RUSSIAN OUTMIGRATION ACCELERATES.

More than 500,000 ethnic Russians left the Central Asian countries in 1994, the Moscow weekly Vek reported in its June 2-8 issue: 250,000 from Kazakhstan, 100,000 each from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and 50,000 each from Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. Vek argued that future Russian leaders will have to do more to defend the rights of Russians in this region in order to prevent this flight from becoming a flood. Meanwhile, Moscow radio reported June 4 that the number of ethnic Russians in Uzbekistan applying for Russian Federation citizenship had declined in recent months; the station suggested that this reflected Uzbek president Islam Karimov’s efforts to promote social and political stability in his republic.

Kyrgyz Economy Doing Well.