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PROBLEMS, IDENTITIES AND POST-SOVIET CONDITIONS

The number of social problems potentially identified by inhabitants of the former Soviet Union is enormous, from increasing rates of mortality to ethnic strife to poverty.(2) We understand social problems to be phenomena acknowledged as not only undesirable but also a consequence of social relations and potentially remedial.(3) Social problems might include poverty rates that could be lowered, environmental degradation that could be halted and/or improved, and gender or ethnic discrimination that could be alleviated. Of course these same phenomena might be interpreted by others not as social problems at all, but rather conditions of human existence, the price of transition to a market economy, or a condition of national survival.(4)  These phenomena are then understood as less problematic because they are treated as inevitable or necessary. The identification of problems and the normative standards used to evaluate phenomena thus depend on social identities.

We understand identity to be a designation of an individual or group in relation to others. Men and women, Estonians and Russians, citizens and non-citizens, urban dwellers and rural folks, intellectuals and workers, communists and entrepreneurs, nationalists and democrats, good Russians and bad Russians, criminals and victims, elderly and youth, are all kinds of identities. Identity formation is the process through which identity is constructed. Identities can be discovered or imposed, more or less enduring, more or less situ ational.

To some extent, the end of Soviet rule was a story of social problems. Soviet rule was assigned responsibility for a variety of problems, from assaults on national cultural survival to crises of economic rationality to endangerment of the environment. The promise of post-Soviet society was a promise of normalcy,(5) an end to some social problems and perhaps the acquisition of new ones. The promise of post-Soviet society is to some degree embedded in two kinds of basic stories: transition narratives and nationalist narratives.

Transition narratives are characterized by an emphasis on globalism, the inadequacies of communist rule, and its possible remedy through proper external intervention in combined with indigenous elite and state support. Its principal concerns creating a market economy and democratic political stabilization, and its rhetoric includes an emphasis on freedom and opportunity.(6) According to Ernest Gellner,(7) nationalism is simpler: there should be an overlap between the ethnic nation and an independent state. The justification for this overlap must be elaborated, but in any case, the narrative will emphasize how political sovereignty enables the fulfillment of a people's destiny and allow their identities to develop as they should.

Social identities influence the identification of social problems, but which identities matter for which problems is an empirical question. For instance, ethnicity may be important for understanding attitudes towards citizenship laws, and generation might be important to understand attitudes toward economic reform. However, ethnicity might not help explain orientations toward privatization and generation might not be important to citizenship questions. One of the most important social issues whose effects are not limited to the post-Soviet world, even if they originate there, are environmental problems.

Of course environmental problems are not limited to the former Soviet Union, but the problems there are quite serious. Russian environmentalist, Alexei Yablakov, rightly calls the ecological catastrophe made by the Soviet Union a major threat to the health of the globe.(8) Given the degree of mobilization around environmental issues during late communism, especially in Armenia, Ukraine and the Baltic countries, if less so in Central Asia, one might expect post-Soviet conditions to be ideal for fostering a more rational environmental approach, one enabled by the ecological consciousness of post-Soviet peoples themselves. One cannot be so optimistic, however.

Environmental issues were embedded in other stories even as they were featured as objects of social protest during Soviet rule. Anti-nuclear activism in Armenia, Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania were linked to the struggle against communism and/or for national sovereignty.(9) The nuclear accident at Chernobyl in particular helped to ignite late-Soviet Ukrainian national consciousness.(10) The ecological movements in the Baltic republics during the first years of Gorbachev’s rule were not only anti-Soviet, but also according to some, had "deep cultural roots in the centrality of nature to Baltic national culture"(11). The catastrophe of the Aral Sea's decline is another example of Soviet production of ecological disaster. However, it played relatively less of a role in the politics of Soviet disintegration than other problems and issues in Uzbekistan.(12) But in post-Soviet life, ecological issues apparently don't receive the same significance that they once did at the national level. In Estonia, at least, survey research indicates that ecological problems were associated more with anti-Soviet attitudes than concern for the environment per se.(13) Russian, Armenian and Ukrainian authorities have even returned to viewing nuclear power as one of the means to assure their political sovereignty, if not their ecological security.(14)

Good survey research can help us discern which social identities are significant in predicting differences in assessments of various social problems, including the environment. But survey research cannot help us understand how narratives of social problems are interlaced with the narratives of identity formation. Narratives are the stories people tell about themselves and others, and about social problems and other aspects of social life. While it is important to know the statistical association between social identities and the assessment of social problems, it is in the narratives which people construct about their lives and problems that the linkage between group identity and problem assessment can be found.

We believe that the existing study of social problems in the former Soviet Union through survey research should be complemented by an approach which seeks to understand the structures of differing narratives of social problems. We want to know how various social problems are related to each other in particular narratives which assess the course of the post-Soviet transition. Under what conditions will ecological crises get prioritized? And what happens to other parts of the narrative of post-Soviet change when the environment is emphasized? For instance, will the same narrative structures of solution making be offered for environmental problems as for economic problems? Will independence be equally valued by those who are talking about economic problems as those who discuss environmental problems?

Although one could pursue these questions in a single republic, we have pursued this interdisciplinary exploration of identity formation and social and environmental problems in a comparative framework across radically different sites of post-Soviet transition. By doing this, we can consider the potential for similarities. We can assess the extent to which alternative narratives of post-Soviet transition and its problems are shaped by the common exigencies of central planning's reconstruction and the making of sovereign states out of a republican Soviet form. We can also examine whether particular issues, like environmental problems, produce their own kinds of stories that cross civilizational boundaries. To consider these issues in this paper, I rely on data collected through focus groups.

As an approach that is useful for learning about respondent's perspectives -- both what they are thinking and why -- focus groups are particularly well-suited for this study of how various forms of social identity influence the recognition of social problems. This method allows for the formulation of identity and problem assessment in the words of the subjects themselves. Although ethnographic analysis does the same thing, focus groups are usefully thought of as "concentrated bursts of data" (15) in which during 1.5-2 hours, a moderator facilitates a discussion among 6-8 people of relatively similar social status.(16) This enhances the comparative promise of qualitative research, for it allows for relatively controlled circumstances, with consistent, if not identical, interview schedules (see Appendix 1), similar conditions of data collection and tape recorded transcripts.

