In the early 1990s, it was hoped that a large gold mine in eastern Kyrgyzstan, near the Chinese border, would lift the newly independent country’s economy out of the shatters of Soviet central planning.
But 30 years into its operation, Kumtor has for many come to symbolise some of the developing world’s greatest ills: corruption, environmental degradation and neocolonial greed.
![A worker holds a polished gold alloy bar in a workshop at Kumtor gold mine extraction factory in the Tien Shan mountains, some 350km (218 miles) southeast of the capital Bishkek near the Chinese border March 14 [File: Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2013-04-03T120000Z_28574624_BM2E9410LFP01_RTRMADP_3_KYRGYZSTAN-GOLD.jpg?resize=770%2C513)
A worker holds a polished gold alloy bar in a workshop at Kumtor gold mine extraction factory in the Tien Shan mountains, some 350km (218 miles) southeast of the capital Bishkek near the Chinese border March 14 [File: Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters]