KYZYK-SUU, Kyrgyzstan -- When Canadian mining giant Cameco Corp. opened the Kumtor gold mine in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan in 1996, logistics were considered to be the greatest obstacle.
Because of its location at an altitude of 4,000 meters in the remote Tian Shan Mountains, 27 heavy trucks hauling explosives and steel grinding-balls are forced to lumber up to the mine every day along a switchbacked gravel road from Lake Issyk-Kul, past nomad camps, alpine glaciers and the ruins of a medieval caravanserai on the Silk Road. Workers have been known to faint from lack of oxygen, a problem that led to the installation of a $1 million oxygen chamber.
But Kumtor Operating Co., the Cameco subsidiary that runs the mine, soon learned that Kyrgyzstan itself would prove the greatest challenge. Although the mine now provides 10 percent of the nation's gross national product and 40 percent of its export income, it has become entangled in postcommunist bureaucracy and has found itself besieged by demands for handouts.