We conducted thirty-six focus groups in fifteen sites, with a total of 12 focus groups per country. We broke these groups by gender, nationality, and education, in order to ensure relatively egalitarian discussion conditions (see Appendix 2). A range of possible participants was identified using informal networks in each of the sites. Information collected in a pre-interview questionnaire and interview helped on-site investigators decide the most appropriate combination of actual participants, assuring that they were both willing to talk in moderation and sufficiently diverse in terms of place of residence and occupation.(17) These groups did not aspire to be statistically representative; therefore random sampling techniques were not necessary.

Chernobyl is probably the most widely known environmental catastrophe associated with the former Soviet Union, and certainly Ukraine. One of the best places to assess how this environmental disaster influences the discussion of identity and social issues is Ivankiv, one of the district centers of the Kyiv region, not far from Chernobyl but outside the 30 kilometer radioactive contamination zone. It has the third degree of radioactive pollution, and is mainly an agricultural district with some manufacturing. Ivankiv is composed mainly of Ukrainians, so we assembled one focus groups of Ukrainian men and one of Ukrainian women; participants of both groups having no more than secondary education.

Estonia has no nuclear power plants, but experts consider its greatest ecological risk to be located in those nuclear power plants which surround it in Sosnovy Bor in Russia, Ignalina in Lithuania and Loviisa in Finland.(18) But without a plant on its territory, the possibility for grassroots involvement in ecological matters decreases even if it is very important to international commissions. There are, however, local conditions which could produce significant environmental damage. One place especially conducive to such activity is Sillamae. Sillamae is one of two major sites of "military pollution," meaning the contamination of air, water and soil from military units, including the leaking of fuel pipelines at military bases, the dumping of out-dated explosives and weapons, the scuttling of ships, and chemical and toxic pollution from various materials including rocket fuels.(19) The most dramatic and central problem is, however, the existence of a radioactive waste depository.(20) Constructed in 1948, the Sillamae Plant originally processed alum shale for its uranium and deposited the waste on the marine terrace at Cape Paite. Since 1959, the waste, or "tailings," were deposited in a reservoir on the Gulf of Finland. The experts recommend that this waste depository no longer be used, and that a new one be constructed to enable the plant to continue its production of rare earth metals. They find a landslide at this depository to be quite possible, especially after an earthquake or major sea storm, and recommend that efforts be taken to halt erosion. Further, the residents of the town are affected by breathing the radon currently escaping this facility, and experts recommend that actions be taken to cover the deposit with various materials. The question for us, though, is how these ecological conditions understood by experts are experienced by people on the ground. Estonians constitute only 1-2% of the local population, and thus we assembled 2 focus groups, Russian men and women with no more than secondary education.

The Aral Sea is drying up, with corresponding increases in salinity and destruction of the fishing industry.(21) Moynak, once a commercial fishing center, is an ideal site to examine how environmental problems affect the way in which social issues are understood and identities interpreted. International aid agencies are also prominent in the region, developing water treatment plants and other means for addressing the crisis. While the rest of the country, of course, knows about the problems with the Aral Sea, those living near it are most affected by it in everyday life. We conducted our two focus groups among men and women of the titular group, Karakalpaks, descendants of a tribal group related to the Kazakhs and Tatars. Karakalpaks comprise approximately 30% of the population of Karakalpakstan but are a majority in Moynak.

We sought to use the same methods and interview schedule for all focus groups in order to facilitate comparison.(22) One basis for comparison is to consider how much each group talked about any particular issue. One might presume that if a group spent a lot of time talking about an issue, it was important to them. This is not necessarily the case, of course. For example, men from Narva said that they had almost forgotten about corruption because it is so obvious. As one man stated, "The policemen are just pure corruption," to which another replied, "We just couldn’t remember it because it is something that goes without saying" (4409-4412). Despite the caveat, we find the explicit enumeration of issues to be a useful guide. Following our definition of social problems, the unspoken problem is a naturalized problem. Even if Russian-Estonians would prefer automatic citizenship, the fact that the linguistic hurdle is mostly accepted as necessary for the acquisition of citizenship, then the ethnic/linguistic/legal definition of citizenship is no longer a social problem.

With these caveats and ambitions in mind, we can cautiously ask, what are the most important, or at least the most explicit and prominent issues, facing post-Soviet people? To the extent possible, we used our assessments of the narrative structures of these groups to produce hypotheses about the relationship between identity and social problems that might allow other projects to replicate and refine our findings.

Far and away, the most explicit and prominent issues were economic issues (Table 1; Tables are in Appendix 4). The standard of living, by which we understood to include general quality of life issues such the price of goods and their availability, the availability and quality of infrastructure, and insecurity about the future, took up an average of 25% of the transcripts.(23) Related to that, but with a different emphasis, employment concerns, monetary matters and salary issues took up 13%, 10% and 7% of the focus group discussions, respectively. Education was relatively important in this general area, commanding 8% of the discussion. Issues of inequality and trade were not so important overall.

Matters of identity were also explicit and prominent, but in ways contrary to the prevailing wisdom. Regional identities, far more than ethnic, national, religious, gender, or linguistic identities, were very important. Regional references occupied an average of 24% of the transcripts. "REGION" refers to line segments in which conditions of specific regions within the country or abroad are considered and potentially compared. This includes references to other nations or to general regions like "The West." It also captures discussion of tourism, travel and emigration. Obviously for rural groups, urban/rural differences were very important. Those living on borderlands, such as those in Lviv, often referred to experiences in other parts of Ukraine as well as abroad. National minorities, such as Narva's Russians, were likely to emphasize regional distinctions as much as nationality or language. Indeed, Narva's Russian men stressed their own civilizational distinction from Russians in Russia because of their residence in Estonia (2524-2724), and Lviv’s men emphasized their own individuality, as distinct from other Ukrainians or Russians living further to the east (3269-3281).

Social problems around crime, corruption, ecology and health elicited relatively little attention overall, despite the focus on these matters in the academic and popular discussion of social problems in post-Soviet affairs. It is not that these matters are unimportant, but simply that economic problems associated with the standard of living and acquiring the means to improve it were by far more important than matters of alcoholism, pollution or murder rates. Where alcoholism and crime were mentioned, it was typically in the context of economic problems. Ecology could stand on its own, but it was clearly overwhelmed by economic concerns even where ecological problems are localized and severe.

