Comments on: Ferghana.Ru Costs More Than Porno

By: Igor M.Shenblyat

Igor M.Shenblyat — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 01:57:40 +0000

No Comments

By: robert

robert — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 14:15:45 +0000

You folks in the States may be interested in a
little known fact about the police state of Uzbekistan. The local banks have no money. Government decides on a day to day basics to stop the buying and selling of local currency.
A political decision to keep people here poor.

By: …My heart’s in Accra » Porn x 2 = Politics

…My heart’s in Accra » Porn x 2 = Politics — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 21:30:40 +0000

[...] w.registan.net/”>Registan, found through yesterday’s Global Voices roundup – the fines for viewing political sites in Uzbek internet cafes are twice as high as the fines for viewing porn. At [...]

By: Matt W.

Matt W. — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 05:59:42 +0000

Yeah– This is good news for the black market in Tashkent — for those who put a premium on convenience, buying so’ms at a worse-than-official rate is suddenly looking more attractive. As of Wednesday, one could buy for 1050 — losing .05 to the dollar, but saving on the time and taxi fare it would take to drive around town to find so’ms. For over a year the black market so’m rate has been almost identical to the official rate (in Tashkent– Valley is somewhat different) and now it looks as though they are back in business, at least in the short-term until those Andijon pensions and military salaries get paid.

By: Global Voices Online»Blog Archive » Thursday Global Blog Roundup

Global Voices Online»Blog Archive » Thursday Global Blog Roundup — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 23:07:45 +0000

[...] e Tashkent, and it looks like the Peace Corps may be evacuating soon, as well; and second, internet cafe fines for viewing political websites are higher than fines for looking at porn in Tashkent. Photo [...]

By: david_walther

david_walther — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 16:48:28 +0000

peter—

the so’m is as “resilant” as the central bank wants it to be—the value is not set by the market.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 10:47:13 +0000

Oh, and here’s an interesting piece by Christopher Hitchens on a topic argued exhaustively on your site;

http://www.slate.com/id/2120004/

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 09:04:58 +0000

Well, I’m writing this from an Internet cafe in Tashkent and there seem to be no limitations on content viewing. The fine described above sounds like a money-making scheme more than anything. The computer I am at now has blocked access to ferghana.ru, though I can still look at IWPR, Eurasianet, and the BBC (which is still sometimes blocked in some places in the city).
Interestingly, these limitations were almost inexistent in Bukhara, where I was last week. You could read anything you wanted in all of the Internet cafes I visited there, and I went to a fair number.
As for the som, the currency seems remarkably resilient considering its historic form and the recent troubles. It is no more erratic in the downward trend than the ruble is in the upward direction. As it happens, the most serious problem with soms is finding the damned things. Yesterday alone I went to eight exchange bureaus and two banks, all “bez somov”.

By: david_walther

david_walther — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 08:07:27 +0000

great post, laurence, this is a real gem.

nathan, the rates have been climbing about 5 so’m a week for the last few months… I don’t konw if they are going to actually let it float (slowly) to its real value, or if they are just reflecting the recovery of the dollar that’s finally happened. i guess we’ll just have to see how far it finally goes. the climb is nice on one hand, but there has been quite a bit of inflation on common products and basic food stuffs over the last two months too–hard to say whether it’s because of the rate climb, or the rate climb is because of the inflation (which would also be something new).

if anybody gets ahold of either some new economic surveys or an actual policy statement somewhere, i’d love to see them…

sorry, that was a bit of a tangent… again, it was a great post. i don’t go to internet cafes very often but i’ll keep my eyes out to see how many more little signs like that i see. i think all cafes are required to put up a sign that says roughly “viewing antigovernment propoganda is strictly forbidden” but i’ve never actually seen one that mentions sites by name yet.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 03:29:02 +0000

NBU's website says they buy dollars at 1105 and sell at 1107. That's higher than I thought it would be. They even have a neat graphing tool on their website.