when things fall apart

When Things Fall Apart
Qualitative Studies of Poverty
in the Former Soviet Union
Cover: Privatization of the nearby collective farm prompted this Kyrgyz family
to return to a semi-nomadic life of herding sheep.
Photo by Kathleen Kuehnast
When Things Fall Apart
Qualitative Studies of Poverty
in the Former Soviet Union
Edited by
Nora Dudwick, Elizabeth Gomart, and
Alexandre Marc, with Kathleen Kuehnast
Foreword by
Ravi Kanbur
Washington, D.C.
© 2003 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20433
Telephone: 202-473-1000
Internet: www.worldbank.org
E-mail:
All rights reserved.
First Printing December 2002
1234 05 04 03 02
The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do
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governments they represent.
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ritory or the endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries.
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Chapter 10 reprinted, with changes, by permission of the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner on Refugees (UNHRC).
ISBN 0-8213-5067-6
Cover photo: Kathleen Kuehnast
Design: Naylor Design, Inc., Washington, DC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
When things fall apart: qualitative studies of poverty in the former Soviet Union / edited by
Nora Dudwick, Elizabeth Gomart, Alexandre Marc.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8213-5067-6
1. Poverty—Former Soviet republics. 2. Former Soviet republics—Economic conditions.
I. Dudwick, Nora., 1949- II. Gomart, Elizabeth, 1967- III. Marc, Alexandre, 1956-
HC340.P6 W46 2002
339.4’6’0947—dc21
2002024162
Foreword vii
Acknowledgments ix
About the Authors xi

Map of the Former Soviet Union xiv
Introduction: A Qualitative Approach to Understanding 1
“New” Poverty in the Former Soviet Union
PART I. BACKGROUND 7
Chapter 1: A Window on Social Reality: Qualitative Methods 9
in Poverty Research
Chapter 2: From Soviet Expectations to Post-Soviet Realities: 21
Poverty During the Transition
PART II. THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC, TAJIKISTAN, AND 29
UZBEKISTAN
Chapter 3: Poverty Shock: The Impact of Rapid Economic 33
Change on the Women of the Kyrgyz Republic
Kathleen Kuehnast
Chapter 4: Between Civil War and Land Reform: 57
Among the Poorest of the Poor in Tajikistan
Elizabeth Gomart
Chapter 5: Standing on a Knife’s Edge: 95
Doing Business in Uzbekistan
Elizabeth Gomart
Contents
vi | When Things Fall Apart
PART III. ARMENIA AND GEORGIA 113
Chapter 6: When the Lights Went Out: Poverty in Armenia 117
Nora Dudwick
Chapter 7: No Way Back: Social Exclusion among the 155
Poorest in Armenia
Appendix A: Losing Ground: The Education and 193
Health Sectors in Armenia
Appendix B: Trying to Reach the Poor: The Paros 205
Social Assistance Program

Elizabeth Gomart
Chapter 8: No Guests at Our Table: Social Fragmentation 213
in Georgia
Nora Dudwick
PART IV. UKRAINE AND MOLDOVA 259
Chapter 9: “Children Have Become a Luxury:” Everyday 263
Dilemmas of Poverty in Ukraine
Catherine Wanner and Nora Dudwick
Chapter 10: After the Return: The Struggle of the Crimean 301
Tatars to Reintegrate
Elizabeth Gomart
Chapter 11: Eating from One Pot: Survival Strategies in 333
Moldova’s Collapsing Rural Economy
Hermine G. De Soto and Nora Dudwick
PART V. LATVIA 379
Chapter 12: Prosperity and Despair: Riga and the Other Latvia 383
The Institute of Philosophy and Sociology (Riga),
with Nora Dudwick
Conclusion: Toward a Better Understanding of the 427
Multiple Dimensions of Poverty in Transition Societies
Research Teams 431
Index 435
Foreword
There are three interrelated reasons why this book is to be welcomed: atti-
tudinal, methodological, and political.
By attitudinal I mean that the book departs from the normal perspective
of analysts in the international agencies and elsewhere, from seeing poverty
in terms of dry statistics to seeing it in terms of human experience. Much of
the analysis of poverty has been deeply technocratic in its orientation. There
is nothing wrong with this, except when it becomes the exclusive focus. It is

