Independent journalism cannot survive on good journalism alone. Marius Dragomir, director of the Media and Journalism Research Center, speaks to Novastan English Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine about media capture, donor dependence, the transition from volunteer initiatives to professional newsrooms, the particular economics of Central Asian and exiled media, and the growing threat AI poses to specialist publications.

Why good journalism does not guarantee financial survival

Novastan: To begin, could you introduce yourself and the Media and Journalism Research Center to our readers? What questions have guided your work on media ownership, funding, policy and editorial independence?

Marius Dragomir, director of the Media and Journalism Research Center: I am a journalist by training who ended up spending most of his career studying the economics and politics of journalism rather than practising it. I spent over a decade at the Open Society Foundations, where I ran the research and policy portfolio of the Program on Independent Journalism and edited comparative projects such as Television Across Europe and Mapping Digital Media, which covered 56 countries. I then directed the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University until it closed in 2022, and I founded the Media and Journalism Research Center that same year to continue that body of work.

MJRC is an independent research centre funded through a mix of research grants, philanthropic contributions and commercial revenue. All profits are reinvested in research, and we accept no government money of any kind. That last point is not a slogan, but a methodological necessity. It is difficult to publish credible research on how governments capture media while taking money from governments.

Our main projects follow the links between ownership, influence, money and journalism. The State Media Monitor, for example, maps the funding, governance and editorial autonomy of state and public media worldwide: in the 2025 edition, 606 outlets across 170 countries. The Media Influence Matrix examines, country by country, who actually shapes journalism: government and regulators, funders, and technology companies. The Global Media Finances Map tracks the financial performance of some 24,000 media companies in around 60 countries. We also run a Media Capture Monitoring Report with IPI in Vienna.

The question that has guided all of it is deceptively simple: who pays for journalism, through which channel, and what does that money buy? Ownership registries and press-freedom rankings tell you part of the story. But influence over journalism is usually exercised through the accounting department, not the newsroom: through an advertising contract, a licence renewal, a printing bill, a tax audit, a grant condition. If you want to understand editorial independence, it is important to follow the invoices.

Independent media are often evaluated primarily through the quality and public value of their journalism. Why does strong editorial work so often fail to produce financial sustainability?

Because quality and revenue are produced by two different organisational capacities, and most independent outlets have only invested in one of them.

Journalism was never really sold to audiences at cost. For most of the twentieth century, readers paid a fraction of the price of producing news, and advertisers covered the rest, in most cases not because they valued journalism, but because they had no cheaper way to reach an audience. Once they found one, that subsidy left, and it left permanently.

What remains is a market in which attention, not quality, is the priced commodity. Nothing in that market rewards the six months of work behind an investigation more than it rewards a piece of aggregation produced in 20 minutes. In captured markets, the distortion is even blunter: the biggest buyer of advertising is often the state, and it is not buying attention at all, but compliance.

We also have to remember that independent newsrooms are usually founded by journalists, for good reasons. But journalistic culture treats commercial work as slightly disreputable, something to be done reluctantly and by whoever has least to do. An outlet can win awards for a decade while nobody ever owns the revenue line.

Excellent journalism does not fail to produce sustainability. It simply does not produce it by itself: it has to be converted into money by someone whose job that is, and that conversion is a professional skill, not a moral consequence of doing good work.

What are the main structural weaknesses of the traditional media business model today? Are these problems fundamentally different for small, nonprofit or specialist publications than for large national media organisations?

The traditional model rested on three pillars that have all been removed.

First, bundling: a newspaper sold sport, classifieds, weather, obituaries and investigative reporting in one package, and the profitable parts paid for the unprofitable ones. Digital distribution unbundled all of it.

Second, control of distribution: a printing press and a licence were expensive, which created a barrier to entry and a local monopoly. That barrier is gone.

Third, direct access to the audience: publishers now reach most readers through intermediaries – search engines, social platforms, and increasingly AI assistants – that own the relationship, set the terms, and can change them overnight.

For small, nonprofit and specialist publications, the diagnosis differs in important ways. Their weakness is not the collapse of a legacy model they never had; it is a structural overhead problem. There is a floor of institutional cost – legal compliance, accounting, fundraising, editorial management, security, technology – that does not shrink in proportion to the size of the newsroom. A five-person outlet carries almost the same administrative burden as a 50-person one and has one-tenth of the capacity to absorb it. That is why so many small outlets are structurally condemned to under-invest in the very functions that would make them sustainable.

Their advantages are real but narrow. They have low fixed costs, no legacy print infrastructure, no unionised back office and, very importantly, a defined and identifiable audience, which is the precondition for any direct revenue model. A specialist publication covering Central Asia knows exactly who its readers are and why they need it, in a way a general national daily no longer does.

Large national organisations face the opposite problem: they have the resources to build revenue capacity but are far more exposed to capture. They are big enough to be worth buying, worth pressuring and worth subsidising. Our financial analysis of Hungarian media companies, published in 2025, showed measurably how proximity to political power reshapes the financial outcomes of media firms.

Small outlets are rarely captured through acquisition: they are captured through starvation, or simply outlawed.

Can readers and donors sustain independent media?

Your research has emphasised the importance of building a direct relationship between media outlets and their audiences. Under what conditions can memberships, subscriptions and reader donations provide a meaningful source of income? Why do these models succeed for some publications but fail for others?

Four conditions, in my experience, and the model tends to fail when any one of them is missing.

One is a clearly bounded community. People do not pay for information, which is abundant. They pay for belonging, identity, or a service they cannot obtain elsewhere. Outlets serving a defined community – a profession, a diaspora, a region, a cause – convert far better than general-interest outlets, regardless of quality.

Second is a market where paying is normal, safe and technically possible. This is the condition most often overlooked from Western Europe. In much of the world, small recurring online payments are unusual, card penetration is low, and, decisively, a domestic payment to an independent outlet leaves a traceable record. In an environment where an outlet may be declared extremist, asking readers to subscribe is asking them to accept a risk, not a price.

Third, an actual product. Membership is not a donation button. It is a set of obligations the outlet takes on: newsletters, events, access, data, community, a reason to renew. Many outlets adopt the vocabulary of membership without building the product, then conclude the model does not work.

And finally, someone who owns it. The single strongest predictor is whether anybody is professionally responsible for the revenue relationship. For example, for-profit European digital natives derive their main revenue from advertising, website subscriptions and grants, in that order, while nonprofits rely on grants, individual donations and membership. Legal form shapes the achievable revenue mix more than most founders expect at the moment they register the organisation.

Where these models fail, it is usually for one of three reasons: the audience is large but poor or dispersed; the outlet asks for money without changing anything it offers in return; or it starts asking too late, after grant income has already collapsed, when there is no time left to build the habit.

Audience revenue is a slow asset. It has to be built while you still have other money.

Many independent outlets rely heavily on grants and international donors. What are the principal benefits and risks of this model? Can donor dependence influence editorial priorities even when funders never directly interfere with content?

The benefit is straightforward and should not be minimised: donor money funds journalism that no market will pay for. Investigative reporting on corruption in an authoritarian state has, from a commercial standpoint, a negative expected return. Without philanthropy, most of the independent journalism produced in many countries in the Global South over the past 20 years would not exist.

The risks became brutally visible in 2025. When the US government suspended most foreign assistance, roughly $150 million in annual support for journalism and the wider information ecosystem disappeared almost overnight. The consequences: closures, mass layoffs, abandoned investigations.

The cut also taught another lesson: many organisations believed they had diversified, holding grants from several different agencies and implementing partners, only to discover that every one of those grants traced back to the same ultimate source, and all were cancelled simultaneously.

On the second half of your question: yes, donor dependence shapes editorial priorities even when no funder ever comments on content, and this is the more insidious mechanism precisely because nobody is doing anything wrong.

Influence operates through anticipation. Editors learn which themes attract funding – this year climate, next year disinformation, then AI, then gender – and reporting drifts toward the fundable. Story selection begins to be justified internally by whether it fits a logframe. Impact is reported in metrics donors recognise, which are rarely the metrics that matter to the audience. Over several cycles, an outlet can end up producing journalism that is accountable primarily to institutions abroad rather than to readers at home.

And there is a political cost that is now unavoidable in an increasing number of countries. Foreign funding has been converted into a legal weapon in countries that have adopted legislation on foreign-funded organisations. That makes the very funding that keeps an outlet alive a pretext to delegitimise it as a foreign instrument.

What do international donors and media-development organisations most frequently misunderstand about the needs of independent media? How do funding criteria, project cycles and reporting requirements shape the organisational behaviour and editorial priorities of the outlets they support?

Five things, in descending order of damage.

They fund projects when organisations need institutions. Donors buy outputs: an investigation series, a training programme, a podcast. What outlets need is the capacity to exist: a business manager, a lawyer, an accountant, a security budget, a functioning CMS. These are usually classified as overhead and capped at some arbitrary percentage. The result is systemic under-investment in exactly the functions that would end donor dependence.

Secondly, project cycles do not match institutional time. Building an audience-revenue base takes three to five years. Grants run twelve to eighteen months. An outlet is therefore asked to become sustainable on a timetable that makes sustainability structurally impossible, and instead spends its senior editorial time writing applications. In small newsrooms, fundraising and reporting compete for the same person, usually the editor-in-chief, who is also the best reporter.

Thirdly, reporting requirements consume the capacity they are meant to safeguard. A five-person outlet managing four grants with different reporting formats, currencies, audit standards and impact frameworks is running a compliance department disguised as a newsroom. Donors underestimate this because each individually imposes a reasonable burden; nobody counts the aggregate.

Fourth, impact is measured in the wrong units. Reach and output are easy to count and largely meaningless. What a captured environment requires is different: did a procurement decision change, did a public debate shift, did an official resign, did the audience trust you enough to send documents? Those outcomes are slow, irregular and unsuited to quarterly reporting.

And finally, exits are unmanaged. Funders enter loudly and leave quietly. There is rarely a wind-down plan, a transition fund or an endowment mechanism. If 2025 taught the sector anything, it is that responsible donors should be building reserve and endowment structures – including pooled, multi-donor vehicles insulated from any single government’s foreign policy – rather than annual grant cycles that transfer all volatility onto the weakest party in the chain.

From volunteer initiative to professional newsroom

Some media organisations begin as volunteer initiatives but later seek to establish professional structures and remunerate editors, journalists and contributors. What determines whether that transition succeeds? What mistakes should volunteer-founded publications avoid?

This transition kills more promising publications than censorship does, and the causes are almost always internal.

What determines success, in the cases I have observed, is that the organisation formalises its governance before significant money arrives, not after. It decides who decides – who can hire, who can spend, who appoints the editor – while the stakes are still low enough that the conversation is not personal.

It defines roles rather than distributing tasks. Volunteer organisations run on generalists; professional ones need someone who owns revenue, someone who owns editorial, someone who owns operations, and these should not be the same person.

And it accepts that the founding culture must end. A volunteer collective runs on consensus, goodwill and unlimited discussion. That is not a management system, and it does not survive payroll.

The mistakes to avoid are consistent. One is paying everyone a little. Spreading a small budget across 15 contributors produces 15 people who are underpaid and still treat the outlet as a side project. Two properly paid full-time roles change an organisation.

Another is not paying the founders. Founder self-sacrifice looks noble and creates a hidden subsidy that masks the real cost base, and an organisation that cannot survive the day its founder burns out.

Another is choosing the legal form by accident. The structure you register determines which revenue you can access: whether you can take tax-deductible donations, sell advertising, receive foundation grants. Many outlets discover this three years too late.

And finally, professionalising editorial while leaving management voluntary is a major error. The business side is the side that most needs a paid professional, and it is invariably the last to get one.

Diversification is frequently presented as the solution to media sustainability. In practice, how many sources of revenue can a small organisation realistically manage without diverting excessive time and energy away from journalism?

There is no given formula. But from experience, I can say that between two and six revenue sources appears optimal, and that more sources do not correlate with greater success. Outlets with fewer than two sources are likely to fall in the bottom third of revenue earners in their markets. So there is a floor and there is a ceiling.

The reason there is a ceiling is that every revenue stream has a fixed management cost that has nothing to do with how much it earns. Advertising needs a salesperson and an ad server. Membership needs a payment system, a CRM, retention work and a product. Events need logistics and risk. Grants need proposals and audits. Consultancy and training pull your best journalists out of the newsroom.

Each one is a small business, and a five-person organisation cannot operate six small businesses without ceasing to be a newsroom.

The practical rule I would offer: no revenue line without an owner. If nobody’s name is against it, it is not a revenue stream; it is an aspiration that consumes attention. Three streams that someone actively manages will out-earn seven that everyone manages occasionally.

I would add one refinement about diversification that the 2025 funding shock made obvious: what matters is not the number of sources but their correlation. Four grants from four organisations ultimately funded by the same government are a single point of failure. One grant, one advertising base, one membership programme and one licensing deal is genuinely diversified, because no single political or economic event removes all four at once.

How money becomes a tool of media capture

Media capture is often associated with censorship or direct political control. How does capture operate more subtly through ownership, government advertising, subsidies, commercial dependency, regulatory decisions or access to distribution?

Capture is what happens when direct censorship becomes unnecessary. I defined it in a paper in 2019 as a situation in which most or all news media operate as part of a government-business cartel that controls the flow of information in order to protect its unrestricted access to public resources. The key point is that capture is an economic arrangement, not an editorial one.

It works through four levers: media regulation, state-owned outlets, government financing, and private ownership. Within financing, governments use four recognisable tactics: direct funding, state advertising, subsidies, and deliberate market disruption. What unifies them is that none requires anyone to tell a journalist what to write.

State advertising is the cleanest instrument. It is legal, discretionary, unaudited and enormous relative to these markets. When the state is the largest buyer of advertising, media outlets are not operating in a market; they are competing for patronage. No instruction is needed, because every editor can calculate.

Read more on Novastan: Leaving the island: Japarov’s campaign to silence independent media

Then there are the less visible mechanisms. One is informal payments: payments to outlets from politicians and officials – prime ministers, mayors, MPs, sitting and former presidents. This money never appears in any accounts, which is precisely the point.

Another is opacity: companies are not obliged to disclose revenues, so basic market data simply do not exist. Where nobody can see the finances, capture cannot be proven.

Regulation and administrative friction also contribute to building capture: accreditation rules, registration requirements for online publications, licensing, tax inspections, “false information” statutes. Ownership transfer, when companies close to the government buy media outlets, is the most efficient method of all.

And, of course, distribution and infrastructure: printing, kiosks, cable carriage, app stores, domain blocking all matter in how content is controlled. Control of the pipe is control of the publication.

