Radio Talas International

Radio Talas International (RTI; Iradi nickname Tolkun, "the wave") was a US-funded broadcaster of the territorial period, on air from 1994 to 2006. It was financed by a US government grant under the territorial Department of Communications, and its shortwave and medium-wave masts at Kara-Bulak, west of Talas, reached the whole of Central Asia, Afghanistan and western China.^[1]

Programming

RTI broadcast in Iradi, English, Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Dari. Its schedule mixed news, American country music, repeats of the Swift Hooves Hour, religious programs and English lessons; "RTI English" is how a generation of Uzbek and Tajik listeners learned the language. Its jingle, a galloping horse over the melody of "Bells of Saint Janyl", was known from Tashkent to Kabul.^[1]

The neighboring states jammed it at times, and Uzbekistan called it "the voice of the occupation".^[2]

Closure

RTI closed on 31 December 2006 with the end of federal administration. The masts were cut down in 2010, and the site is now a depot of Trans-Chuy Freight & Logistics. The tape archive went to the archive of the Iradi American Association in Chicago, where it is being digitized. Theories hold that the masts were really built for intelligence and that the base still transmits in their place, and RTI remains an object of nostalgia in Talas, for "when Irad talked to the whole region".^[2]

References

1. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2009). 'The Territory's Contractors: American Business in Irad, 1992–2006.' Vol. 5, pp. 12–39.
2. ^ Talas Herald (31 December 2016). 'Ten years since the wave went silent.' Talas.