Gogoosha’s Country
For the record, I personally do not know any blond woman named Gogoosha. And if I did, I will never tell you.
Gogoosha (real name Gulnara) had it all . A Bachelor’s degree in international Economics, a degree in Design from New York Fashion Institute of Technology, a Master’s degree in Regional Science from Harvard University (!), a Ph.D. in political science from a university in Tashkent , and on the side, a B.A. in Telecommunications. She was the country’s leading fashion designer and displayed her creations in Europe frequently. She owned the biggest company that sold fashionable clothes in her small and poor country. By the way, she also owned a monopoly of the only cellphone company in her country and had a controlling interest in the country’s healthcare and media sectors. She was of course a Professor in Political Science and a senior bureaucrat in the country’s government. If this is not enough, she was an accomplished rock and roll artiste and held concerts in Europe occasionally when she was not too busy. And did I mention that she had a hot body, and a great smile, wavy blond hair and ample natural endowments? She lived in many different mansions that she owned all over the world.
Are you saying WTF? Hold on!
The country’s name is Uzbekistan, and she is the daughter of its erstwhile first president Karimov. The degrees of course were obtained surreptitiously, the business ventures were acquired by appropriation and extortion, and you can draw your own conclusions about her other talents! She could be found swaying to her own music on Youtube – check it out!! Karimov was grooming her and her husband for an eventual succession. BTW her net worth at its peak was about a billion dollars although I am skeptical about the valuation.
I never went to Uzbekistan although I taught in a private American style university in neighboring Kazakhstan, in a city named Almaty. My Kazakh students were rich kids, children of the network that governs and plunders the Kazakh people. However, scholarships were offered to meritorious students from average families from neighboring countries. So I came in close contact with quite a few Uzbek students. I mentored two of them through undergrad and grad programs, helped them profusely with studies, advised them on personal matters and provided substantial financial assistance. There were many others, all men, that I hung out with different degrees of friendships and assistance over the years.
I would like to say that the Uzbeks were nice, warm and honest people. They are , if you mingle with them superficially. Underneath, for at least some of them, there is a trait of religious and moral hypocrisy, dishonesty and generally opportunistic behavior. Maybe I had bad samples! Nevertheless, all my students, hypocrites or not, were very bright and well-read. I learned a lot from them about Uzbek institutions, customs and their personal frustrations with the Uzbek society.
The Uzbek government and the network that controls the country, though, are not nice and warm. They are certifiably vicious and nasty
Karimov’s rule, after he consolidated his power in the late nineties, was a major Kleptocracy. Every single economic activity was restricted , a license was needed to import bananas or computers. The network (Gogoosha and associates) owned the only major wholesale distribution center for consumer goods. Everytime in Uzbekistan, if you ate a meal or rode a taxi, some money went to the network. For a while, Karimov had the balls to order that schools will be declared closed when the cotton harvest is ready , so that ten million or so high school students and teachers will pick cotton that will be exported abroad – the proceeds will go the network, of course!
The Uzbeks are proud of Timur (Temir Lane). Timur’s mausoleum stands proudly in Samarkand ,as one of the most famous sites in Central Asia. I always wanted to visit!
This greatest tourist attraction, Samarkand, was also a moneymaker for the kleptocracy . A foreigner can only come to Uzbekistan if he was invited by an approved travel agency who will make all the travel arrangements. Technically, you could go the Uzbek embassy in Almaty and apply for a tourist visa. That’s what I tried. But you will never get your visa. I was told to come back three times before I got the message. So every tourist that visits Samarkand paid money to an approved travel agency which was owned by (surprise!) the network. Now you know why I did not visit Uzbekistan.
Every major business sector was also controlled by the network. Human rights was a joke. Religious freedoms were non-existent. After the Boston Marathon bombing where the killer brothers were revealed to be from Uzbekistan, the government practically destroyed all kind of religious activity, afraid that the society would turn into a breeding ground for Islamic terrorists. Of course, political freedom remains only a dream for the Uzbeks. Their salaries were low even by Central Asian standards. Not only plundering, the government itself was also slowly choking its citizenry. During the last fifteen years, millions of men have migrated to Russia, Turkey and other countries to eke out a living.
Karimov, the despot , thankfully passed away in 2016. The group that replaced his ilk paid lip service to reform and freedom, but ultimately turned out to be the same kind of anal retentives as the previous regime. So the plight of the Uzbek people continues to this day.
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So, what happened to Gogooosha? She divorced her husband in 2005, her father was not very pleased with it . Ultimately she fell out with her father who put her under house arrest. The successor government accused her of corruption, extortion and many other things. The governments of USA, UK and France and Switzerland followed suit, since a lot of the ill- gotten gains were subsequently used for business or personal projects in these countries. To cut a long story short, she remains in jail till today, serving a ten year prison sentence, all her millions frozen in foreign banks. From time to time she sends messages to the world media about her plight.
My heart breaks at her misery! Maybe a young security guard at her house will take pity on her and her considerable endowments and sneak her out of confinement! One can always hope!!