Solutions to any of these problems were not very forthcoming. Indeed, these focus groups were far more likely to spend time blaming people or conditions for their plight than imagining ways to address those problems or identifying people who could improve them. Over 1/5 (21%) of the manuscripts were devoted to blaming someone or something for the present conditions. By contrast, only about 14% of the manuscripts were devoted to the discussion of solutions, and even these discussions were often about how there were no solutions toda y, as there might have been in the past. The past did figure much more prominently than we expected. About 11% of the discussions were devoted to such memories. The Soviet past provided many important examples of how things used to be better, and less frequently, how they were worse. It even offered solutions for present day woes. Many argued, for instance, that the authorities needed to control prices and the market as they had in the past. In this sense, the Soviet Union, far from being dead or even the problem from which people run, was for many a positive reference point for assessing today's travails. Sometimes, however, people spoke of the need to introduce new values (about 4% of the time). They might refer to the past as a time when people were courteous or spiritual, but as much if not more often they would say that today's authorities are no different from those of the past.

H1: Regional identity tends to be the most important identity structuring the discussion of social problems, more important than ethnicity, gender, language or religion.

H2: Economic problems tend to be the most important social problem articulated by all social groups, and the standard of living is the most common way in which people articulate those economic issues.

But clearly the more important issue is how these priorities varied across groups, and how groups established their priorities in discussing the achievements and the problems of the last ten years.

Regional identity was much more important than we expected or anticipated. Although Uzbek men from Tashkent posed a relative exception, its prominence as an issue was concentrated most of all in those economically distraught areas populated either by Russian language speakers, or those of the titular nationality. It was vitally important for men from Narva, men and women from Sillamae, Vinnitsa, Ivankiv, Moynak, and to some extent for men from Donetsk and women from Ferghana (see Table 2). Specifically, men from Moynak, Russian men from Narva, Sillamae and Donetsk, men and women from Ivankiv, and men and women from Vinnitsa discussed issues associated with region more than any other issue. For Vinnitsa men and women, the urban/rural difference was overwhelming. Indeed, these were the most negative transcripts in the group. A full 21% of the women’s text was a discussion of how there had been no improvements in the last ten years. Therefore, we might offer the following hypothesis:

H3: regional identity tends to be a more important rhetoric outside the capital cities, in rural areas where the urban/rural distinction is important, or in economically distraught regions regardless of the nationality of the inhabitants.

Lviv men were also quite likely to emphasize regional issues, but by and large, monetary issues dominated their discussion. Unlike in other instances where monetary issues emerged as a rather academic concern, in Lviv this was important because two men in that group were apparently successful entrepreneurs who stressed above all that the market was the solution to problems and the source of freedom and dignity. The extensive amount of blame in the text was devoted in large part to those who held back such market reforms.

It is particularly striking that regional identity so often overwhelmed other kinds of identities, whether derived from nationality, language, or religion. And of these latter three, matters of ethnicity and nationality were typically more widely discussed than the others. Of course, all of this is variable, and for the Russian minorities in these countries, ethnicity and language were sometimes as or more important than regional references.

Russian women from Narva and Russian men from Kyiv emphasized nationality slightly more than region, and Russian men from Narva linked the two very closely. It is, however, quite clear that in Estonia, Russian speakers from Narva and Sillamae found the lives of Russians in Tallinn much better (e.g. ESSILRWE - 3567-3731). Russian men from Tashkent discussed ethnic and language questions more than region, and Russian women from Tashkent were particularly interested in matters of ethnicity quite apart from language. The Russian women from Kyiv were particularly distinctive, as they focused on gender above all other issues, and found ethnicity and language to be more important than regional references (Table 4).

In general, one might hazard the following observation: regional identity is usually most important for those outside of the capital cities where regional variations are most apparent. But before we conclude how identity frames are typically used, one might focus on the ethnic emphasis. One can view these data in terms of how relatively significant ethnicity is across the focus groups. Russian men from Kyiv and especially from Narva, and women from Tashkent, Narva and Kyiv led the way in emphasizing nationality. By and large, Tajik and Uzbek groups from Uzbekistan were quite unlikely to focus on it, although Uzbek women from Ferghana did highlight regional issues (Table 2) and women from Tashkent discussed ethnic or national issues more than any other Uzbek or Tajik speaking group (Table 3).(24) One might propose the following about ethnicity, therefore:

H4: Ethnicity is a more important narrative of identity in capital cities or among minorities in economically disadvantaged areas; it is least important among the titular nationalities outside the capital cities and with less than higher education.

Apart from these two women's groups, the Tajik and Uzbek speaking focus groups de-emphasized identities or issues associated with these dimensions. Instead, the Uzbek and Tajik speakers were all quite likely to organize their stories around blame. "BLAME" included all line segments in which responsibility for problems was assigned. This responsibility was often a category of actor (authorities, etc.), but sometimes a condition (enterprise bankruptcies). In some cases, these segments were responses to specific questions about responsibility for a problem. In other cases, they were implied in other discussions. Sometimes the irresponsibility of authorities was identified as a problem in and of itself, rather than as a reason for another problem.

Although blame is important overall, especially for Donetsk men and women, Kyiv Russian men and Lviv men, outside of Uzbekistan, this pattern of blame was typically associated with an focus on a regional or ethnic identity. But among the Tajik and Uzbek speakers, and apart from the Ferghana and Tashkent Uzbek women, blame was in first or second place across the board, and it was not connected to regional, national, gender, or linguistic identities.(25)

Blame was the most common theme among Uzbek Tashkent and Bukhara men, and Tajik Bukhara men, and second most among Ferghana men, Bukhara Uzbek women and Tajik women (following concern for standard of living matters). This resonates importantly with the literature: identity formation among Tajiks and Uzbeks does not place the same emphasis on nationality, or even language, as it does for Estonians, Ukrainians and Russians. We were frankly surprised that regional identity was not particularly important here either (although Ferghana is a place where we would expect it to stand out), and especially surprised by how little attention was paid to religious questions. On the other hand, the only groups in which religious themes figured more often than average (apart from the anomaly of Sillamae's women) were Ferghana men and women, Bukhara Uzbek men, and Bukhara Tajik women and men, at only 2% of their transcripts. We might conclude this section with the following hypothesis recognizing a civilizational difference between some in Central Asia and those with more European identities:

H5: Uzbek and Tajik speakers are more similar to each other in their rhetoric of identity than to any other group, and all other groups are more similar to one another than they are to Uzbek and Tajik speakers in the ways in which categories of identity are deployed to recognize similarity and difference, and to articulate problems.

