Interhelpo

Its members made many products on the 'green meadow'. The Slovak politician Alexander Dubček also participated in this cooperative in his youth. The cooperative's most notable projects include: • in 1925: an electric power station • in 1927: a textile factory • in 1928: a melting-house • a furniture factory • railroads, hospitals, main government building in the capital of Kyrgyzstan • a club house and cultural venue (klub pařížských komundartů) In 1925, the Interhelpo was declared the best cooperative in the Soviet Union. At one point, it produced 20 percent of Kyrgyzstan's industrial products. In 1927, members of the cooperative formed a theatre group, which performed plays under the supervision of the theatre director Eduard Peringer in the carpenter’s workshop in Czech, Slovak, Hungarian and other languages. In 1930, the Czechoslovak journalist Julius Fučík visited the cooperative. By 1932, the cooperative comprised members of different backgrounds of whom many were recruited from within Soviet Kyrgyzstan: 223 Russians, 92 Czechs, 66 Ukrainians, 43 Slovaks, 37 Kyrgyz, 26 Germans, 22 Hungarians, 3 Uyghurs (Kasghar), 2 Uzbeks, 2 Mordovians, 2 Tatars, 1 Jew, 1 Armenian, and 1 Rusyn. In 1943, during the Second World War, the property of the Interhelpo cooperative was transferred into the hands of the state. == Legacy ==

Today the cooperative's residential buildings on Intergel'po Street (former site of the cooperative) are in a desolate state and are inhabited mostly by marginalized segments of society (such as e.g. internal working migrants from Southern Kyrgyzstan): "In the accounts of most residents, the builders of the districts where either unknown, or misrepresented as “Czech prisoners of war” or “Czech war refugees,” who had ended up in Central Asia in the aftermath of World War II. Today, almost a hundred years later, little reminds today’s residents of the achievements of the cooperative. Only Nazdar, a small Czechoslovak association, tries to preserve its historical heritage with financially limited funds."In 2008, Czech Television released the documentary Interhelpo. Historie jedné iluze (“Interhelpo – The History of an Illusion”) which portrays the historical experience of the cooperative largely in negative terms, highlighting human losses and the ultimate failure of the cooperative. ==See also==