Spring in Kyrgyzstan. Poppy fields

For several months in social networks the "message" of the doctor of medical sciences, professor Jenishbek Nazaraliev, to the presidential candidates, in which he proposes to take the future leaders of the country to arm his ideas that can develop the economy of Kyrgyzstan, is being held. Nazaraliev puts forward the thesis on the creation of a pharmacological and cosmetic industry in the republic based on the cultivation of raw opium. According to his rough calculations, Kyrgyzstan will receive income from this in the amount of $ 15-20 billion per year.

About how relevant is the idea of ​​Dr. Nazaraliev on the cultivation of opium poppy in Kyrgyzstan at the present time, site asked the director of the Central Asian Center for Drug Policy, retired colonel, candidate of historical sciences Alexandra Zelichenko.

Alexander Leonidovich, now some politicians, who once even pointed to the presidency, are proposing to raise the country's economy by reviving the industry of growing raw opium. What do you think about this?

Here you cannot do without a small historical excursion. It is known that Kyrgyzstan has been sowing poppy for many years. It began during the reign of the tsar-father, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the First World War broke out and Russia really needed morphine purely for medical purposes. It was bought in Turkey until they crossed over to the other side. Other countries also bought morphine. Therefore, Russia was forced to look for places where you can sow poppy. And I found - ideal place for the growth of the opium poppy was Issyk-Kul. And from then until 1973 it was grown there.

Opierobism was a whole branch of agriculture in the USSR; it flourished not only in Issyk-Kul, but also in Naryn and Talas. The Kirghiz SSR provided 16% of the world harvest of raw opium.

At Issyk-Kul, there was a Zonal Experimental Station of the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Medicinal Plants. New varieties of opium were developed there. Many collective farms were raised only by growing raw opium. But then came 1974. And the USSR, at the request of the UN, stopped growing opium, since a significant part of the opium went to the black market. Until independence, this issue was no longer raised.

During this time, the world has changed. Terrorist organizations have emerged, and organized transnational criminal groups have emerged.

When in 1991 they began to look for an economic basis for independence in Kyrgyzstan, many recalled the successful experience of growing opium in the republic. And since then this idea has been raised with enviable constancy. And not only here, but also at the international level. In the same year, on behalf of the President, a working group was created that was supposed to work out this issue and assess all the risks and benefits of growing raw opium in Kyrgyzstan. I was also a member of this working group from the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

We then proved that in all respects it is more profitable for the Kyrgyz people to plant potatoes than opium poppy. And this is not hyperbole. This is a real fact, which we came to when investigating the problem.

- Explain how the working group came to this conclusion?

Will explain. In Soviet times, crops in Issyk-Kul were protected only during harvesting. The police were catching up from all over the Soviet Union. Dog handlers with dogs patrolled everywhere, posts were posted around the entire perimeter. At the time of harvesting, Issyk-Kul became an area of ​​increased attention. Even so, about 50% of the opium went to the black market. This is so cost-effective from the point of view of the mafia.

When in the early 90s only rumors began to circulate that opium would be grown in Issyk-Kul, real estate prices immediately skyrocketed. People came from abroad, left inclinations local residents... They said that when necessary, we would come and buy your houses and plots.

If we talk about the protection of opium plantations today, using high-tech technologies, then we will spend as much money on this as this opium is not worth. And if we harvest in the old-fashioned way, then we will not lose 50% of opium, as in the days of the USSR, but at least 70-80%.

Another problem is that we will simply have nowhere to sell the grown opium. Already at the dawn of Kyrgyzstan's independence, developed countries were actively using powerful analgesics that are not addictive, not based on opium, the world gradually switched to them. If then they were very expensive, but now the process of their production has been established, they are becoming more and more affordable.

It's clear. From an economic point of view, growing opium in Kyrgyzstan is unprofitable. How can this affect the country's image?

As a country treats drugs, so does the international community. This simple truth should be very clearly understood. If a country is selling drugs right and left, then it will be treated accordingly - as a rogue country, a bandit country and a drug dealer. Does Kyrgyzstan need such an image? It turns out that even if we can grow it, we will sell it at dumping prices. But we will overnight turn into a drug lord country, where there will be a base for terrorism and a base for transnational organized crime.

- What is happening with drug trafficking through our country now?

