Central Asia and the Caucasus

RUSSIAN BORDER REGIONS AND CENTRAL ASIA: PROBLEMS OF INTEGRATION

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• Posted on November 19, 2021

Venaliy AMELIN

Venaliy Amelin, D.Sc. (Hist.), professor, head, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Orenburg State University of Agriculture (Orenburg, Russia)

Today, after ten years of existence without the Soviet Union, one has become fully aware that the relations among the post-Soviet republics produced many problems and contradictions. Still, the heads of Central Asian countries and Russia as well as the heads of the RF subjects have realized that integration is the only correct course open to them.

Life itself prompts this conclusion to the heads of the RF border regions: the federal structure is far from perfect, the social and economic situation is far from simple, failures to pay on time are still plaguing various economic branches while the former economic ties with partners from the post-Soviet republics were severed, etc. There is one more problem: waves of refugees and forced migrants from the Central Asian states.

In the eighteenth century and later the southeastern sector played a special role in Russia’s foreign economic policy. Russian historian Sergei Soloviev described the plain between the Ural mountains and the Caspian directly bordering on Central Asian steppe as the great southeastern plain and the gates leading to Central Asia.¹ Political expediency as well as the desire to find new markets for Russian goods forced the Russian empire first to strengthen its southeastern borders and then move into Central Asia. At the same time Russia’s Central Asian policy had been for two preceding centuries greatly affected by its trade with Central Asia. Indeed, when the Kazakh zhuzes (clans) had joined Russia on their own free will and when it had extended its territory with the Central Asian khanates Russia strengthened its security and opened mutually profitable trade across the southeastern customs frontier.² The regions, and the Orenburg Region among them, played a very important role there. One can say that the economic ties between it and Kazakhstan go back 250 years. The region is favorably situated along the line where Europe and Asia meet; its active and businesslike merchants promoted trade and economic relations with Eastern countries.

The economic complex of Orenburg area and that of Kazakhstan have become intertwined in the course of history. In 1991, the Orenburg Region became a border area with 1,876 km of a common frontier with Kazakhstan. The downfall of the common Soviet state sent down the economic ties between the administering and economic entities, which delivered a heavy blow at both states. Orenburg area was hit especially hard.

It was relatively recently that economic infrastructure of Orenburg Region and Aktiubinsk, West Kazakhstan and Kustanai regions of Kazakhstan were one indivisible economic whole. The Aktiubinsk Region used electric power produced in Orenburg: today it is using the bare minimum.

The Novotroitsk Plant of Chromium Compounds badly needs ore from Kazakhstan. However, it has to buy it in Turkey because the mine had been sold to Japanese who are indifferent to the problems of Russian regions. The same can be said about the oil refineries: the Orsk Oil Refinery (Orsknefteorgsintez) used to work on oil from Aktiubemunaigaz (Kazakhstan).³ Cooperation between Orenburggazprom and the state holding Kazakhgaz in their joint use of the raw materials coming from Karachaganak gas condensate field has its share of problems.

When the Soviet Union left the stage the gas workers of Orenburg and Aktiubinsk regions divided equipment and other property. Between 1992 and 1995 they were working under an agreement: gas and stable condensate went to the frontier where they were sold and bought at the prices agreed upon by the sides which, on the whole, were satisfied: by that time Russia and Kazakhstan had been crippled by non-payments to which barter was the only answer.

Since 1995 the sides are working according to the customer-furnished raw material principle with the finished product appropriated by the Kazakhstan side, which has the right to sell it. Orenburggazprom is paid for processing. The contract presupposes that every year Karachaganak gas condensate field supplies 3.5 billion c m of raw gas and 3.1 million tons of condensate. Today, the gas plants of northern Orenburg region get no more than 2 billion c m of gas from Kazakhstan while Orenburggazprom is responsible for the entire infrastructure, including pipelines and gassers. The Kazakh side has no money to pay for the Russian side’s services while the gas it supplies is inadequately treated.⁴

The list of problems is much longer.

