Author: billkralovec

I recently finished Anne Applebaum’s “Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World”. It was recommended by one of the Books of the Year by The Economist. An Autocracy is a government in which a head of state and government hold absolute power. The autocratic governments featured in the book are Russia (Vladimir Putin), China (Xi Jinping), Venezuela (Nicolas Maduro), the Islamic Republic of Iran (Ali Khamenei), and North Korea (Kim Jong Un), and the basic premise is they cooperate to help them hold onto power and wealth in their respective countries and undermine democratic and liberal countries.

The book made an impression on me. I knew most of what she wrote about. I have lived in autocratic countries for almost 12 years of my life and I understand them well. Applebaum framed it into a conceptual framework that helped me see the big picture. It is not a long book, but it changed my lens on how I view global politics. I highly recommend it. Below are some of the ideas I will be taking away from the book.

I like how she put it that even though these countries do not have much in common, they are bound by a “single-minded determination to preserve their personal wealth and power.” They are together against “the West”, the USA, NATO, EU and “their own internal democratic opponents and the liberal ideas that inspire all of them” She defines the West as having the following characteristics:

• the notion that the law is a neutral force, not subject to the whims of politics;
• that courts and judges should be independent;
• that political opposition is legitimate;
• that the rights to speech and assembly can be guaranteed;
• that there can be independent journalists, writers, and thinkers who are capable of being critical of the ruling party or leader while at the same time remaining loyal to the state.
• there is a set of universal human rights and in practice, a collection of documents and treaties collectively known as the “rules-based order” on how the world ought to work.

It was shocking to read that when Russia invaded Ukraine, they arrested “public officials and civic leaders; mayors, police officers, civil servants, school directors (me), journalists, artists, museum curators, etc. Those are the kind of people in a society that champion the ideas above.

“Everyone assumed that in a more open, interconnected world, democracy, and liberal ideas would spread to the autocratic states. Nobody imagined that autocracy and illiberalism would spread to the democratic world instead.”

Autocratic governments use the dark global financial system to hide assets and launder money. For example, three-quarters of the $80 billion value of Rosneft, a Russian petroleum company, was built on stolen assets from the state. Western financial organizations earn profits from the sale of stocks in these types of companies.

“One in five condos in Trump-owned or Trump-branded buildings is owned anonymously.”

She reminded me that China absorbed all of the technology of Western companies, before banning them and pushing them out. Google left in 2010, Facebook was banned in 2009, Instagram in 2014. Even Tik Tok is banned in China!

China, Russia and other autocratic governments use internet trolls to disseminate misinformation and weaken democratic governments. They will use any ideology and things like medical conspiracies, moral panic, etc. in hopes to rewrite the international system itself. Autocratic governments use smear campaigns to defeat internal liberal opponents.

China is trying to remove the language of human rights and democracy from the international institutions that were formed in the aftermath of World War II. China prefers language like “the right to development” and they rely heavily on the word “sovereignty”. This basically means leave our autocracy alone so we can rule how we please. The President of Iran visited Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to show the world to stand up to “imperialism and unilateralism” but what he meant, according to Applebaum, was “to solidify their opposition to democracy and universal rights.”

Applebaum in the last chapter gives advice on how people can fight back against illiberalism. It is not a fight against any of these individual countries or governments, but a fight against autocratic behaviors. Networks of lawyers and public officials inside our own countries are needed to cooperate with democratic activists who understand kleptocracy the best.

“You have bad roads and bad health care, Navalny told Russians, because they have vineyards and oyster farms.”

It is quiet here without the boys visiting. They headed back to the US. Oliver sent us this photo of him in his military uniform. He is taking a Military Science class at his university. They have physical training three times per week and on some weekends they do military exercises. Unfortunately, many of the morning trainings are taking place in northern Wisconsin. I see it is -7C and snowing in Green Bay as I write this post. “Olympic Village” of sports facilities east of the city. I peeked through the fencing to see the progress they are making. The goal was to have it ready for the Asian Youth Games in September, but those have been moved to Qatar. I am looking forward to it being completed. The article I linked it to mentions a 10,000-seat soccer stadium, velodrome!!!!, hockey arena, running track, etc.

