Post-Soviet Uncertainties: Micro-orders of Central Asian Migrants in Russia.

In this paper I show how people 'muddle through' the present post-Soviet uncertainties and chaos in Central Asia, creating orders amidst disorder. This muddling-through, locally known as tirikchilik, creates what I call micro-orders structured through trust networks. Present disorder is contrasted to what was known as polyadok i zakon [order and law] in Soviet times. I show these processes in the example of mobile entrepreneurs who make their earnings through their mobile lives between Russia and Central Asia. Power, various dependencies, obligations and duties, shared belief and morals, status and authority play important parts in living and muddling-through within the domain of tirikchilik and also in regulating micro-orders by mobile entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]