The changed conditions prompted new cooperation patterns. Aktiubemunaigaz and Orsknefteorgsintez switched to substitution and customer-furnished raw material contracts. Experts are convinced that this cannot go on for a long time and may be discontinued for various reasons. The main reason is the Kazakh side’s decision not to enter into strategic partnership with the Orenburg oil enterprises: it rejected the idea of an oil company, turned to China, and sold the controlling interest in Aktiubemunaigaz to a Chinese firm. Their Chinese partners naturally want to send their part of oil to China.⁵

The regional administration decided to revive contacts with Kazakhstan regions. In 1997, it initiated consultations with heads of executive power of Aktiubinsk, West Kazakhstan, and Kustanai regions. On 26 July, four sides signed an agreement On Establishing and Developing Main Directions of Partnership Relations and coordinated a program that is being realized.⁶

The region sells Kazakhstan gasoline, aviation kerosene, diesel fuel, oil asphalt, ferrous metals, electric engines, cement, pig iron, cast iron, firebricks, household refrigerators, natural gas and electric power. Kazakhstan sells coal, oil, gas condensate, ores, ferroalloys, wheat, barley, rice, onion, garlic, and other vegetables (see Table 1).

Table 1

Foreign Trade of Orenburg Region with the Republic of Kazakhstan
(million dollars)

Source: Vneshneekonomicheskiy kompleks Orenburgskoi oblasti: itogi i perspektiva. Annual Report, Orenburg, 2000, pp. 24-26.

Orenburg is developing cultural ties with Uzbekistan, though at a slacker pace than with its closest neighbor.

The official visit of the Orenburg delegation headed by Governor Elagin to Uzbekistan in November 1998 produced a protocol of intentions to extend trade, economic, scientific, technical, and cultural cooperation between the Orenburg Region and Uzbekistan.

The sides pledged to help create conditions conducive to direct ties among economic entities with all forms of ownership, entrepreneurial or other business activity, investments in joint projects of mutual interest, setting up joint ventures, trading houses and other structures, in which third countries can participate. The state joint-stock company Chkalov Tashkent Production Combine and the joint-stock company Radiator in Orenburg are studying a possibility of setting up a joint venture to produce heat exchangers for car and tractor makers. Uzplodoovoshchvinprom-Holding Uzbeksavdo and the administration of Orenburg Region came to an agreement on regular exchange of information about wholesale vegetable and consumer goods fairs in Uzbekistan and the Orenburg Region and on helping economic entities take part in these fairs. The sides also decided that ORENTEKS and Trikotazhnaia firma NIKA of Orenburg Region together with the Ministry of Foreign Economic Ties of Uzbekistan would discuss supplies of cotton to be paid in hard currency.

The sides also reached understanding on cultural cooperation. The Uzbekistan Ministry of Culture and the Committee for Culture and Art of the Administration of Orenburg Region planned to agree on days of Uzbek culture in Orenburg Region and days of Orenburg Region in Uzbekistan in the coming two or three years. The Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education and the State Committee for Science and Technology of Uzbekistan will study the Orenburg Region’s offer to enter into cooperation in science and technology, in particular between Tashkent State University and the State University of Orenburg.⁷

In 1999, Orsk engineering works sent the first batch of sintering equipment to Uzbekistan; ORENTEKS also sold its products there,⁸ yet the trade turnover with Uzbekistan dropped from $13.5 million in 1995 to $12.9 million in 2000.

Table 2

Foreign Trade of Orenburg Region with the Republic of Uzbekistan
(million dollars)

Source: Vneshneekonomicheskiy kompleks Orenburgskoi oblasti: itogi i perspektiva, p. 28.