There is no snow in the city, only the mountains. I took the photo below of the Papa Run at the Amirsoy resort when I chaperoned a ski trip with the students. It did snow this week but quickly melted with sunny skies and spring-like temperatures in the afternoon.

We are enjoying our Ski Break long weekend in Tashkent. We are at the halfway point between the end of Winter Break and the start of Spring Break, so it comes at a good time.

We started the break by attending the classic Italian opera, The Elixir of Love at the State Academic Bolshoi Theatre of Uzbekistan Named after Alisher Navoi. The Russians value the fine arts and built a beautiful opera house theatre dating back to the 1930s. The Uzbeks have maintained the building after independence and I saw there is another renovation project taking place on the facade. It could use a renovation inside as well, the men’s bathrooms smelled horribly and the old tiled flooring has seen better days. However, it is a gorgeous venue, and because it is subsidized by the government, it is inexpensive to attend. There is something to be said to see a live full orchestra and hundreds of singers, actors, and crew perform and only pay around $10. The story itself was a bit silly, but the costumes and performances were awesome. They had both Russian and English subtitles which made it even better! We could follow along the story. We had reservations for a Japanese restaurant that was recommended to us by someone from the Japanese Embassy so we left at intermission.

Nadia and I stopped to check out the new shopping mall (Alfraganus) that is nearing completion near our house. There are only a few stores open as construction is taking place. We liked the new Korzinka supermarket and the layout of the outdoor mall. It is nothing special, but nice to have another shopping option close by. The city is growing so rapidly that a major project like this is just another development among literally hundreds of construction projects taking place.

Besides resting and enjoying some well-deserved leisure time, we are also getting organized. We are buying flights for the summer, getting documents for Nadia’s Green Card application, etc. Below is a photo of Nadia and Obi after we visited the Japanese Embassy. We took the little guy for a walk after waiting patiently in the car for us.

London is one of the great cities of the world. As the capital of the largest empire in history, London was the center of the world for a long time. I think about the Industrial Revolution and all of the great scientists, explorers, authors, musicians, etc. who called the city home. Amazing! The city oozes history and there are so many iconic sights to take in. I’ve been lucky that one of the biggest international school recruitment fairs is in London, so this was my third visit. Every time I visit, I see another facet of London and I’ve only scratched the surface.

London’s importance in the world has slowly declined along with the British Empire. City officials and UK leadership have been desperate to keep it an international financial hub, but other cities and regions of the world are taking over. It felt a little bit like a museum when we exited the underground at Trafalgar Square. It was mostly tourists and comparable to Times Square in New York. There is still a lot of wealth in London, but it dropped to number 5 in the world. The UK leaving the European Union didn’t help and banks and investment firms welcomed investments from dodgy clients (ex – Russian oligarchs), it hollowed out the city in recent years.

We had time to kill before our flights after the fair so we visited the British Museum. I like to call it “The Loot We Stole While We Ruled the World” Museum. Like the Metropolitan Museum in New York, you could spend days taking in the different eras of history. It was amazing to see in person the Rosetta Stone, Roman and Greek statues and friezes, Egyptian mummies, etc. Having all these relics in one place gives one a sense of the span of world history.

The best part of this visit was to share it with my son Oliver! We had a great time together and it was cool to combine work with family. He was very helpful at the job fair and is old enough to take care of himself. It gave me great pleasure to take him to the home of the English Premier League, a dream trip for him. It is the cycle of life and seeing the world through a young man’s eyes is always special for me. I won’t see him until May when we go to his brother’s graduation.

This is my third visit to one of the world’s great cities, London. I was there for teacher recruitment and found some time in the evenings and early mornings to explore the city. I stayed at Bailey’s Hotel in the South Kensington district of London. It is just west of the center of London and one of the most affluent sections of the city. It borders Chelsea and Fulham, two other upscale districts. I loved walking around the streets in the evenings.