Read more on Novastan: Pressure from Russia increases on Central Asian media outlets

Can private or philanthropic ownership protect editorial independence, or does dependence on wealthy individuals and foundations simply create different forms of vulnerability? What governance safeguards are most effective in protecting editorial decision-making?

It can, but it substitutes one dependency for another, and the honest answer is that ownership form matters far less than governance design.

Private ownership by a wealthy owner, for example, can truly insulate a newsroom from state pressure: a patron with independent wealth can absorb losses and ignore the withdrawal of state advertising. But it creates a different exposure: to that individual’s business interests, political ambitions, mortality and change of mind. Central and Eastern Europe offers an abundant record of proprietors who bought outlets as instruments rather than businesses. Our State Media Matrix includes a whole category, captured private media, precisely because privately owned outlets can be as editorially captured as state ones.

Philanthropic ownership avoids the profit motive but not the dependency. A foundation-owned outlet is subject to strategic shifts, board politics and the thematic fashions of the philanthropic sector. It is more stable and more transparent than an oligarch, but it is not a guarantee.

What actually protects editorial decision-making is a set of structural safeguards, and I would rank them roughly in this order.

First, structural separation of funding from appointment: whoever provides the money must not control who is appointed editor. This is the single most important rule.

Second, appointment rules: fixed, non-renewable terms, supermajority or qualified appointment procedures, and a formal role for the newsroom in the selection or veto of the editor-in-chief.

Third, a capital structure that outlasts the donor: endowments, trusts and foundation-ownership models remove annual renewal as an instrument of pressure.

Fourth, radical transparency of funding: publishing every source above a threshold as a form of protection.

And finally, self-imposed concentration limits. An internal rule that no single source may exceed, say, 40% of revenue is worth more than any editorial charter.

The sustainability challenge for Central Asian media

Your Media Influence Matrix studies of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan examined how state financing, ownership, political influence, informal payments and foreign donor support shape journalism. Looking back at those findings, how do you think the two media systems have evolved since 2019, and which developments most urgently merit renewed research today?

I have to be honest here because we have not conducted updated fieldwork in Central Asia since those studies, and I would not want to offer an assessment of how the two systems have evolved based on third-party sources. Our method depends on locally sourced financial and regulatory data collected by researchers in the country, and without that I would be speculating.

What I can restate is the baseline we established in 2019, because it defines what would have to be re-measured.

The two countries presented distinct configurations. Kazakhstan was a system of financial dominance: an overwhelming state presence in media funding combined with no obligation on companies to disclose their finances, and marginal donor money.

Read more on Novastan: In Central Asia, the Freedom of Press is in Decline

Kyrgyzstan was a system of informal dependence: a weak advertising market, media instrumentalised by politicians and businessmen who treated outlets as tools rather than businesses, and widespread undisclosed payments from officials, but alongside a rather plural space, a significant donor presence, and a handful of outlets that funded themselves from grants and advertising and could therefore set their own editorial line.

On what most urgently merits renewed research, I would name four things.

First, the actual flow of state media financing since 2019: amounts, recipients and the conditions attached. This is the single most consequential and least documented lever in both countries, and it is precisely the kind of figure that cannot be estimated from outside.

Second, the economics of exile: what it costs to run a Kyrgyz or Kazakh newsroom from abroad, how it is financed, and whether any of it is sustainable beyond the current funding cycle.

Read more on Novastan: When Freedom of Speech Is a Joke: Author of a Satirical News Outlet Detained in Kazakhstan

Third, the migration of journalism to YouTube and Telegram, where a substantial part of independent reporting now appears. We know very little about who funds these projects, what they earn, or how exposed they are to platform decisions.

Fourth, the effect of the 2025 collapse in US media assistance, which I suspect hit this region harder than the global headline figures suggest, and which will have reshaped the funding structure we described in 2019 more thoroughly than any legal change.

Independent Central Asian media often operate across borders or from exile, while attempting to reach audiences exposed to state-controlled information and increasingly restrictive legislation. Does this require a different sustainability model from that used by independent media in Western Europe?

Yes, fundamentally, and the standard Western sustainability playbook is close to useless for them.

The reason is a structural mismatch: for an exiled outlet, the audience and the revenue base are in different countries. A German or French independent outlet builds a virtuous circle: it serves a local audience, that audience pays, local advertisers want to reach it.

An exiled Central Asian or Azeri or Iranian outlet has an audience it cannot legally monetise, in a jurisdiction where its brand may be criminalised, reached through channels that can be blocked, while its costs are incurred in euros in a European capital. Every link in the Western circle is broken.

Read more on Novastan: Closure of Radio Azattyk sparks discontent from civil society and international human rights activists

Their cost structure is also different in kind, not degree: legal defence, digital security, physical security, relocation and visas for staff and their families, trauma support, redundant infrastructure, translation, and the permanent overhead of operating under two legal systems. These are not luxuries, yet they are rarely funded.

And there is a distinctive risk absent in Western Europe: asking the audience for money can endanger the audience. A domestic bank transfer to an outlet designated extremist is evidence, making reader revenue – the model everyone recommends – not merely difficult but ethically fraught.

So what does work? In practice, based on my experience, a different portfolio is needed.

First, revenue raised outside the audience’s jurisdiction: diaspora communities in Europe, North America and other relevant countries who can pay safely and often have strong motivation.

Then, institutional and B2B income needs to be considered: syndication, content licensing to international outlets, translation, research and consultancy for organisations that need country expertise they cannot generate themselves.

Increasingly, we have found that shared services are becoming important for such media. The most realistic efficiency for small exile media is not individual growth but pooled infrastructure: shared legal counsel, shared security, shared accounting, shared fiscal hosting in an EU jurisdiction, joint fundraising vehicles, and so on. Myanmar’s exiled outlets moved towards exactly this kind of cooperation after 2025.

AI poses a new threat to independent journalism

Artificial intelligence and automated information systems are increasingly determining which sources people encounter and how information is summarised. What risks does this create for smaller independent publications, particularly those covering countries or regions that receive limited international attention? Could their reporting become essential to AI systems while bringing them little traffic, recognition or revenue?

Your question contains a sharp formulation of the problem, and the answer is: yes, exactly that. Their reporting can become essential to AI systems while returning almost nothing in traffic, recognition or revenue. This is the defining economic asymmetry of the coming period, and small outlets covering under-reported regions are its most exposed victims.

There are various aspects of that. Let me refer to a few that I consider important.

One is what I call referral collapse: the distribution model that publishers built for 20 years assumed intermediaries would send readers onward. Answer engines are designed not to. When a summary satisfies the query, the visit never happens. For a small outlet whose advertising, membership conversion and reputational visibility all depend on that visit, the loss is not just a decline in traffic; it is the removal of the mechanism by which reporting converts into anything at all.

Another aspect is extraction asymmetry, concentrated on the specialists. Precisely because you are the only detailed English-language source on, say, Kyrgyz media legislation or Tajik labour migration, your reporting is disproportionately load-bearing in any system generating answers about the region.

Large publishers can negotiate licensing deals; a specialist outlet with four staff has no leverage, no legal capacity and no realistic path to individual negotiation. Thus, we expect a situation where the most essential sources have the least bargaining power. That is an inversion of how markets are supposed to work.

And finally, relevant to your question is the language problem, which worries me most. Models are trained on what exists in a language. For some languages – and here I would guess most of the Central Asian ones – the available corpus is dominated by state and state-aligned media, simply because they publish more. Independent reporting is a rounding error by volume.

So the statistical baseline for what is “normally said” about these countries is likely to be drawn overwhelmingly from captured sources, and it is then reproduced fluently, in the user’s own language, with no visible provenance and none of the contextual cues that would once have signalled a state outlet.

Media capture can thus be laundered into apparently neutral infrastructure. This is a new distribution channel for propaganda that requires no propagandist.

MJRC has begun mapping this terrain: our study on how AI is changing media and journalism in Central Europe, Control Beyond Code, which examines the ownership and financial structures behind the AI systems newsrooms are adopting, and the AI Information Map, which maps the sources of information the largest LLMs use to give answers in various languages.

What can small publishers actually do? Three things, none sufficient alone.

Build channels that do not pass through an intermediary – newsletters, events, direct communities, Telegram – because owned relationships are the only assets not subject to unilateral repricing.

Negotiate collectively. Licensing is only viable for small publishers through consortia, and this is where regional and thematic associations should be putting their effort.

And push for provenance and attribution requirements in regulation, because if summarisation is going to become the default interface for information, the minimum acceptable standard is that the source is visible, attributed and linkable.

What does sustainable independent media look like?

Looking ahead, what would a genuinely healthy and sustainable independent-media organisation look like? Which combination of revenue, governance, audience engagement and institutional support offers the best prospect of editorial independence over the long term?

This is very difficult to answer, as there is no ideal model and local context and factors matter immensely. But generally, I would describe it in five dimensions, and I would insist that no one of them substitutes for another.

Revenue first: between two and six streams, with no single source above roughly 40% and no two major sources sharing an ultimate political principal. At least one stream should come directly from the audience, however small, because it is the only income that is also a measure of whether anyone needs you. And at least one person must be professionally responsible for revenue.

Then, governance. A structural firewall between whoever funds the organisation and whoever appoints its editor. Fixed terms, transparent appointment procedures, a formal newsroom role in editorial leadership decisions, and published funding down to a low threshold.

Then, audience. A defined community rather than a general public, and a relationship the outlet owns rather than rents from a platform. In a period when intermediaries are actively removing referral traffic, direct audience relationships have shifted from a marketing asset to a survival asset.

Institutional support next. This is the part that cannot be solved by any individual newsroom, and where policy has to do the work: multi-year unrestricted core funding rather than project grants; pooled and endowed funding vehicles insulated from any single government’s foreign policy; favourable tax treatment for nonprofit journalism; shared back-office and legal infrastructure; and enforceable transparency in state advertising allocation, which remains the most powerful and least regulated instrument of capture worldwide.

Finally, reserves and realism about scale. Six to twelve months of unrestricted reserves, and an accurate sense of the size the organisation can sustainably be. A great many outlets have destroyed themselves by growing into a grant.

A healthy independent outlet is one that could survive losing its largest funder, its largest platform and its most prominent journalist – not comfortably, but survivably.

Interview by Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan English.

The post “Follow the invoices”: Marius Dragomir on how money shapes independent journalism appeared first on Novastan English.

For more than two decades, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway existed mainly on planning maps and in diplomatic communiqués. First discussed in the late 1990s, the project was repeatedly delayed by disagreements over financing, track gauge and route.

That changed when construction was formally launched in Kyrgyzstan’s Jalal-Abad region in December 2024. A year later, a syndicate of Chinese banks signed a loan agreement securing the project’s main external financing.

For the first time, the railway is taking physical shape rather than remaining a proposal. But its long-term significance will depend on more than steel, concrete and tunnels. The three governments will also have to manage debt, land disputes and environmental risks, while determining where the railway fits within an increasingly complex network of Eurasian trade corridors.

The planned route runs for approximately 523 kilometres. It begins in Kashgar in China’s Xinjiang region, crosses into Kyrgyzstan through the Torugart Pass, continues through Arpa and Makmal to Jalal-Abad, and then reaches Andijan in Uzbekistan, where it connects with the existing Uzbek and wider Central Asian rail network.

China’s railway network uses the 1,435 mm standard gauge, while the existing networks of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan use the Soviet-derived 1,520 mm gauge. Under the CKU design, the standard-gauge line will extend from China into Kyrgyzstan as far as Makmal. There, a transshipment hub will transfer cargo to trains running on the broader 1,520 mm gauge for the western section of the route.

The Kyrgyz section carries most of the project’s engineering difficulty. Roughly 90 percent of the route through Kyrgyzstan passes through mountainous terrain. It will include 29 tunnels and 50 bridges with a combined length of around 120 kilometres – roughly 40 percent of the 304-kilometre Kyrgyz section.

A $4.7 billion bet

The total cost of the railway is estimated at around $4.7 billion.

Under the financing agreement signed in Bishkek in December 2025, approximately half of that amount – around $2.3 billion – is being provided through a 35-year loan from a consortium of Chinese banks led by the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. The loan is to be repaid by the joint venture established to build and operate the railway.

The remainder is being provided as equity. The joint venture, registered under Kyrgyz law, is 51 percent Chinese-owned, while Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan each hold 24.5 percent.

Kyrgyzstan’s equity contribution amounts to approximately $609 million. Around half is to come from the state budget, while the other half is being financed through a $304.5 million preferential loan from China’s Export-Import Bank. The loan has a 25-year maturity, a five-year grace period and an annual interest rate of 1.5 percent.

Authorities hope to open the line by 2030, although the scale of the engineering works and the mountainous terrain leave significant room for delays.

Kyrgyzstan: transit opportunity, financial exposure

For Kyrgyzstan, the railway offers something the country has long lacked: a direct rail connection with China and the possibility of turning its geography from a constraint into an economic asset.

President Sadyr Japarov has said that the completed railway will transform Kyrgyzstan “into a transit power”. The government expects transit revenues, new jobs and a stronger role for the country in regional trade.

Around 5,000 people are currently employed on the Kyrgyz section, including some 2,000 Kyrgyz citizens. Supporting infrastructure, including substations and transmission lines, is also being built.

But the opportunity comes with financial exposure.

Kyrgyzstan already owed China’s Export-Import Bank around $1.5 billion in early 2026, making China the country’s largest single external creditor. The new railway adds further liabilities, even if the borrowing terms are relatively favourable.

This has prompted debate over whether the project could deepen Kyrgyzstan’s dependence on Chinese financing. The more useful question, however, is not whether the railway fits the contested label of a Chinese “debt trap”, but whether the revenues it generates will ultimately justify Kyrgyzstan’s additional exposure.

The loans have long maturities, low interest rates and grace periods intended to keep repayments manageable. Yet future debt servicing will depend in part on transit and logistics revenues that remain projections rather than receipts.

There is also a separate question over how much of the economic value generated by the railway will remain inside Kyrgyzstan. If warehousing, customs services, freight consolidation and other higher-value logistics activities are concentrated elsewhere, Kyrgyzstan could gain transit revenue while capturing a smaller share of the wider commercial benefits.

Uzbekistan: the logistics-hub strategy

Uzbekistan enters the project from a different position.

Andijan is already connected to the country’s national rail network, meaning Uzbekistan does not face the immense engineering challenge of building a new railway across the Tien Shan. Instead, the CKU line would extend Uzbekistan’s transport network eastward and give the country a more direct rail connection with China.

That fits a broader Uzbek strategy of turning the country into a logistics hub connecting East Asia, Central Asia and routes leading west and south.