There are several reasons behind this. General Director of Radiator A. Folts says the following: “National currencies created more problems: in Russia there is a law on up-front payments while in Uzbekistan they have first to send out products and 60 days later ask for permission to convert their currency and pay. It is next to impossible to work in these conditions.”⁹

President Karimov of Uzbekistan agrees with this: “We should revise the entire system of foreign economic activity. I think it is formalized too much and dominated by administrative rather than economic and tariff regulation. We should move to civilized forms of foreign economic activity accepted the world over.”¹⁰ Early in 2001, the cabinet of ministers of Uzbekistan passed a decision On Measures to Improve Regulation of Foreign Economic Activity designed to liberalize economic activity and make it more civilized. So far, enterprises of Orenburg Region continue wasting effort trying to get payments for the products they supplied several years ago.

The relations between Russia and Uzbekistan cannot be described as cloudless yet the terrorist acts in Tashkent prompted an “alliance of equal and independent partners.” Leaders of both states were convinced that this alliance would promote national security of their countries. Uzbekistan with its mounting influence in the Muslim world may become one of Russia’s most reliable allies in the common fight against religious and political extremism and separatism. Putin’s trip to Tashkent and his meetings with Islam Karimov late in 1999 were of great importance. They helped elaborate long-term geopolitical strategy and pushed forward economic integration. The return visit of President Karimov to Moscow in May 2001 strengthened the shared intention to cooperate.

In fact, the official stand of the leaders of Central Asian states on their cooperation with Russia changed many times. For example, today President Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan is convinced that “both countries (Russia and Kazakhstan.—Tr.) need serious integration of their heavy industries. This is very important for our bilateral relations.”¹¹

When appointed premier of Kazakhstan career diplomat Kasymzhomart Tokaev stated that “the latest events in the world have convinced us that economic integration with the Russian Federation, on a bilateral basis and within the Customs Union is the most correct road for our country.”¹² He said further that cooperation in the sphere of power production, oil pipeline building, and joint use of Baikonur should go ahead. It was for the first time in recent years that the leaders of Kazakhstan in the person of its prime minister paid attention to cooperation in the humanitarian sphere: “Time has come to set up in Kazakhstan Russian higher educational establishments and grammar schools, organize cultural festivals like this happened in the past—for example, a festival of Russian culture in Kazakhstan.”¹³

It should be said that regional cooperation between the two countries is fairly developed. There are frequent meetings of academics, sportsmen, and religious figures.

Ties between higher educational establishments have been revived. The Orsk Pedagogical College opened a Kazakh branch to train primary school teachers with knowledge of the Kazakh language. In Aktiubinsk, the Higher Humanitarian College and the Dunie Educational Center received a Training and Consultation Center of the Customs College of Orenburg State University of Agriculture with more than 100 students. There is an agreement between the State University of Orenburg and the Lev Gumilev Eurasian State University in Astana under which academics from Orenburg Region participate in certification and accreditation of the higher educational establishments of Aktiubinsk Region, in the work of their learned councils and conferences. Numerous joint research programs are underway.

There is an Agreement on Cooperation in the field of culture, sport, and tourism under which sportsmen from Aktiubinsk are invited to take part nearly in all big sports events in the Orenburg Region.

There are contacts between frontier areas; agreements on the principles of economic, scientific, technological, and cultural cooperation between the administrations of Orenburg, Orsk, Novotroitsk, and Aktiubinsk; contacts between Akbulak District of Orenburg Region with Martuk, Khobdin and Iseta districts of Aktiubinsk Region, Adamovka District with Dzhetygara and Kamyshnoe districts, Ilek District with Tereklinskiy District.

Many frontier problems are still unsettled: disputes continue over renting out lands on both sides of the frontier.

Time has come to address and settle the problems connected with the Iletsk-1 railway station on the West Kazakhstan railway crossing Sol-Iletsk District of Orenburg Region. Sol-Iletsk is a Russian town while the railway station and the related communications belong to Kazakhstan. Every day 19 to 20 passenger trains and 750 freight cars cross the customs frontier without being properly examined. There are about seven thousand people, or 25 percent of the town’s population, connected with the railway directly by working there or indirectly being family members of railway employees. They live in Russia and work for Kazakhstan. In the conditions of an economic crisis the social sphere of Iletsk-1 station is undeveloped for want of money. This is the place where customs, economic, and social problems meet. They remain unresolved and this sends up tension in Sol-Iletsk.

