Another socio-economic experiment is underway in the post-Soviet state of the Kyrgyz
Republic.3 In this remote mountainous region bordering western China, four and a half million
people are undergoing yet one more social, economic and political upheaval, the second within
this century. After seventy years of Marxist collectivization which was facilitated to a great
extent through their tribal kinship ties, the formerly nomadic Kyrgyz are now attempting to
integrate the unfamiliar concepts of democracy, market economy and civil society. Nicknamed
the "love child" of the international aid organizations, the Kyrgyz Republic is noted for its
cooperation and high level of interest in being a part of the global economy. Unlike its oil-rich
neighbors, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Kyrgyz Republic lacks such trading power, and as a
Kyrgyz governmental official explained, "We may have the poetry of our mountains and our
nomadic hospitality, but we are oil poor and have little choice but to cooperate with international
interests."