Late on Saturday evening in an attempt to stay awake (London is 5 hours ahead of Tashkent) I walked from my hotel directly south through Chelsea to the Thames River. The Albert Bridge looked beautiful lit up and reflecting on the water. The bridge was designed and built in 1873 in the style of the Ordish-Lefeuvre system, an early form of a cable stay bridge. It differs from a regular suspension bridge by having thinner cables, called “stays” instead of thicker cables. The engineer Rowan Ordish won the commission to design and build the bridge in 1864. the project ran into a lot of delays. The bridge was deemed structurally unsound in 1887 and some thicker suspension bridge cables were added. In 1973 two concrete piers were also added in the style of a “beam bridge”. The three styles, Ordish-Lefeuvre, Suspension, and Beam in one bridge make it unique. Ordish was not a successful engineer as the only other bridge he designed in that style, the Franz Joseph Bridge in Prague, was demolished in the 1950s because of overuse during World War II. The Albert Bridge is the only Ordish-Lefeuvre bridge left.

Oliver and I also visited Craven Cottage, home of Fulham Football Club. Fulham is my Premier League team, thanks to Damian Hart, my old friend, who picked them as my team when I asked him to match a football club with my personality. He made a great choice. It is a beautiful stadium near Bishop’s Park along the Thames River. It only seats 29,589, making it one of the smallest stadiums in the league. We didn’t have time to do a tour, but did stop at the gift shop, talked to one of the employees who run tours, and walked around the stadium. Jacksonville Jaguars billionaire owner Shahid Khan owns the team and is renovating the stadium on the “Riverside” to include a hotel with an infinity pool. It is just a nice area and they have done a good job of keeping the historic look of the stadium. Oliver the next day did the Chelsea Stamford Bridge Stadium tour so I am glad he got to see inside one of the stadiums. He is a big Premier League fan and follows Manchester United passionately.

Across the street from our hotel was the Stanhope Arms, a classic British pub. Of course we had to have the Sunday Roast (Steak Ale Pie), Fish n’ Chips, and sampled the many different beers. I see why the idea of a British pub is replicated around the world. It is such a cozy and convivial atmosphere. The building dates back to 1869 and is named after the “road terrace” it was built on. A bit expensive, however, and not something I would do on a regular basis, but it was great to enjoy the experience with Oliver.

I listened to the audiobook “The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky” by journalist Simon Shuster over the past few weeks. The book is a good biography of Zelensky, a history of the USSR and Ukraine, and a description of the most recent war between Russia and Ukraine.

Zelensky was born to middle-class parents in a small industrial city in south-central Ukraine (Kryvyi Rih). His dad was a mining engineer and worked for years in Mongolia while the family was back in Ukraine. His parents wanted him to go into a career in science and engineering as well, but Zelensky was a gifted comedian and entertainer and after seeing the maximum life his father lived at the top of his field, decided that engineering was not for him. He would never be as good as his father working in the technical aspects of the mining industry. It was a good choice because he ended up being a big star in the Russian-speaking world, hosting variety and talk shows, producing and starring in sitcoms, and being a great comedian, both stand-up and sketch comedy. His best project was a Saturday Night Live type of show.

He was a huge celebrity with a lucrative career and could have continued in that vein. However, he was upset at the Russian incursions into Ukraine and quit the large Russian market, downsizing to only appear on Ukrainian television on principle. He lost a lot of friends and money with this decision, but couldn’t justify working in Russia when the country was attacking Ukraine. Eventually, he got into politics and won the presidential elections, right before Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. Surprising the Russians and some experts, he did not flee into exile and has been an outstanding war-time president for the country. The book describes his life in the bunker, commanding the war efforts with his top generals and advisors.

USSR/Russia has treated Ukraine poorly through the years. The book puts it into perspective starting with Stalin causing widespread famine in the 1930s. Between 6 and 9 million Soviet citizens died of starvation because of Stalin’s policies of breaking up agriculture and turning them into factories instead. Many Ukrainians died or barely survived between the years of the famine between 1930 and 1933. Next, World War II was an absolute tragedy and disaster for Ukrainians. Around 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews were murdered and between 5 and 7 million Ukrainians died during the war as Ukraine was in the center of the battles between the Germans and the Russians. Another million or so died from malnutrition after the war and until agricultural production could come back to pre-war levels in the 1960s. That is some pretty serious post-traumatic stress disorder for a country.