important to take a dispassionate view of the causes and consequences of
poverty, and to gauge the broad trends through reliable statistics. But the
motivation for attacking poverty has deeper wellsprings. It comes from the
human connection to the experiences of others—from the instinctive feel-
ing that, but for the grace of God, those experiences could be ours. Listen-
ing directly to the voices of the poor, unmediated by national statistical
offices, is an important part of establishing this connection.
By methodological I mean that qualitative methods in poverty analysis
complement the more standard quantitative techniques that international
agencies have used to great effect. There is a misconception among quanti-
tative analysts that qualitative analysis is “soft” and without rigor. Nothing
could be further from the truth. As the papers in a forthcoming conference
volume I am editing have established, quantitative analysis often has only
the appearance of hardness.
1
And as shown both there and in this book,
anthropologists and sociologists have high methodological standards, too.
Moreover, this is not an either-or issue. Poverty analysis needs both quanti-
tative and qualitative methodologies if it is to be complete and compre-
hensive, and each can help the other. This book demonstrates convincingly
the insights that qualitative analysis can bring to standard quantitative
analysis.
By political I mean relevance to policy, and this encapsulates the method-
ological and the attitudinal. I have often found that policymakers’ suspi-
cions of technical analysts stem from a feeling that they, the policymakers,
inhabit the real world whereas the analysts do their work in some other
world, one without real people. Some of the policy prescriptions that we
viii | When Things Fall Apart
analysts offer are dismissed, because a policymaker can see the difficulty of
implementing them in a real world of real people with real feelings and real

responses to the policy. The tension between the real world of policymakers
and the more abstract world of analysts is a healthy one, provided each
group learns from the other. This requires analysts as a community to be
more aware of real people, and this book is an important contribution to
that process.
The former Soviet Union is fertile territory in which to explore the inter-
action between qualitative and quantitative analysis. The high expectations
of the transition from central planning—ironically, a system that was driv-
en by a seemingly rational and quantitative logic—have clearly not been
met. The debate over why what happened, happened will no doubt contin-
ue. But what did happen affected real people, and this book documents
their stories. In doing so, it illuminates some of the causes of poverty and
some of the reasons why the transition has had such devastating effects in
terms of poverty. One may hope that, in combination with more standard
quantitative analysis, the qualitative analysis presented in this book can
help policymakers design better the next phase of the transition.
Ravi Kanbur
T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Economics
Cornell University
1 Qual-Quant: Qualitative and Quantitative Poverty Appraisal: Complementarities, Tensions and the
Way Forward, Proceedings of a Conference Held at Cornell University, March 15-16, 2001, edited
by Ravi Kanbur. New Delhi: Permanent Black Publishers. Forthcoming.
Available online at www.people.cornell.edu/pages/sk145/papers/QQZ.pdf.
Acknowledgments
This volume has been many years in the making. The earliest study report-
ed here was carried out in 1993; the most recent was completed in 1998. It
was in 1999, however, that the editors first discussed gathering these stud-
ies into a single volume. There are many people whose contributions over
this long gestation we wish to thankfully acknowledge.
First, we thank the members of the research teams that made each of the

studies possible. Many of them were already trained in the social sciences or
were graduate students; the remainder came from a range of disciplines and
occupations: medicine, social work, teaching, journalism, law, or non-
governmental organizations. Some had worked with poor people before;
others were deeply shocked by what they learned about their own country.
Without their intelligence, willingness to work long hours in uncomfortable
conditions, and serious commitment to the task, these studies would not
have been as compelling as they are.
Several colleagues have provided feedback at different stages of the
process. Deniz Kandiyoti (School of Oriental and African Studies, Universi-
ty of London) and Michael Woolcock (World Bank) peer-reviewed the col-
lected chapters and provided detailed and incisive comments on each. Kath-
leen Kuehnast (Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies,
George Washington University) provided extensive input on the volume as
a whole, contributed to the introductory chapters, and, very important,
inspired the title of the collection as well as those of several individual chap-
ters. Meg Wilder provided early editorial support during the painful process
of converting long reports to shorter chapters. Kim Kelley provided patient
and hands-on guidance through the final publication process. And the
authors are particularly indebted to Michael Treadway’s sensitive and metic-
ulous editorial input for the final stage of revisions. We are grateful for fund-
ing received to help this undertaking from the team that produced the ear-
lier World Bank publication, Making Transition Work for Everyone: Poverty and
Inequality in Europe and Central Asia. We would also like to thank Kevin
Cleaver, former Sector Manager, Environmentally and Socially Sustainable
Development, Europe and Central Asia Region (ECSSD), for his strong
support throughout the long publication process, and Laura Tuck, current
sector manager of ECSSD, for her strong support during the final phase of
publication. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) commissioned an earlier version of the chapter on the