Standard of living was typically the most important issue for each group. Indeed, for some groups, problems regarding the standard of living overwhelmed all other issues (Table 5). Although there is an important exception that deserves subsequent examination (Russian women in Tashkent), there is a pattern to this focus: rural groups emphasized questions of living standard (men from Tamsalu and Vinnitsa and Uzbek women from Bukhara were particularly concerned about these issues, and at the next level Vinnitsa women and Uzbek Bukhara men and Ferghana women). Additionally, those in economically devastated areas were also relatively invested in this issue (Moynak men and women, Bukhara Tajik and Donetsk women).

In many ways, the discourse of social problems in Estonia reflected much more the conditions of a market economy than an economy in transition. Rather than complain about the tardiness of payments for salaries or the cost of goods and inflation, people in Estonia -- whether Russian or Estonian -- focused much more on the availability of employment, especially in Sillamae. Even in rural Tamsalu, employment figured to be relatively important, occupying 18% of the transcript. If one has money, they stated, life is all right. And the way to get money is to get a job. One could hazard this hypothesis:

H6: The more fully the market transition is made, and the more life conditions depend on whether one has a job rather than whether salaries are delivered, employment will be a more central rhetoric of economic anxiety rather than more general discussions of the standard of living.

H7: The higher the collective level of education in a focus group, the more likely it is that concern over economic issues will be expressed not in terms of standard of living, but in more abstract terms like monetary reform or privatization.

Such a focus actually enables one to consider the policies and strategies implicated in communism's undoing rather than focusing on the effects, which most typically evoked nostalgia for the Soviet past.

The Kyiv women focused instead on matters of gender more than any other group (#1 at 25%), in addition to employment and education, as well as concerns of the highly educated in the capital. The only other groups to emphasize gender issues were Ferghana women, Tartu women and Donetsk women, although Tashkent Russian women, Moynak women, and Tamsalu men and women also discussed gender substantially more than the mean (Table 4). The following is not too difficult a hypothesis to make:

H8: Women are more likely than men to make gender a specific frame for interpreting social issues, and women in cities are more likely than those in the countryside to emphasize the distinction.

When focusing on standard of living, considering the effects of communism's undoing, rarely evoked much positive. Yelena from Donetsk exemplifies this approach:

Now you don't know how to behave. The old has gone, and the new hasn't yet come. ... And we live only for today. If before we saved something, then they have taken away what we have saved. It has lost its value. Now you survived a day and that is good. What will happen tomorrow we don't know. We don't have an extra kopeck to .... save for a rainy day. And a rainy day has now become very expensive. And I fear for our children. I'm bringing up my daughter, and if, God forbid, I would pass away, I don't know what would happen to my child. I have fear (1104-1126).

Bozorgul from Bukhara stated:

There are some people who, due to hunger, leave their families because there is not bread to eat, or hang themselves, or kill themselves, or kill their children with mice poison. ... (and then there was the case) of a certain man, his wife died for some reason. He was seen digging beside a water channel. ... (he said) at the cemetery they ask 1,500 som for a place and grave diggers' work. Because I have no money and am starving, what can I do? I'm burying her here...” (BUW 818-40).

There are a few, especially in Estonia, who spoke of changes in the standards of living as an improvements, although these improvements were typically couched in terms of the absence of shortages and freedom of choice. Even then the question hinges on whether one has enough money and a job that pays well enough. Finally, then, one might offer the following hypothesis regarding economic issues:

H9: To the extent the standard of living is an object of discussion, the interpretation of post-Soviet transition will be more negative. More positive accounts of transition require different rhetoric.

These broad comparisons are useful. The Ethnograph program's virtue is that it allows us to compare the relative prominence of issues across these many pages of texts. It also allows us to call up these particular issues for more intensive focus. We'll focus on a few more limited issues below -- problems with improvements regarding independence and freedom, and the question of the environment.

Not all groups were this negative, although Ukrainians had much more difficulty with the question than either of our other sites. The only group from Ukraine which had no difficulty were Russian speaking women from Kyiv. By contrast, Uzbek and Tajik men (and Tajik women from Bukhara)(27) were quite prepared with positive answers to the question about improvements, showing no doubts or signs that such a question about changes for the better was sensible. Estonians, and even Russian Estonians outside of Sillamae, apparently found the question quite sensible. From this, we might offer the following hypothesis:

H10: The capacity to identify improvements depends on success in improving economic matters, without which political and cultural changes are hard to appreciate, especially outside the capital cities.

Nevertheless, it is important to assess how those important political and cultural changes -- independence and freedom -- are assessed.

Although not always positive(28) or referring to the present, independence and freedom were for the most part used to identify improvements in people's lives over the last ten years. They were not, however, especially prominent themes (Tables 6 and 7). As one might expect, matters of freedom were more prominent in discussions in Estonia. Matters of freedom were especially prominent issues for Russian women from Narva, men from Tamsalu, and Russian women from Tashkent. They were above the mean for Tamsalu men, Lviv men, Kyiv Russian women and men, Tajik women from Bukhara and Narva men. They were also important in Lviv where the entrepreneurs emphasized that theme. Russian women from Tashkent emphasized these matters mostly in terms of having an exciting life and more freedom to choose. Therefore, we might propose the following hypotheses:

H11: The narratives most likely to be invoked to indicate improvement over the last 10 years are those associated with independence and freedom.

H12: The narratives of independence and freedom are more likely to be articulated by the highly educated, regardless of ethnicity, in capital cities given the urban bias and spatial inequalities of transition.

We would expect, given the urban bias of transition and the experience we found in Ukraine, that the rural focus groups from Estonia would be quite negative. While one man from Tamsalu could find nothing better about life in an independent Estonia, for the most part, these Estonians had no trouble identifying improvements. Women from Tamsalu typically identified improvements in education, freedom, and even standard of living. For most of them, life may be more difficult, but it is also "more interesting" (305-06). They were also able to identify people who were making a difference in their local village. Indeed, in many ways, they lived the narratives of transition. As one woman said,

Now we have better and more correct information about the things in the world . First, because journalists are free to talk about everything. In a word, all kinds of things are happening which would have been unthinkable before. I imagine, previously an analysis like this was carried out somewhere so that this would always get to me correctly. Now it's not like that.... All kinds of things happen.... Thanks to freedom. ....We have handicapped people as well. It is acknowledged and it is written about. Formerly they did not exist (607-636).

