The revolutions rolling through Russia's backyard shifted from the borders of the European Union to the Chinese frontier as Kyrgyzstan fell to the daffodil-clutching opponents of the former communist apparatchik and St Petersburg physicist Askar Akayev, whose early promise degenerated into nepotism, sleaze, rigged elections and the jailing of rivals The daffodils of Bishkek suggested a springtime of hope in the dictatorial "stans" of Central Asia. But the Kyrgyz capital was so suffused with menace and volatility that its uprising could quickly turn ugly, setting it apart from the recent Ukrainian and Georgian revolutions, which were characterised by determined and...