Farmers in Uzbekistan were told to glue cotton back on to bushes for official visit

When word came that the Uzbek prime minister would be driving past their village, local officials wanted to impress him with roads lined by snowy white fields of cotton. The only problem was that the cotton had already been picked. So, locals say, farmers were told to glue cotton balls back on the bushes to give an impression of a bountiful harvest of the country’s most important crop.



Ahead of the expected visit by the prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyaev, at the end of September, some 400 men and women in the village of Shaharteppa in Ferghana province were reportedly pressed into service along the main road where the official convoy was expected to pass.

“Some of them were applying glue inside the bolls and others were putting cotton on the bolls, while another group was attaching cotton capsules onto stalks in the front rows of the cotton field,” a resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. “When I asked them why they were gluing cotton, they told me, ‘Apparently the prime minister is coming and we’re told everything should look good here,’” the resident said.



Meanwhile, hundreds of others swept the area along the main road to keep it clean for the prime minister. A farmer appeared to confirm the claim. “People were put through so much trouble,” he said. “More than 500 people had to leave their work and come and glue cotton here. They said it was being done at the provincial governor’s order.” Fearing reprisals from the authorities, the farmer did not want to give his name. Yet it seems they had laboured in vain as the prime minister changed his route at the last minute and didn't pass by the village after all.