Hello, my name is Nilay Ökten. I am in my 5th year as a research assistant at Marmara University, Department of Political Science and International Relations. I am a phd Candidate in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University. Within the scope of my doctoral thesis, I am working on Latin American politics and US interventionism and I am making academic publications on this region. My studies mostly focus on military interventions, the relationship between interest groups and politics, colonial history, and political economy in Latin American region. At the same time, I participate as a researcher within the scope of the European Union H2020 MSCA-RISE Central Asian Law project and carry out my field research on the illegal commercial network in the local economy in Kyrgyzstan. For this reason, I stayed for 1 month in Bishkek, the beautiful capital of Kyrgyzstan, and had an incredible adventure. The first thought that occurred to me on the first day I arrived in Bishkek was that it had an unbelievably peaceful, calm, natural and relaxing aura. It really became a home for me with its air, its environment with beautiful mountains, the beautiful sounds of natural life and the welcoming attitudes of people trying to help me on everything.
SIAR research and consulting, the project partner in Kyrgyzstan, became my secondment workspace and also my new family. They provided me with office facilities, translation support for my interviews and a peaceful working environment. At the same time, I had the chance to get to know, learn and contribute as much as I can to the huge projects carried out by this large and professional institution. I can say that I had a really productive learning and self-development experience. I am also grateful for the support and interest of dear Ainoura Sagynbaeva, the founder of SIAR research and consulting. I would like to thank all my colleagues for helping me during the secondment.
Elnura Ibraeva, one of the most beautiful people in the world, who was with me before the secondment, and who is with me during and hopefully who will be with me after this experience and for the rest of my life as my best friend definitely deserves a huge thank you. She gave me a huge family atmosphere in Bishkek and she is truly the greatest and most beautiful gift that this project has given me in my personal life. I would like to give her the sister of the year award for her presence and always being by my side 🙂
The experience of living in Kyrgyzstan was actually an adventure about discovering the similarities and differences between the cultures of two different nationalities of the same race. While the cultures of Turkey and Kyrgyzstan converge at many points, they also diverge in many other areas. This is where my enthusiasm to prepare a public article where I share this situation in more detail stemmed from. I look forward to sharing it with the entire project team when it is published.
Within the scope of the project, we aimed to conduct interviews with my dear colleague, academician Elifcan Çoruk, in the field work and findings section of the research article we produced, in order to identify the trade network between local agricultural producers, intermediaries and marketers, which can be considered as an illegal shadow economy. The interviews I made in Bishkek as part of the secondment took place in this direction. With the help of Elnura, especially with translation, and based on the snowball model, we had very productive interviews and we left the field by taking the data we wished to have. Of course, we had some interesting events during the interviews 🙂 The brookers and marketers on the way to Almaty Altın Ordo market did not want us to interview them, when we asked for demographic information, they blocked us from the video call because they were afraid that we might share them with people or institutions that might be mysterious or dangerous 🙂 First of all, I would like to say that we totally understand people who have some questions in their minds with falling into tense political events while continuing their daily lives calmly and as usual, and avoid even answering a simple demographic questions of age or number of family members. It is very humane that they want to feel safe and protected in a political geography with high tension, and therefore we decided to cancel the Almaty interviews, not wanting to go over them and insist. However, as I said, all these experiences in field experience have made priceless contribution to my academic and personal views. That’s why I’m grateful for everything that the Project provided for me. I hope the pictures and secondment memories were interesting for anyone who reads this. Thank you very much and I wish everyone a healthy day and good work.