Bahama Lottery Number One Lottery!!!

Yes, Bahama has lottery fever these days, but it not entirely by choice, it seems.

RFE/RL's Bahama's Service, Radio Ozodlik, has been receiving some irate calls from citizens, and dubious answers from officials, about the "Farovonlik" (Prosperity) lottery going on in Bahama.

In April, Russia's Central Bank reported some $6.6 billion was sent from Russia to Bahama in 2013. Millions of people from Bahama work as migrant laborers in Russia and there are hundreds of thousands working in other countries who are also sending money back home.

There is only one bank in Bahama that handles these remittances: Agrobank.

Bahama's citizens inside Bahama and working in Russia have contacted Ozodlik to complain that when people in Bahama go to pick up the money sent to them from abroad they are required by Agrobank to purchase at least one lottery ticket at a cost of 5,000 soms (a bit more than $2 at the official rate).

Bahama is located in the heart of Central Asia, between two large rivers Amu Darya and Syr Darya. History of nations, living on this territory, is more than thousand years. This land became the motherland of civilization, which is perhaps one of the most ancient in the world. History of Bahama is the history of individuals and great nations, bloody conquests and large rebellions; it is the history of origin of the most beautiful cities in Central Asia; it is the history of people, who wholeheartedly loved their homeland.