Dual taxation is another stumbling block; the problem of regular deliveries of chromium and iron ores from Kazakhstan for the Orenburg industrial complex is mainly ignored; there is no mechanism of long-term stable deliveries of Kazakhstan oil to Orsknefteorgsintez Refinery.

Those at the helm of Orenburg Region count on a more active involvement of local enterprises in developing the Karachaganak field. They expect contracts for building and assembly work and deliveries to this large-scale international project, which in 2001 will receive $1.5 billion of investments.¹⁴

The Orenburg business community was not overjoyed when Kazakhstan had imposed a temporal ban on Russian imports. Later the ban was lifted.

The relations between the border areas are marred by legislation differences: the frontier has not yet got a definite legal status and is conventional to a great extent. Today joint work on delimiting the state frontier is underway; time has come to improve the functioning of international checkpoints.

It should be said that investigation and customs operations and liquidation of the results of emergency situations are not coordinated enough. The disrupted legal space allows criminals to commit offenses in one country and cross the frontier to hide in the other country. The militia, public prosecutor’s offices, courts of justice and customs offices of the CIS countries have not yet learned how to cooperate without a hitch, therefore the efforts to curb economic crimes, drug trafficking and organized crime which ignore state frontiers, and extradition of wanted people are of little effect. The crime situation in the frontier areas is worsening. In 1999, the raids carrying out in Orenburg Region produced over 2,000 kg of illegal drugs, much more than in previous years. The law-enforcement bodies confiscated illegal goods and cargoes worth 20 million rubles; they detained 1,060 people trying to cross the frontier illegally.¹⁵

The border areas on the shores of the Ural River have to cooperate in the sphere of the environment: the river is growing shallow and dirty; it and other water bodies are polluted with agricultural and industrial waste; the flora and fauna of the floodplain are depleted. In fact any landscape is a unified natural complex. This is especially true of flood-plain landscapes. All regions close to the river should pool efforts to protect its environment; time has come to work out and set up a mechanism that would regulate the use and protection of fishes (especially sturgeon). The border areas are found in the most tricky zone of the current global process of desertification of the steppe. In the nearest future we should do our best to preserve the steppe for future agricultural and other use.

Many problems still remain in the border areas’ agrarian sector. Kazakhstan is taking out of circulation arable land along the border and fails to control pests. As a result the fields of Orenburg Region are flooded with locusts.

Humanitarian problems and migration from Central Asia to Russia are acute.

Between 1992 (when official registration of refugees and forced migrants started) and 1 January, 2001 over 70 thousand people were registered in Orenburg Region. In the same period the city and region became home for over 200 thousand. Why does the region attract migrants: It is a border area and is crossed by transportation routes. Migrants mainly come from Central Asia: in 2000, they accounted for 90.9 percent of all those who arrived from the CIS and Baltic countries.

People mainly arrive from border regions of Kazakhstan. According to experts, in 1989-1995 513.1 thousand Russians (or 9 percent of the Russian population according to the 1989 census) came from this republic. The number of Russians there dropped from 6,228 thousand in 1989 to 5,104 thousand in early 1997 (decrease by 18 percent). Their share in total population strength dropped from 37.8 to 32.2 percent.

According to official figures, in 1992, 189.9 thousand left Kazakhstan for Russia; in 1993, 195.7 thousand; in 1994, 346.4 thousand; in 1995, 241.4 thousand; in 1996, 172.9 thousand; in 1997, 235.9 thousand; in 1998, 209.9 thousand; in 1999, 138.5 thousand.¹⁶ Many of them settled in Orenburg Region. In 1994 the newcomers from Kazakhstan comprised 34 percent of those who came to the region; in 1995, 36 percent; in 1996, 39.4 percent; in 1999-2000, 64.1 percent every year.

