Iran and the Pipelineistan Opera

Central Asian/Caucasus Gas Pipelines Map: Nabucco (Light Blue, NATO backed)
and South Stream (Purple, Russian Backed)

Jumpin' Jack Verdi, It's a Gas, Gas, Gas

By Pepe Escobar in The Nation

October 1, 2009

Brussels

Oil and natural gas prices may be relatively low right now, but don't be fooled. The New Great Game of the twenty-first century is always over energy and it's taking place on an immense chessboard called Eurasia. Its squares are defined by the networks of pipelines being laid across the oil heartlands of the planet. Call it Pipelineistan. If, in Asia, the stakes in this game are already impossibly high, the same applies to the "Euro" part of the great Eurasian landmass--the richest industrial area on the planet. Think of this as the real political thriller of our time.

The movie of the week in Brussels is: When NATO Meets Pipelineistan. Though you won't find it in any headlines, at virtually every recent NATO summit Washington has been maneuvering to involve reluctant Europeans ever more deeply in the business of protecting Pipelineistan. This is already happening, of course, in Afghanistan, where a promised pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India, the TAPI pipeline, has not even been built. And it's about to happen at the borders of Europe, again around pipelines that have not yet been built.

If you had to put that Euro part of Pipelineistan into a formula, you might do so this way: Nabucco (pushed by the US) versus South Stream (pushed by Russia). Be patient. You'll understand in a moment.

At the most basic level, it's a matter of the West yet again trying, in the energy sphere, to bypass Russia. For this to happen, however--and it wouldn't hurt if you opened the nearest atlas for a moment--Europe desperately needs to get a handle on Central Asian energy resources, which is easy to say, but has proven surprisingly hard to do. No wonder the NATO Secretary General's special representative, Robert Simmons, has been logging massive frequent-flyer miles to Central Asia over these last few years.

Just under the surface of an edgy entente cordiale between the European Union (EU) and Russia lurks the possibility of a no-holds-barred energy war--Liquid War, as I call it. The EU and the US are pinning their hopes on a prospective 3,300-kilometer-long, $10.7 billion pipeline dubbed Nabucco. Planning for it began way back in 2004 and construction is finally expected to start, if all goes well (and it may not), in 2010. So if you're a NATO optimist, you hope that natural gas from the Caspian Sea, maybe even from Iran (barring the usual American blockade), will begin flowing through it by 2015. The gas will be delivered to Erzurum in Turkey and then transported to Austria via Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.

Why, you might ask, is the pipeline meant to save Europe named for a Verdi opera? Well, Austrian and Turkish energy executives happened to see the opera together in Vienna in 2002 while discussing their energy dilemmas, and the biblical plight of the Jews exiled by King Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar), a love story set amid a ferocious struggle for freedom and power, swept them away. Still, it's a stretch to turn aluminum tubes into dramatic characters.

Of course, the operatic theater here isn't really in the tubing, it's in the politics and strategic implications that surround the pipeline. In Eastern Europe, for instance, Nabucco is seen not as a European economic or energy project, but as a creature of Washington, just like the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey that President Bill Clinton and his crew backed so vigorously in the 1990s and which was finally finished in 2005. For those who have never believed the Cold War is over--the Eastern Europeans among them--once again it's the good guys (the West) against the commies...sorry, the Russians...at an energy-rich OK Corral.

The Great Borderless Gas Bazaar

Russia's answer to Nabucco is the 1,200-kilometer-long, $15 billion South Stream pipeline, also scheduled to be finished in 2015; it is slated to carry Siberian natural gas under the Black Sea from Russia to Bulgaria. From Bulgaria, one branch of the pipeline would then run south through Greece to southern Italy while the other would run north through Serbia and Hungary towards northern Italy.

Now, add another pipeline to the picture, the $9.1 billion Nord Stream that will soon enough snake from Western Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany, which already imports 41.5 percent of its natural gas from Russia. The giant Russian energy firm Gazprom holds a controlling 51 percent of Nord Stream stock; the rest belongs to German and Dutch companies. The chairman of the board is none other than former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Put this all together and Russia, with its pipelines running in all directions and firmly embedded in Europe, spells trouble for Nabucco's future and frustration for Washington's New Great Game plans to contain the Russian energy juggernaut. And that's without even mentioning Ukhta which, chances are, you've never heard of. If you aren't in the energy business, why should you have? After all, it's a backwater village in Russia's autonomous republic of Komi, 350 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. Built by forced labor, it was once part of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag archipelago. By 2030, however, you'll know its name. By then, a pipeline from remote Ukhta will be flooding Europe with natural gas and the village will be one of Nord Stream's key transit nodes.

