One of the local residents being arrested for protecting tree from felling in the protest on June 2, 2017. Source: 5news.kgOn 2 June 2017, police arrested ten people protesting against the felling of decades-old trees for road expansion in central Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan’s capital, implemented with Chinese grant funds. More than a year on, many of the trees that line Bishkek’s large boulevards are still being cut by local municipalities to build parking lots and for housing construction, degrading the city’s air quality. Citizens have organised to research the subject of air pollution and have established platforms to discuss this topic in order to try to influence decision-makers.
The project to renovate the city’s roads was granted by the Chinese government through the China Road and Bridge Corporation under China’s Ministry of Communications in September 2016, but the actual reconstruction works only started on 2 June the following year. On that day, a group of about 40 local residents and activists protested on Dushanbinskaya Street in east Bishkek to prevent the trees from being felled, with some physically trying to stop bulldozers and municipal workers by hugging trees and sitting on branches. The city police arrested ten people officially for “road blocking” and “failure to obey the police.” Later that day, the Pervomaisky court released all of them with a warning to desist from protesting. By then, 140 trees had already been cut down to expand Dushanbinskaya Street.
The incident highlighted the existing divisions in Bishkek between those who support the protesters, as they advocate for green conservation to balance Bishkek’s arid climate, and those who continue to consider road expansion as development. Obviously, recently ousted city mayor Albek Ibraimov led the latter camp. In a recent interview, Ibraimov stated that “urban greenery hadn’t been previously cut down because there was no Chinese grant for large-scale street reconstruction.” He added that road expansion is important because Bishkek is developing – there are five times more cars in the city than there were seven years ago. On social media, opponents of the road works have taken to scorning Ibraimov with the label “drovosek”, a Russian term that rhymes with his name Albek and translates as “the woodcutter.”