Currently, drug trafficking goes through Kyrgyzstan only through a small part of its territory. But even so, we are experiencing the monstrous consequences of drug corruption, "red" heroin (heroin sold by the police. - Approx. ed.). And if we also start growing the opium poppy, then I am not even able to predict the consequences of this step. But I can state with confidence that the Batken invasion of 1999-2000, when the militants tried to find new ways of supplying Afghan heroin, will become "Zarnitsa" in comparison with what we can get.

Therefore, every time when another politician, public figure, using cheap populism, tries to influence people who understand this issue very poorly, I start to sound the alarm, because I understand very clearly what this can lead to.

BISHKEK, June 1 - Sputnik. The sharply increased flow of drugs in Kyrgyzstan is the price that our country has to pay for supporting the "anti-terrorist operation" in Afghanistan, said Dmitry Fedorov, an expert and former head of the Anti-Drug Trafficking Administration.

White poppies of the USSR

Our republic has accumulated vast experience in the fight against drug trafficking back in Soviet times, because in the USSR it was practically a monopoly in the cultivation of opium poppy. If, taking into account the realities of the present day, the number of drug addicts was then negligible, then the number of plunderers of raw opium and its carriers was much higher.

The excellent film by Bolot Shamshiev "Scarlet Poppies of Issyk-Kul" shows the story of the confrontation between Karabalta and the "father of smuggling" Baizak and the first experience of fighting drug smuggling. There is only one inaccuracy - opium poppies are not red, but white, with purple veins.

It was of this color that poppies grew in Issyk-Kul on the fields of collective and state farms, and the collected opium was sent to the Chimkent Pharmaceutical Plant for obtaining medicines. Vacationers took with them as souvenirs beautiful large poppy boxes with visible beautiful notches from the knife, which remained after cutting to isolate and collect the milky juice.

It is also interesting that the fight against drug trafficking in the USSR for a long time was not carried out by specialized units and not even by the criminal investigation department, but by the service for combating theft of socialist property and speculation (BHSS). And it led quite successfully, however, in the conditions of the impossibility of physically ensuring the safety of the harvest on huge areas and stopping massive thefts in 1974, in agreement with Moscow, the leadership of the republic decided to stop cultivating the opium poppy. Of course, there were thickets of wild hemp, but the situation was improving before our eyes.

They forgot about hard drugs, it seemed, forever, until the Soviet Union collapsed and a trickle of opium, and then heroin, poured out of Afghanistan.

Black tulips of afghanistan

Over time, a tiny trickle turned into a powerful stream, and what was considered a huge batch yesterday, today is already an ordinary volume. The question arises: how did it happen that the number of arrests and seized drugs increased by several dozen times, and the volume of heroin production in Afghanistan by more than 40? What events contributed to this and what happened in Afghanistan?

Researcher Alfred McCloy confirms that two years after the start of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, in 1979, "the Afghan-Pakistani border area became the world's largest producer of heroin, which covered up to 60 percent of the US needs."

According to McCloy, in Pakistan itself, the number of drug addicts increased from almost zero in 1979 to 1.2 million in 1985, a much faster increase than in any other country.

The drug trade was controlled by people associated with the CIA. When the mujahideen seized some territory in Afghanistan, they forced the peasants to sow opium poppy as a "revolutionary tax".

Across the border, in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates, under the auspices of Pakistani intelligence, controlled hundreds of heroin laboratories, the security official said.

For a decade, the US Bureau of Narcotics Bureau in Pakistan has not seized a single major consignment of heroin or made a single arrest.

The opinions of experts from the world community only confirm such conclusions.

Pino Arlacchi, UN Undersecretary General for Counter Narcotics and MEP, when asked why the cultivation of opiates increased dramatically after the American occupation, replied: "Nobody wants to talk about it, but a secret agreement was reached between the George W. Bush administration and Afghan warlords." ...

According to McCloy, US officials refused to investigate drug trafficking charges against their Afghan allies, as US policy was subordinated to the interests of the war against Soviet influence in Kabul, which was present in the form of a Limited Soviet contingent.

In 1995, former CIA chief of operations in Afghanistan, Charles Kogan, admitted that the agency had sacrificed the war on drugs in the interests of the Cold War. According to him, "our main task was to inflict as much damage as possible on the Soviets."

Although the role of the CIA is reflected in numerous documents, it is not mentioned in UN materials, which emphasize internal factors. The drug dollars received and laundered were used to fund rebels in Asia and the Balkans.

