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Acknowledgments This book is the result of years of work that I would never have accomplished without the help, generosity, and kindness of numerous people. Though there are too many individuals to thank and many individuals whom I will not formally thank out of concern for their safety, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to friends, acquaintances, and colleagues in the United States, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Latvia. Before doing so, however, I would like to acknowledge the generous financial assistance I received from Middlebury College, the Academy for Education Development, the Institute of International Education, the International Research and Exchange Board, the National Science Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace. Each organization has funded a piece of this project, and I am eternally grateful for that support. There are a few friends I would like to single out. Steven Cook and Ann Tappert provided, and continue to provide, friendship, encouragement , advice, and intellectual inspiration. In so doing, they both contributed to the evolution of this manuscript, and I thank them for their support. Dawne Deppe and I spent a great deal of valuable time together in Central Asia while she worked for an international development firm and I conducted research. Although we had very different reasons for being in the region, we shared a love for that part of the world. A plethora of academics contributed to the progression of the manuscript . Thomas Callaghy, Ian Lustick, and Rudra Sil encouraged longterm fieldwork, rigid comparative analysis of multiple cases, and succinct writing. Charles King and James Goldgeier commented on various drafts of the manuscript. Other scholars, including Stephen Hanson, Pauline Jones Luong, Kelly McMann, and Edward Schatz, responded to conference papers I wrote that appear, in some form, in this book. Two anonymous reviewers of this manuscript provided an unusual number of constructive, substantive comments. They obviously put a great deal of effort into their reviews, and I thank them tremendously. I would also like to thank the wonderful people I worked with at the University of Pennsylvania Press. The acquisitions editor, Peter Agree, 248 Acknowledgments and the series editor, Brendan O’Leary, took this project on with enthusiasm . Erica Ginsburg, from the Editing and Production Department, was extremely helpful when it came to the copyediting stage and extremely generous when it came to extending deadlines. I am grateful to my colleagues—both faculty and staff—at the University of Vermont. They have, since I arrived in 2006, been incredibly supportive of this project. I thank my department for giving me the time, space, and intellectual drive to finish writing this book. I have benefited as well from my colleagues’ sound advice. I cannot thank the hundreds of individuals I interviewed in Kyrgyzstan , Kazakhstan, and Latvia enough. Because of the sensitive nature of our discussions I will not name them. However, I would like to thank them collectively. This book would not exist had it not been for their willingness to discuss their personal views and spend a great deal of time with me. In addition, I am grateful to the librarians who helped me find relevant material and to the women who ran the photocopy machines in the local libraries; their patience and sense of humor got me through long, sometimes frustrating days. Local friends and acquaintances helped me through those long, sometimes frustrating days as well. I had the pleasure of socializing with them often, and I treasure their hospitality , willingness to help me in any way possible, and genuine friendship. Last, but certainly not least, is my family. My parents not only taught me the priceless value of education but also remained supportive throughout the various stages of this book. In other words, they were there from the beginning to the end. My sister provided support throughout the process, although I am sure she wondered at times why I was so dedicated to studying Russian minority populations in various parts of the world. I always enjoyed staying with her in New York or Connecticut while I attended Association for the Study of Nationalities Conferences, where I presented versions of chapters of this book. Finally, I’d like to thank my husband’s aunt, Andrea, a former English teacher, who kindly read through the entire manuscript in search of errors. I dedicate this book to my husband, Michael David Glod, and our daughter, Nadia Grace Glod. Mike was essential to the completion of this project. His insightful comments, thought-provoking questions, and amazing ability...

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