Domestic infrastructure has already strengthened this position. The Pop-Angren railway links the Fergana Valley directly with the rest of Uzbekistan without requiring trains to cross neighbouring territory. Tashkent is simultaneously promoting other international routes, including the proposed Trans-Afghan corridor towards Pakistan and transport links across the Caspian towards the South Caucasus, Türkiye and Europe.

For Uzbekistan, the CKU railway is therefore not a stand-alone project. Its value lies in how it can connect with a wider network of existing and proposed corridors.

If those connections prove commercially viable, Uzbekistan could strengthen its position as one of the principal junctions between China and markets to the west and south.

Land, compensation and environmental costs

The railway’s benefits are national and regional, but many of its immediate costs are local.

Under the intergovernmental arrangements, Kyrgyzstan is responsible for a range of obligations on its territory, including social and environmental impact assessments, protection of cultural heritage, land acquisition, demolition and resettlement.

According to the Kyrgyz government, 214 homes are to be demolished to make way for the railway – 191 of them in Suzak district in Jalal-Abad region and the remainder in Naryn.

The government says that most affected owners have accepted compensation and that only a small number continue to dispute the amounts offered. However, some residents have publicly challenged the compensation process, while the use of compulsory acquisition has generated public resistance in affected communities.

Authorities have hired an independent company to assess the value of affected properties, but questions about transparency, participation and compensation remain sensitive as construction advances.

Environmental concerns are also becoming more visible.

Kyrgyz regulators have already fined contractors for environmental violations. Specialists have warned that large-scale tunnelling, blasting and earthworks in mountainous terrain can affect watercourses, habitats and local ecosystems.

Kyrgyz economist Kubat Rahimov has noted that mountain railway construction can require rivers to be redirected and concrete supports to be placed in watercourses, with potential consequences for surrounding flora and fauna.

Chinese and Kyrgyz officials have stressed environmental requirements in contractor selection and construction. But the scale of the engineering works means environmental management will remain an important test throughout the project.

A new route – but not a replacement for Kazakhstan

The strategic importance of the CKU railway comes less from the line itself than from the networks it can connect.

Once operational, it will create another overland rail route between China and Central Asia that bypasses Kazakhstan. From Uzbekistan, freight could continue west through existing networks towards Turkmenistan and the Caspian Sea, or connect with other routes feeding into the broader Trans-Caspian system towards Azerbaijan, Georgia, Türkiye and Europe.

Longer-term plans also envisage stronger connections south towards Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

But CKU should not be understood as a replacement for the established China-Kazakhstan rail corridors.

The new line will cross difficult mountainous terrain and will operate largely as a single-track railway. Kazakh analyst Marat Shibutov has argued that these physical constraints will limit the number and length of trains that can use the route.

The difference in scale is considerable. Rail freight between China and Kazakhstan exceeded 32 million tonnes in 2024, while the CKU railway’s eventual annual capacity is commonly estimated at around 15 million tonnes.

Its importance therefore lies less in displacing Kazakhstan than in adding another option to the Eurasian transport network.

For China, this means greater route diversification. For Central Asian states, it creates additional bargaining power and greater resilience if disruption affects one of the region’s existing corridors.

Who captures the gains?

The strategic gains are easiest to identify at state level.

China acquires another westbound route that reduces its reliance on Kazakhstan and gives Xinjiang an additional connection to Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan gains a direct railway link with China and the possibility of substantial transit revenues. Uzbekistan advances its ambition to become a major logistics junction linking China with Central Asian, Trans-Caspian and southern transport corridors.

Construction companies, banks and logistics operators are also among the project’s most immediate economic beneficiaries.

Whether those gains will spread more widely is harder to predict.

Construction jobs are temporary. Families along the route are already dealing with displacement and compensation. And Kyrgyzstan will benefit most if it can develop logistics, warehousing, customs and other services around the railway rather than serving primarily as territory through which trains pass.

The same question applies regionally. The CKU railway could redistribute trade flows and create new economic opportunities, but the value generated by the corridor will depend on border procedures, customs governance, freight costs and connections with other transport networks.

None of this diminishes the railway’s historic significance. After decades of delay, the project is finally moving from diplomatic ambition to physical infrastructure.

But the CKU railway is also the beginning of a longer contest over financing, environmental protection, compensation, logistics and regional competition. The outcome of that contest – more than the rails themselves – will determine who ultimately benefits from Central Asia’s newest trade route.

Kodirjon Eshonkulov

Kodirjon Eshonkulov is an independent researcher specialising in Central Asian geopolitics, transboundary infrastructure and relations with the European Union. He is a recent graduate of the Graduate School of International Studies at Ajou University in South Korea. Since 2017, he has worked as a correspondent and television journalist covering social and political reforms in Uzbekistan. His writing on Uzbekistan’s water scarcity and Middle Corridor policy has appeared in The Times of Central Asia and the Central Asia-Caucasus Analyst.

The post China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway: Who wins from Central Asia’s new trade route? appeared first on Novastan English.

In rural Uzbekistan, access to irrigation water is formally guaranteed but often determined by informal power, money and social position. Field research in the Fergana Valley shows that women – especially those heading households alone – are pushed towards risky strategies that deepen their exposure to poverty, stigma and violence.

At two o’clock in the morning, when male farmers guarding the irrigation outlets have gone to rest, some women in rural Uzbekistan quietly open the gates and divert water towards their household plots. They describe the practice as “stealing” water. It may be the only opportunity they have to save their crops.

The risks are considerable. A woman discovered at the outlet can face confrontation or harassment. Merely being outside at night and speaking directly with male farmers can damage the reputation of a widow or divorced woman in her village. Yet without irrigation, household gardens fail, food supplies shrink and women lose one of their few reliable sources of income.

These accounts emerged from qualitative fieldwork conducted in September and October 2023 in Yazyavan district, in Uzbekistan’s densely populated Fergana region. Interviews and two focus-group discussions involved women managing farms or household plots, alongside experts working with rural communities and women in agriculture. The research examined why men and women obtain different access to irrigation water and how women negotiate both formal and informal channels.

Equal rights on paper, unequal access in practice

Uzbekistan’s legislation provides for equitable access to irrigation water by farms, dehkan farms and household producers. At community level, Water Users Associations and local water distributors, known as mirabs, play central roles in allocating water. In practice, however, access is shaped by land ownership, wealth, location, marital status and the ability to participate in male-dominated networks.

Women are a minority among registered farm owners, but they carry much of the responsibility for household plots and kitchen gardens. These plots are crucial to rural food security and household survival. Labour migration has also left more women responsible for agricultural work and irrigation, even though local norms continue to treat water negotiation as men’s work.

The fieldwork showed that women are not affected in the same way. A woman managing a larger commercial farm with a husband or male relative may receive scheduling information, pay Water Users Association fees or finance a well. Even then, she may be excluded from real decisions. Single women managing small household or dehkan plots have far fewer resources and almost no formal bargaining power. They are frequently the last users in the irrigation chain.

Water follows power

Irrigation schedules are often unreliable or inaccessible. Several women said they did not know when water would arrive. Those whose land lies far from a canal may receive only a weak flow after upstream farms have irrigated, or no water at all. In dry seasons, some respondents reported being unable to irrigate even once.

Money and informal influence further distort distribution. Interviewees and experts described bribery of mirabs as a common way to obtain water earlier or in greater quantities. Farmers with stronger financial and social networks can guard outlets, negotiate directly and pay additional costs. Poor women, particularly those heading households alone, cannot compete on the same terms.

The physical work of securing water is itself demanding. One interviewee described the distance, expense and constant vigilance involved:

“One has to travel 15 to 25 kilometres to open the gate in the channel, and while doing so, one needs to pay the mirabs. After that, one needs to follow the water flow to prevent other farmers from using it and engage in negotiations or conflicts if necessary. Furthermore, one needs to go upstream every two or three hours to make sure there is sufficient water and that nobody else is diverting it. This involves staying out at night and walking along deserted, dusty roads.”

For many women, this is not only physically exhausting but also dangerous and socially difficult, particularly when irrigation requires them to remain outside alone at night.

Formal participation offers little protection. Women who belonged to Water Users Associations said they attended meetings without being able to influence decisions. Important discussions may also take place informally in chaykhanas, social spaces generally reserved for men. The result is participation without meaningful voice: women may pay fees and fulfil obligations while remaining excluded from the networks that determine actual distribution.

Informal solutions create new dangers

When formal routes fail, women improvise. Some negotiate with male neighbours. Others wait for drainage water released from nearby farms, although it may be scarce or contaminated with agricultural chemicals. A private well can provide an alternative, but installation and pumping costs are beyond the reach of most smallholders and can be prohibitive even for larger farms.

For single women, clandestinely opening water outlets at night may be the only remaining option. Women described waiting for hours in darkness, wind and dust, then fleeing if farmers or workers appeared. This strategy exposes them not only to physical danger but also to gender-based stigma. Widowed and divorced women already face social marginalisation; being seen outdoors at night can intensify gossip and exclusion.

Competition over water can also become violent. Respondents reported that male farmers guard outlets and may use force when defending their turn. One expert recalled a case in which an older woman farmer was beaten during a dispute. Although water conflicts affect men as well, women face an additional layer of vulnerability because they have less physical, financial and institutional power with which to respond.

From failed harvests to deeper poverty

The consequences extend beyond a single irrigation season. Women who receive water only once or twice cannot maintain reliable harvests. Trees and gardens dry out, and farmers producing priority crops may be reprimanded by local authorities or risk losing their land because they have failed to meet production expectations.

For household farmers, crop failure immediately affects food security. Some women reduce the variety of crops they plant or abandon cultivation altogether. To compensate, they seek poorly paid informal work as mardikors, day labourers hired for agricultural or cleaning work. Some respondents said they brought their children with them.

One participant in the focus-group discussion described the conditions they faced:

“We plant, weed and cultivate other farmers’ land. We also go to the mardikor bazaar, the labour market for daily workers, with our children. After finishing work on one plot, we go to another the following day with nothing to eat but one loaf of bread and tea. We also go to the city to clean streets or wash windows, whatever the weather. It can feel as hot as 60 degrees outside.”

These accounts show how inadequate access to irrigation can push entire households towards precarious labour and may also increase children’s exposure to informal work. This creates a self-reinforcing cycle. Lack of water reduces yields and income. Lower income makes it harder to pay for pumps, wells, transport or informal payments. Women then become even less able to negotiate access during the next season. As water stress intensifies, this pattern is likely to become more severe.

Water policy must recognise gendered realities

Improving infrastructure and water efficiency is essential, but technical solutions alone will not resolve unequal access. A system can be formally neutral while still reproducing inequality when information, decision-making and informal influence remain concentrated among men.

Water schedules should be transparent, reliable and accessible to all users, including women managing household plots. Oversight of mirabs and local distribution should be strengthened, with clear complaint mechanisms and safeguards against corruption. Water Users Associations must move beyond nominal female attendance and give women a meaningful role in decisions over allocation, maintenance and fees.

Support should focus particularly on single women and female-headed households. This could include targeted access to water-saving technology, affordable financing, advisory services and practical community arrangements that remove the need to irrigate alone at night. Local women leaders and community activists can help represent users who are currently excluded from formal negotiations.

More broadly, agricultural and climate policies must recognise women as farmers and water managers, even when their work takes place on household plots and is absent from official production statistics. Their gardens are not marginal to Uzbekistan’s rural economy: they sustain families, provide income and strengthen food security. Improved access of female farmers to water will lead to increased food security in rural areas. According to UN Food and Agriculture Organization, subsistence farming is not only a source of income for rural households but also contributes to 80% of agricultural production in Uzbekistan.

Women in Yazyavan are already demonstrating considerable agency in adapting to scarcity. But resilience should not mean forcing them to navigate corruption, contamination, violence and shame simply to obtain a resource to which they are legally entitled. Equitable water governance requires not only more efficient irrigation, but institutions capable of seeing who reaches the canal gate – and who is compelled to wait until the middle of the night.

Author’s note: This article is based on qualitative research conducted in Yazyavan district, Fergana region, in September and October 2023. The study included 2 focus-group discussions with farmers and several expert interviews. It was originally developed as the policy brief “Negotiating access to water: the study of practices of female farmers in rural Uzbekistan”.

By Gulnoza Akhmedova.

The post When irrigation becomes a nightly struggle for Uzbekistan’s women farmers appeared first on Novastan English.

Can Pakistan become the long-promised southern gateway for landlocked Central Asia?

A brightly painted Pakistani truck carrying boxes of kinnow mandarins towards Central Asia looks almost festive. Its cab may be covered with flowers, peacocks, mountain landscapes, fragments of poetry and polished metal ornaments. Chains hanging from its body announce its arrival before the driver reaches the border.

Yet the fruit inside imposes a less decorative reality. Every customs delay shortens its commercial life. Every border closure risks turning a profitable shipment into spoiled cargo.

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Pakistan’s kinnow – a sweet, easy-to-peel mandarin hybrid grown mainly in Punjab – can already be found in Central Asian markets. Uzbekistan has become a destination for Pakistani citrus, and Islamabad has introduced measures to facilitate the registration of exporters supplying the country.

A truck carrying kinnow therefore offers a more useful test of regional connectivity than the maps displayed at diplomatic summits. Pakistan and Central Asia can already trade. The question is whether goods can travel between them regularly, predictably and quickly enough for the journey to remain profitable.

Rice can survive a detour. A mandarin cannot wait indefinitely at a closed border.

Central Asia has spent decades searching for reliable access to the sea. Pakistan says it can provide it. Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar are increasingly promoted as the southern endpoints of roads and railways that would connect the region to the Arabian Sea.

Some elements of this vision are beginning to move beyond declarations. Pilot consignments have tested routes between Pakistan and Central Asia through China. New transit arrangements have been discussed through Iran. Pakistan has offered space at Gwadar for facilities intended to serve Central Asian trade.

But the most transformative part of the vision – a direct railway through Afghanistan – remains at the feasibility-study stage.

Rather than asking only whether Pakistan could one day become Central Asia’s gateway to the sea, it is therefore more useful to examine what already exists, what goods are actually moving, what remains experimental and what is still largely confined to political speeches.

The drivers behind the corridor

Transport corridors are usually represented as clean lines drawn across maps. On the ground, they are embodied by drivers travelling in some of the most visually distinctive commercial vehicles in the world.

Pakistani trucks are transformed into moving works of art. Their surfaces combine floral patterns, animals, religious imagery, political personalities, landscapes, calligraphy and verses about love, distance and returning home. Painters, metalworkers, woodcarvers and other specialist artisans may spend weeks decorating a single vehicle.

Regional styles can also be recognised. Trucks associated with Peshawar are known for elaborate woodwork, while decorative traditions in Balochistan may incorporate different materials and motifs. The result is not standard commercial branding but an expression of the driver’s identity, memories and aspirations.