While Nabucco as well as South Stream remain virtual, Nord Stream is a Terminator on the run. By 2010, it will be tunneling under the Baltic Sea heading for Germany. By 2011, it should be delivering the goods and a second pipe--12 meters wide, 100,000 tubes long--will be under construction to double its capacity by 2014. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller pulls no punches: this, he says, will be "the safest and most modern pipeline in the world."

How can Verdi lovers possibly compete? In the middle of a global recession, Gazprom is spending at least $20 billion to conquer Europe via Nord and South Stream. The strategy is a killer: pump gas under the sea directly to Europe, avoiding messy transit routes across troublesome countries like Ukraine. No wonder Gazprom, which today controls 26 percent of the European gas market, is expected to have a 33 percent share by 2020.

In other words, in many ways, the Nabucco versus South Stream energy war already looks settled. Nabucco is, at best, likely to be a secondary pipeline, incapable, as Washington once hoped, of breaking the EU away from energy dependence on Russia.

Brussels, predictably, is in its usual multilingual policy mess. Most bureaucrats at its monster, directive-churning body, the European Commission, publicly bemoan the "pipeline war." On the other hand, Ona Jukneviciene, chairwoman of the committees at the European Parliament dealing with Central Asia, admits that Nabucco cannot be the only option.

As for Reinhard Mitschek, managing director of the Nabucco consortium, he tries to put a brave face on things when he stresses, "we will transport Russian gas, Azeri gas, Iraqi gas." As for the top European official on energy matters, Andris Piebalgs, he can't help being a pragmatist: "We'll continue to work with Russia because Russia has energy resources."

From a business point of view, it's tough to argue with South Stream's selling points. Unlike Nabucco, it will offer cheaper, all-Russian natural gas that won't have to transit through potential war zones, and while Nabucco will always deliver limited amounts of Caspian natural gas to market, South Stream, given Russian resources, will have plenty of room to increase its output.

The fact is that, as of now, Nabucco still has no guaranteed sources of gas. In order for the gas to come from energy-rich Turkmenistan, to take but one example, the Turkmen leadership would have to break a deal they've already made with Russia, which now buys all of that country's export gas. There's no way that Moscow is likely to let one of the former Soviet Republics do that easily. In addition, both Russia and Iran could well be capable of blocking any pipeline straddling the floor of the Caspian Sea.
Gazprom will pay to build South Stream, and then distribute and sell gas it already controls to Europe; Nabucco, on the other hand, has to rely on a messy consortium of six countries (Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Germany) simply to finance one-third of its prospective costs, and then convince wary international bankers to shell out the rest.

The Pentagon does the Black Sea

So what does Washington want out of this mess? That's easy. Rewind to then-prospective Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her Senate confirmation hearings on January 13, 2009. There, she decried Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas and issued an urgent call for "investments in the Trans-Caspian energy sector." Think of it as a signal: the new Obama administration would be as committed to Nabucco as the Bush administration had been.

What is never spelled out is why. Enter the Black Sea, that crucial geo-strategic stage where Europe meets the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Enter, thus, Bulgaria, home to a new Pentagon air base in Bezmer, one of six new strategic bases being built outside the US and as potentially important to Washington's future games as the stalwart air bases in Incirlik, Turkey, and Aviano, Italy, have been in the past. (Aviano was the key US/NATO base for the bombing of the Bosnian Serbs in 1995 and the seventy-eight-day bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999.)

With the Pentagon's bases already creeping within a stone's throw of Southwest and Central Asia, it doesn't take a genius to imagine the role Bezmer might play in any future attack on Iran (something the Russian defense establishment has already taken careful note of). With both Romania and Bulgaria now part of NATO, Article 5 of the alliance's charter now applies. NATO can take action "in the event of crises which jeopardize Euro-Atlantic stability and could affect the security of Alliance members."

In this way, Pipelineistan meets the American Empire of Bases.

Young Turks and Wily Russians

Why is everyone so damn hooked on Central Asian oil and gas? Elshad Nasirov, deputy chairman of the state-owned Azerbaijani oil company SOCAR, sums the addiction up succinctly enough: "This is the place where there is oil and gas in abundance. It is not Arab, not Persian, not Russian, and not OPEC."