In a July 29, 1991 Time magazine article, a US intelligence officer confirms that "dirty money" was converted into "secret" money through banks in the Middle East and CIA front companies that supported rebel groups during the Soviet-Afghan war.

By the mid-1980s, the CIA office in Islamabad was one of the largest in the world. The US turned a blind eye to the drug trade in Pakistan because it wanted to supply the mujahideen in Afghanistan with Stinger missiles and other weapons and needed Pakistan's help, the spy said.

According to ex-diplomat, University of California Berkeley professor Peter Dale Scott, the increased production of drugs in the world is a consequence of the intervention of the United States.

The indirect American intervention in 1979 was followed by an unprecedented increase in Afghan opium production, and the same thing happened after the American invasion in 2001.

Do not be surprised at such volume increases. They are just repeating the situation in other places of drug production, where America used military or political force.

This was in the 1950s in Burma, where, due to the intervention of the CIA, production increased from 40 tons in 1939 to 600 in 1970; Thailand - from 7 tons in 1939 to 200 in 1968 and Laos - from less than 15 tons in 1939 to 50 in 1973.

A striking example is also Colombia, where since the late 1980s, under the pretext of the "war on drugs", the United States has actively intervened using its military forces. At a conference in 1990, Scott predicted that this invasion would be followed by an increase, not a decline, in drug production. Coca production in Colombia tripled between 1991 and 1999 (from 3.8 to 12.3 thousand hectares), while the production of opium poppy increased 5.6 times (from 0.13 to 0.75 thousand hectares) ...

American shield

We figured out why the volume of production increased. Now let us ask ourselves a question: why is no one fighting on the spot, but the area of ​​responsibility there is American?

Heroin is a multibillion-dollar business with powerful interests behind it. According to Interpol experts, worldwide revenues from the sale of Afghan heroin amount to more than $ 650 billion a year.

During the stay of the US and NATO military forces in Afghanistan, the production of heroin in this country has grown, according to general estimates, 40 times.

One of the clandestine goals of the war in Afghanistan was to restore the CIA-controlled drug trade to its previous level and gain complete control over the drug supply routes.

For example, in 2001, under the Taliban regime, which fought against drug lords, 185 tons of opium were produced, and a year later, in 2002, opium production increased to 3,400 tons. Afghan drug lords have become associates of the US-backed puppet regime of ex-President Hamid Karzai.

Thomas Schweich, a former assistant to the head of the US State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, published an article in The New York Times in July 2008, in which he stated that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Pentagon were doing their best to impede a serious fight against opium production in Afghanistan.

The article by University of Ottawa professor Michael Hossudovski emphasizes that after the US entered Afghanistan in October 2001, the drug trade has increased dramatically.

The American press, followed by various "experts" and "analysts" in their reports and statements, began to assert that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban were behind this. Of course, they also contain the usual "balanced" self-criticism, but they are silent about the fact that in 2000 the Taliban regime, in cooperation with the UN, introduced a very strict ban on the cultivation of opium poppy. As a consequence, in 2001, opium production fell by 90 percent.

The UN General Assembly recognized in the same year the Taliban's successes in the fight against drugs. With the fall of the Taliban regime, a boom in drug production began again, and the US justified itself by the fact that the Taliban simply wanted to create a drug shortage and raise world prices, which was denied by the UN office, which found out that the Taliban were not engaged in the accumulation of opium.

Since 2001, the White House has spent about $ 3 trillion in Afghanistan, including on the fight against drug trafficking. But this country still became the absolute leader in the production of heroin.

Do not be surprised - the US is interested in directing the heroin flow to China and Russia.

Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Security Committee Viktor Ilyukhin noted that requests to intensify the fight against drug production were sent to the United States. However, according to him, their answers were vague: they say that they are still analyzing their options and are worried that such actions will push the peasants into the arms of the Taliban. However, to put it mildly, these arguments are very weak.

The director of the Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation, Viktor Ivanov, told reporters that he does not understand why the United States advocates the destruction of coca crops in Colombia, while in Afghanistan they do not want to take such measures?

"Okay, we have disagreements on the destruction of poppy plantations," Ivanov said, "but why is NATO not destroying the laboratories?"

According to him, more than 200 giant laboratories operate in the mountains of Afghanistan, where concentrated drugs are produced, but no one touches them. The conclusion suggests itself that there is no struggle whatsoever against drug manufacture.

Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vitaly Churkin stated the "complete inaction" of the NATO military contingent in this area.

Speaking to the UN Security Council, he said that the latest figures from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are shocking. In particular, compared to 2013, the area under opium poppy cultivation increased by 7 percent, its average yield increased by 9 percent, and in the southern regions - by 27, and the volume of drug production increased by 17 percent.

At the same time, the permanent representative noted that Russia "is stepping up efforts in the fight against illegal production and trafficking of drugs" through the SCO, the CSTO and through bilateral relations with Kabul.

What is the point in this situation to talk about NATO as a partner in the fight against the drug threat?

NATO base: was it worth the candle?

The sharply increased flow of drugs to Kyrgyzstan is the price our country has to pay for supporting the "anti-terrorist operation" in Afghanistan.

During the existence of the NATO base in our republic, officially called the "Anti-Terrorist Coalition Air Base" and then the "US Air Force Transit Center", the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA USA) actually took control of our anti-drug agency. Technical assistance and salary increases for AKN KR staff were significant, but in return, the US federal law enforcement agency gained control over the selection and activities of employees.

When the decision was made to close military base, Americans somehow lost interest in our agency and stopped funding.

Given the particular danger of drug trafficking for Russian Federation Today, within the framework of cooperation within the framework of the CSTO and bilateral agreements, joint work is being carried out, which gives good results and prospects. An unheard-of case, but for the first time for specific criminal prosecution of especially dangerous drug dealers, an employee of the State Drug Control Service of the Kyrgyz Republic was awarded an order by the decree of the President of the Russian Federation.

Sunday, May 29, 2016 09:57 + in the quote pad

In late spring, wild poppies bloom across the country. Hills and fields are colored bright red. Scientists know about 100 species of poppy. In Kyrgyzstan, about 70 are widespread, especially the Poppy Seed, or Papaverales rhoeas, which grows in all regions of the country. This flower is very delicate and dies quickly if picked.
1. The foothills of Ala-Too are strewn with myriads of flowers. Sokuluk region

2. Poppy fields are located just 15 kilometers from Bishkek

3. View of the capital of Kyrgyzstan

4. A poppy field can stretch for several kilometers

5. Scientists know about 100 species of poppy

6. About 70 species of this flower are widespread in Kyrgyzstan.

7. The most common poppy seed, or Papaverales rhoeas, which grows in all regions of the country

8. Residents of the capital traditionally go out to admire the beauty of nature at this time of the year

9. Hills and hillocks glow with flower fire

10. Poppy bloom is fleeting - it can only be observed for two to three weeks

11. The flower is very delicate and dies quickly if picked

12. This is how it is - the scarlet flower of Kyrgyzstan

Source: © Fishki.net

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I have heard the name of Lake Issyk-Kul since my school days, but then there was a large country called the USSR. And when a couple of years ago my friends told me that they were vacationing on this wonderful lake, I did not immediately understand that this was not Russia, but another state - Kyrgyzstan. In June 2009, having studied the reviews of tourists, we made our own road route with a length of about 2000 kilometers. It turned out that our way will pass through two state borders: Kazakh and Kyrgyz. We already had the experience of crossing the Kazakh border, nothing complicated, we are peaceful people. The only problem that could arise was the queue at the entrance to the border checkpoint. The way Tyumen-Cholpon-Ata took two days, while on the first trip we stopped in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, to go with the children to the oceanarium, which I didn’t really like this time, for some reason there were much less marine life.

Road

I would like to say that in general the roads in both countries are very good. I have already talked about the road to Astana: straight, flat, wide. A funny story happened to us: upon arrival in Astana, police officers stopped us and demanded to remove the tint from the side windows of the car. It should be said that in the country you will not find toned cars, AT ALL, that is, even some "thieves". Forbidden and that's it. We tried to convince the employee that the technical inspection in Russia was passed, the norms were not violated and we were moving through their country in transit, that is, in a few hours we would be in Kyrgyzstan, we had to call the senior policeman who agreed with us and recommended in a whisper in case we see a post police on the road, open the side windows all the way so that the tinting is not striking. We did this several times and drove quietly. But on the way back, it was drizzling rain near Astana and it was cool. At the sight of the police on the road, we opened the windows as usual, but were stopped. The employee said with a smile that he guessed about the tinting, because in such weather it is unlikely that we are hot in the car. So you can't go to Kazakhstan with tinting! When we left the country, we saw that the Russians entering the checkpoint were simply barbarously ripping off the film.