In post-Soviet Russia, the Russian government continued to interfere with Ukrainian affairs. Russia influenced and supported pro-Russian candidates and parties as Ukrainians decided to move towards the EU or stay in the Russian sphere of influence. Russian operatives and initiatives destabilized the country during the two major revolutions to topple Putin’s government officials. Russia also annexed the Crimean Peninsula and several Russian-majority border regions. The latest interference was the invasion of 2022.

One of the chapters details the war crimes that took place in the resort town of Bucha. The undisciplined behavior of Russian troops there was horrible and I watched a couple of documentaries about this part of the war. The murder of civilians, rape, pillaging, etc. is beyond words. I had not heard of these events and it reminded me of the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

I had a wonderful day traveling with my son Oliver. He is in university and is on Winter Break visiting us in Tashkent. Thankfully, St. Norbert College does not begin until January 27 so he is still staying with us. When I asked him if he wanted to come to London with me, he jumped at the chance. He is a huge Premier League Football fan and it has always been a dream of his to visit the city. He is planning to visit some of the famous football stadiums including my favorite team, Fulham FC, and Chelsea. 

It was so pleasurable to hang out with him for the day. It is strange to be with him in airports as an adult. We were remembering all those years of traveling together when he was a child. I don’t need to carry his passport and he is not hanging off my carry-on on the way to the gate. 🙂 

The flight from Tashkent to Istanbul was five hours. We were delayed in boarding the flight because the computers were down at Turkish Airlines. The gate desk employee had to write the information on the boarding pass. It reminded me of flying in the early 1990s when all of the boarding passes were like that. Oliver recommended a stop at Shake Shack, the US burger chain while we were waiting for our connecting flight in Istanbul. It was a good call. The burger and shake really hit the spot! I fly a lot through Istanbul and am familiar with all the restaurants and shops. They charge excessive prices which is unfair.

Overall a great day with my son! Sneaking in a precious few days with him as he was on his way to independence was special. 

It was an unusual week for me. Last weekend I came down with a fever and missed school on Monday. I was diagnosed with influenza (no COVID!) from my low-grade fever, muscle aches, headache, and cough. I felt better by Tuesday and was in the mountains for three days. Due to a postponement from last week, I ended up chaperoning two student ski trips and one day of exploring possible mountain campus sites for the school. I am thankful that I got a flu vaccine this year and was able to recover relatively quickly. I am also thankful to get the week to be in the great outdoors, surrounded by snow, mountains, and fresh air. It is so nice to have the mountains be easily accessible from Tashkent. Air quality in the city during winter at times can be poor, but the elevated land of Chimgan Mountains is always fresh.

Skiing with the students is not the same as just going up with my family. It is rewarding to teach young people to ski and develop self-confidence to make it down the mountain by themselves. I joked I felt like Matt Damon in the movie Martian, continually solving problems (adjusting bindings, collecting poles, tightening boots, finding lift tickets, etc.) to keep students upright and moving in the right direction. We had one sunny day and one foggy day at the Amirsoy Resort, and a morning of gorgeous, fluffy snow on the exploratory walk. A great week of the TIS Adventure Program!

I finished off the week with a retirement dinner for a good friend of ours followed by a visit to The Bani, the Russian “banya” (spa) to warm up! It was a nice way to end January!

I enjoyed reading the science fiction 2023 novel by Samantha Harvey while on the long flights to London last week. It is the story of six astronauts in orbit 250 miles above the Earth for 9 months. There are two Russians, four Westerners (Japanese, American, British, Italian) – four men and two women. They are in one of the international space stations and on a routine mission. The goal is to study the effects of long-term space travel on humans. The astronauts are also tending to experiments in the station and observing the earth and its atmosphere. They see many sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours as they hurtle through orbit at 17,500 miles/hour. They complete 16 orbits in 24 hours. 