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These are the vehicles that must convert the language of international connectivity into an actual journey.

Their drivers encounter customs officials, poor roads, security checkpoints, mountain passes, mechanical failures and borders that may close with little warning. When governments suspend transit, it is the driver who sleeps beside the cargo, the porter who loses a day’s income and the trader who watches the value of a shipment decline.

The decorated truck is therefore more than a colourful detail. It is where the corridor becomes human.

How long does the journey take? Which borders must the driver cross? How many documents are required? How much is spent on fuel, insurance, customs and informal delays? How much of the fruit is still marketable when it arrives?

These questions determine whether a corridor exists in commercial reality, rather than merely in diplomatic language.

A bag of rice and the problem of geography

The same story can be told through something as ordinary as a bag of Pakistani basmati rice on a supermarket shelf in Almaty or Tashkent.

Pakistan is one of the world’s major rice exporters, and its products already reach Central Asian consumers. The presence of Pakistani rice, citrus, pharmaceuticals and textiles in the region shows that trade is not hypothetical.

The difficult question is how these goods arrive.

A Pakistani exporter attempting to reach Central Asia faces several possibilities. Cargo can pass through Afghanistan, travel west through Iran, or move north-east through China. Goods may also be sent by sea to an Iranian port before continuing overland.

Each option carries disadvantages.

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Afghanistan offers the most direct geographical connection but also the greatest political and security uncertainty. The Iranian route may provide access to established road and rail networks, but it is longer and vulnerable to sanctions-related complications and wider regional tensions. The Chinese route benefits from comparatively predictable state infrastructure, but requires difficult mountain crossings and substantial additional distance.

The shortest line on the map is not necessarily the cheapest or most dependable commercial route.

For rice, delays reduce margins. For kinnow, mangoes, meat and other refrigerated or perishable products, delays can destroy the shipment.

This is why the most meaningful measure of connectivity is not the number of agreements signed, but whether transport companies can quote predictable prices and delivery dates. A corridor becomes commercially significant when businesses use it repeatedly without requiring exceptional government intervention for each consignment.

From pulao to plov

Rice also reveals that Pakistan and Central Asia are less culturally distant than modern regional labels may suggest.

Pakistani pulao and Central Asian plov belong to a much wider family of rice dishes stretching through South Asia, Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Their names share a Persian linguistic ancestry, although recipes, cooking techniques and cultural meanings differ considerably.

In Pakistan, pulao may be prepared with meat, stock and spices, with regional variations found across the country. In Uzbekistan, plov is a national institution associated with weddings, holidays, neighbourhood gatherings and hospitality. Tajik osh occupies a similarly important place.

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The comparison should not be exaggerated. Pakistani pulao and Uzbek plov are not the same dish. But their familiarity offers a small reminder of the historical movement of tastes, words and people between the regions.

A bag of Pakistani rice arriving in Tashkent is therefore not merely anonymous cargo. It enters a culinary culture in which rice already carries powerful associations with family, celebration and collective identity.

The proposed corridor would connect ports and markets, but it would also reconnect societies that already recognise elements of one another.

Pakistan looks north

Pakistan’s interest in Central Asia is easy to understand.

The five Central Asian states form a market of more than 80 million people. Pakistan offers them access not only to a population exceeding 240 million, but also to the Arabian Sea and onward maritime trade.

Yet actual commerce remains limited compared with the ambitions expressed by regional governments. Pakistan exported goods worth approximately $106 million to Uzbekistan in 2025, but its combined trade with the five Central Asian republics remains small relative to the size of the markets involved.

The gap between geographic proximity and commercial integration is partly historical.

Soviet Central Asia’s transport infrastructure was designed primarily to connect the region northwards through Russia, not southwards through Afghanistan and Pakistan. After independence, China became an increasingly important economic partner, while routes across the Caspian Sea gained prominence as Central Asian governments sought alternative connections to Europe.

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Pakistan was separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan’s narrow Wakhan Corridor and from the wider region by difficult terrain, insecurity and weak cross-border infrastructure.

The resulting irony is striking: Central Asia and Pakistan are geographically close, but moving goods between them can require enormous detours.

Islamabad now hopes to change that. Pakistani officials increasingly describe their country as a bridge between Central Asia, South Asia, China and the Middle East. Karachi, Port Qasim and Gwadar are promoted as potential maritime outlets for landlocked economies.

But Central Asia does not need access to the sea in the abstract. It needs access that is affordable, dependable and connected to regular shipping services.

Karachi already works

Discussions of Pakistan’s maritime offer often group Karachi and Gwadar together. Commercially, however, they are very different propositions.

Karachi is Pakistan’s established economic and maritime centre. Together with nearby Port Qasim, it handles most of the country’s seaborne commerce. It possesses regular shipping connections, freight-forwarding services, customs infrastructure, warehouses and access to Pakistan’s largest industrial and consumer market.

For a Central Asian trader seeking a southern outlet today, Karachi is therefore the more credible option.

The main obstacle is not the port itself, but the journey required to reach it.

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A reliable road or railway through Afghanistan could give Uzbekistan and parts of southern Central Asia a comparatively direct connection to Karachi. The port could also serve trade moving in the opposite direction, improving Pakistani access to Central Asian markets.

This two-way traffic is crucial. A truck delivering Pakistani products to Uzbekistan but returning empty is less profitable. A commercially sustainable corridor needs southbound cargo as well as goods moving north.

Uzbek textiles, Kazakh grain and metals, and other Central Asian products could help provide that return traffic. Uzbekistan already exports textiles to Pakistan, demonstrating that the relationship need not consist only of Central Asia importing Pakistani food and consumer goods.

Karachi offers commercial scale. What it lacks is a reliable land bridge to Central Asia.

Gwadar offers something else

Gwadar has become the more powerful symbol.

Situated in Balochistan near the entrance to the Gulf of Oman, the deep-sea port occupies a location that appears strategically ideal. It lies close to Iran and forms the southern centrepiece of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC.

Its significance also derives from China’s role.

Pakistan transferred the operation of Gwadar to China Overseas Ports Holding Company in 2013. The company describes itself as the concession holder and operator of the port and its associated free-zone activities.

The concession is commonly described as lasting 40 years. Gwadar itself remains Pakistani territory and the port remains a Pakistani asset, but its operation and development are closely tied to a Chinese company and to Beijing’s broader Belt and Road Initiative.

Chinese involvement provides investment, political support and a long-term strategic framework. But it also complicates the idea that Gwadar offers Central Asia an alternative independent of the major powers already shaping its trade.

Gwadar promises Central Asia another route to the sea, but not necessarily an alternative to Chinese influence.

For Central Asian governments, this may not be an obstacle. All five countries already maintain substantial economic relationships with China, and several actively seek Chinese infrastructure investment. Beijing’s participation may increase confidence that projects will retain financing and political backing.

Yet Gwadar remains far less commercially mature than Karachi. It has limited regular traffic, lacks Karachi’s dense logistics ecosystem and faces significant security problems in the surrounding province.

A port does not become a regional hub because governments designate it one. Shipping companies, freight forwarders and exporters must decide that it is cheaper, faster or more reliable than the alternatives.

Gwadar and the Balochistan question

Gwadar’s strategic position cannot be separated from the political realities of Balochistan.

The province is Pakistan’s largest by territory and among its poorest and least densely populated. It contains major gas and mineral resources, as well as the port that Islamabad and Beijing present as a future centre of Eurasian commerce.

Yet many Baloch activists argue that local communities have received too little benefit from the extraction of the province’s resources and from the infrastructure projects developed in their name.

These grievances are connected to a decades-long separatist insurgency, allegations of enforced disappearances and abuses by the security forces, and recurring protests over political exclusion and economic marginalisation.

In Gwadar itself, residents and local movements have protested over access to water and electricity, restrictions affecting fishing communities, security controls and the perception that the benefits of port development are flowing primarily to outside actors.

Armed Baloch separatist organisations have also attacked Pakistani security forces, infrastructure and Chinese personnel. China’s involvement has turned Gwadar and other parts of CPEC into symbolic targets, while Pakistan has responded with an extensive security presence intended to protect foreign workers and strategic installations.

Security remains one of the principal concerns surrounding renewed Chinese and Pakistani plans to turn Gwadar into a regional connectivity hub.

This creates a contradiction at the centre of the project.

A port promoted as a gateway of openness and connection is located in a province marked by checkpoints, political distrust and recurring violence.

Security measures may protect ships, roads and foreign personnel, but they also impose costs and reinforce local perceptions that Gwadar is being developed for outsiders. For Central Asian traders, the question is not only whether the port can physically handle cargo. It is whether the surrounding political and security environment permits goods, workers and investment to move predictably.

Gwadar cannot become a convincing gateway for Central Asia without also becoming a more credible economic gateway for the people who already live around it.

What has actually moved?

The strongest evidence for new links between Pakistan and Central Asia does not yet come from the proposed railway. It comes from trucks and limited trial consignments.

In April 2026, Pakistan launched an export consignment from the Karachi Export Processing Zone to Kyrgyzstan through China’s Sost Dry Port under the international TIR customs-transit system.

The route was geographically indirect: goods moved towards the Chinese border before continuing through China to Kyrgyzstan. Yet its apparent inefficiency revealed something important. Businesses may prefer a longer route if it offers more predictable procedures and avoids the volatility of Afghanistan.

This does not yet constitute a high-volume trade corridor. A first or pilot consignment tests customs systems, roads and political agreements; it does not prove that a route is commercially competitive at scale.

Nevertheless, actual shipments matter.

They show that Pakistan is beginning to convert corridor diplomacy into physical cargo movements. They also reveal how far reality remains from the elegant north-south lines usually drawn on official maps.

The corridor has begun to function in fragments, sometimes by going around its presumed centre.

Afghanistan: bridge and bottleneck

Any serious attempt to connect Uzbekistan directly to Pakistan must confront Afghanistan.

The most discussed project is the proposed Uzbekistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan railway. The line would connect Uzbekistan to Pakistan’s rail network and ports through Afghan territory. Supporters argue that it could reduce transport times, lower costs and create the first direct rail connection between Central and South Asia.

The railway could be transformative. It could also remain unbuilt.

In July 2025, the three countries signed an agreement to conduct a joint feasibility study. Uzbekistan ratified the agreement in February 2026, and officials later announced that the study had entered an active phase.

This represents progress, but the terminology matters.

A feasibility study is not construction. The route, engineering specifications, financing arrangements and security guarantees still require resolution. Afghanistan’s terrain will make the project expensive, while differing railway gauges and connections to existing networks create further technical complications.

The political environment is no less difficult.

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated amid disputes over border security and armed groups operating from Afghan territory. Repeated closures of key crossings have disrupted traders and encouraged Afghanistan to divert commerce through Iran and Central Asia. In 2025, Afghan traders increasingly used alternative routes through Chabahar and neighbouring Central Asian states to compensate for disruptions at the Pakistani border.

Such closures affect people far beyond foreign ministries.

Drivers lose income while waiting at the border. Porters and customs workers lose daily wages. Traders watch perishable goods deteriorate. Importers must explain delays to customers who may never have heard of the diplomatic dispute that stopped their order.

For a Central Asian company choosing a trade route, these experiences matter more than the theoretical number of kilometres saved.

Afghanistan is therefore both the bridge and the bottleneck. Without it, the most direct southern route becomes substantially longer. With it, the corridor remains exposed to insecurity and political confrontation.

Routes around the bottleneck

Pakistan is not waiting for the Trans-Afghan railway to be completed.

Routes through Iran and China offer alternatives, although neither recreates the direct north-south connection envisioned by the railway.

The western option can connect Pakistani ports to Iran and then to Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the wider Central Asian network. It avoids the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and may be particularly relevant to western and southern Central Asia.

But it introduces other uncertainties. Iran faces sanctions, financial restrictions and recurrent regional tensions. A corridor that avoids one geopolitical vulnerability may inherit another.

The route through China benefits from close Pakistan-China relations and from Chinese transport connections with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The Khunjerab Pass and the Karakoram Highway provide a physical connection, although difficult terrain, weather conditions and distance limit the route’s suitability for some cargo.

China and Pakistan renewed their commitment in May 2026 to improving CPEC, the Karakoram Highway and Gwadar’s role as a regional connectivity hub.

Yet strategic commitment does not automatically produce commercial demand.

The existence of several imperfect alternatives may nevertheless prove more realistic than waiting for one grand railway to solve every problem. Different routes may serve different countries, seasons and products.

Kinnow may require the fastest viable road. Machinery may tolerate a longer journey. Bulk commodities may need rail. A corridor is ultimately not one line but a network of commercial decisions.

Central Asia already has alternatives

Pakistan is also entering a competitive market.

Central Asian governments are developing the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, commonly called the Middle Corridor, across Kazakhstan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Türkiye. The route has gained strategic importance as countries seek to diversify away from Russia and strengthen connections with Europe.

Iran offers access to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea through ports such as Bandar Abbas and Chabahar. China provides access to eastward markets and global maritime supply chains. Russia remains a major commercial and transit partner despite ongoing efforts to diversify.

Pakistan must therefore offer more than access to the sea as a concept. Central Asia already possesses several maritime options.

Pakistan’s strongest potential advantage is proximity to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and parts of southern Central Asia. A reliable route through Afghanistan could be shorter than many alternatives. Pakistan also provides direct access to South Asian markets rather than functioning merely as a passage to ships bound elsewhere.

Its disadvantages are equally substantial: unstable borders, incomplete infrastructure, difficult terrain, security risks and the absence of established high-volume logistics chains.

The balance also differs from one Central Asian country to another.

Uzbekistan, with its large population, manufacturing ambitions and doubly landlocked geography, has the clearest strategic interest in a southern connection. Tajikistan could benefit from improved north-south trade but lacks direct access to the proposed principal railway. Turkmenistan already borders Iran and the Caspian Sea. Kazakhstan is more closely integrated into routes through Russia, China and the Caspian. Kyrgyzstan’s geography may make connections through China more immediately relevant than a route through Afghanistan.

There is no single Central Asian interest. What works for Tashkent may offer little advantage to Astana or Ashgabat.

From Babur to border paperwork

The north-south connection is not new.

Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur was born in Andijan, in present-day Uzbekistan. After losing his Central Asian possessions, he established himself in Kabul, captured Lahore and founded an empire that included large parts of present-day Pakistan and northern India.

Five centuries before governments began promoting a railway from Uzbekistan to Pakistan, Babur travelled along the same broad axis through the Ferghana Valley, Afghanistan and the Indus basin.