And beyond Astana in the direction of Kyrgyzstan (Temirtau, Karaganda, Balkhash, Birlik, Chu, Georgievka) the road is also good, and what I like most is very little transport, since this is not the most populated part of Kazakhstan. It seems to me that if I had set a goal, I could calmly count the cars passing by.

On the way, there is not much to see: bare steppe, sometimes mountains. But sometimes there are interesting man-made objects.

But thanks to the plain landscapes, there is simply an endless sky, and in Russia there are constantly copses, settlements, here there is one sky. There are a lot of burials along the road: small and not very small fenced towers, some of them are made of brick. Lonely graves are often found, to which white steps lead, since they are buried on heights.

On the way we passed very big lake Balkhash: there are many industrial enterprises on the banks, cement factory, so there are no resorts or health resorts. True, they sell fish, big and tasty.

We also learned an interesting fact about the roads of Kyrgyzstan, which, probably, could be used in our country in the summer. In the daytime, the movement of heavy vehicles is prohibited, so that the asphalt, scorched by the sun, does not deform under their weight and ruts and bumps do not form on the road. Therefore, truckers rest during the day, and at the time when we are looking for a parking space, they leave. I liked this rule: they do not interfere with us during the day and the road is not spoiled.

We passed the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border without any problems and we had, as it seemed to us, a small rest of the way. But when we drove into the mountains shortly after the border, the speed noticeably decreased, since the roads are winding and narrow, but very beautiful. I have a dream: I want to see a poppy flowering field. At the entrance to the mountainous area of ​​Kyrgyzstan, we saw fields of blooming red poppies high in the mountains, just large red squares. I was so hoping that I would still have the opportunity to see poppies closer at Issyk-Kul, but alas. Either we did not go there, or they have already faded. There were only scattered poppies, and not only red, but also yellow.

At the entrance to the Issyk-Kul zone, there is a nature protection post, where we paid a certain amount, I don’t remember exactly how much. I must say that nature conservationists at one time managed to defend the shores of the lake from the placement of enterprises there that would pollute the water. In Kyrgyzstan, there is even a law prohibiting people with tents from being accommodated in cars on the shores of the lake (in order to avoid contamination with household waste). Although I think that living in tents on this lake is uncomfortable, because it is located in a hollow around the mountain and after sunset it becomes cold, although it is very hot during the day. In general, police officers pay close attention to cars with Russian plates in Kyrgyzstan. And not only the traffic police, but also just the operational services passing by. But they communicate kindly, one traffic police officer in the city met us every day, for the first two days he stopped and checked the documents, and then he remembered and greeted us when they met.

We arrived in Cholpon-Ata at the beginning of June, the season was just beginning, so we managed to rent a very decent housing at an inexpensive price: a two-room apartment for 700 rubles a day. During the season (July-August) they are rented out for $ 100 per day, since the owners built this annex for 4 rooms two years ago. We parked our car right in the yard, next to the owner's. The annex is located near the master's house, opposite their dining room. It is a two-storey building with 4 rooms. On each floor there is a common hall with a refrigerator, a sofa, and then separate rooms. The first room has a large table with crockery, two beds, and a TV cabinet. It is clear that many Russian channels are working. The second room has a wardrobe, a large double bed. The toilet is covered with tiles, a shower cabin, hot water there is always, because there is a water heater. The renovation is good. The owners are welcoming people, but once again we did not pester each other.

Our house stood opposite the boarding house, with the administration of which the owners had an agreement on the unhindered passage of vacationers across the territory to the beach. So our five-minute path passed through the well-groomed blooming territory of the boarding house to the same clean shore of Lake Issyk-Kul with crystal clean water... I believe that the lake and its surroundings are the most a nice place in the world. I have already said that the lake is located in a hollow, as it were, surrounded by mountains. The weather often changes: first the sun, then the clouds come in an hour, the wind rises. Moreover, the sun illuminates the peaks of the mountains in different ways: either they are hidden in the clouds, then their snow-white peaks are visible, then the mountains turn bright green. Very beautiful and indescribable in words.

