Cotton

Uzbekistan, as viewed from Moscow, looked like a vast see of cotton. The hot climate, fertile soil, and the irrigation potential of the regions two great rivers, the Sir Darya and Amu Darya, fit nicely with the empire's vast appetite for cotton, which could be used for clothing and munitions alike. Through the lens of the managed economy, devoting essentially all of the arable land in central Asia to cotton seemed like simple genius. And so it was done. The great rivers were diverted, and the sea they once filled, the Aral, was drained to make way for the needs of the empire.

When independence came, the Uzbek economy, utterly dependant on the rest of the Soviet system, foundered. The struggle to decollectivize the farms and and diversify the industrial base has been fierce: anecdotal reports say that they've managed to convert half of the farms to something other than cotton, but it's cotton that still dominates the landscape, and it's cotton whose thirsty water needs have driven the region to the brink of war. Uzbekistan is still the 2nd largest exporter of cotton in the world.

What's more, the seasonal nature of the cotton industry's labor needs, with only one harvest each year, still dominate the pattern of the year here in Uzbekistan. It's now the end of August, and the homes we've been staying in have been filled with young people, all home from school on the short vacations that precede the September harvest season. In a few days, these university students will set off for the cotton fields for a month of hard work. Every single university student, teacher, and staff member in Uzbekistan is required to pick 40Kg of cotton in the month of September. It used to be that every citizen was required to pick this much, but a shrinking cotton crop and improved technology has reduced the labor needs. Similarly, the vagaries of central Asian society has allowed for the bribing one's way out of the requirement, but not for less than the substantial sum of $200, about three months salary for the average worker here.