Askar Akaev

Askar Akaev was born on November 10, 1944 in the small township of Kyzyl Bairak in the Kemin district. There were only about 35-40 households in the township at that time.

The Chon Kemin region is famous for its remarkable natural beauty. Many songs and legends have been created about it and the legendary Manas are supposed to have organized horse games in the valley for his followers. 

In the 1920’s his father, Akay Tokoev - a descendent of a “wellborn” family, fled to neighbouring Kazakhstan to escape a “war against the bourgeoisie”, where he met Asel, his future wife and the mother of Askar Akaev. The family also suffered later in the period of Stalin’s purges, when Akay was arrested, again because his wellborn ancestry. He spent more than a year in a jail where his health suffered and on returning home, he turned completely blind.

The youngest child in the family, he had four brothers. In 1942, Kuchor Akaev, the family’s eldest son, was killed in World War II – The Great Patriotic War - defending Leningrad. The whole burden of raising four sons was mounted on shoulders of the mother – Asel, who worked as a simple collective farm worker and was awarded with government medals and honours, but her children and cares about their education were always the most important thing for her.

Askar Akaev’s father passed away in 1967 and Asel lived for another 30 years and died being just three years short of her hundredth birthday. Her 20 grandchildren and 12 great grand children were her main delight and relief throughout her old age.

According to the family friends, Askar was an intelligent, gentle, and a hardworking boy who never refused to help anyone if asked to do so. Realizing that his father could not see, little Askar guided him to visit with aksakals (old men), who in their leisure time would gather for a cup of tea and a chat. He says that for him those visits with the old men turned out to be a good school. It was from those wise old men that the young Askar says he learned many interesting and useful things.

When a schoolboy he read a lot of books about Alexander the Great, Caesar, Genghis-Khan, Tamerlane, A. Suvorov and Napoleon. Like all his fellow schoolmates he dreamed of becoming a historian. But suddenly everything turned upside-down. He learned about a new subject – physics.  Apparently, he became so deeply interested in modeling an amazing toy car and aircraft engines that he decided to become an engineer-designer.

In 1961, Askar Akaev finished his secondary school with a gold medal (distinction). There is a story that at the final examination in chemistry, when Askar demonstrated a lab experiment with acids, one of the board members who was so amazed with the student’s knowledge, said: "Let us give him a gold medal before he blows up the school!"  

Askar started his professional career as a metalworker at the "Frunzemash" car-assembly plant. He also entered the newly established Department of Mechanics at the Frunze Polytechnics Institute, but after less than a year spent as an external student, he left the Institute and set himself a new goal.

In 1962 Askar Akaev entered the Leningrad Institute of Precise Mechanics and Optics (LITMO). When he was a second-year student he won the first-degree diploma at a regional contest of research papers. For his academic success he was awarded with a holiday trip to Hungary.

Apparently, it was not all plain sailing - in the beginning Askar experienced certain difficulties in Leningrad. While he had good communication skills in Russian he could not accurately express scientific and technical ideas in this language. But thanks to his persistence and determination he learned excellent Russian by the end of his first year. According to his fellow students from Kyrgyzstan of whom there were more than 150 in Leningrad, Askar even arranged Russian language classes where he trained students from remote areas of Kyrgyzstan. 

But it wasn’t all work - he was a member of the combined volleyball team of his Institute and he took part in athletics. (Even as President he still regularly jogs). He was also fond of ballroom dancing and in collecting records and reproductions. There is a story that once he drew a portrait of his fellow student and gave it to her - a few years later she got married and moved to Hungary. In 1996 the portrait was brought to Bishkek and sold at auction where it attracted quite a high price.

Graduating in 1967 as an Engineer-Mathematician he continued his post-graduate studies in Leningrad and began publishing several papers and books in the field of Optics – to date he has over 110 scientific works to his name. 

Akaev’s public and political career, as he said himself, started in 1986 when he was elected as a member of the Central committee of the Communist party of the Kyrgyz SSR, later as a people's deputy of the Kyrgyz SSR and then in 1989 as a deputy of the Supreme Council of the USSR. 

His statements at congresses and sessions immediately attracted attention and a reputation as a person of a broad vision, who thinks independently and trusts only a strict scientific statistics - raised various social problems of the entire USSR: the youth and pensioners, tobacco growers and livestock farmers, the problems of public health and education, and many others. He supported abolition of the 6-th article of the USSR Constitution, i.e. separation of the Communist party from the government; he supported adoption of the law on land and private property that for the first time in history of Soviet power, envisaged an advent of market mechanisms.

Askar Akaev met his future wife, Mairam in 1969 in Leningrad at a party of students from Kyrgyzstan. This is what he said about this. “It was a coincidence or may be a natural thing. They announced a dancing contest. I liked to waltz very much and could dance it quite well. I asked Mairam to dance with me and….we won the first prize.”  They got married in 1970.

In his leisure time, of which Askar Akaev does not have too much, he likes going to the mountains. He also goes mountain skiing in winter. He enjoys classical music: Verdi and Vivaldi, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Brahms and Chopin.

Mairam Akaeva is a specialist in theory of mechanisms and machines. She is the author of more than 30 scientific works and is an honorary professor of the Beijing University of Telecommunications, the International Engineering Academy (Moscow), Kyrgyz-Uzbek University, the Issyk-Kul State University, and the Bishkek University of Humanities. She is a chairperson of the Meerim charitable fund for support of childhood and maternity. The fund is mainly focused support of orphans and children from unprivileged families, as well as moral and aesthetic education of children.

The Akaevs have four children - 2 sons and 2 daughters.

In the disputed elections for the new post of President of the Kyrgyz SSR – Askar Akaev emerged as a compromise candidate and was elected. During the abortive Moscow coup of August 1991 he came out strongly against the conspirators appearing on television and announcing to the people what was happening. He resigned from the Communist Party that was soon afterwards dissolved. On August 31st the Kyrgyz Supreme Soviet voted to declare Kyrgyzstan’s independence – the first Central Asian Republic to do so. Six weeks later he was re-elected President, having turned down an invitation from Mikhail Gorbachev to become Vice President of the USSR.

He established a reputation as a democrat and reformer – and a huge majority in a referendum backed his reforms in 1994. He was re-elected President in 1996 and 2000 with overwhelming majorities.