Freedom, as such, did not figure very prominently in discussions among those who spoke Tajik, Uzbek or Karakalpak. Only Tajik women from Bukhara discussed freedom more than the average across all focus groups. On the other hand, religious freedom and its restoration was much more important in Uzbekistan than in other places. Especially among Muslims in Uzbekistan, freedom of religion and other religious matters were mentioned more often than anywhere else (Table 8). Uzbek men from Ferghana and Bukhara, and Tajik men and women from Bukhara devoted the most time to discussing it. For example, one man said, "Islamic religion is expanding, ... one can live with Quranic recitation; that used to be impossible" (2216-2223). In sum, eight out of the 11 focus groups which devoted at least 1% of their discussion to religious matters were, in fact, from Uzbekistan, and none, apart from the women of Sillamae, were from Estonia. This relative importance of religion figures too into the valuation of independence in Uzbekistan.

Explicit discussion of independence figured prominently especially among the Uzbek men and women from Bukhara, Uzbek men and women from Tashkent, and the Uzbek Ferghana men and women. This was, however, partially an artifact of the mode of the moderators' discussions. In most such focus groups, the moderator asked about changes in the last 3 to 4 years. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note that Uzbeks, and Uzbek men in particular, talked about independence more than did other language groups. Russian men from Kyiv and women from Vinnitsa both spoke a lot about independence, but not in such a positive light as did the people from Uzbekistan. Uzbek women from Tashkent were especially moving in their accounts of the importance of independence. Although they began by emphasizing changes in their family life, they spoke quite sincerely about the importance of changes in the last several years.

Saodat: ... along with independence our religion improved, has become stronger. Many of our Muslim customs are reviving. As a result of embracing Islamic religion there is a strengthening of kindness toward each other.... for example, in comparison to earlier, now people are more hopeful. I think it is connected to this. After independence, our Islamic-ness revived quite a bit more. Our religion is stronger. In comparison to the past, the majority have joined the ranks with religion more, because earlier we knew truth less.. (another person said) It did not suit politics... Saodat: In some sense, it is still done, but from this point of view it had really (affected) me, that our religion did this (that it revived) along with independence.. (to which another adds): Maryam: Along with this, we had another victory, which was that our nationality (nation-ness), that is, the restoration of our Nauruz (March 21 Central Asian New Year holiday). (492-529)

One can also hear the appreciation of independence beyond Tashkent. As one rural Uzbek woman said, the difficulties of the transformation "are nothing compared to the fact that our Homeland is free" (BUW 589-91). An Uzbek man from Bukhara said that it was a good thing that Uzbekistan is independent: "Independent Uzbekistan has its own anthem, flag and national emblem...". But these were often embedded in other concerns. As the same man said, "I want to say that we did become independent, but in the times of the USSR it was quiet, people trusted communists. The Soviet Union had a high authority in the world. Nobody could compare to the USSR by arms..." (p. 11).

In this same focus group, the moderator asked, "You stood for independence as the main improvement. How did it benefit you personally and your family?" And the same man answered,

The main aspect is studies, and, frankly speaking, I have six children. Four of them go to school but I was forced to send the other two after they had finished secondary school to work, because I was not able to provide for their needs neither in clothes nor in footwear. I even cannot provide them with school supplies, because everything is expensive. For instance, 70 per cent of all things are imported from China, we cannot produce it ourselves. If you buy him a pair of boots - they last 10 days, maximum one month. Either the sole falls off, or a clasp breaks... Because products are expensive I had to go to the bazaar to sell fruit, there was no other way out. I work from morning till night, and even wake up in the night to feed sheep. In the morning I go to the field to fetch the sheep’s forage, then I go to the bazaar and sell fruit. What can I do? Only those enrich themselves who can...

It was difficult, then, for some to express their appreciation for independence. Even religion’s restoration was made difficult when economic problems loom so large.(29) While it is certainly true that independence has brought religious freedom and the elevation of national holidays and Uzbek language, it also has been accompanied by economic problems that make life very difficult, especially outside the capital city. We might offer the following hypothesis:

H13: To the extent standard of living remains a dominant discourse, independence stands apart, as an isolated narrative, either celebrated for the non-economic identities it allows, or attacked for the suffering that independence has brought. To the extent it is consequential and produces economic benefit, independence becomes invisible, a given.

Moderator: On whose life did the achievement of independence by Uzbekistan and Karakalpakstan have a good effect? Esemgul: On Karimov's life. MD: Only on Karimov's life? Tell me now. Aiparsha: Independence has not brought good things to the people. But we are not dependent on anybody. Guljan: I have not seen the benefit of independence. We have not gained anything. Jupargul: When Karakalpakstan and Uzbekistan became independent, we were rejoicing, thinking that we will now rule ourselves, and that whatever we think will happen, but our hopes were not realized. Esemgul: Since independence was obtained, we have not been experiencing its benefits. Everything is as before. Raihan: We have not felt the good changes in our lives. Aigul: I have not personally felt the results of achieving independence. Bijamal: Everything is as before. Daulena: When comparing with how it was before, there is no change. MD: Which persons gained from independence? Aiparsha: Persons who are in high places, at good jobs, gained form independence. Their lives are good. Voices: The leaders gained..... Raihan: The merchants benefited from independence... (#319-367, 385-86).

Indeed, Aiparsha said later in the transcript that "we said that independence is good. But we have another opinion inside. It was not good that we were split apart" (1267-70).

(Life) hasn't gotten more complicated. It has improved spiritually.... even materially. I told you I'm a trader. Still it is hard... We are learning, and this is hard physically, psychically, and morally... morally only because I've already lived 45 years and much of that time is lost. Because there was no chance for private property, there was no chance to open my own business, to prove to myself not just for material reasons, but to prove something to myself in life. ... Not only to become a trader, but generally speaking, to open any business, you see, and to have private property, to open a shop. ... To prove to myself what I'm capable of... (1160-1197)

But heartfelt or convincing stories about the significance of independence or freedom were comparatively rare across these groups. Apart from the cases mentioned above, when these concepts of independence or freedom were introduced, they rarely evoked powerful stories about how they were connected to private lives. Further, they were rarely uttered without qualifying their value, either by the same person or by another person. Freedom narratives tended to be more convincing.

