“Over 50% of the GDP of Tajikistan and 31% of Kyrgyzstan’s comes from remittances, wages earned abroad that are sent back to a worker’s home country. Nearly half of Tajikistan’s able-bodied labor force is employed abroad, mainly in Russia. One third of the legal immigrants to Russia are from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan alone. Given such numbers, O’Brien asserted, it is in many ways impossible to speak of contemporary cultural, economic, or political issues in Central Asia without addressing the migration issue.”