The lake water is very clear and very cold. But it is so enriched with various salts and minerals that the body quickly adapts to cold temperatures, swimming is very pleasant and I read it in the literature, which is very useful.

Ultraviolet light is very strong: in the morning I went outside in a tracksuit, it soon got hot, I stayed in a T-shirt, after half an hour the T-shirt remained on my skin until the end of the vacation.

In the morning we ate at home, at lunchtime and in the evening in a cafe, which a large number of... On the main street, we found a cafe where we had the largest number of meals, since the owner of the cafe himself prepared stunning dishes of national cuisine, and not only those that are on the menu. We agreed with him for a certain time and upon arrival we felt like the most dear guests: fried manti, shashlik, bishbarmak, samsa, others National dishes and what kind of cakes they bake in their oven! We left with a bang! The meat is juicy, tasty, grown in clean mountain meadows. I only have exclamation points for local dishes. Children at home often prey on food, they were the first to cope there. In the neighboring village, fairs are held on weekends where you can buy inexpensive things, delicious fruits, as well as dairy and meat products.

We also arranged several excursions for ourselves.

Grigorievskoe gorge

It is located not far from Cholpan-ata, there are signs where you need to turn off. You have to pay to enter the territory in a booth, but the tax is not firm: they say the price, and we cut it by half. And so everywhere: take a picture with a falcon, ride horses and a donkey, a market in the mountains. As soon as you stop, 20 people with animals are immediately surrounded and offer their services, but not particularly intrusively. I was surprised by the addresses: “Sister, a white horse for you” or “Brother, take a ride.” Somehow everything is unrealistically beautiful there: mountains, slopes, meadows, a white bubbling river, the sky.

The film of Bolot Shamshiev with the wonderful Suimenkul Chokmorov in the title role, which was released in the era of the “Kyrgyz cinema miracle”, was called a little differently. He talked about the fight against opium smugglers in the 1920s. The famous director wanted to continue this theme in one of his last works "Wolf's Pit", but at the insistence of the leadership of the republic he was forced to change the scenario: at that time it was assumed that the problem of drug addiction in the Soviet Union did not exist.
More than half a century ago, poppy heads were a common attribute of children's games, and musicians of those years also used them as Latin American maracas. It was not difficult to get such "toys" and "musical instruments". It is enough to go to Issyk-Kul and stop at the poppy crops and collect an armful of stems with heads, as they say, as many as hands will be enough. Several grams of opium were openly stored in the homes of Kyrgyz people for treatment.

