mr Mahmood Al Yousif, aka father blogger, moderated the discussion which resulted in unanimous decision of creating a group blog the content of which will be original and about issues happening in our countries, but from international perspective. We will discuss it more tonight, so keep tuned for more info

- Stasi-archive in Berlin. Yeah, it is a big place full of old used-to-be-secret paper files.  Yeah, it shows how GDR was tough on its people. But, honestly, I was not really surprized seeing all these secret files the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, shortly Stasi) of GDR opened on people who were against the communist regime in GDR. The tour guide did a great job trying to impress us with astonishing facts on how Stasi officers recruited civilian informants to spy on their close people – friends, parents, siblings or spouses. Well, such things happened often in Central Asia, especially in countries like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, where every security agencies are very developed. So I was not impressed much. But, I really liked the way Germans are preserving these documents, and even giving files’ copies to their subjects! All a person needs to do to look at their Stasi-archive file is to fill an application. Then staff of the archive, which is also a museum now (and Germans are great in creating museums out of everything!), will search for your file, and if there is one, make an appointment with you and show you your file. And most people are very keen to look at their files. Well, who does not want to read the spy reports about them?

- DPA. “Independent, reliable, up-to-the-minute. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year” – that’s how DPA describes itself. DPA is German Press Agency (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) that provides worldwide news to variety of mainstream media organizations, and is competitor of AFP, AP and Reuters. We had a nice talk with Christoph Dernbach, editor-in-chief and managing director at dpa infocom, who told that DPA often works with citizen journalists using new media tools to gather information in places, where they do not have their own reporters. Yet another proof to my thesis that citizen journalism is a great outsourcing for mainstream journalism, not a competitor, as many mainstream media representatives think.

- DW TV. Deutsche Welle TV, Germany’s own CNN and BBC, but unlike the latter two, DW TV does not rush after “breaking news”. As Fabian von der Mark, editor at the Television Directorate of DW TV, explained, DW TV tries to give elaborated news that is backed by analyses. We had a short walk around the office of DW TV, and even climbed to its roof that’s full of huge satellite dishes for transmitting news around the globe.

And of course we met Gabriel Gonzalez, project manager of the Deutsche Welle Blog Awards „BOB‘s“. Gabriel told us how BOB’s competition is organized, and what kind of requirements the jury has to blogs. Mahmoud Salem (aka SandMonkey) from Egypt told that some BOB’s jury members are very corrupted, and gave example of a jury from Egypt, who selected winners from his circle of friends.

- We also met with Eberhard Pohl, deputy political director of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany. Unlike other meetings, this one was not liked much by many bloggers. Mr Pohl is a great speaker, but it seems he is one of those politicians who speak a lot and beautiful, but say nothing, or very little. We asked different questions, but most of the answers were in “not-my-field-of-expertise” style.

These are the summary updates on the Blogger Tour 2010, where I am proudly representing Kyrgyzstan. More updates to come soon. Stay tuned!