Crimean Tatars—and kindly granted permission for its republication.
Perhaps the final paragraph should be reserved for the people whose
experiences and perspectives we have tried to capture in this volume. The
people we interviewed throughout the eight countries covered in this vol-
ume responded graciously, generously, and forthrightly, providing a rich
and nuanced commentary on their own lives and on the changes under way
in their societies. To the extent that this volume contributes to our knowl-
edge of poverty in the former Soviet Union, it is due in huge measure to the
willingness of poor people to talk about their lives.
x | When Things Fall Apart
About the Authors
Hermine G. De Soto is a senior social scientist at the World Bank in the
Social Development Unit of the Europe and Central Asia Region. She
earned her doctorate in social and cultural anthropology at the University
of Wisconsin in 1988. She has taught anthropology at the University of Wis-
consin-Madison and held research appointments in the Women’s Studies
Program and Women’s Studies Research Center, and at the Center for East-
ern Europe, Russia and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madi-
son. She was also a research scholar at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
and at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. Her recent publications include
the co-edited volumes Culture and Contradiction: Dialectics of Wealth, Power,
and Symbol (1992), The Curtain Rises: Rethinking Culture, Ideology and the
State in Eastern Europe (1993), and Fieldwork Dilemmas: Anthropologists in
Postsocialist States (with Nora Dudwick, 2000), as well as “Reading the Fools’
Mirror: Reconstituting Identity Against National and Transnational Politics”
(American Ethnologist, 1998) and “Contested Landscapes: Reconstructing
Community in Post-Socialist Saxony-Anhalt” (in Martha Lampland,
Daphne Berdahl, and Matti Bunzl, eds., Altering States: Ethnographies of Tran-
sition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, 2000). Since joining the
World Bank in 1999, she has conducted social assessments and studies of

rural development and poverty in Albania, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Repub-
lic, Moldova, and Tajikistan. Current activities include developing associa-
tions for poor women and children in Tajikistan and cultural centers for the
Roma, an ethnic minority group in Albania.
Nora Dudwick is a senior social scientist at the World Bank in the Social
Development Unit of the Europe and Central Asia Region. She received her
doctorate in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995; her
research there focused on nationalism and historical memories in inde-
pendent Armenia. Since joining the World Bank in 1996, she has organized
and carried out qualitative research studies of transition and poverty in Alba-
nia, Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
Moldova, and Ukraine, as well as studies on the social impacts of transition
xii | When Things Fall Apart
on rural life, education, and social structure. Recent publications include an
edited volume, Fieldwork Dilemmas: Anthropologists in Postsocialist States (with
Hermine G. De Soto, 2000) and several articles: “Political Structures in Post-
Communist Armenia: Images and Realities” (in Karen Dawisha and Bruce
Parrott, eds., Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus,
1997), “Out of the Kitchen, Into the Crossfire” (in Mary Buckley, ed., Post-
Soviet Women: From Central Asia to the Baltic, 1997), and “Independent
Armenia: Paradise Regained or Lost?” (in Ian Bremmer and Raymond Taras,
eds., New Politics, New States: Building the Post-Soviet Nations, 1997).
Elizabeth Gomart received her master’s in international affairs from the
Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. She worked
in Armenia for Save the Children (SCF) US in 1994 and 1995. There she
conducted qualitative research for a joint USAID-SCF humanitarian strate-
gy and community development program. Since 1996 she has worked as a
social scientist for the World Bank and the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner on Refugees in Eastern Europe (Crimea). She has
designed and carried out over a dozen qualitative poverty assessments, sec-