It's the Caspian and, unfortunately for Europe, the region could, in energy terms, turn out to be not the caviar for which it's renowned but so many rotten fish eggs. No one knows, after all, whether the EU will ever be able to buy Iranian gas via Nabucco. No one knows whether the Central Asian "stans" have enough gas to supply Russia, China, and Turkey, not to mention India and Pakistan. No one knows whether any of their leaders will have the nerve to renege on their deals with Gazprom.

Ever since a 2008 British study determined that Turkmenistan may have natural gas reserves second only to Russia on the planet, the European Commission has been on a no-holds-barred tear to lure that country into delivering some of its future gas directly to Europe--and not through the Russian pipeline system either. Turkmenistan's inscrutable leader, the spectacularly named Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, just has to say the word, but despite the claims of EU officials that he has agreed to send some gas Europe-wards, he's never offered a public word of confirmation. No wonder: with Nabucco unbuilt and a pipeline from his country to China still under construction, Turkmenistan can play Pipelineistan games only with Russia and Iran. In fact, Russia essentially controls the flow of Turkmen gas for the next fifteen years.

Should Gurbanguly someday say the magic word--and assuming the Russians don't throw a monkey wrench into the works--he can marry Turkey, as the key transit country, with the EU and let them all sing Verdi till the sheep come home. In the meantime, angst is the name of the game in Europe (and so in Washington).

A declassified dossier from the FSB, the Russian heir to the KGB, is adamant: considering Nabucco's shortcomings, "Russia will remain the primary supplier of energy to Europe for the foreseeable future." Call it a matter of having your gas and processing it, too. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been making the point for years. If Europe tries to snub it, Russia will simply build its own liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants, to facilitate storage and transport, and sell its LNG all over the world.

Anyway it's worth paying attention to what the St. Petersburg State Mining Institute (where Putin earned his doctorate) has to say. According to the institute, Russia has only twenty years' worth of its own natural gas reserves left. Since Russia plans to sell up to 40 percent of its gas abroad, "Russian" gas may in the future actually mean Central Asian gas. All the more reason for the Russians to make sure that those massive Turkmen and other reserves flow north, not west.

Whatever Washington thinks, the Europeans know that energy independence from Russia is, in reality, inconceivable. Bottom line when it comes to natural gas: Europe needs everything--Nord Stream, South Stream and Nabucco. The bulk of the natural gas in this Pipelineistan maze may well turn out to be Central Asian anyway, and a substantial part could be Iranian, if the Obama administration ever normalizes relations with Iran.

That, then, is the current state of play in the European wing of Pipelineistan. Russia seems to have virtually guaranteed its status as the top gas supplier to Europe for the foreseeable future. But that brings us to Turkey, a key regional power for both the US and the EU. As President Obama has recognized, Turkey is both a real and a metaphorical bridge between the Christian and Muslim worlds. It is also an ideal transit country for carrying non-Russian gas to Europe and is now playing its own suitably complex Pipelineistan game.

Chances are that, like Ukhta in far off Siberia, you've never heard of Yumurtalik either. It's a fishing port squeezed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Taurus mountains, very close to Ceyhan, the terminal for two key nodes of Pipelineistan: the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline from Iraq and the monster BTC pipeline. Turkey wants to turn Yumurtalik-Ceyhan into nothing less than the Rotterdam of the Mediterranean.

Even as it dreams of future EU membership, however, Turkey worries about antagonizing Moscow. And yet, being aboard the Nabucco Express and already fully committed to the functioning BTC pipeline puts the country on a potential collision course with Russia, its largest trading partner. Of course, this does not displease Washington.

On the other hand, the Turkish leadership draws ever closer to Iran, which provides 38 percent of Turkey's oil and 25 percent of its natural gas. Ankara and Tehran also have geopolitical affinities (especially in fighting Kurdish separatism). Together, they offer the best alternative to the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia) in terms of supplying Europe with Iranian natural gas. All this, of course, drives Washington nuts.

Needless to say, the Nabucco consortium itself would kill to have Iran as a gas supplier for the pipeline. They are also familiar with realpolitik: this could happen only with a Washington-blessed solution to the Iranian nuclear dossier. Iran, for its part, knows well how to seduce Europe. Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), has insisted Iran is Europe's "sole option" for the success of Nabucco.

Is Russia just watching all this gas go by? Of course not. In October 2007, Putin signed a key agreement with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: if Iran cannot sell its gas to Nabucco--a likelihood, given the turbulence of American domestic politics and its foreign policy--Russia will buy it. Translation: Iranian gas could end up, like Central Asian gas, heading for Europe as more "Russian" gas. With its European and Iranian policies at cross-purposes, Washington will not be amused.

When Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to "rethink Nabucco" if the tricky negotiations for Turkey to enter the EU drag on forever, EU leaders got the message (as much as France and Germany may be against a "Europe without borders"). Pragmatically, most EU leaders know very well that they need excellent relations with Turkey to one day have access to the big prize, Iranian gas; and that puts Europe's energy and EU membership inclinations at loggerheads.

Last July in Ankara, Nabucco was formally launched by an inter-governmental agreement. The representatives of Turkey, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary were there. Obama's special Eurasian envoy, Richard Morningstar (a veteran of the BTC adventure), was there as well. The Central Asian stans were not there.

But crucially, Gurbanguly, ever the showman, finally made an entrance without ever leaving Turkmenistan, (almost) uttering the magic words in a meeting with his ministers in the capital, Ashgabat, on July 10: "Turkmenistan, staying committed to the principles of diversification of supply of its energy resources to the world markets, is going to use all available opportunities to participate in major international projects--such as, for example, [the] Nabucco project."

At the Vienna headquarters of Nabucco, the mantra remains: this is "no anti-Russian project." Still, everyone knows that Russia's leaders are eager to kill it, and not a soul, from Brussels to Vienna, Washington to Ashgabat, knows how to link Central Asia to Europe via a non-Russian pipeline, at the cost of more than $10 billion, without some assurance that Turkmeni, Kazakh, Azerbaijani and/or Iranian natural gas will be fully (or even partially) on board. Who would be foolish enough to invest that kind of money without some guarantee that hundreds of miles of aluminum tubes won't remain empty? You don't need Verdi to tell you this is one hell of a quirky plot for a global opera.

Opposition Leader Drops Out of Kyrgyz Election

MOSCOW — The leading opposition candidate in Kyrgyzstan essentially withdrew from the presidential race on Thursday even before voting had concluded, asserting that widespread fraud had assured the incumbent’s victory.

The candidate, Almazbek Atambaev, a former prime minister, called on the public and international organizations to reject the election as unlawful. Mr. Atambaev instructed supporters who were working as observers at polling and vote-counting stations to leave, and he demanded that a new election be organized.

“The authorities understood that they would lose an honest and free election, which is why they relied on force — relied on force against their own people!” Mr. Atambaev said in a statement.

Election officials dismissed his accusations, saying that the balloting was legitimate. Official results were not expected to be released until Friday morning.

The Russian state news agency said an exit poll showed the incumbent, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, with 67 percent of the vote, and Mr. Atambaev with 13 percent. The opposition called the exit poll false and said it planned to hold street protests against the election. The government said such actions were illegal and would be blocked.

Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that is host to an important American military base that supports operations in Afghanistan, has regularly faced political turmoil in recent years. It has also been the site of a tug of war between the United States and Russia over influence in Central Asia.

Kyrgyz opposition leader Almazbek Atambaev, center, spoke at a rally in Bishkek on Thursday after the closing of the presidential vote.

Mr. Bakiyev took power after the so-called Tulip Revolution of 2005, which ousted a government that was considered corrupt.

He had been expected to win a second term easily, though there was disagreement in Kyrgyzstan over why. His supporters said he had steered his poor country, which has five million people, through difficult times caused by the financial crisis and had garnered strong popularity.

The opposition has derided him as an autocrat who has persecuted opposition leaders and independent journalists. Many have been arrested, attacked and even killed over the past year.

Mr. Bakiyev has accused the opposition of airing phony charges of vote-rigging in an effort to explain away its lack of popularity. Casting his ballot on Thursday, he declared that the voting would be fair, saying that the Kyrgyz people cared about democracy.

“Each person understands that the fate of the nation, and his own future, depends on his choice,” the president said.

Officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were in Kyrgyzstan to monitor the election, and they said they would deliver a preliminary report on Friday.

American officials have generally refrained from criticizing the Kyrgyz government in recent months. They have focused on ensuring that the United States military can remain at the air base on the outskirts of the capital, Bishkek.

In February, Mr. Bakiyev announced that he was closing the base, apparently at the behest of Moscow. But he later reversed his decision after lobbying by the Washington, which agreed to pay more rent.