It was a good book to read on a plane. I felt a bit like them. Trapped in a small living space with others, not for nine months, but for five hours (Tashkent to Istanbul). There are the same problems, how to dispose of waste, dealing with medical emergencies, controlling your emotions when the woman in front of you is leaning fully back in her seat and you can barely have enough space to write this blog post. I understand the tight margins of the airline business, but what would it take to take out a few rows of seats and make the flight more pleasant for everyone. 

I didn’t know how a lack of gravity harms the human body. The astronauts need to exercise every day to keep their muscles from wasting away. Without resistance, the muscles turn to jelly. Astronauts also suffer from “space headaches”. I get a lot of headaches when I fly, and I am never sure why. I read it was from dehydration. In microgravity, arteries thicken and stiffen and the muscles of the heart weaken. Six months in space ages a person 5 to 10 years. Bones deteriorate, vision weakens, etc. I guess the only long-term impact I’ll have from this flight is perhaps catching a cold. You can hear coughs, up and down the plane. One positive impact of space is for older people, joint pain goes away and it makes them feel young again. Without gravity providing resistance in the joints, there is no pain.

It is funny that you would think that astronauts would live a life of adventure and exploration, but most of the time, they are in cramped spaces and doing routine tasks to keep humans alive in such a harsh environment. The knowledge gained from the six astronauts in the space station will inform scientists how to keep humans alive and well on longer missions. In the novel, a ship carrying four astronauts is on its way to the moon for a landing mission. It is cool that today, there is always at least one human off Earth in orbit. I see in the near future humans developing permanent colonies/stations on the moon and Mars. I hope this happens in my lifetime.

The astronauts see huge natural phenomena from a different perspective. The Northern Lights are towers of light 200 kilometers high. In the book, they are photographing a Category 5 typhoon heading towards the Philippines. Harvey mixes in space exploration history, astronauts’ memories of their lives on Earth, interactions between them, and interesting facets of life in the space station. I think she spent a bit too much time describing what the astronauts were seeing of the globe from their windows. Yes, it was poetic and majestic and gave her ideas to riff on for chapters, but after a while, for someone who is knowledgeable about geography, it did get a bit repetitive. 

The author mentions the famous Apollo 11 photo taken by Michael Collins (above). The photo shows the lunar module carrying Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and just beyond the moon, the earth, a blue half-sphere appearing as the moon does to us. It is the only photo of all of humankind, except for one person, Collins, who took the photo. He also spent time on the backside of the moon, being the only human on that side with the infinity of space beyond. It is crazy how precarious life is on Earth, a relatively thin atmosphere surrounding the surface that sustains us with everything else in space having no life. I never thought much about the photo, but it is amazing!

Overall it was a good read and not too long of a book. She might have had some stuff happen out of the ordinary, but I guess it was realistic fiction in that it was a routine flight. It made me want to go back and learn more about the history of moon landing and early NASA space flights.

Thursday evening we took our middle son to the Tashkent Airport to see him off. He flew back to DePere, Wisconsin to start his second semester at St. Norbert College. It is always sad when our adult children leave us after a holiday break. This is the next stage of parenthood, supporting them from afar as they make their way through university.

It seems like every time we go to the airport, something has changed. The departures terminal was renovated, and it is so much more spacious and modern. Officials put in a reception area on the ground floor and check-in desks on the second floor. Passengers can take escalators, elevators, or stairs on both sides. There were only two flights departing and mid-January not being high travel season, it was very easy to get him to the immigration desk. People can also enter the terminal building without showing a passport and getting by a soldier. This is another example of the modernization of the country.

Oliver was quite melancholy about leaving the family nest. He had it nice here with his own bedroom, a full refrigerator, his mother cooking delicious meals and fawning over him, and no responsibilities. Ollie is not looking forward to ROTC morning training three times a week in the bitter Wisconsin winter! I make it a point to treat the kids well when they visit, so they are more inclined to visit us in the future. We won’t see him in person until Owen’s graduation in May.

We also had a very light snowfall this week. Temperatures have routinely been below zero Celcius in the mornings but it warms up slightly during the sunny afternoons. I took our dog Obi for a late evening walk as I was getting over jet lag from my recruiting trip to London (five hours’ time difference).