Mid-sixties ... Kyrgyzstan remains the only republic of planned production of raw opium for medical purposes. Poppy was grown by about 80 collective and state farms. For example, in 1965, its sown area in the Issyk-Kul basin alone amounted to 6,700 hectares. Opium is a labor-intensive crop, all processes - undercutting poppy heads, collecting frozen latex - were done manually and only at dawn. During the harvesting campaign, the seeding farms often lacked labor, therefore, as a rule, schoolchildren and strangers were attracted. During the period of the massive harvest of raw opium in the Issyk-Kul region, the number of its pickers reached 50 thousand people, in such conditions it was simply impossible to ensure reliable protection of plantations. No raids, no arrests, no watchtowers could stop the opium theft. The female gatherers hid it in their hairstyles, bosoms, in their children's diapers and clothes. Often, whole links of collectors, whose members were in kinship, became participants in the group theft of the potion. Opium was usually stored under a dog kennel, buried in the ground, garbage buckets, hid in cradles and loaves. The raw was digested in cans with the addition of concentrate and rolled into jars.
Almost every village in the Issykkul region had its own unofficial leader who controlled the supply of stolen opium to the capitals of the Union republics. It happened that drugs were stolen at the transshipment base in Rybachye, from the warehouses of Lekrastrest in Frunze and at the very pharmaceutical plant in Chimkent, where they were delivered. Opium was stolen in grams and flasks, for which drug traffickers went for bribery and murder, and its transportation was carried out in thermoses and suitcases with a double bottom, in bread and sausages, in books and chicken eggs. Dodgy opiate speculators, in order to protect themselves, offered vacationers traveling home to hand over parcels with the famous Issyk-Kul chebak to their relatives for big money, but in fact they were stuffed with opium. There was even one horrifying case of drug trafficking. It was passed from mouth to mouth by the drivers of the Rybachinsky Avtovneshtrans. In August 1969, one of the drivers of this car company took pity on a young woman with a baby standing on the highway and took her to Frunze. During the journey, he noticed that the baby did not make a sound, and the mother did not try to feed him. At the checkpoint at the Red Bridge, a vigilant driver reported the suspicions to police officers. As a result, it turned out that the woman was simply carrying a child's corpse, which served as a cache for 2.5 kg of opium found in it during a check. These are the extremes that drug traffickers went to in order to deliver their "valuable" cargo at any cost.
This case, in its cynical sophistication, overshadowed even the tragedy of 1932, about which little is known, since the activities of law enforcement agencies in the fight against drug trafficking in the 30s of the last century were forced to be tacit. All materials on drug trafficking were classified and were not included in the statistics. Criminal cases on the theft and smuggling of opium, minutes of court proceedings, some time after the entry into force of the court decisions, were destroyed. Therefore, the police officers fought against social evil, which, as it were, did not exist. However, significant volumes of opium seized from smugglers indicated a fairly widespread occurrence of this type of crime.
That year, officers of the criminal investigation department in one of Frunze's houses detained a group of criminals with a large amount of opium. During the search, they found about 20 poods of this potion, three revolvers with 26 rounds. The opium belonged to Lektekhsyr and was seized by criminals while transporting it in the Tokmok area. The bandits killed two guards and dealt with their families. The echoes of this crime came around in 1936.
Then in Frunze, the pharmacist Norenberg, her husband Liang Yong Fu and their five accomplices were detained for speculating in opium, for several years they were exporting at least five poods of raw opium from the republic to the cities of Central Asia for several years. Of the Far East and Eastern Siberia. In addition, drug traffickers kept dozens of opiomukurilen in the capital in the hidden slums of the Blacksmith Fortress, on Karpinka and in Rabochiy Gorodok. More than a ton of digested opium, a large amount of powder potion, morphine, heroin, cocaine in tablets, kumgans, chilims, medical syringes, loose gold, Tsarist coins and 400 thousand Soviet rubles were seized from the defendants. The investigation revealed their involvement in organizing the attack and murder of two police officers who had accompanied the raw opium of Lektekhsyrya five years ago.
According to the party's statement that there is no problem with drug addiction in the USSR and there cannot be, in the 60s, the theft of raw opium in accordance with the current Criminal Code was considered as speculation and an encroachment on the people's property, therefore, the departments for combating the theft of socialist property were involved in drug crimes. But, while remaining a closed topic for society, drug addiction grew at a frantic pace from year to year, stimulating serious crimes and involving a large number of young people in their networks. Moreover, on farms and enterprises, labor productivity dropped sharply, drug-drugged collective farmers did not go to field work for weeks, and narcological dispensaries were overcrowded. The same thing happened in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, where raw opium stolen from Kyrgyzstan was delivered. The head of the republic, Turdakun Usubaliev, raised the issue with the center to stop the production of raw opium, but due to a shortage of currency for the purchase of morphine abroad, this request was rejected. The only thing Moscow helped in at that time was that annually during the opium harvest, about 700 cadets from the militia schools of the Union republics were sent to guard the plantations.
Presidium of the Supreme Council Kirghiz SSR On December 11, 1962, considering drug addiction as a serious social problem, he issued a decree "On strengthening the fight against theft, illicit manufacture, acquisition, storage and sale of opium and other narcotic substances." It provided for the responsibility of the heads of farms for the protection of opium plantations, conservation of the harvest. The Criminal Code was supplemented with three new compositions of drug crimes. The facts of opium theft were widely discussed at general meetings of collectives of collective farms and enterprises, open trials were conducted. A special commission of the Police Department of the Ministry of Public Order Protection of the Republic was created to prevent losses and theft of raw opium. It did not work for long and, failing to meet expectations, was abolished in October 1963 by government decree.