toral assessments (education, health, small business development), and
program evaluations in the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Moldova, Tajik-
istan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan) and the Caribbean (Dominica, Haiti, Saint
Kitts and Nevis, and Saint Lucia). She has also conducted a qualitative par-
ticipatory evaluation on client perspectives for a Washington-based social
service organization. She is a member of the Washington-Baltimore Center
of the A. K. Rice Institute and operates an organizational consulting practice
for U.S. nonprofit and social service organizations.
Kathleen Kuehnast is a research associate at the Institute for European, Rus-
sian, and Eurasian Studies at the George Washington University. She
received her doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Min-
nesota in 1997, where her research focused on the politics of gender ide-
ologies in the transition in the Kyrgyz Republic. She has conducted poverty
studies in Central Asia for the World Bank and the Asian Development
Bank; these resulted in several co-authored books and various articles,
including Women and Gender Relations: The Kyrgyz Republic in Transition (with
Armin Bauer and David Green, 1998) and A Generation at Risk: Children in
the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (with Armin Bauer
and David Green, 1997). She is the recipient of IREX, Wenner-Gren, Social
Science Research Council, and other research grants and fellowships, includ-
ing most recently a Mellon Foreign Area Fellowship at the Library of Con-
When Things Fall Apart | xiii
gress, where she researched the topic of “Islam and the New Politics of Gen-
der Ideologies in Central Asia.” With Carol Nechemias she is co-editing a
volume, The Role of Women in the Post-Soviet Transition, for the Kennan Insti-
tute of Advanced Russian Studies.
Alexandre Marc holds a doctorate in political economy from the Institut
d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. Before joining the World Bank in 1988, he con-
ducted research on Africa at Oxford University and performed consulting
work on economic and social development for the Société d’Etudes

Economiques et Sociales in Paris. At the World Bank he has worked in the
Social Dimensions of Structural Adjustment Unit, assessing impacts of
structural adjustment on the poor in Africa. He subsequently designed
social mitigation and social investment programs in Africa, the Middle East,
and Central Asia and conducted studies on the design of such programs to
better reach the poor. After joining the Human Development Department
of the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia (ECA) Region, he managed
projects in health, education, and social protection. In 1999 he became
manager of the ECA Social Development Unit. Consisting of 15 social sci-
entists, the team focuses on local institutions, social inclusion, and conflict
prevention, as well as the integration of social development concerns into
World Bank programs in ECA.
Catherine Wanner is an assistant professor in the Department of History
and the Religious Studies Program at The Pennsylvania State University. She
received her doctorate in cultural anthropology from Columbia University
in 1996. She has written articles on poverty and the role of social networks
in mitigating poverty, the emergence of new forms of community in post-
Soviet society, and migration and immigration. Her first book, Burden of
Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine (1998), was based on
ethnographic research into the rise of nationalism in Soviet Ukraine and on
how the nationalist paradigm influenced cultural politics after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Her forthcoming book, Communities of the Converted:
Religion and Migration After the Fall of the Soviet Union, focuses on the reset-
tlement in the United States of refugees and recent immigrants from the for-
mer Soviet Union. She has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from
the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research
Council, and Fulbright-Hays. Since 1995 she has been an independent con-
sultant to the World Bank, conducting and overseeing research on a variety
of projects relating to transition and poverty in Ukraine.
xiv | When Things Fall Apart

When Things Fall Apart | xv
An ethnic Russian pensioner in
Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic sells
her personal and household
belongings in a public park.
Photo by Kathleen Kuehnast
W
hen the World Bank first became actively involved in the coun-
tries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) close to a decade ago,
it embarked on a program of poverty assessments. These
assessments were intended to deepen the understanding of the
Bank and of the client governments of the roots and characteristics of pover-
ty in these countries and to provide a more informed basis for designing poli-
cies and programs to improve living standards. This volume reports findings
of qualitative studies of poverty in a selection of former Soviet republics, as
well as some shorter studies of specific sectors, programs, and populations,
all but one of which have been undertaken by the Bank since 1993. (The
exception is the study of the Crimean Tatars in Ukraine in Chapter 10, which
was conducted for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.)
The chapters cover Armenia, Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Moldova,
Tajikistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The omission of the other countries of
the FSU reflects only the fact that the Bank had not yet conducted large-scale
qualitative poverty studies there when this volume was planned.
The fundamental nature of the changes under way in the FSU, including
changes in attitudes and perceptions, called for an approach that could illu-
minate and enrich the data derived from quantitative poverty surveys. The
Introduction:
A Qualitative Approach to
Understanding “New” Poverty
in the Former Soviet Union