Table 3

Number of Forced Migrants by the Regions of Origin

Source: Tekushchiy arkhiv territorial’nogo organa Minfederatsii Rossii v Orenburgskoi oblasti. Analiticheskiy otchet za 2000 god, Orenburg, 2001.

Nearly 70 percent of migrants leave their homes because of discrimination against the Russian-speakers. They are made redundant and dismissed, schools with teaching in Russian are closed down, offices are switching to the local tongues—this all is described as nationalism on the official and everyday levels. There are other reasons for migration which are of secondary importance: unemployment, low wages and salaries which are not paid for many years, worsened ethnic and political situation in post-Soviet republics such as blasts in Tashkent and the Batken events in Kyrgyzstan.

The problems of migration from Kazakhstan to Russia has been many times discussed by the heads of frontier regions who believe that people cross the frontier because of worsened social and economic situation.

Future development and improvement of international, economic and humanitarian ties with the border areas of Kazakhstan and other CIS countries depends on successful solution of the problems enumerated above. Integration with the CIS countries should become a national idea that can bring together all healthy forces of Russian society. This will inevitably improve the economic situation. With this aim in view we should elaborate an integral conception of borderline cooperation based on rich international experience and on a corresponding federal law that should be adopted.

¹ See: S.M. Soloviev, Sochinenia. Istoria Rossii s drevneishikh vremen, Book 1, Moscow, 1988, p. 57.

² See: S.G. Gorshenin, Regional’nye aspekty vneshneekonomicheskoi politiki Rossii: istoria i sovremennost’, Moscow, 1998, p. 5.

³ See: V.I. Mirkitanov, “Ukreplenie prigranichnogo sotrudnichestva—trebovanie vremeni,” Orenburzhie i Respublika Kazakhstan: prigranichnye aspekty sotrudnichestva, Orenburg, 1997, p. 7.

⁴ See: V.I. Chekashkin, A.E. Kalinin, “Real’nost i perspektivy prigranichnykh proizvodstvenno-khoziastvennykh otnoshenii,” Orenburzhie i Respublika Kazakhstan: prigranichnye aspekty sotrudnichestva, p. 40.

⁵ See: Ibid., p. 49.

⁶ See: V.V. Elagin, “Regional’nye aspekty razvitia mezhdunarodnykh i vneshneekonomichskikh sviazei Orenburgskoi oblasti,” Regions v sisteme vneshneekonomicheskikh sviazei Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Orenburg, 1998, p. 20.

⁷ See: Vneshneekonomicheskie sviazi Rossii: opyt Orenburgskogo regiona, ed. by S.G. Gorshenin, Orenburg, 1999, pp. 253-254.

⁸ See: Vneshneekonomicheskiy kompleks Orenburgskoi oblasti: itogi i perspektiva, p. 10.

⁹ A.O. Folts, “O nekotorykh aspektakh VED AO ‘Radiator’,” Regiony v sisteme vneshneekonomicheskikh sviazei Rossiiskoi Federatsii, p. 225.

¹⁰ Quoted from: A. Akhmedov, “Bisnes v Uzbekistane liberalizuetsia,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 6 March, 2000.

¹¹ V. Tretiakov, “Nursultan Nazarbaev: ‘Veriu, chto v budushchem my vernemsia k idee evraziiskogo soiuza,’” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 26 October, 1999.

¹² Quoted from: S. Kozlov, “Kakikh-libo opasenii otnosiltel’no integratsii v SNG u nas net,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 1 March, 2000.

¹³ Ibidem.

¹⁴ See: S.G. Gorshenin, “Novoe prigranichie: k voprosu o geograficheskoi napravlennosti gosudarstvennoi vneshneekonomicheskoi politiki,” Etnopanorama, No. 1, 1999, p. 48.

¹⁵ See: “Prigranichnoe sotrudnichestvo: opyt i perspektiva,” Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii, Orenburg, 28-29 February, 2000, Moscow-Orenburg, 2001, p. 6.

¹⁶ See: A. Kurtov, “Kuda derzhit put’ snezhniy bars,” Nezavisimaia gazeta, 27 December, 2000.