Sergey Sajenko

international columnist

Russia will help Kyrgyzstan build eight new secondary schools that will teach in Russian. By August of this year, the parties must submit standard projects of educational institutions and technical specifications for their construction and equipment. This was agreed upon during a recent visit to Bishkek by Russian Minister of Education Sergey Kravtsov and Kyrgyz Minister of Education and Science Almazbek Beishenaliyev. The parties signed a corresponding protocol on cooperation in the creation of a joint educational infrastructure in the republic.

The heads of the relevant departments also discussed the possibility of sending specialists from Russia’s leading pedagogical universities to Kyrgyzstan, who could conduct on-site practical seminars to improve the skills of local teachers and establish a permanent link to exchange experience. In addition, the Ministry of Education and Science of Kyrgyzstan asked Russian colleagues to increase the number of budget places allocated to the republic for pedagogical specialties in higher educational institutions of Russia and offered to consider the possibility of a pilot project to train the best graduates of pedagogical universities of the republic in Russian schools.

It should be noted that the March meeting between Sergey Kravtsov and Almazbek Beishenaliyev was dictated by the need to fill in the specific content of the issues raised during the talks on February 25 in Moscow between the Presidents of Russia and Kyrgyzstan, Vladimir Putin and Sadyr Zhaparov, focused on the problem of preserving the status of the Russian language in the Country of the Heavenly Mountains. Then, during a conversation with his Kyrgyz counterpart, President Putin stressed: “For our part, we will do everything to realize the opportunities for Kyrgyzstanis to learn Russian in their homeland. We have certain plans here, and we will also work on this.” As we can see, these plans of Moscow are beginning to be implemented in practice, in particular, in the field of education of young residents of Kyrgyzstan – the future of the country.

Bishkek does not hide the fact that the huge demand for Russian-language education is primarily due to socio-economic reasons: only according to official data, about 700 thousand people left Osh, Batken and Jalal-Abad regions for labor migration to Russia in the last two years before the outbreak of the pandemic. In conditions when Russia lacks workers, especially in construction, as the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov recently reported, workers from Kyrgyzstan, especially with knowledge of the Russian language, will come in very handy.

At the same time, it should be noted that in the light of the decisions taken at the February meeting of Presidents Putin and Zhaparov in Moscow, Russia will not limit itself to the construction of new schools in Kyrgyzstan. Thus, within the framework of the strategic partnership between the two countries, Russia will actively invest in the economy of the Country of the Heavenly Mountains.

The opening of a new gold extraction plant in the Talas region of Kyrgyzstan in March this year is a clear proof of this. “The joint opening of the factory testifies to the close partnership and dynamically developing relations between the two states,” the President of Kyrgyzstan said at the opening of the factory. At the same time, Zhaparov stressed that “Jeruy has become the largest project with the participation of investments of the Russian bank (VTB – ed.).” Vladimir Putin also took part in the opening ceremony of this enterprise via video link.

According to President Zhaparov, the Kyrgyz authorities are always happy about the arrival of Russian investments in the country and are ready to support projects that contribute to the development of the country’s economy. “I want to assure you that the Kyrgyz Republic will continue to support such projects, which contribute to increasing the potential of the mining industry and the development of the country’s economy as a whole. We are always happy about the arrival of Russian investments in the Kyrgyz market, ” Sadyr Zhaparov said. He expressed confidence that the implementation of the Jerui project will have a positive impact on the image of the country and will give a powerful impetus to the development of the investment potential of the republic.

Here it is just appropriate to emphasize that during the February visit to Moscow, the President of Kyrgyzstan, meeting with representatives of the Russian business community, said that the new leadership of the republic is ready to provide security guarantees to large Russian businesses. At that meeting, the President of Kyrgyzstan invited Russian businessmen to actively cooperate and jointly implement major projects, in particular, stating: “The potential for possible cooperation is high, and the areas of interaction can be very different.” At the same time, he stressed that he considers investment cooperation with Russia to be the key to the dynamic, stable and sustainable development of the republic’s economy.

By the way, then the meeting with Sadyr Zhaparov, organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, was attended by the heads of almost forty major Russian companies – oil, banking, construction, chemical, energy, machine-building, pharmaceutical, transport, food and textile industries, as well as officials from relevant ministries and state structures of Russia. The participation of representatives of such giants as “Renova”, “Russian Railways”, “Severstal”, “Skolkovo” and other companies, centers and business groups in the event is significant.

As it turned out, the Kyrgyz side can offer Russian business circles participation in initiatives related to the development of energy, mining and other industries, infrastructure, tourism and new technologies. The light industry and the agro-industrial complex, which are focused on the export of products to the Russian markets, have no less potential for investment cooperation. In addition, according to the leadership of Kyrgyzstan, it would be very beneficial for both sides to open joint ventures related to the production of textiles, clothing, products, as well as trade and logistics centers, where large quantities of agricultural goods can be formed for supplies to the EAEU countries (Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan) and far abroad.

In conclusion, we note that Kyrgyzstan has been trying to attract large investments in the economy for many years. The new leadership of the country is convinced that it was not possible to win over the business community to cooperate earlier due to the lack of firm guarantees in the safety and protection of investments. I would like to hope that the current authorities of Kyrgyzstan will be able to provide security guarantees to Russian business in the country of the “three revolutions”.