Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 12:02:47 -0400
From: Gordon Fitch <gcf-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Kazakhstan


Police get tough with the hobbit-lovers of Kazakhstan

By Patrick Cockburn in Moscow

29 July 2001

People who dress up as hobbits have become the latest
victims of a police crackdown on unconventional lifestyles
in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan.

J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is very popular in the
countries of the former Soviet Union, where thousands of
fans dress up and re-enact scenes from the book. But this
innocent if dotty pursuit is seen as subversive by the
notoriously brutal police in Almaty, the former capital of
Kazakhstan. It is part of a wider drive against those whom
the police suspect of enjoying "bohemian" lifestyles.

"We are perfectly legal," said Vitaly, a so-called
"Tolkienist". "In fact we spend most of our time in the
mountains. We only hold conventions in the city twice a
year. It's our lifestyle. The police don't like it, but we
aren't going to stop. It's our entire life."

The London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting
(IWPR) says that, besides Tolkienists, people detained
include buskers, "alternative artists", gays and lesbians,
anarchists, hippies, punks and members of dissident
religious sects, many of whom complain that they have been
systematically tortured.

Alexander, the leader of a punk-rock band in Almaty, said he
was held for two days in a so-called "water tank". This is a
method commonly used by the police to extract confessions.
"They put the person arrested in a narrow cell about 4ft 6in
high, and half fill it with cold water. You cannot stand up
straight because the ceiling is too low, and you are unable
to sit down because you will be under water so you have to
crouch all the time."

Tolkien's writings have been widely read in the former
Soviet Union ever since he was first translated in about
1988 during perestroika. They reached a peak of popularity
in the mid-Nineties.

Several hundred Tolkienists gather in Moscow on Thursday
evenings in summer in Neskuchny Park overlooking the Moskva
river. One enthusiast, Askar Tuganbaev, a computer salesman,
said: "In Yekaterinburg [in the Urals] they even built a
fortress and fought a battle a couple of years ago with
everybody dressed up."

Mr Tuganbaev says the police in Russia are tolerant of the
Tolkienists and it is only in Kazakhstan that they are
accused of "being Satanists and conducting dark rituals". 

-- 
Dan Clore
mailto:clore-AT-columbia-center.org

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