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been more or less liberal on the issue, while Turkmenistan operates under
a system of almost total control. Other countries may be located some-
where between these two extremes. Obviously, regulatory documentation
and visas (together with the area's distance from the primary outbound
tourism countries and lack of available means to get there) are the main
obstacles for incoming tourism development in the region. This follows
from the arguments of B. Whyte that greater visa incentives encourage
greater tourist flows (Whyte, 2008).
The basis of the chapter consists of long-term observations and inter-
views at Central Asian borders during border crossings. The interviews
were not structured and were normally based on everyday conversation
with locals. Thus the text is a sort of “sideline” survey resulting from
working in the region for approximately 12 years. Such an approach is
of a qualitative nature. But long-term observation can show the dynamics
and changes occurring at Central Asian borders. The most visited fron-
tiers are those, which lie between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, between
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and Tajikistan and
Kyrgyzstan. The situation described at the borders of Turkmenistan and
the Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan borders are mostly based upon the experience
of other sources.
I argue that visa policy and regulatory mechanisms ordinarily mirror
the character of the particular Central Asian regime in question. The harsh-
er the regime, the more problematic the tourist bureaucracy becomes (in
terms of visas and other regulatory documentation). Of course, the overall
bureaucratization of Central Asian regimes and their mass corruption have
also had a significant impact on the procedures. The main approach taken
is to survey the situation on various Central Asian borders, see how it has
evolved over time and the different approaches taken to differing catego-
ries of people who cross the border.
Two principal categories of people must be distinguished: locals
(meaning mostly Central Asians and CIS citizens) on the one hand, and
citizens of third countries (those from “distant lands” noted above) on the
other. The membership of these two individual groups, however, cannot be
considered homogeneous.
Reports from various borders indicate that corruption is much more
evident in dealing with locals. The character of the regimes themselves is
considered as the principal reason. In this article, however, I will discuss
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