sweet orange velvet: Issyk oh so Kul

Love is in the air of Bishkek, Kiev, Tbilisi. Who woulda thunk it. Last time I was paying close attention to the former Soviet realm, Kyrgyzstan was like a big dry Switzerland and Akaev was Mr. Nice Guy amongst a bunch of real roughsters, and now he's up and flown the country. It all takes you back to Prague in '89, almost. Problem is, Prague was all ready for its Velvet Revolution, with a favorable geographic location and an openness driven by Mitteleuropa-crazed backpackers in the 80s. Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Ukraine, on the other hand, don't have it all organized, and will probably muddle along more like Romania and Bulgaria. God forbid a power vacuum should arise in Georgia. That would be no fun.

That's where having well-placed friends helps: "(Georgian President) Saakashivili invited billionaire financier George Soros to help pay some government salaries and boost all-important tax collection."* Good idea. I think I'll invite Soros to pay for some stuff too. No but seriously, instead of providing services which supplement government (school books, salaries for nuclear scientists, etc), as he has so often, here Soros is propping it right up. It's sort of a new model.

In some ways it's odd how Soros's mission and Wolfowitz's are fellow travellers to a certain point.

In general, optimism is the tone of the day. Here's what Zbigniew Brzezinski says in the Journal today, in support of a rising democratic pluralism in the post-Soviet zone: "Russian youth are well-educated. Increasingly, many have traveled and studied in the West." Shows how long he's been away from the region. He must not have read the surveys showing that a shocking number of Russian youths don't know who Lenin was. Sure, they know about Britney Spears and the Royal Deluxe. They could probably even set me straight on Lindsey Lohan. But that's about it.

*Columbia Alumni Magazine, Winter 2004-5