We live the worst life amongst the ex-Soviet countries
I suppose that many other people visiting this blog know about a rank of their country in Human Development Report for 2007, which was recently released by UNDP. There is no surprise but Tajikistan has the lowest human development (rus) rate amongst the former Soviet countries. It ranks 117th out of 177 countries.
People live better in Kyrgyzstan (116), Uzbekistan (113), Moldova (111), Turkmenistan (109), Azerbaijan (98), Georgia (96), Armenia (83), Ukraine (76), and Kazakhstan (73). All these countries are included into the list of developing countries.
Usually, I do not trust such surveys but this time I have no reason to be skeptic because I think it is true that we live in worse conditions than all other former Soviet Republics and Civil War can not be blamed for it. Ten years after the end of war we could be better off. And as I understand our living standards will get even lower due to rapid increase in prices for food and other products. This is crazy!
on November 28th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Hmmm…. then go to your country:)
on November 28th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
I think there are several key factors contributing for poor life conditions in Tajikistan one of which is the ongoing tension between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The geographic location of Tajikistan requires to be friendly with it’s close neighbours as all other alternatives require more investment and effort but yield less effect. At the same time the longer it takes to reach to mutual friendship with Uzbekistan, the further the advent of flourishing era in Tajik life will be postponed.
on December 1st, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Anonymous, I am in my country!!!!
on December 2nd, 2007 at 1:41 am
Roads in Tajikistan are very bad, it slows considerably the transports which is very bad for the economy of the country. I understand that there is no money to repair the roads or to build new ones but there is something that you could do which I think wouldn’t be too difficult: STOP THE POLICE CONTROLS on the roads and give the policemen something more useful to do or fire them.
How do you want that your economy works properly if a truck needs two days to come to a place when it would need only one if there was no control?
I made a short trip in Tajikistan in summer 2006. I travelled by marshrutkas and by taxi. Sometimes there were no more than 20 km between two police controls!
I remember an incident that shows the absurdity of these controls: In a village on the road from Dushanbe to the GBAO, heavy rains had made the bridge collapse which forced us to stop by the river. The stream was very strong and the water level to high to cross the river bed, so we waited. After about two hours the level had lowered a little so our taxi driver, along with other car drivers, decided to try the crossing. I was afraid that the car would be stuck in the middle of the stream but by luck we made it to the other side.
What is astounding is that barely we were out of the waters that we had to stop again before a barrier for another (useless) control! By chance the other cars were still on the other side, otherwise we would have blocked them in the middle of the water! Apparently the dumb policeman at the barrier didn’t care about that!! The circumstances were exceptional, don’t you think he couldn’t have lift up the barrier ?
Your roads are bad, your cars and truck are slow, I understand it’s a poor country but is it really necessary to slow the traffic on top of that?
If you take Europe as a comparison, it’s possible (not always but still possible) to drive from the South of Spain to the North of Norway without a single control!
There are certainly other things that could be done to improve the economy and the well-being of the people which would not cost much if anything.