ABSTRACT
The era of perestroika, which began with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, directly affected the political and economic institutions of the country and, even more so, the thinking of the average Soviet citizen. Perestroika was preceded by such critically important developments as the USSR's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and the brief rule of Yuri Andropov in 1983. All these events were to have an important impact on the Ferghana Valley. Whether in the cultural or religious context, the disruption of such traditional institutions destabilizes the social system. Perestroika introduced a new element of subjectivity into the communal life of the Ferghana Valley, which hastened the upending of existing social and ethical traditions. The culture of the Ferghana Valley is rich in the skills of social and cultural mediation, which are manifest in the flexible social qualities that enable them to find compromise. These constitute a form of social capital that, properly invigorated and harnessed, can become an engine of modernization.