Freedom of speech was mentioned occasionally, but across the focus groups the most common invocation of freedom was freedom of choice, especially freedom to choose one’s profession and to carry out one’s work as one sees fit. Consider what one Estonian kindergarten teacher said:

I’m a kindergarten teacher and formerly, we had fixed plans I had to fulfill. We had "potty plans" we had to fill in as to whether they pooped or not. That's just not important. .... We can express our own opinions and put them into practice. I don’t have such strict limits. I'm not so enclosed. If I attend courses somewhere, I can come and use this knowledge immediately. It's not like in April I definitely have to celebrate Lenin's birthday. (270-284).

In contrast to its place in transition culture, however, independence and freedom were rarely treated as the foundation narratives for action, the basic stories that guide images and plans. Instead, they were treated as elements that must somehow be made sensible and incorporated into what people experience everyday. In other words, for most people, to be able to identify an improvement also meant thinking about the problem that accompanies it. As one Russian woman from Kyiv put it:

The changes for the better are very closely tied to the changes for the worse. For example, "freedom of choice in everything." But, what does that mean? I think that women have suffered like no one else. Why? Because women are before all culture, science, art and medicine. You see, all of these professions are filled by women. At the same time, these are the fields that are practically not funded now. (617-27)

Outside of Estonia, it appears that the highly educated in capital cities were most able to articulate the acquisition of independence and freedom with their own lives. Unfortunately, these qualities were conflated in our focus groups so we can't easily pull them apart. It is noticeable, however, that the highly educated of the capital cities, no matter what their living standard, and what their ethnicity, were likely to articulate improvement. A highly educated Kyivan Russian man's unemployment could even be viewed positively, as he responded to what his colleagues had said:

Vladimir 1: The collapse of our former country has released us from many limitations. Remember how it was? You could not get the books that you wanted, you could not get this and that - everything was prohibited. So many masterpieces of art were unavailable! We were robbed by the state. When I got access to all things that were unavailable before, I changed my view on many things. It is a big pity that we live in the transition period. I have a split mind. I am Russian, my parents are in Russia and I am here. Studying literature I forget the problems of my everyday life....

In sum, the focus groups emphasized independence and freedom as the positive aspects of the last 10 years. Even minority Russians could find value in the changes as often, if not more often, than less educated and rural people of titular nationalities. But improvements were hardly the dominant issue. In this sense, the narrative of transition, of the bright, radiant future, is hard to find. People may have praised independence and freedom, but they found it difficult to articulate these improvements with the challenges of their everyday lives. Perhaps one can find it in what one woman from Vinnitsa said, "Our only good thing is that we hope for the better." Or it may be expressed in what others said in Uzbekistan as they invoked one of President Karimov's most important slogans: that we now have hope for the future (480-84).

In the next section of the paper, we shall consider one specific area of inquiry, one not so obviously important in the narratives of the focus groups, but critically so for the global community: ecology.

As we expected, groups from sites of particular ecological destruction were quite likely to spend time discussing the environment, and Ukraine was generally more oriented toward ecological problems than other countries(30) (Table 9). Ivankiv led the list in terms of explicit attention given to environmental issues. Sillamae men devoted somewhat less time to it, while Sillamae women discussed them considerably less, and only when the moderator introduced the issue toward the end of the discussions (women: 3214-3458; men: 2375-3126). Moynak groups devoted a considerable amount of time to environmental discussions, but alongside them, and somewhat to our surprise, Vinnitsa and Ferghana men, but not the women, were relatively concentrated on environmental issues. After these groups, the only groups to mention environmental concerns were from Ukraine, women from Donetsk, Russian men and women from Kyiv, and men and women from Vinnitsa. Below the mean, but still mentioning it were women from Tamsalu, men from Lviv and Donetsk, Russian women and Uzbek men from Tashkent, and Uzbek men from Bukhara. Based on this comparison across sites, we might offer the following hypothesis:

H14: To the extent an area suffers from severe and publicly identified ecological problems, the environment might be an important narrative describing change over the last 10 years.

Chernobyl is clearly the most dramatic environmental problem of the former Soviet Union, and Ivankiv led the focus groups its their attention to the environment. The men and women of Ivankiv were closely connected to the Chernobyl disaster. Some of the women’s husbands died as a consequence of the explosion (867-77).(31) Sadly enough, those who today suffer from the effects of the explosion feel discrimination on that basis (men: 3091-3100, 3140-43). When going to the hospitals, the women said that doctors have given up on them. The doctors treat them as if nothing could help them (1413-44), or as if they are tired of the problem (men: 3127-28). One man said that they were viewed as a source of money, because the treatment for their problems is ongoing (3026-28).

The nuclear disaster also has economic implications. Once a region for sanataria and produce, the area around Chernobyl can no longer support itself economically (men: 2189-94 and 336 women are forced to eat it (988-994, 2200-09). They even eat what are considered the most contaminated items, mushrooms and bilberries, not out of habit, but out of hopelessness (1929-2009). Hopelessness, apparently, is something they can get used to (men: 3057-85).

Moynak is another place of ecological and economic catastrophe. But here, where the environment receives relatively widespread attention, it was not the central theme. Residents of Moynak saw their region as having had its economic infrastructure, which was dependent on the Aral Sea, destroyed. Although some men did identify small improvements in the water supply (400-34), this was during the Soviet period. Discussion of the post-Soviet period was predominantly negative. As one man said, "Today is worse than yesterday. Three years ago the situation was simply better in every way" (750-52). For both women and men, regional matters, the standard of living, salary, and blame were more prominent than ecological issues. Matters concerning the standard of living and salary were both discussed more than those concerning ecology or health.

Surprisingly, however, the economic implications of the ecological catastrophe were hardly mentioned, although the fish processing plant, once dependent on fish from the Aral Sea, must now rely on fish imported from elsewhere (989-92, 595-605).(32) The women expressed clear resentment about this issue. As Aiparsha said, "We have fed and saved so many people (from 1917 onwards), but have we ended up coming to the point where we ourselves are no longer capable of surviving?" (1741-45). Wages are simply not paid. The men tended to blame the enterprise leaders, local authorities (678-79) and Karimov himself (617-23). Merchants, banks, and corruption dominated the discussion of economic problems, as if the ecological catastrophe had little to do with it. Women were more likely to recognize the ecological origins of their problems, emphasizing how others use up the water before it ever gets to them (1189-96).

