Twenty-five years ago this month, the five Central Asian states were cut off from the Soviet Union and forced to stand on their own. It was a shock to their systems.
In the turmoil that saw the break-up of the Union and all 15 of the Soviet republics regain their independence, the five Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were reluctant participants.
On a freezing night in December 1991, I stood on the tarmac of Ashkhabad airport in Turkmenistan as plane after plane carrying the CA heads of state and their delegations landed. The motley Turkmen band, their fingers frozen, struck up the new national anthems as scowling presidents shook hands with their hosts.
The big story was in Moscow but although this scene was no less fascinating and historic, i was the only international correspondent monitoring the events here, from the perspective of Central Asia.
A few days earlier, on December 8 1991, Russia’s president, Boris Yeltsin, had signed a treaty with the those of Belarus and Ukraine formally disbanding the Soviet Union and creating a new Commonwealth of Independent States. Nobody had asked the CA leaders if they wanted to join. They had been abandoned by their overlord, Russia.