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY, Published NYT July 23, 2009

Uzbekistan: Musical Spring in Boysun

The second year successively in the south of Uzbekistan, in fantastically beautiful places of Boysun in Surkhandarya region has been held the Open Folklore Festival "Boysun bahori". This event is connected with the fact that in 2001 UNESCO included Boysun in a list of nineteen cultural spaces, which were awarded the title "Masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity". Revival of ancient traditions, national values and their further development is one of priorities in development of culture of Uzbekistan. In this region national traditions and customs, songs and dances, crafts and rituals, historical style in dressing have been preserving almost in absolute purity, which inhabitants of Boysun hallow. This rich heritage became a basis of already traditional Festival "Boysun bahori", which again welcomed on its concert stages national ensembles from Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan, modern designers of national costume from our country and Kyrghyzstan.













Yulduz Uzmonova - Sanamgina


In comparison with literature and history that are as if fixed memory of the people, various, wise and well constructed, the folklore (both poetic and musical) is in a greater degree eternal, not getting old feeling of boundless and unexhausted forces - equally in pleasures and in troubles. Even in complicated and refined, if to view in the aspect of subject, rhythm or musical - verbal character, folklore genres we are always captured and amazed by spontaneous perception of the world, natural emotions and opinions in their expression. Typical national features of each people, its way of thinking, specificity of mental and emotional models are shown in full extent in national songs, folk tunes and epic legends. As a specific phenomenon of the national culture it concentrates the poetic, musical, theatre and ethnographic traditions. Obvious evidence for that became the Second Open Folklore Festival "Boysun Bahori" in Boysun of Surkhandarya region, which was held on the date of the second anniversary of UNESCO proclaimed the cultural space of Boysun as "Masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity". Four festival days became a bright holiday for Boysun's inhabitants, for whom national songs, instrumental folk tunes, dances, legends, dressing, pieces of the applied arts, rites and customs form a natural way of life. The Festival became also an art parade of folklore ensembles from Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan, epic storytellers and young fashion designers. It became a scientific and creative dialogue among art critics, philologists, ethnographers, historians and architects from France, Germany, Korea, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan and Uzbekistan.













Shaxzoda – O’zbeqizlar


With warm heart Boysun welcomed visitors and participants of festival "Boysun Bahori". The Boysun people have seen and have heard ceremonial songs and dances of various regions of Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan, enjoyed the art of national storytellers - bakhshi and akyns, admired the modern models of national clothes created by designers from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. During festival days was working the festival fair of Boysun national crafts' products and the exposition of the Uzbek folk musical instruments of the Tashkent master, Mukhammadnazyr Yunusov. The Festival shows and concerts were arranged not only in Boysun, but also in kishlaks of Sairob, Derbend and Shurob; visitors and participants of the festival were warmly welcomed by inhabitants of Djarkurgan and Sherobad districts of Surkhandarya region. All festival actions, concerts, competitions and fair were held in the historical and ethno - folklore park "Boysuntog", but the inflow of spectators was such huge that concerts and performances of folklore ensembles and national storytellers simultaneously were arranged on improvised stages in Boysun itself.

The Festival concerts and shows were concerts of folklore music on a background of natural landscape. It is worthy to see how the performances of folklore ensembles and bakhshi were merging together with the unique nature and foothills of the Boysuntog. The specific "concert aura" at the festival has been filled up not only by the breath of the spectators (in most cases the youth from Boysun and neighbouring kishlaks), but by the voices of nature, an atmosphere of everyday life and noisy holidays. In a word, everything becomes not only adequate, but even required when we want to let know to the listener the true destination of folk songs. I seem a moment has come when a person wants beauty, great and deep sincerity and a natural melody, which would penetrate into heart. And this music sounding from the stage of the folklore festival satisfied hearing, but also awaked all best strings of a person heart, a person living today.



















Anvar Sanaev - Dunyo Chiroylik


National songs bewitching tunes of sybuzgy, chang-kobuz or dombra - all of them becoming a treasure of the listener, brought him true pleasure, caused the pride in a person, and to a certain extent made people better, helping them in their life and activity. Plasticity, ease, tempo and depth of improvised reactions in reply to the changes of scenic conditions is a main feature of folklore art. Instant transformation of role, genre of performance, a program and a scenic manner is one of the necessary properties of any folklore ensemble, which aspires to reproduce authentic folklore on the concert stage of the festival "Boysun bahori".