In both Moynak and Ivankiv, where ecological problems are overwhelming and inescapable, the environmental question emerged as an obvious part of the narrative. But even here, either in terms of narrative or practical work, dealing with the environment is subordinated to economic survival. Women in Ivankiv disregard the health implications of the food they grow and consume. As Olena said, "It is better to die of radiation than of hunger" (2208-09). In Moynak, pure water is directed toward fish production at the factory, not for the consumption of children at home. But evidence of the dominance of the economic narrative is even more apparent in places where the ecological has not yet reached crisis proportions, as in Estonia.

The women of Sillamae knew of radiation problems, but they didn't think about them in the context of their daily lives. They had so many other problems, and were so hopeless, that environmental issues were the least of their concerns. Indeed, employment and economic issues are were overwhelmingly important that the focus group participants viewed the Soviet past with approval, even in terms of environmental degradation. They recalled that hazardous jobs in the factories paid higher salaries to compensate for the health risk. But now there are no such preferential wages, and life conditions are so bad that early death is not so horrible. As Elena said, "at the present moment, we aren’t too worried about it (the environmental problems), because there’s not much difference between being alive and dead" (3442-3444). On the basis of these transcripts, one might propose the following:

H15: Economic problems diminish the relative significance of environmental concerns.

To some degree, this generalization can be appreciated in the comparison between the men's and women's groups of Sillamae (Table 12). The men were not nearly so pessimistic in general, and indeed, some of them seemed to be aware of, and engaged with, the environmental problems of the area. They were not as negative as the women about the environment. They even felt like the environment is "cleaner" now that they have stopped reprocessing uranium (3079-3162).

Still, the men did note a couple problems: they sit on a uranium lode and the radioactivity from it, especially in the exposed oil shale areas, is a problem (but some wondered whether the radioactivity form the sun was worse (2893-2948)!) Another more potentially disastrous problem is the storage of "tailings" -- waste from uranium processing. In fact, it is a point of concern across the Baltic Sea region. People from Sweden, the Netherlands and other countries have expressed their concern and have offered support and advice. But the focus group participants were not particularly well informed or even concerned about these issues as they might be (2403-47).

These men also lamented that "public opinion isn't considered in anything" and that "they’re (the authorities) used to telling us fairy tales and they go right on telling them" (2552-53, 2655-56). Nevertheless, these men seemed relatively comfortable with their environmental situation, noting that things were even worse in Kohtla-Jarve (2495-2511). One man commented, however, that the local officials in Kohtla-Jarve were more open and concerned with environmental problems, while in Sillamae there is a kind of silence, where people are passive and the authorities take no initiative (2638-2669). One person said that the issues won’t ever be dealt with adequately until the tailings "blow up" (2869-70).

Indeed, ecological catastrophe did provide some benefits. Some of the Ukrainian men had purposely taken dangerous jobs working in Chernobyl itself. The wages are were, and like those in Sillamae during Soviet times, some saw the tradeoff of their health for good wages as a fair deal. In general, the economic crisis can even lead some people to see ecological catastrophe or problems as a source of salvation, whether on an individual level with the prospect for good jobs or subsidies, or on a collective level, when they provide opportunities for employment where no others may exist. One could imagine a particularly perverse logic that would find an explosion of Sillamae's tailings appealing for those who are so hopeless that they could imagine no other jobs other than as "liquidators," responsible for cleaning up after the disaster. This awful logic is much more imaginable among the men than the women because of the relative importance of children's health for women.

The environment was engaged in at least two analytically distinct ways. On the one hand, threats to the environment could be analyzed and understood in a theoretical sense, as in the potential danger to the environment, the economy and overall well being. On the other hand, one could examine the environment in terms of its immediate impact on well being, most notably on health. We can see important gender differences between these groups when it comes to the environment. Although one couldn't predict which group was more likely to discuss the environment, it is relatively clear that women were more likely to focus on the effects on health. Hence the following hypothesis:

H16: Women, given their greater responsibility for taking care of the family, are more likely to interpret the problems of the environment through the lens of health, especially the health of children.

Perhaps because of the traditional gendered division of labor in which women are more responsible for home life than are men, women focused more on health care for the entire family.(33) In Moynak, men discussed employment about the same amount of time as health, while women were more likely to discuss health concerns. (Table 11). In Moynak, men spoke about health in more general and sensational ways, emphasizing, for instance, how despair is leading to death by hunger, suicide and self-immolation (802-12, 859-97), and in more practical ways only after a prompt by the moderator (1110-56, 1183-1292). Women offered earlier in the discussion and more spontaneously that one must pay for medicines and other dimensions of hospital care (e.g. 1059-79). They more readily mentioned the problem of obtaining purified clean water, and noted that those who work in the fish factory can take factory pure water home in flasks or buckets (1096-99). They spoke more specifically about the kinds of problems people have: internal diseases, hepatitis, diseases of the stomach, kidney and liver. They especially discussed anemia among women (1207-53), a condition the men also mentioned as afflicting women (1371-86). Indeed, each person in the woman’s group said that women are having a more difficult time than men (1593-1686). While less emphatic, the men said so too (1343-86). The only dimension of health care that the men mentioned and women did not was the loss of sanitariums in Tashkent to which they formerly went to be cured (1204-09).

Health is obviously very important in Ivankiv and Sillamae too, as the lens through which the environment is interpreted. In Ivankiv and Sillamae, women talked about health more than the environment, while men talked more about solutions. In Ivankiv, the men emphasized increases in cancer, bone problems and eye problems (1243-55). Both groups mentioned the suffering of children among their concerns (men: 3019-20), but the women were especially emphatic. They said that 95-96% of the children are sick (2112); blood problems, high cholesterol, thyroid problems and distonia, stomach and liver problems were specifically mentioned (2129-33, 2091-2103, 900-01). The women of Sillamae focused on drugs and the dangers to children's health, while the men hardly touched on it at all.

In contrast to these other groups, in both Ferghana and Vinnitsa, it was the men who devoted far more attention to the environment and especially to health (Tables 13 and 14). In Ferghana, women spent only about 8% of their transcript talking about health, and no time at all regarding the environment. In Vinnitsa, women were particularly negative, as in Sillamae, but they focused far more on the standard of living and not as much on health concerns. The men from Vinnitsa also downplayed health questions.