The modern journey is less romantic. It depends on axle-load limits, customs guarantees, insurance contracts, refrigerated trailers and border opening hours.

Yet the historical reference is more than decorative. It reminds us that Central and South Asia were not always treated as separate worlds. Empires, trading networks, migration, language and culture connected the regions long before Soviet infrastructure redirected Central Asia’s economy northwards.

Today’s corridor projects are therefore not creating a relationship from nothing. They are attempting to rebuild connections that modern borders and political systems made increasingly difficult.

A gateway, but not yet a corridor

Pakistan has moved beyond promises, but only partly.

Goods already travel between Pakistan and Central Asia. Initial consignments have tested new routes through China. Karachi provides a major functioning commercial port. Gwadar is operational, supported by China and increasingly presented as a potential destination for Central Asian cargo. The three governments behind the Trans-Afghan railway have moved into the feasibility-study phase.

These are real developments.

But they do not yet amount to a regular, high-volume corridor connecting Central Asia to the Arabian Sea.

The shortest route remains politically fragile. Routes avoiding Afghanistan are longer and face other geopolitical or physical constraints. Gwadar remains less commercially established than Karachi and cannot be separated from the conflict and political grievances surrounding it in Balochistan. Central Asian traders already have competing options through Russia, China, Iran and the Caspian.

Pakistan’s southern offer should therefore be treated neither as an illusion nor as an inevitable geopolitical transformation. It is an emerging network whose commercial value must still be demonstrated shipment by shipment.

The decorated truck carrying kinnow matters because it places a driver, a product and a deadline inside the abstraction of regional connectivity.

The decisive moment will come when another truck follows without a ministerial ceremony, and then another – carrying mandarins and rice north, textiles and other goods south, along a route whose successful completion is no longer considered newsworthy.

That is when a diplomatic corridor becomes an economy.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Gwadar, Karachi and the Central Asian Dream of the Sea appeared first on Novastan English.

For most citizens, the state is not first encountered through laws, strategies or official speeches. It is encountered in practical moments of need: registering a birth, obtaining a passport, opening a business, receiving a certificate, applying for social support, connecting to utilities or correcting an administrative error. These ordinary interactions shape whether people see the administration as predictable or arbitrary, helpful or humiliating, accessible or distant.

In Uzbekistan, this everyday relationship between citizens and the state has changed significantly since 2017. Public service reform has been one of the most visible parts of the country’s broader modernization agenda. Public Service Centers, online portals, digitized records and simplified procedures have made many interactions faster and less burdensome. According to the Ministry of Justice data used in a recent UNDP-supported analysis, Uzbekistan now has 1,040 public services in its Unified Register, of which 780 are delivered through the Unified Interactive Public Services Portal, 507 through Public Service Centers, and more than 150 licenses and permits through the “License” information system. The number of services available through Public Service Centers has increased almost fourteen-fold since 2017, while more than 60 million civil registry records have been digitized.

These are not marginal changes. They reflect a real shift away from the older model in which citizens often had to move from one office to another, carrying documents between agencies, seeking information from officials and navigating unclear procedures. In the Uzbek context, where bureaucratic discretion has long affected both citizens and entrepreneurs, public service reform has an importance that goes beyond administrative convenience. It touches trust in institutions, the business climate, corruption risks and the state’s ability to use digital transformation for public benefit.

Read more on Novastan: Uzbekistan to invest in its digital infrastructure

Yet Uzbekistan’s reform story is now entering a more difficult phase. The country has already modernized much of the visible “front office” of the state: the counters, portals, kiosks and service centers through which people interact with public administration. The harder challenge lies behind the counter. It concerns the digital, legal and institutional infrastructure that allows agencies to exchange data securely, recognize electronic decisions, reduce unnecessary paperwork, protect personal information and make administrative action accountable.

In other words, the next stage of Uzbekistan’s public service reform will be decided less by the number of services available online than by the quality of the digital state behind them.

From paperwork to platforms

The first phase of reform focused on access. Public Service Centers created a recognizable front door to the state, while the national portal offered citizens and businesses a way to access services online. Requirements to submit many types of certificates and documents have been abolished. Some services have been simplified under the “three-step” principle. Birth-related procedures have been bundled, while some utility-related services have become proactive, meaning that citizens no longer need to initiate every administrative step themselves.

This matters because public services are among the few areas where state reform becomes immediately tangible. A citizen may not read a public administration strategy, but he or she will notice whether a birth certificate can be obtained more quickly, whether a passport can be delivered, whether a license can be requested online or whether a business can be registered without visiting multiple offices.

For businesses, the same logic applies. The quality of the business climate is not determined only by tax rates or investment laws. It is also shaped by routine interactions with the administration: permits, licenses, inspections, utility connections, property registration, tax administration and access to official information. The old World Bank Doing Business ranking may no longer exist in its previous form, but the underlying question remains central: can entrepreneurs rely on predictable, transparent and timely administrative procedures?

In this sense, public service reform is also business-climate reform. When licensing procedures are digital, deadlines are clear and documents are not repeatedly requested, businesses face fewer informal costs. When application status is traceable, officials have less room to delay or bargain. When data can be verified directly between agencies, citizens and entrepreneurs no longer have to act as messengers inside the state.

But digitalization alone does not solve the problem. It can also reproduce old bureaucracy in a new form. A paper form can become an online form without the procedure itself becoming simpler. A citizen may still be asked for information that another agency already holds. A business may still face delays if the back-office systems of the responsible institutions are not connected. The real reform, therefore, is not simply to put services online. It is to redesign the relationship between citizens, data, agencies and responsibility.

The invisible infrastructure of reform

One of the most important ideas in modern public service reform is the “once-only” principle: citizens and businesses should not be required to provide information that the state already possesses. In practical terms, this means that if a person’s identity, residence, family status, property record or business registration data already exist in a public registry, another agency should be able to verify that information lawfully and securely.

This sounds simple. In reality, it is one of the most difficult parts of digital government. It requires reliable registries, shared technical standards, secure data exchange, legal rules for data reuse, clear institutional mandates and staff who trust digital verification. It also requires cybersecurity. The more the state relies on digital identity, automated services and inter-agency data exchange, the more public service delivery becomes part of national digital resilience.

In the old bureaucracy, citizens carried paper between agencies. In the digital bureaucracy, data must move instead – securely, lawfully and with accountability.

This is where Uzbekistan’s reform agenda becomes more complex and more interesting. The country has already built many of the visible elements of a modern service system, including Public Service Centers, an expanding online portal, digitized civil registry data and early proactive services. But the next phase, as the UNDP-supported report argues, is about consolidation and depth: clarifying legal and institutional foundations, deepening interoperability and lawful data reuse, simplifying high-volume services, embedding accountability and ensuring that digital progress does not widen gaps for people with limited connectivity, digital skills or documentation.

That is a very different reform agenda from simply launching another platform. It is about who controls data, who is responsible when data are wrong, who can access which records, whether electronic decisions are legally valid, how citizens can appeal mistakes and whether agencies are obliged to rely on shared systems rather than maintaining their own isolated channels.

Why comparison matters

Uzbekistan is not alone in facing this transition. Estonia and Denmark show that digital public services only become transformative when the state treats digital identity, secure data exchange and authoritative registries as core public infrastructure. Georgia and Kazakhstan, closer to Uzbekistan in administrative heritage, demonstrate the political value of one-stop service centers: they make reform visible, reduce face-to-face discretion and create a clearer front door to the state. France offers a different lesson: digitalization must be balanced with physical access points and assisted services, especially for rural areas and citizens who cannot easily navigate online procedures. Singapore and South Korea, meanwhile, show how mature digital states use service data, feedback systems and cross-agency platforms not only to deliver services, but to manage performance and detect bottlenecks.

These examples matter not because they offer models to copy, but because they clarify the choices Uzbekistan now faces. The countries that have modernized public services most successfully did not do so only by introducing new technologies. They also rethought the rules, institutions and incentives behind every counter and every online form. Their reforms became sustainable when they combined digital access with service standards, feedback channels, legal recognition of electronic decisions and visible mechanisms for redress.

For Uzbekistan, the comparison is especially useful because the country is not starting from zero. It has already built public-facing infrastructure and achieved meaningful simplification. The more difficult question is whether it can now create the institutional discipline needed for genuine interoperability. Agencies must be willing, or required, to share data through common systems. Ministries must accept common service standards. Digital and legal reform must move together. Cybersecurity, data protection and administrative accountability must be treated as part of the same reform ecosystem.

Corruption moves, it does not disappear

Public service reform also has a direct anti-corruption dimension. In paper-heavy systems, corruption often thrives at the point of contact between citizen and official: unclear fees, unpredictable deadlines, unnecessary certificates, repeated visits and discretionary refusals. One-stop shops and online procedures can reduce these risks by standardizing processes, limiting face-to-face interactions and making cases easier to track.

This is one reason why Public Service Centers have been politically powerful in several post-Soviet states. They offer a visible break with the image of the fragmented, discretionary administration. Clear counters, queue management, published fees and predictable timelines send a message: the citizen should not have to know someone inside the system to obtain a routine service.

But digitalization does not automatically eliminate corruption. It can change where discretion sits. Instead of the desk officer, discretion may move to the database, the algorithm, the access right, the procurement contract or the agency that controls the platform. If digital systems are opaque, poorly audited or controlled by institutions with weak oversight, new forms of manipulation become possible.

This is why cybersecurity, data privacy and anti-corruption cannot be treated as separate agendas. A service platform that is not secure can be manipulated. A database without audit trails can be abused. A system that allows officials to access personal data without clear justification can undermine trust. An automated decision without explanation can reproduce arbitrariness under a digital label.

For citizens, the promise of digital government is not simply speed. It is predictability, traceability and the ability to challenge mistakes. For businesses, the promise is not only convenience. It is a more reliable operating environment in which permits, licenses and registrations do not depend on informal negotiation. For the state, the promise is a more efficient administration that can detect bottlenecks, reduce duplication and allocate resources more intelligently.

The remaining bottlenecks

Uzbekistan’s progress is significant, but the system remains uneven. Ninety-seven agencies and organizations still provide public services, often under their own procedures and information systems. More than 220 services remain paper-based, and more than 180 are delivered through isolated internal platforms. Many processes still require excessive documents and multiple steps, while only around 100 services have been fully simplified under the “three-step” principle.

These figures are important because they show that the problem is no longer only access to a front office. It is the fragmentation of the back office. If agencies maintain parallel systems, citizens will continue to face repeated documentation requests. If registries are incomplete or not treated as authoritative, officials will continue to rely on paper. If legal deadlines are unrealistic, digital platforms will not prevent delays. If staff lack digital skills or fear responsibility for electronic verification, they may continue to reproduce old procedures.

Monitoring data cited in the report also show persistent performance problems in several sectors. Uzsuvta’minot alone registered more than 175,000 violations, mainly related to delays in connecting customers to water networks or replacing meters. The Cadastre Agency recorded more than 50,000 violations, while other agencies reported tens of thousands of cases, many linked to delays and, in some cases, unjustified refusals.

This does not mean that reform has failed. It means that public service delivery is entering the stage where the easy improvements have already been made and the harder institutional problems are becoming more visible. The first wave could reduce queues and digitize records. The next wave must address mandates, data quality, staff capacity, cybersecurity, appeal mechanisms and the incentives that shape agency behavior.

Data privacy and the citizen

The same interoperability that makes services faster also creates new risks. When agencies exchange more data, the state can reduce paperwork and improve service quality. But it also gains a more complete picture of citizens’ lives. Civil status, property, residence, business activity, education, benefits, utilities and health-related administrative data can become increasingly connected.

This is not a reason to reject digital government. It is a reason to govern it carefully.

A trustworthy service state needs privacy safeguards, access controls, audit trails, correction rights and clear rules on who can use which data for which purpose. Citizens should know when data are being reused, how decisions are made and what they can do when information is incorrect. The more services become proactive or automated, the more important it becomes to ensure that people can challenge errors and that vulnerable groups are not excluded by inaccurate records or inaccessible digital channels.

This is also where inclusion matters. “Digital by default” should not become “digital only.” Rural residents, elderly people, persons with disabilities, low-income households and people with limited digital skills may benefit greatly from simplified services, but only if assisted channels remain available. Public Service Centers, kiosks, mobile units, postal delivery and community-based support are not leftovers from the pre-digital era. They are part of an inclusive digital state.

France’s experience is useful here: even a highly centralized and digitally advanced administration has had to invest in physical access points and assisted services to address territorial inequality and digital exclusion. For Uzbekistan, with its regional disparities and uneven administrative capacity, this lesson is particularly relevant.

A Law on Public Services as a test

Uzbekistan’s forthcoming Law on Public Services could become the cornerstone of the next reform phase. Its importance will depend on whether it is conceived narrowly or strategically.

A narrow law would simply list existing services and formalize current arrangements. A more ambitious law would define what citizens and businesses can expect from the administration: clear deadlines, transparent fees, valid electronic decisions, fewer unnecessary documents, access through several channels, secure data reuse, protection of personal information, and meaningful remedies when the system fails.

The law could also clarify who does what. The Ministry of Justice already plays a central role in legal reform, service standards and Public Service Centers. The Ministry of Digital Technologies leads on digital infrastructure, interoperability and cybersecurity. Line ministries remain responsible for the substance of decisions in their sectors. The challenge is to align these roles so that public service delivery becomes a coherent system rather than a collection of institutional islands.

This is not only a legal issue. It is a governance issue. If Uzbekistan wants citizens to stop carrying paper between agencies, then agencies must be required to trust shared data. If the state wants businesses to rely on digital licensing, then electronic procedures must be legally valid and technically resilient. If public services are to reduce corruption, then deadlines, refusals, complaints and appeals must be traceable. If digital government is to build trust, then cybersecurity and data privacy must be visible parts of the reform, not hidden technical details.

From administrative simplification to a service state

Uzbekistan’s public service reforms are therefore more than an administrative modernization story. They are a window into the country’s broader transformation: how the state organizes information, manages discretion, interacts with citizens and creates conditions for economic activity.

The next test will not be whether Uzbekistan can launch more portals or add more services to existing platforms. It will be whether the state can connect its institutions in a secure and accountable way, so that public services become faster without becoming opaque, more digital without becoming exclusionary, and more efficient without weakening rights.

The most important reform may be the least visible one. It will take place not at the counter, but in the connections between agencies; not in the app, but in the rules governing data; not in the number of services online, but in whether citizens and businesses can trust the digital state behind them.

If Uzbekistan succeeds, public service delivery could become one of the clearest indicators of a new phase in the country’s modernization: a move from paperwork to platforms, and from administrative simplification to a more predictable, secure and citizen-centered service state.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Beyond the Counter: Uzbekistan’s Public Service Reforms and the Hidden Infrastructure of the Digital State appeared first on Novastan English.

As Uzbekistani President Shavkat Mirziyoyev prepares to travel to Minsk on 8-9 July, the visit is expected to produce another series of agreements on trade, industry and regional cooperation. At first glance, it may appear to be just another bilateral meeting between two post-Soviet states. In reality, it illustrates one of the most overlooked geopolitical developments in Eurasia.

Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan’s gradual divorce from Russia

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Belarus has become increasingly isolated from Europe. Political dialogue with the European Union has largely frozen, Western sanctions have multiplied, and Minsk’s dependence on Moscow has deepened. Yet while much of Europe has turned away from Belarus, Central Asia has not. On the contrary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and especially Uzbekistan have continued to strengthen political dialogue, industrial cooperation, educational exchanges and trade with Minsk.

This apparent paradox reveals much about both Belarus and Central Asia. For Brussels, Belarus has become primarily a sanctions problem and Russia’s closest ally. For Tashkent, Astana or Dushanbe, however, Belarus remains something rather different: a producer of tractors, buses and mining equipment, an engineering partner, an educational destination and a familiar interlocutor with decades of technical expertise. That difference in perception lies at the heart of Belarus’s enduring relevance across the region.

The war that changed everything – but not everything

The war in Ukraine undoubtedly transformed Belarusian foreign policy.

Before 2022, Minsk balanced relations between Russia and the West while simultaneously cultivating long-standing ties across the former Soviet space. Afterwards, its room for manoeuvre narrowed dramatically. Unable to restore normal political relations with Europe in the foreseeable future, Belarus increasingly looked east.

If the first phase after 2022 was one of survival, the second has become one of adaptation.

Read more on Novastan: The Vocabulary of Reform: Why Central Asia Is Reimagining Its Political Traditions

Central Asia has emerged as one of the principal beneficiaries of this strategic reorientation. Unlike Europe, the five Central Asian republics never sought to isolate Belarus politically. None endorsed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and several – particularly Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – carefully defended the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Yet they also chose not to sever relations with Minsk.

Instead, they compartmentalised them.

Political disagreements over Ukraine did not prevent cooperation in agriculture, heavy industry, transport, education or food security. This pragmatic approach reflects the increasingly confident multi-vector diplomacy that has characterised Central Asia over the past decade.

Belarus’s comparative advantage

Unlike China, Belarus cannot finance billion-dollar infrastructure projects.

Unlike Russia, it does not provide security guarantees.

Unlike the European Union, it does not offer grants, regulatory convergence or accession prospects.

Its comparative advantage lies elsewhere.

Belarus remains one of the few post-Soviet states that preserved much of its industrial base after 1991. Companies such as MTZ, MAZ, BelAZ, Gomselmash, Bobruiskagromash and Amkodor continue to manufacture tractors, buses, heavy trucks, harvesters, mining equipment and construction machinery that remain highly competitive across Eurasia.

For Central Asian governments seeking to modernise agriculture, develop mining industries or improve municipal transport, Belarus offers something few other partners can provide: reliable industrial technologies adapted to post-Soviet realities and available at competitive prices.

In that sense, Belarus has become Eurasia’s overlooked industrial power.

Uzbekistan: from friendly relations to strategic partnership

Nowhere has Belarus’s eastern strategy been more successful than in Uzbekistan.

The relationship began to accelerate after Shavkat Mirziyoyev came to power in 2016 and launched sweeping economic reforms. Successive presidential visits – including Alexander Lukashenko’s trips to Tashkent and Mirziyoyev’s visits to Minsk – have transformed bilateral relations from cordial political dialogue into an increasingly comprehensive economic partnership.

Trade has expanded dramatically, approaching one billion US dollars annually, while both governments openly discuss reaching two billion dollars over the coming years.

Read more on Novastan: What lies beneath Central Asia? Rare earths, critical minerals and the new race for resources

More importantly, cooperation has moved beyond exports.

Belarusian and Uzbek partners are developing industrial projects valued at around 800 million dollars, spanning agricultural machinery, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and food processing. Hundreds of enterprises involving Belarusian capital now operate in Uzbekistan, making the country Belarus’s fastest-growing economic partner in Central Asia.

Preparations for Mirziyoyev’s current visit have themselves demonstrated the depth of the relationship. Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Shuleiko and Uzbekistan’s Minister of Investment, Industry and Trade Laziz Kudratov have spent recent weeks coordinating the agenda, with discussions focusing not only on bilateral trade but also on investment projects and preparations for the next Forum of Regions.

Beyond presidential diplomacy

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Belarus-Uzbekistan relations is that they are no longer centred exclusively on presidents.

The Forum of Regions, launched in 2019, has become an institutional mechanism linking provinces, municipalities, universities, chambers of commerce and businesses. Belarusian regions now cooperate directly with counterparts in Samarkand, Bukhara, Fergana and Tashkent, creating relationships that continue independently of high-level political visits.

This gradual institutionalisation distinguishes Belarus from many other external partners in Central Asia. Rather than relying solely on summit diplomacy, Minsk has invested in long-term cooperation between local authorities, universities and companies.

Kazakhstan: industrial integration

Kazakhstan remains Belarus’s largest economic partner in Central Asia.

Bilateral trade reached approximately 1.1 billion dollars in 2024, while industrial integration has become increasingly sophisticated. Rather than merely exporting machinery, Belarus has helped establish fourteen joint industrial projects worth nearly 280 million dollars, eleven of which are already operational.

Assembly plants now manufacture MTZ tractors, MAZ trucks and Gomselmash agricultural equipment within Kazakhstan itself. More than one thousand enterprises involving Belarusian participation operate across the country, supported by around 170 official Belarusian dealers.

These figures illustrate an important evolution. Belarus is no longer simply exporting products to Central Asia. Increasingly, it is participating directly in local manufacturing and industrial development.

Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan: smaller economies, growing ambitions

Belarus’s engagement is no less significant in the region’s smaller economies.

In Tajikistan, cooperation has progressively shifted from trade towards manufacturing. In the Hisor district near Dushanbe, Belarusian companies assemble MTZ tractors, Gomselmash harvesters and Bobruiskagromash agricultural equipment, allowing Tajik farmers to access machinery adapted to local conditions while supporting domestic production. More than thirty Belarusian distribution companies now operate in the country, reflecting Minsk’s long-term commitment to the Tajik market.

Kyrgyzstan has likewise sought to deepen economic ties. Both governments have adopted ambitious roadmaps to increase bilateral trade, focusing on agriculture, food processing, machinery and logistics. As fellow members of the Eurasian Economic Union, Minsk and Bishkek also benefit from institutional frameworks that facilitate commercial cooperation.

Turkmenistan presents a somewhat different picture. While economic relations remain constrained by Ashgabat’s relatively closed economy, education has emerged as one of the strongest pillars of the bilateral relationship. Around 4,000 Turkmen students are estimated to study in Belarus, particularly in engineering, medicine and technical disciplines. These graduates often return home with professional networks that strengthen long-term cooperation between the two countries.

Soft power without ideology: Tradition as State Legitimacy

Unlike Russia, Türkiye or China, Belarus has never projected influence through grand geopolitical narratives.

Its soft power is considerably quieter.

It is found in universities rather than television channels, engineering schools rather than cultural institutes, and technical cooperation rather than ideological messaging.

Belarusian State University, Belarusian National Technical University and Belarusian State Medical University continue to attract students from across Central Asia, offering Russian-language education, recognised technical qualifications and comparatively affordable tuition.

For many Central Asian families, Belarus represents a practical alternative. It offers a familiar academic environment outside Russia, while maintaining close links with industries that remain highly relevant to Central Asian development.

Education therefore performs several functions simultaneously. It generates revenue for Belarusian universities, strengthens professional networks and creates generations of engineers, doctors and public officials familiar with Belarusian institutions and technologies.

This represents a distinctly Belarusian model of soft power: practical, technocratic and long-term.

Beyond tractors: exporting institutions

Tajikistan follows a different path.

Belarus is also seeking to export institutions alongside industrial products.

One telling example is the growing role of the Belarusian Universal Commodity Exchange (BUCE). In 2025, BUCE signed a cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan’s Caspiy Commodity Exchange, aiming to improve commodity trading, develop electronic trading platforms and facilitate commercial exchanges between Belarus and Central Asia.

While less visible than presidential summits, such initiatives illustrate Minsk’s efforts to integrate itself into the region’s economic architecture.

Belarus has also promoted specialised business forums, including the Belarus-Central Asia Economic Forum held in Brest in 2026, bringing together companies interested in expanding into Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Such initiatives demonstrate that Belarus’s eastern engagement is becoming increasingly institutionalised rather than remaining dependent upon political goodwill alone.

A different understanding of Eurasia

Ultimately, however, this story is not simply about Belarus.

It is about Central Asia.

For more than three decades, the region has refined what is often described as a multi-vector foreign policy. Rather than aligning exclusively with one geopolitical centre, Central Asian governments seek productive relations with multiple partners simultaneously.

Russia remains indispensable in security matters.

Read more on Novastan: “I only needed a passport” : In Ukraine, Central Asian prisoners of wars caught between loyalty and regret

China has become the region’s principal economic partner and infrastructure investor.

Türkiye has significantly expanded its cultural, educational and political presence.

The European Union offers investment, regulatory cooperation and connectivity through initiatives such as the Global Gateway.

Japan and South Korea remain valued partners in technology and industrial development.

Belarus occupies a different niche.

It neither competes with these actors nor seeks to replace them. Instead, it provides industrial expertise, engineering education, agricultural technology and manufacturing partnerships that complement rather than challenge Central Asia’s broader foreign policy strategy.

This helps explain why relations have continued to deepen despite the war in Ukraine.

Central Asian governments have not ignored Belarus’s international isolation. They have simply concluded that practical cooperation remains in their national interest.

Looking east

As Shavkat Mirziyoyev arrives in Minsk, observers will understandably focus on the agreements signed, the trade figures announced and the diplomatic symbolism of the visit.

Yet its broader significance lies elsewhere.

The visit reflects the emergence of a Eurasia whose political geography no longer corresponds neatly to the map of sanctions.

While Europe has largely distanced itself from Belarus, Central Asia has continued to engage it through industry, education, agriculture, regional diplomacy and technical cooperation.

This does not mean that Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or their neighbours have chosen Belarus over Europe, or Russia over the West. Quite the opposite. Their continued engagement with Minsk illustrates the essence of multi-vector diplomacy: the refusal to view international relations as a zero-sum choice between competing blocs.

Read more on Novastan: Money, boxes and absent men: the hidden economy reshaping Central Asia

For Belarus, Central Asia has become an increasingly important diplomatic and economic outlet at a time when options elsewhere have narrowed. For Central Asia, Belarus remains a useful partner whose industrial capabilities, educational institutions and technical expertise continue to meet concrete national needs.

The geography of sanctions, it turns out, is not the geography of diplomacy.

Belarus did not escape isolation after 2022. But it has worked to avoid irrelevance. By looking east, Minsk has found not a substitute for Europe, but a region willing to judge it less by geopolitical alignment than by practical cooperation. And in an increasingly fragmented international order, that may prove to be one of the most consequential shifts in Eurasian diplomacy that few outside the region have noticed.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post Minsk’s Eastern Bet: Why Central Asia Matters More Than Ever appeared first on Novastan English.

Central Asia is often described as the next frontier in the global race for rare earths. The reality is both more promising and more complicated. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and their neighbours do hold major reserves of critical raw materials, from uranium and copper to chromium, manganese, tungsten, antimony, graphite and rare earth elements. But much remains uncertain: some deposits are still under exploration, processing capacity is limited, and the most valuable parts of the supply chain remain outside the region.

What is already clear, however, is that governments, state mining companies and foreign investors are moving fast. The European Union has signed critical raw materials partnerships with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. American investors are looking at tungsten and rare earths. France is active in uranium. Development banks are financing graphite and mining governance. China remains the unavoidable reference point, because it dominates global refining and processing.

For Central Asia, the question is not only what lies underground. It is whether the region can avoid becoming simply another supplier of raw materials for richer industrial powers.

Why these minerals matter

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The term “critical raw materials” can sound technical, but the products they make possible are familiar. A smartphone contains copper, tungsten, rare earth elements and other metals. An electric vehicle depends on lithium, graphite, copper and sometimes cobalt. Wind turbines require steel, copper and powerful permanent magnets. Satellites, missiles, semiconductors and aircraft all need specialised metals.

Rare earths are only one part of the story. They include elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, cerium, lanthanum and yttrium. Some are used in permanent magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines, drones, missiles and electronic devices. Others are used in polishing, catalysts, lasers or specialised industrial applications.

But Central Asia’s strategic importance is wider than rare earths. Uranium is essential for nuclear power. Copper is needed for electrical grids, renewable energy infrastructure, electric vehicles and data centres. Graphite is used in battery anodes. Tungsten hardens steel and is used in cutting tools, aerospace and defence. Antimony is used in flame retardants, ammunition, batteries and semiconductors. Chromium and manganese are essential for steel. Titanium is used in aircraft, spacecraft and medical implants. Molybdenum strengthens steel used in pipelines, industry and defence. Gallium is important for semiconductors, radar systems and advanced electronics.

In other words, the issue is not only about “green energy”. It is also about industrial power, military technology, digital infrastructure and geopolitical dependency.

What is actually known

According to the OECD, Central Asia holds a significant share of global reserves of several critical raw materials. The region accounts for around 39% of global manganese ore reserves, 31% of chromium, 20% of lead, 13% of zinc, 9% of titanium, 6% of aluminium, and about 5% each of copper, cobalt and molybdenum.

Kazakhstan is the strongest player. It is already the world’s largest uranium producer and can export many of the materials included in the European Union’s critical raw materials list. Its known strengths include uranium, chromium, manganese, copper, titanium, tungsten, beryllium, gallium and rare earth potential.

Uzbekistan is also increasingly visible. The country has large copper resources, uranium, molybdenum, tungsten, gold-associated metals and rare metals. Its mining sector is dominated by national champions such as Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Complex, Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company and Navoiyuran.

Kyrgyzstan has a smaller mining sector, but it is important for antimony, gold and rare earth occurrences. Tajikistan is also relevant for antimony, silver and rare metals. Turkmenistan remains the least transparent case, with public information still much thinner than for the rest of the region.

Kazakhstan’s rare earth moment

The strongest recent rare earth story comes from Kazakhstan. In 2025, the Kazakhstani authorities announced the discovery of the Zhana Kazakhstan deposit, reportedly containing more than 20 million metric tons of rare earth metals. The deposit is said to include neodymium, cerium, lanthanum and yttrium, with an average content of about 700 grams per ton.