Each ethnos is rich in its history of culture and life, which externalized essence of national traditions. But no culture can keep its vitality just remaining a keeper of traditions. Traditions exist in order to be developed and to add new values to ancient ones that were accumulated for centuries of cultural progress. Such approach is capable to feed a fresh tree of culture and life of the people, to form a character of our contemporary. The super task of a folklore concert is overcoming "artificial concert form", that is each folklore ensemble by means of its concert program or the subject action, reproducing a certain ritual or tradition tries to make the concert fresh and dynamic and "to stir", to make active its participants, involving them in a dialogue with the spectators. The performance of folklore ensembles and leading artists of Surkhandarya at the opening ceremony of the festival was recognized a national holiday - sayil. Performances of the national folklore ensemble "Boysun" with original and ritual songs along with original national dances typical of the southern areas of Uzbekistan presented by the dance group of Regional Association "Uzbekraks" formed a core of the holiday.

Twelve groups took part in the show of folklore ensembles, including three children's folklore ensembles, "Zilola" from Kamashinsky district of Kashkadarya region, "Kuralai" from Boysun district of Surkhandarya region and "Gulguncha" from Boysun district of Surkhandarya region, whose concert program included children's songs accompanied with original ritual games. The folklore ensemble "Baiozi kukhiston" from Tadjikabad district of the Republic of Tadjikistan demonstrated the most ancient ceremony of rainmaking, accompanied with ancient ritual songs and dances with proper attributes, such as doll dressing. Ancient labour songs formed a core of the subject concert program of the folklore ensemble "Sarbozi" from Kattakurgan district of Samarkand region. Very expressive and emotional was the concert program of the folklore ensemble "Doston" headed by National bakhshi of Uzbekistan, Abdulla Kurbonnazarov from Khoresm.



















Setora – Ayrimagin


The ancient family rite and national songs accompanying the ritual "Beshkarti" was performed by the ensemble "Zomin saikali" from Zamin district of Djizak region. Rites and rituals of Surkhandarya region connected with calendar and family celebrations were shown by the folklore ensemble "Bubilguio" from Shurchin district of Surkhandarya. A theme of the native land, makhallya, the careful relation to nature sounded in the performance of the folklore ensemble "Mardona" from Vobkent district of Bukhara region; the ancient family rite "Aidar of tui" (cutting of boys' hair) accompanied with ritual songs in the program of ensemble "Amir tulkini" from Nukus of the Republic of Karakalpakstan; a public holiday ceremony accompanied with a variety of national songs and dances was demonstrated by the folklore ensemble "Khilola" from Karsha district of Kashkadarya region. During the recesses between performances of the folklore ensembles the spectators were applauding the improvised termas, fragments from dastans and poetic dialogues between Uzbek bakhshi and Kazakh akyns - winners of traditional storytellers' competition in Termez within the program of the festival "Boysun bahori" - Shodmon bakhshi Khujamberdiev (the 1st premium), Etmishbai Abdullaev (Khoresm), Abdumurod Rakhimov (Kashkadarya) and Boboraim Mamatmurodov (Surkhandarya, the 2nd premium each), Abdanazar Paionov (Surkhandarya), Abdukahhar Rakhimov (Kashkadarya) and Jumabek Subanov ( Tashkent region, the 3rd premium each) and others.

Twenty designers participated in the competition of national dressing style and design. In comparison with the last year the geography of participants extended - Tashkent, Bukhara, Zerafshan, Boysun, Shurchi and Kyrgyzstan. Grand Prix was won by Kuchina Natalia (Tashkent), Boibetova Galina, Syztkazieva Nurkabai, Bekmambetova Zuhra (Kyrgyzstan) and Tatyana Budilova (Zarafshan) were also awarded; the young designer from Boysun Dilfuza Saidova received the monetary premium from Andrea Loenberger.














Within the festival program were held the International scientific conference "Problems of National Cultural Traditions Preservation" and a meeting with UNESCO experts, where was approved the long - term program on the operation and technical equipment of the Boysun complex scientific expedition and of the Center of Boysun folk crafts, preservation and development of folk applied arts. Successful was the presentation of the first issue of "Boysun Scientific Expedition" (Tashkent: Scientific Research Institute of Fine Arts and SMI - group, 2003). The festival was finalized with a bright concert of the group "Yalla" headed by the National artist of Uzbekistan, Farrukh Zakirov, which became an exciting event left a deep trace in hearts of the Boysun people.

The Second Open Folklore Festival "Boysun bahori" became a real holiday of folk culture, and it has proved that folk songs, dances, traditional clothes, crafts and rites are not just preserved, but continue to live actually. And our rich treasury of folk songs is a component of the culture too, and its carrier, the people, has been still perfectly performing them. Perfect demonstration of that at the festival has become the best source for education of the youth.

Author: Rustambek Abdullaev
Source: San'at