Among both the Ferghana and Vinnitsa men, the environment was mentioned in its own right. In Ferghana, there is chemical pollution (844-50) from the factories which is exacerbated by the way in which air currents circulate in the Ferghana Valley. Polluted water was also mentioned (1208-78), but here, rather than the authorities, the irresponsible behavior of the people was blamed (1834-44, 1926-33, 1051-59). The health question, however, was insinuated deeply in this discussion. One man attributed not only a decreases in the size of grapes, but also lung disease and hepatitis to ecological problems (1208-1230). On one level, factories should not be built in these difficult locations, and on the other, people should not wash their hands in the polluted canals (1900-1917). But clearly these men were calling for more supervision and stricter regulation of pollution (2018-27). Further, the health question goes beyond pollution into a very familiar theme: the inadequacy of supplies. The reasons for this are also familiar: corruption. Corruption which may or may not result from the inadequacy of medical staff salaries (2189-2315, 2365-2536).

Following the moderator's prompt (2301-2678), the men from Vinnitsa also discussed the Chernobyl crisis but they spent most of their time on local environmental problems. They focused especially on the chemical problems resulting from pesticide use and water pollution as a consequence of sewage seeping into the rivers. In some ways, conditions are better today because they no longer have the money to buy the amount of pesticides they used to use. But while some varieties of mushrooms have returned to the forest and the men might breathe a bit easier as they work, there are now so many pests that they are overwhelming their crops. What's more, oil has accumulated so much poison that one could not switch from growing apples to planting grain. Economic and ecological problems are interlaced.

Solutions to the ecological crisis, given its complexity, were not easily forthcoming. There were, however, some surprising indications of empowerment to deal with the issue. As other groups if not more so, the Moynak groups blamed their local and even national authorities for their condition. It was, though, surprising to see how much of their discussions are devoted to "solutions." To a greater degree than other participants, residents of Moynak could identify elders who speak on their behalf (the men: 924-71, and the women: 670-88). Moynak women also were inclined to protest themselves. They mentioned women writing petitions to the local authorities to "inform (them of) the needs of the people" (530-42). But beyond this, the discussion of solutions was layered with blame, even of international agencies.

The people of Moynak discussed quite openly how much attention their ecological plight has received from "developed countries." But they plainly asked, "Where is their help?" (1116-9; see also 1807-83). Indeed, the West has even contributed to the sense of hopelessness in Ukraine as well. One man from Ivankiv said,

The West gives nothing but rhetoric. If they would help us, good. Then we would close one of the nuclear power stations and we would construct another on the basis of what is there. They don't help us because they don’t need a strong Ukraine. They only want a territory (3909-3916).

On the other hand, in Sillamae the problem does not lie in the West. The men in particular could identify several international actors who have expressed concern and interest in the region. The blame for failing to take advantage of this international interest lies rather in the populace which is too passive about elections, and those elected who don’t know how to take steps to deal with the issue as those in Kohtle-Jarve do.

Thus, blame for taking action can lie in several places, but in no case has independence brought more hope. The people of Moynak, in fact, ultimately blamed independence for their problems. As Aiparsha said,

Before (independence), we were like the fingers on one hand, there was unity of opinion... If we come to the problem of the Aral, Uzbeks, Turkmens, they take the water they need, and we who live at the end of the rivers have no water left for us. Achieving independence will turn out to be good, along with having self-determination for ourselves. But inside we think this is not right. Our previous life was good indeed. (1271-73, 1280-89).

For the people of Ivankiv, independence has not brought benefits for the victims of Chernobyl. It has brought only delays in the provision of salaries and subsidies (1089-99). During Soviet times, the subsidies were apparently meaningful. Pure food was brought in and compensation was valued. Now, neither pure food (men: 3063-69; women: 1142-45) nor enough compensation is provided (men: 3527-3554; women: 1032-50). Finally, in Sillamae the virtues of independence are, of course, nil apart from the fact that the economic crisis has ended the reprocessing of uranium.(34) Much the same can be said for the men of Vinnitsa.

The ecological crisis is overwhelming and is especially evident in the health of the people. It also affects the economy, but the linkage there is muddied by the perception of corruption of the authorities. Unlike participants in the other focus groups, however, the people of Moynak had hope: in their own elders, in their capacity to protest. They did not, however, have hope in foreigners. Too many foreigners had come, and too few results had been obtained. The people of Ivankiv had no hope at all, and the people of Sillamae had only a little more than that. In general, one might offer the following hypothesis:

H17: Discussions of ecological problems are unlikely to find any solutions in independence, and where the West has been present and has done little to improve not only environmental but also economic problems, alienation from the West and from the independent state are likely to combine and produce even greater feelings of dissatisfaction.

In sum, environmental problems were not the central concerns of post-Soviet times. Even in those places where there have been ecological catastrophes of one sort or another, economic concerns -- in Sillamae organized around employment, and in Ivankiv or Moynak around standard of living -- overwhelmed environmental and health themes. Indeed, in all of these places, men, women and children appear to undertake even more dangerous behaviors due to their economic anxieties. Whether by eating contaminated produce, drinking contaminated water, or not even caring whether radiation is poisoning them at all, their desperation is apparent.

Health issues were a way, however, of focusing attention on the environment. But even here, because of other problems associated with health care -- either the shortages of medicines, the dispositions of health care personnel or even the irresponsibility or corruption of local authorities themselves -- addressing the ecological problem must simultaneously address problems in health care delivery. Without addressing those issues, people simply become resigned to their own fate to suffer the effects of both ecological and economic catastrophe. Women seem to bear more responsibility in this problem. Their disproportionate responsibility for the family means that the health of their family, and especially of their children, is foremost on their minds. But even this additional concern cannot overcome the feelings of despair that many of these women experience.

Some were still motivated to act. Religion provided some Sillamae women with one means of coping with the despair. Moynak men and women still trusted some of their elders to challenge the authorities on their behalf. Ukrainian men and women articulated fewer compelling solutions to their problems. Perhaps their own despair was more deeply grounded, since, unlike the people of Moynak, they could not move away from their own radiation poisoning in Ivankiv, or their polluted soil in Vinnitsa.

Only in Sillamae was help from the West seen as a partial solution. But residents of Sillamae also saw that the West's help went directly to the enterprises and never reached the people. It may be only a matter of time before the people of Sillamae acquire the distrust for the West that is already apparent in Ukraine and Uzbekistan. To the extent the West commits itself, and fails to come though with perceived solutions, it multiplies the sense of hopelessness and the magnitude of the problem.