The announcement attracted attention because neodymium and related elements are central to permanent magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence technologies. But it should be treated with caution. A deposit is not the same as a mine. A mine is not the same as a processing industry. And processing rare earths is technically difficult, expensive and environmentally sensitive.

This is one of the main problems in the global rare earth race. China does not dominate only because it has resources. It dominates because it controls refining, separation and manufacturing capacity. For Central Asia, the real challenge is therefore not only geological. It is industrial.

The companies entering the race

In Kazakhstan, several national and foreign actors are already positioning themselves.

Tau-Ken Samruk, the state mining company, is expected to play a central role in exploration and strategic mineral projects. Kazatomprom remains the key uranium actor, while Eurasian Resources Group is important for aluminium, copper, cobalt and gallium. ERG has announced plans to produce gallium in Kazakhstan, a metal used in semiconductors, radar systems and missile guidance.

American interest is also growing. Cove Capital has been linked to tungsten projects in Kazakhstan, including Northern Katpar and Upper Kairakty, in partnership with Tau-Ken Samruk. Tungsten is strategically important because it is used in hard metals, defence and industrial tools, while Western countries are trying to reduce dependence on China.

Sarytogan Graphite, active in Kazakhstan’s Karaganda region, is another example. Graphite is essential for battery anodes, especially in electric vehicles. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development acquired a stake in the company in 2024, showing that development banks are also entering the critical minerals field.

In Uzbekistan, the main actors are domestic state companies. Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Complex is central for copper, molybdenum and other metals. Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company remains one of the country’s major mining giants. Navoiyuran, the Uzbekistani uranium company, has signed with France’s Orano to develop a new uranium mining venture.

These examples show that the critical minerals race is not only a matter of abstract geopolitics. It is already visible in company strategies, financing decisions and bilateral agreements.

Europe, China, Russia and the United States

For Europe, Central Asia is attractive because it offers potential diversification. The European Union signed a strategic partnership with Kazakhstan in 2022 on sustainable raw materials, batteries and renewable hydrogen value chains. In 2024, it signed a similar memorandum with Uzbekistan. The first EU-Central Asia summit in Samarkand in 2025 also placed critical raw materials within a broader agenda of trade, transport, energy and connectivity.

For the United States, Central Asian minerals are part of a larger attempt to reduce dependence on China in strategic supply chains. Interest in tungsten, rare earths, gallium and other materials fits into this broader competition.

Also read on Novastan: L’héritage de Tabochar : l’extraction d’uranium au Tadjikistan et ses conséquences

China remains the central actor, even when it is not directly mentioned. It is the world’s dominant processor of rare earths and many other critical minerals. Any Western strategy on Central Asian resources is therefore, implicitly or explicitly, about reducing China’s leverage.

Russia still matters through legacy infrastructure, Soviet-era geological knowledge, uranium links and regional influence. But Moscow is no longer the only external actor able to shape Central Asia’s mineral future. This is one reason why the topic is becoming politically sensitive.

The real bottleneck: processing

The most important part of the story is not extraction. It is processing.

A country can have uranium, copper, tungsten or rare earth deposits and still capture only a small part of the value. The highest profits and strategic leverage often come from refining, separation, metallurgy, battery components, magnets and advanced manufacturing.

This is where Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are trying to change the model. Both countries want more local value creation, not only raw exports. Uzbekistan is promoting mining reform and industrial processing. Kazakhstan is trying to position itself as a partner for value chains rather than just a supplier of ore.

Also read on Novastan: En Ouzbékistan, la percée saoudienne dans le secteur de l’énergie

The risk is obvious. Central Asia has already experienced extractive economic models: cotton, oil, gas, uranium and metals have often generated revenue without creating diversified, high-value economies. Critical minerals could reproduce the same pattern under a greener label.

Environmental and social risks

Critical minerals are often presented as tools of the green transition, but their extraction can be environmentally damaging. Mining requires water, energy, chemicals and waste management. Rare earth processing can be particularly polluting if not properly regulated. In a region already facing water stress, desertification and fragile ecosystems, this matters.

There are also governance questions. Who benefits from new mining projects? How transparent are contracts? Are local communities consulted? Are environmental standards enforced? Do projects create skilled employment, or mainly export raw materials?

Also read on Novastan: En Asie centrale, le marché des véhicules électriques fait ses débuts

For Central Asian governments, the opportunity is real. But so is the danger of a “green resource curse”, where global demand for clean technologies reinforces old patterns of dependency, opacity and environmental damage.

A starter pack for readers

The simplest way to understand the issue is this:

• Rare earths such as neodymium and dysprosium are used in magnets for electric vehicles, wind turbines and defence technologies.
• Uranium is used for nuclear power.
• Copper is used in electrical grids, renewable energy, electric vehicles and data centres.
• Graphite is used in battery anodes.
• Lithium is used in rechargeable batteries, though Central Asia is not yet a major global lithium centre.
• Cobalt is used in batteries and aerospace alloys.
• Tungsten is used in hard metals, cutting tools, aerospace and military equipment.
• Antimony is used in flame retardants, ammunition, batteries and semiconductors.
• Chromium and manganese are used in steelmaking.
• Titanium is used in aircraft, spacecraft and medical implants.
• Molybdenum is used in high-strength steel.
• Gallium is used in semiconductors, radar and advanced electronics.
• Beryllium is used in aerospace, satellites, telecommunications and defence systems.

This is why Central Asia’s mineral base is suddenly being watched so closely. The region is not only sitting on obscure metals. It may hold some of the materials needed for the energy transition, digital technologies and modern defence industries.

More than a mine?

The coming years will show whether Central Asia can turn critical minerals into a development opportunity. The region has the resources. It has growing diplomatic attention. It has national mining companies and foreign investors willing to engage.

But the decisive question is whether Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and their neighbours can move beyond extraction. Without processing, transparency, environmental standards and local value creation, the new critical minerals boom could simply repeat older patterns of dependency.

Also read on Novastan: Le Kazakhstan renforce son emprise sur son uranium face à une demande mondiale croissante

Central Asia is not yet the next rare earth superpower. But it is becoming an important region in the global competition for critical raw materials. For the region itself, the challenge is to ensure that what lies beneath the ground helps build something above it.

Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan-English

The post What lies beneath Central Asia? Rare earths, critical minerals and the new race for resources appeared first on Novastan English.

Presented as a future major technological and economic hub, the city of Alatau in Kazakhstan is entering a new phase of institutional structuring after obtaining special status, amid persistent uncertainties about its development.

On 27 March, Kazakhstan’s Parliament adopted a law establishing a special legal regime for the city of Alatau, located a few dozen kilometres from Almaty. This status as a “territory of accelerated development”, with specific economic, administrative and legal rules, is intended to attract investment and foster innovation. The decision marks an important step in the evolution of a project that has been presented for several years as a future technological showcase for the country.

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Until recently, however, Alatau remained largely associated with political announcements and ambitious projections, without any real implementation on the ground. The adoption of this special status therefore reflects the Kazakhstani authorities’ desire to structure the project and give it an operational dimension. It remains to be seen whether this institutional advance will make it possible to turn a futuristic vision into a tangible reality.

A project revived by the adoption of a special legal regime

According to the municipality, the city will now benefit from a distinct governance system, with an organisation designed to speed up decision-making and facilitate the establishment of economic actors. The project notably provides for the creation of a strategic authority, the Alatau City Authority, responsible for defining development priorities, as well as an operational body dedicated to the day-to-day management of the project.

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The city will therefore be placed under the supervision of a council chaired by Prime Minister Olzhas Bektenov, in order to ensure direct coordination at the highest level of the state. At the same time, traditional local institutions, such as akimats and maslikhats, will retain their powers in urban management and public social services.

Also read on Novastan : Almaty, une ville en quête de cyclabilité

Beyond governance, this status comes with a specific regulatory framework, including tax incentives, simplified administrative procedures and rules adapted to innovative sectors. This development allows the project to move beyond the announcement stage and enter a concrete institutional framework, marking a new phase in its development.

An economic and regulatory framework designed to attract investment

Launched in the early years of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s mandate in the 2020s, Alatau is intended to become a hub capable of attracting international investment and supporting the country’s economic diversification, notably through its integration into a special economic zone.

The city, which has more than 50,000 inhabitants, is also intended to become a hub for digital technologies, digital assets and innovative financial services. In May 2025, President Tokayev announced the creation of a pilot zone called “CryptoCity” in Alatau, where cryptocurrencies could be legally used to pay for goods and services. This direction is part of a broader strategy aimed at positioning Kazakhstan as an emerging player in high value-added sectors.

Also read on Novastan : Le Kazakhstan envisage l’utilisation de cartes de paiement cryptographiques

Several concrete initiatives illustrate this ambition. As reported by Alatau City, discussions have been held with South Korea under the Economic Innovation Partnership Program, or EIPP, for the development of the city’s infrastructure. In addition, a branch of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, or KAIST, one of South Korea’s leading technological universities, is set to be established in Alatau, strengthening its academic and scientific positioning.

Financial ambitions are also significant. According to the Kazakh authorities, planned investment in the project could reach 10.4 trillion tenge, or around €20 billion. At the same time, the municipality has announced the upcoming start of construction on a landmark architectural complex called “Iconic Towers”. Work is due to begin in May 2026, with completion expected by 2029, at an estimated cost of $800 million, or around €680 million. These elements reflect a desire to give Alatau an economic, technological and symbolic dimension.

Between stated ambitions and persistent uncertainties

Despite these advances, several factors call for caution regarding the project’s immediate impact. In particular, a lack of clarity remains around the tax and legal rules applicable to Alatau, raising questions about the coherence and effective implementation of the system. These uncertainties reflect the difficulties inherent in creating an entirely new regulatory framework.

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Above all, the situation on the ground remains limited at this stage. In March 2026, Kazakh influencer Alimbek Ulan visited the Alatau site and observed the start of excavation work on the outskirts of the area concerned. However, no major structural progress was visible, confirming that the project remains largely in a preparatory phase.

Also read on Novastan : Au Kazakhstan, la privatisation d’une partie du parc national d’Ile-Alatau fait polémique

This gap between stated ambitions and concrete progress has fuelled criticism from some observers, who point to the risk of Alatau remaining a primarily symbolic project. The year 2026 therefore appears to be a decisive moment: with the announced launch of construction work, the authorities will have to demonstrate their ability to turn announcements into reality and begin a genuine construction phase.

Lenny Cabrol Noto
Author for Novastan

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Like many countries, Kazakhstan is facing major environmental problems. Kazakh media outlet The Village has listed the environmental issues most frequently discussed in the country.

Kazakhstan continues to actively address the environmental challenges affecting different regions of the country.

In recent years, the environmental situation in major cities has deteriorated significantly: the basins of many water bodies are gradually drying up, emissions of harmful substances exceed permitted levels several times over, and industrial enterprises are releasing chemicals into the environment in an uncontrolled manner.

Kazakh media outlet The Village has listed the main ecological problems facing the country.

Air pollution

For many years, the East Kazakhstan region remained the country’s largest industrial region. According to the Bureau of National Statistics, more than 15,000 companies are registered there. These include major industrial giants such as Kazzinc, KazMinerals, the Ust-Kamenogorsk Titanium and Magnesium Plant, the Ulba Metallurgical Plant and others.

The mining and metallurgical company Kazzinc, which produces zinc, copper, lead and other precious metals, is the most significant source of pollution. According to the region’s ecology department, in 2021 Kazzinc accounted for almost half of all pollutant emissions in the region.

Read also on Novastan : Au Kazakhstan, les villes industrielles souffrent de la pollution atmosphérique

According to Kazhydromet, in the city of Ust-Kamenogorsk, the region’s administrative centre, unfavourable weather conditions are recorded around 100 days a year. These are days when there is no wind in the region, causing harmful substances to accumulate in the air. During such periods, scientists even advise residents to avoid long walks outdoors, not to open windows, and to prioritise distance learning for schoolchildren.

Today, the East Kazakhstan region tops the national ranking for cancer incidence. The rate in the oblast is 55% higher than the national average: 321 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Residents themselves say they have been experiencing a sweet, metallic taste in their mouths for years.

Polluted rivers

Senator Olga Bulavkina has highlighted the critical level of air pollution in Ust-Kamenogorsk, noting that hydrogen chloride levels exceed the norm by nine times. She has also linked this pollution to the increase in cancer cases.

Representatives of the prosecutor’s office have stated that, out of the region’s 165 landfills, only 22 comply with environmental requirements — just 13%.

It should be noted that pollution of local water bodies is regularly recorded in the region. In May 2019, residents noticed that the Berezovka River had turned bright green. Following an inspection, scientists found that the water contained 140 times the permitted level of manganese, 44 times the permitted level of zinc, twice the permitted level of ammonium, and five times the permitted levels of sulphate and copper.

Kazzinc was held responsible for uncontrolled discharges and fined 8 million tenge, or €14,640. In July 2023, residents noticed that the water in the Filippovka River had turned milky white. Kazzinc again paid a fine, this time of 50 million tenge, or €91,589.

Modernising industrial facilities to reduce pollution

It is important to note that many rivers in East Kazakhstan are tributaries of the Irtysh. They form part of a single ecosystem. When one body of water is polluted, there is always a risk that harmful substances will enter other channels. The water from these rivers is used not only for drinking water, but also for agriculture and for the operation of thermal power plants and industrial enterprises.

Read also on Novastan : Kazakhstan : une hécatombe de cygnes causée par la pollution

As a result, the Ust-Kamenogorsk metallurgical complex had to modernise its sulphur gas purification units, which should reduce sulphur emissions by 10 to 20%. In Ridder, a new workshop was built, reducing emissions by 714 tonnes in 2024.

On 9 October 2024, it was announced that an environmental air monitoring system was being introduced and that eco-offices would be opened to allow residents to monitor air quality themselves. Work is also under way to improve the emissions monitoring system. This was stated by the akim, or local government representative, of the East Kazakhstan region, Ermek Kosherbayev.

Air pollution in Almaty

In January 2025, Almaty topped the ranking of the world’s most polluted megacities. According to environmentalists from the Almaty Air Initiative, one year of living in the city is equivalent to smoking 487 cigarettes. Annual emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere amount to around 125,000 tonnes.

In addition, according to a survey carried out by the Almaty Air Initiative in August 2024, 42% of respondents believe that air quality in their neighbourhood is poor or very poor. One in six residents is considering moving because of the poor environmental conditions.

Read also on Novastan : La pollution de l’air toujours aussi forte en Asie centrale

In 2024, 202 days of high air pollution were recorded in Almaty. Specialists recommend that residents limit their time outdoors and use protective masks, particularly those who are especially sensitive.