Fighting "blackmail" and suppressing the drug business are two completely different areas of police work. In the arsenal of OBKhSS employees there was neither accumulated experience nor special training to investigate drug crimes. As the veteran of the internal affairs bodies Leonid Zelichenko recalls, police officers often never saw opium, did not know its color and smell. And this greatly complicated the work of combating the transportation of the stolen potion. The railway police officers at that time made such an experiment. They put raw opium in a bag and under the guise of passengers drove with it to Tashkent. The carriage was full of a pungent specific smell, police officers repeatedly approached them, but no one detained them. But in the storage room of the Tashkent railway station they refused to accept the container with the potion, cutting off: "We accept opium in our luggage ...".
Over time, to combat drug trafficking in the republic, they introduced new methods of operational work using special means. In March 1966, a group of instructors embarked on an experiment to train search dogs for opium detection. The four-legged "sniffers" trained by a special method proved to be excellent in their work, but, unfortunately, the promising undertaking of the police department of our republic did not find the support of the Union Ministry of Internal Affairs, although later this experience was adopted and introduced into police practice.
According to the well-known specialist in the field of combating drug trafficking, Alexander Zelichenko, the mid-60s became a temporary borderline, when control over the criminal drug business passed from single drug dealers to organized criminal groups with immeasurably large financial and technical capabilities. One of these drug gangs was exposed in March 1966. During the special operation OBKHSS, code-named "Korobochka", the police detained about 50 opium dealers, seized more than 100 kilograms of opium, a large number of gold items and several firearms. Then the leader of the criminal community, Alexei N., managed to escape. He was arrested later, during the so-called "bazaar riot" in the central collective farm market in May 1967. He was involved in the case as one of the organizers of the attack and arson of the Frunze Department of Internal Affairs. In the same year, an attempt to transport drugs was stopped for the first time. by air... At that time, finding them was difficult due to the lack of special equipment and technology. However, thanks to a well-planned operation, OBKhSS operatives under the leadership of L. Kilin detained several drug couriers with a large amount of raw opium right in the aircraft cabin. Only one of them, a resident of Namangan R. Makhmudov, was seized with 13 kilograms of “goods” packed in leather bags and another 5 kilograms tied to his feet with footcloths.
At the initiative of the OBKHSS employees, since 1960, quarantine posts have been set up on the main highways. So, in the village of Chaldovar, from April 1963 to March 1966, 40 drug couriers were detained and a total of 180 kilograms of opium were seized. From year to year, the influx of drug dealers from other republics of the USSR grew, and the number of groups engaged in illegal drug trafficking increased markedly. Since 1965, 68 criminal drug groups have been liquidated in five years, more than 300 of their members have been detained, and about a ton of raw opium has been seized. If in 1961 130 criminal cases were initiated for drug-related crimes, then in 1964 there were already 350.
In April 1966, an inter-republican meeting on the fight against drug addiction, theft and distribution of drugs was held in Frunze with the participation of officials from the Central Committee of the CPSU and the heads of police departments of ten union republics. This indicated that the problem of drug addiction began to cause concern in the highest echelons of power. During the meeting, the leadership of the Kirghiz SSR again made a proposal to stop opium production on the territory of the republic, but, again, it was not heard. By the way, one of the supporters of the ban on opium sowing in Kyrgyzstan was the father of the current Minister of Internal Affairs, Yessenzhan Atakhanov. In 1963, he directed the investigation of the so-called "Bacillus" case. A criminal group - about 200 people, operating in the system of the Ministry of Health, through the labeling launched especially valuable medicines that had become unusable through the pharmacy network of the republic and beyond. I had to study thousands of case histories, carry out numerous examinations with the involvement of major pharmacologists, biologists and chemists. The investigation was carried out in the strictest secrecy: information leakage could provoke panic among the population. In 1964, also under the leadership of E. Atakhanov, a criminal group of 170 opiates, headed by K. Dzhuraev, a drug trafficker from Tashkent, was exposed. They seized more than 3 kilograms of opium, valuables, weapons, described several mansions in Namangan, Tokmok and Frunze.
By uncovering such crimes, OBKhSS operatives gained experience and became experienced drug fighters. L. Kilin, A. Batyrshin, B. Orozov, T. Yakhyarov, B. Moldokulov and others were responsible for hundreds, if not more, of drug crimes solved. The operations they developed to neutralize stable drug groups in the 60s became teaching aids for the current cadets of the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and high school the police.
In 1969, by order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, the functions of organizing the fight against drug crimes were transferred to the criminal investigation units, and a year later, separate structures specializing only in combating drug trafficking (OBN) appeared in the system of internal affairs bodies. Realizing that drug addiction had crossed the borders of the Central Asian region and became a national problem, in 1974, with the permission of Moscow, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan made a decision to stop the cultivation of opium poppy. Then in the USSR, according to official data, there were 48 thousand drug addicts.