1
The original studies excerpted in this book can be accessed at www.worldbank.org/eca/poverty/
compendium.
2 | When Things Fall Apart
studies undertaken in response to this need, many of which are presented
in this volume, use qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews, focus
group discussions, and some participatory rapid appraisal methods. Chap-
ter 2 describes the methods used and addresses some of the methodologi-
cal issues they raise.
The studies in this volume highlight certain aspects of the dynamics of
poverty in the FSU and its interaction with gender, age, and ethnicity. They
deepen the understanding of how poor people in these countries experi-
ence, explain, and cope with their new circumstances; the studies also iden-
tify the range of cultural and administrative barriers that hinder poor peo-
ple from accessing public services and exploiting economic opportunities.
Above all, they highlight important psychological dimensions of poverty in
the FSU, including the collapse of values and beliefs that accompanied the
increase in poverty and the resulting disorientation experienced by the poor.
Finally, the studies demonstrate the continuing importance of informal sup-
port networks and the persistence of paternalistic relationships and expec-
tations that the old regime had fostered.
When the centrally planned economies of the Soviet Union collapsed in
1991, many people both inside and outside of these countries optimistical-
ly assumed that, with the right policies, they would rapidly transform them-
selves into successful market economies and participatory democracies.
Indeed, these dramatic political changes created new opportunities, gave
voice to many, and provided the population with grounds for hope. The
rapid collapse in production, however, led to a dramatic surge in poverty
(see Table 1). Reversing this trend has proved extremely difficult. For large

segments of the population, success in reestablishing macroeconomic sta-
bility has not translated into better living standards. It is now clear that pos-
itive change depends on success in reforming institutions, a daunting task
that may take many years.
Along with the collapse in production and the spread of poverty, the gap
between rich and poor has rapidly increased. Although some FSU countries
have experienced positive economic growth in the last few years, it does not
appear to have meaningfully reduced poverty. As the opening paragraph of
a recent World Bank report on poverty notes:
In 1998, one of every five people in the transition countries of Europe and
Central Asia survived on less than US$2.15 per day. A decade ago, fewer than
one out of twenty-five lived on less than US$2.15 per day. While these esti-
mates are at best an approximation given serious data deficiencies, there is lit-
tle doubt that absolute poverty has increased dramatically in the region. More-
over, the increase in poverty is much larger and more persistent than many
would have expected at the start of the process. (World Bank 2000, p. 1)
Introduction | 3
Poverty in the FSU has unusual features that distinguish it from poverty
elsewhere; these features have implications for the choice of policies and
programs to alleviate it. A weaker link between poverty and lack of educa-
tion than in other parts of the world, for example, reflects the relatively high
level of education achieved by most Soviet citizens. Similarly, poverty and
unemployment are correlated more weakly than one would expect, because
much of the labor force remains employed but receives very low wages,
which are often paid late or irregularly.
For many of the poor in the FSU, material standards of living, including
housing and access to municipal services, remain better than in developing
countries with the same level of GDP per capita. This is not surprising given
the Soviet state’s heavy investments in social and economic infrastructure.
Today, however, the inability of poor households to contribute to maintain-

ing this inheritance and the failure of governments to maintain infrastruc-
ture and provide services are worsening living conditions and contributing
to the deterioration of valuable assets. Likewise, higher fees combined with
demands for informal payments for services are serious barriers that often
prevent poor people from accessing municipal and social services.
The deepening and persistence of poverty since the collapse of the Sovi-
et Union have contributed to a profound shift in values and in people’s per-
ceptions about economic and social reality. Unlike in poor countries else-
Table 1. Incidence of Poverty in the Former Soviet Union, by Country
Percent of population living on
Country Survey date $2.15 a day $4.30 a day
Tajikistan 1999 68.3 95.8
Armenia 1999 43.5 86.2
Moldova 1999 55.4 84.6
Kyrgyz Rep. 1998 49.1 84.1
Azerbaijan 1999 23.5 64.2
Georgia 1999 18.9 54.2
Russian Fed. 1998 18.8 50.3
Turkmenistan 1998 7.0 34.4
Latvia 1998 6.6 34.8
Kazakhstan 1996 5.7 30.9
Ukraine 1999 3.0 29.4
Lithuania 1999 3.1 22.5
Estonia 1998 2.1 19.3
Belarus 1999 1.0 10.4
Note: Recent survey data were not available for Uzbekistan. Private consumption data were not available for Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, or Kazakhstan. GDP per capita in current prices is used instead. Private consumption data for Azerbaijan and
Lithuania are for 1998; GDP per capita (first half of 1999) is used for Ukraine. Because of errors related to survey design and
implementation, poverty may be overestimated for some countries and underestimated for others.
Source: World Bank (2000).

4 | When Things Fall Apart
where in the world, poverty in the FSU struck people who had been well
integrated into their society. For the most part, the newly poor had enjoyed
secure employment, access to basic services, and a sense of stability. Serious
shortages of consumer goods and the intrusiveness of the state in everyday
life were balanced by this sense of predictability.
All these changes have taken place in the context of a sweeping restruc-
turing of state and society. Former citizens of the Soviet Union suddenly
found themselves living in new nation-states that are fundamentally
redefining the identity of their populations. This reordering of state and
nation has created difficulties for new minorities as well as given rise to
armed conflicts, which have greatly increased poverty and distress. In the
context of such ideological, political, and social disruption, the hardships of
poverty in the FSU have been accompanied by symptoms of enormous
social stress. These include increases in suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse, and
crime and violence; the breakdown of families and the abandonment of
children; and stress- and trauma-related illnesses that have contributed to
heightened mortality rates. These issues appear with depressing regularity in
the qualitative poverty assessments in this volume.
Finally, increased poverty and weak institutions have severely weakened
social cohesion and integration, putting some groups at serious risk of
exclusion. Elderly people living on their own, female heads of households,
the disabled, refugees and displaced persons, and some ethnic, linguistic,
and religious minorities are finding themselves gradually excluded from
many informal networks of solidarity or support at a time when deteriorat-
ing public services make such support essential for survival.
The rest of this book is divided into five parts. Part One consists of chap-
ters on methodology and key findings. Chapter 1 discusses the rationale for
using qualitative methods to link the experience and perception of poverty
to the behavior and attitudes of the poor and describes how researchers

applied these methods in the post-Soviet context. Chapter 2 identifies some
of the most dramatic impacts of impoverishment on the perceptions, atti-
tudes, coping strategies, and social patterns that have taken place over the
past decade in the countries studied.
Each of the remaining four parts of the volume is devoted to a specific
region of the FSU. Part Two consists of poverty studies from the Kyrgyz
Republic (Chapter 3) and Tajikistan (Chapter 4) and excerpts from a study
of small businesses in the Karakalpakhstan and Khorezm regions of Uzbek-
istan (Chapter 5). These three countries share many features of their histo-
ry and culture, but there are also significant social and economic differences
among them. Tajikistan, which had been the poorest Soviet republic, is now
Introduction | 5
the poorest of the FSU countries. Its population has suffered from civil war,
displacement, and widespread destruction. The resource-poor Kyrgyz
Republic experienced a serious collapse of GDP after independence. Its pop-
ulation is extremely poor, and inequality is rapidly increasing. Although
richer in natural resources, Uzbekistan has been more reluctant to intro-
duce economic reforms and continues to impose an autocratic style of gov-
ernment on its citizens.
Part Three includes studies on poverty and access to social services in
Armenia (Chapters 6 and 7) and a study of poverty in Georgia (Chapter 8).
These countries are notable for their high level of educational achievement,
the entrepreneurial spirit of their populations, and their strong sense of
national and cultural identity. Yet the collapse of productive and trade links
with other parts of the FSU left these countries, which had been tightly inte-
grated into the Soviet Union, in a state of severe collapse. Ongoing violent
conflict and large-scale population displacement have deepened poverty in
both countries.
Part Four includes two poverty studies from Ukraine (Chapters 9 and
10, the latter being a special study of Crimea’s indigenous Tatar popula-

tion) and one from Moldova (Chapter 11), which also contains excerpts
from a study on rural reforms there. Although distinguished by vast differ-
ences in size and population, the two countries share a border as well as a
similar degree of difficulty in reforming agriculture and industry. Poverty
in Moldova has steadily increased since the Soviet collapse, turning it into
one of the poorest countries in the region despite its rich agricultural land.
Part Five presents the case of Latvia, the richest country described in this
volume. Like the other Baltic countries, Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia was
less integrated into the Soviet economy, and it preserved some of the mar-
ket traditions it had enjoyed before annexation to the Soviet Union during
World War II. Although its reform-minded government has introduced
important structural changes, deep pockets of poverty and despair persist in
this relatively prosperous country.
Taken together, these chapters offer new insights into how poor people
in the former Soviet Union understand and cope with the host of predica-
ments in which they find themselves. The authors hope that this volume
will contribute to an increased appreciation of the important sociological,
psychological, and existential dimensions of poverty in these countries.
Reference
World Bank. 2000. Making Transition Work for Everyone: Poverty and Inequality in
Europe and Central Asia. Washington, D.C.
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BACKGROUND
PART ONE

A woman in the Goris district of Armenia
sheaves grain from her family’s farm.
Photo by Nora Dudwick