At a meeting of the Public Council, data on the main sources of pollution in Almaty were presented. Motor transport is the city’s main source of air pollution, accounting for around 60% of total emissions. Industrial enterprises also heavily pollute the environment, emitting around 27.5% of all harmful substances. The use of coal heating in private homes also contributes to air pollution, accounting for around 11% of total emissions.

The government is aware of the problem

In November 2022, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, addressing Almaty residents, raised the issue of air pollution in the city. He noted that the state of the environment has a direct impact on people’s health and lives.

During a meeting with residents of the Zhetysu district, Almaty akim Yerbolat Dossayev explained how the city intends to address environmental problems. According to him, the full modernisation of Combined Heat and Power Plant 2 will be completed in 2026, which should reduce emissions by 90%.

Transport is also being actively developed. By the end of 2026, the city has promised to replace all public transport with environmentally friendly vehicles.

Waste disposal

Waste and rubbish are also among Almaty’s main environmental problems. A large number of illegal dumps have accumulated in the city, and waste recycling remains difficult. During a meeting with residents of the Almaty region in October 2022, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for all tourist routes to be equipped with rubbish bins and for waste collection and sorting to be organised. He also instructed the Ministry of Internal Affairs to step up efforts to bring those responsible for illegal dumps to justice.

Plans are being discussed to build a waste recycling plant in the Ile district and another facility in the Karasay district, which would recycle waste and produce electricity from greenhouse gases.

Also read on Novastan : Décharges sauvages au Kazakhstan : d’où viennent-elles, et comment lutter contre ?

As early as 26 February 2022, a rally for clean air was organised in Almaty. Participants called on the authorities to take urgent and comprehensive measures, arguing that the city was on the brink of an ecological disaster. Among the participants were activists, experts, students and families with children.

At the rally, expert Aiymgul Kerimray accused the authorities of manipulating emissions data and called for a transition to European standards for assessing pollution. Activist Asiya Tulesova called on the state not only to listen, but also to act.

The drying up of the Aral Sea

Until 1960, the Aral Sea was the fourth-largest lake in the world. But because of Soviet irrigation projects, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, which fed the basin, were diverted.

As a result, over the past 60 years, the Aral Sea has shrunk by a factor of three, while its volume has decreased fifteenfold. Its water level has fallen by 29 metres. In the 1980s, the sea split into two parts: the northern Small Aral and the southern Large Aral. This tragedy led to the migration of most of the region’s wildlife, the disappearance of fish, and the emergence of the Aralkum Desert.

Also read on Novastan : Le totalitarisme de l’irrigation a tué la mer d’Aral

In 2023, the akim of the Kyzylorda region, Nurlybek Nalibayev, stated that tens of millions of tonnes of salt and dust are carried by the wind every year from the dried-up bed of the Aral Sea. They travel thousands of kilometres. “The only way to prevent salt from spreading beyond the sea area is to plant saxauls,” a type of Central Asian tree, he said.

According to the akim, 350,000 hectares of saxaul were planted on the dried-up bed of the Aral Sea between 2021 and 2022.

A full restoration of the sea is impossible

However, scientists have expressed doubts about the possibility of fully restoring the Aral Sea. Ecologist Yevgeny Simonov has said that the region’s water deficit is increasing and that it is more realistic to speak of preserving delta water bodies and wetlands than of fully restoring the sea.

Mels Yeleusizov, president of the environmental movement Tabigat, notes that the drying up of the Aral Sea leads to the spread of salty dust, which settles on glaciers and accelerates their melting. He stresses that the disappearance of this body of water has a negative impact on Kazakhstan’s ecosystem, contributing to desertification and the deterioration of the region’s environment.

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At the expense of the state and regional budgets, 101,000 hectares were planted in 2021. In 2022, phytoremediation work was carried out over an area of 250,000 hectares, and in 2023 over an area of 193,200 hectares. From 2024 to 2025, these phytoremediation efforts targeted 556,200 hectares.

Thanks to agreements reached with neighbouring countries, a total of 1.6 billion cubic metres of water had been sent to the northern part of the Aral Sea by the end of March 2025. In April of the same year, the total volume of water in the northern Aral Sea stood at 22.1 billion cubic metres, 3.2 billion cubic metres more than at the beginning of 2022.

Daniyar Beisembayev and Sultan Temirkhan
Journalists for The Village

Translated from Russian by Sophie Combaret and from French by Mathieu Lemoine

Proofread by Elise Medina (French version)

The post Overview of environmental issues in Kazakhstan appeared first on Novastan English.

Last month, Kazakhstan hosted the 40th Conference of Directors General of Railways, bringing together representatives from more than thirty countries. It was an opportunity for Astana to showcase its ambitions for the “Middle Corridor”, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the reshaping of global trade routes.

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From Monday 20 April to Monday 24 April 2026, the 40th Conference of Directors General of Railways brought together more than thirty countries in the heart of the Kazakh capital, against a backdrop of geopolitical uncertainty. The Organisation for Co-operation between Railways, known as the OSJD, is an intergovernmental organization that brings together a network of more than 320,000 kilometres of railway tracks, carrying around 5.5 billion passengers and nearly 5 billion tonnes of freight each year.

Founded in 1956, the OSJD – the main forum for railway coordination between Europe and Asia and a legacy of technical cooperation from the Soviet era – has gradually expanded to include new members. It currently has 27 members, ranging from Albania to Vietnam.

This year, the 40th Conference of Directors General of Railways brought together more than 300 officials and representatives of railway companies. Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister, Olzhas Bektenov, spoke in person, a sign of the political importance attached to the event.

He recalled that “Kazakhstan’s railway sector, which plays a crucial role in economic development, aims to improve the population’s quality of life and ensure sustainable growth”. The Prime Minister also announced strong ambitions for the coming years, declaring that he wanted to “build an additional 5,000 kilometres of railway tracks” over the next four years and to “increase transit volumes to 100 million tonnes per year by 2035”, thereby underlining his desire to strengthen Kazakhstan’s pivotal role in trade between Europe and China.

An Afghan delegation representing the Islamic Emirate met Kazakh and Azerbaijani officials to discuss the strengthening of the Hairatan and Torghundi ports and regional transit, according to the Afghan news agency Pajhwok Afghan News. This presence, like the joint presence of Ukraine and Russia, shows that railway cooperation can sometimes go beyond conventional diplomatic logic.

In addition to financial management issues, the conference also focused on the OSJD’s future work programme and the organization of the next meeting. Emphasis was placed on increasing volumes, modernizing infrastructure and transitioning towards more advanced technologies to improve the efficiency and fluidity of rail transport, reports the media outlet Transport Corridors.

The Middle Corridor at the heart of global challenges

By speaking of “transforming Eurasia into a single, fully functioning transport mechanism”, the Kazakh Prime Minister is directly referring to the trade route that has been developing in the region for around twenty years, particularly since China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2013.

The Middle Corridor, also known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), is a 4,000-kilometre multimodal transport corridor linking Chinese factories to European markets via Central Asia, the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus and Turkey.

It is also the shortest overland route between China and Europe, provided the necessary infrastructure is in place, which was long not the case. Delivery times, which once took several weeks, have now fallen to around 18 days, according to The Astana Times.

Read also on Novastan : L’Asie centrale face au défi de la réalisation du corridor médian

This reduction was made possible in part by digital transformation and the introduction of the TezCustoms system, which has reduced processing time at the borders with China from 8 hours to 30 minutes.

Mr Bektenov emphasized Kazakhstan’s pivotal role, with around 85% of Middle Corridor traffic passing through the country. He also announced the construction of 5,000 kilometres of new railway lines over the next four years, with the aim of reaching a transit capacity of 100 million tonnes per year by 2035.

A route that has grown rapidly since the geopolitical crises…

This Eurasian route has been one of the main beneficiaries of the global geopolitical situation of the past four years, with two successive shocks having propelled its importance.

The first is the war in Ukraine since 2022: Western sanctions imposed on Russia caused westbound freight volumes on Russian routes to fall by 51% in 2023, according to Transport Corridors. The Middle Corridor has thus established itself as the only practical land bridge between China and Europe that bypasses Russian territory.

Read also on Novastan : Le corridor sud, une menace pour le transport kazakh ?

The second is the war in the Middle East and the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, which began in late 2023. According to the Qatari media outlet Gulf Times, amid uncertainty in the region, some companies redirected their traffic from the Strait of Hormuz and the Suez Canal towards the Cape of Good Hope, making land-based alternatives all the more attractive.

In 2024, the volume of goods transiting along the Eurasian route increased by more than 63% year-on-year, according to the US think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, reaching 4.1 million tonnes compared with only 500,000 tonnes before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On the China-Europe segment alone, the number of containers transported increased twenty-fivefold between 2023 and 2024, according to the journal CEBRI.

…but remains constrained

However, according to an article by Friedrich Conradi published on the Carnegie Politika website, despite its potential to become a major competitive route, it could prove limited by structural problems. “The Middle Corridor is still far from competitive. It handles only around 6% of the annual capacity of the Northern Corridor via Russia, which stands at 100 million tonnes, and while many Western actors expect it to continue growing, several indicators instead suggest a slowdown,” the researcher explains.

The Middle Corridor’s infrastructure remains insufficient, with ports often saturated, particularly in Georgia, and an inherently fragmented route, since it relies on a succession of transport modes, making it slower, more expensive and less seamless than alternative routes via Russia or by sea.

Added to this is persistent geopolitical instability in the Caucasus and around Iran, as well as environmental challenges, particularly the falling level of the Caspian Sea, which directly affects port capacity and the continuity of maritime transport.

Lorenz Uberti
Contributor for Novastan

Edited by Elise Medina (French version) and Mathieu Lemoine (English version)

Thank you for reading this article! If you have time, we would appreciate your feedback, either through this anonymous form or by email at editorial@novastan.org. Thank you very much!

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Renowned for the quality of its grapes, Uzbekistan nevertheless saw its vineyards massively destroyed after the fall of the USSR, as part of measures aimed at limiting alcohol consumption. It took years of work for the Akhunov family to rebuild a wine collection that is now unique in Central Asia.

A report on the still-emerging renaissance of Uzbekistan’s wine industry.

A few turns of the key are enough. And already, through the half-open door, they begin to appear: touches of purplish colour diluted among the foliage. The oldest of these vines come from cuttings dating back nearly 80 years. Planted side by side, they rise towards the sky until they almost block it out. Over time, they have woven their web, forming a green setting around the precious bunches of grapes.

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With a determined step, 30-year-old Kamila Akhunova enters this green space, located just a few steps from the family property. The Akhunovs own a 21-hectare estate in the town of Qibray, Uzbekistan, about 20 kilometres from the capital, Tashkent. On this remote land, nearly 15 hectares are devoted to grape production. Their company, UzumFermer, produces 100,000 litres of wine per year.

Hidden from view, a veritable treasure cave of grape varieties is revealed. Here, grapes of every shape and kind grow side by side. Among them is a unique treasure: a Japanese grape variety called “Ruby Roman”, sold for nearly 10,000 dollars per bunch. A little further on, Kamila Akhunova presents another variety: “Jupiter”. “It is also a treasure because only five countries in the world have it. And on our continent, we are the only ones to have it.”

A unique collection in Central Asia

This unique sample of vine plants was “collected all over Uzbekistan, and is the only one that exists in the country,” Kamila Akhunova insists. “We went to former laboratories and old gardens to recover all these grapes.” It was a painstaking quest to build up this collection, after many years spent travelling across Uzbek soil. Today, she proudly looks over the 125 different vine varieties: “100 are for table grapes and 25 for standard wine.”

Behind this initiative is her father, Rachid Akhunov. Now 57, after studying physics in Russia and leaving behind laboratories and pipettes, this vine and grape enthusiast decided to dedicate himself to rebuilding this heritage. “For me, it was a real quest. During my travels, I began collecting all kinds of grapes,” he says proudly. “My father,” Kamila Akhunova stresses, “received the gold medal from the Uzbek president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, in 2016, as thanks for the revival of vine cultivation. We do not make wine with them; we simply present our collection to tourists.”

Although their quest to rebuild this collection is now complete in Uzbekistan, Kamila would like it to continue abroad. “We are waiting for the law to change so that we can import other varieties from all over the world, from France, Germany, Chile, Africa, Australia, New Zealand…” the young woman explains. In Uzbekistan, many regulations drastically limit the import of vines — plants and cuttings — by subjecting them to very strict health controls.

A family business

Kamila Akhunova’s passion for wine dates back to her teenage years. In 2015, at the age of 20, she decided to leave for Spain, to Barcelona, drawn by its crowded summer beaches and, above all, by the vineyards of the surrounding region. These are spread out less than an hour from the city centre, on hillsides. There, she immersed herself in the study of oenology at the Sant Ignasi Faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, part of Ramon Llull University.

“It was a very enriching experience for me. I discovered a profession that really interested me.” Her mother’s dream was for her to settle permanently abroad. “She wanted me to marry a foreigner and open my own business in another country.” But with her diploma in hand, and feeling nostalgic, she eventually returned to Uzbekistan. Back on her home soil, the young woman had only one goal in mind: to continue this adventure around wine.

It was around this time that her parents decided to look for land away from Tashkent. After travelling around the region, they settled on a wasteland a few kilometres from the Uzbek capital. “We found this place and rented it. Because in Uzbekistan, you cannot buy land; you lease it from the government, for a lease that can run from 15 to 55 years,” she explains. “There was nothing here at the time. No trees, no vines… It was abandoned land,” Kamila Akhunova recalls. The family’s objective was to build their holiday home here, their “dacha”, to rest away from the Uzbek capital.

It was her mother who first decided to plant vines. “As a landscape designer, she loves nature. At first, when she began planting them, it was just for the family. We also exported a little grape to Russia, but just for pleasure.” The year 2019 marked a turning point, when a new law allowed them to expand their land to 21 hectares, Kamila explains. Shortly afterwards, another law stipulated that “if you have a vineyard, regardless of the type of vine, you have the right to make wine.” No licence or documents were needed.

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It was an opportunity the Akhunov family seized. Kamila Akhunova’s father then planted more vines on the property, this time to produce wine and sell it. At first, “it was not professional wine, but rather homemade wine, table wine. It was ‘Rizamat’, made from a local grape. We also had ‘Jupiter’” – a wine made from a seedless muscat-type grape variety popular in domestic vineyards. Building on this momentum, the family business continued to develop, launching event organization and tastings for tourists alongside the vineyards.

A climate suited to vines

Then, very quickly, the Akhunov family decided to professionalize its activity. In 2020, they invested in highly sophisticated equipment from Italy. To train on these new machines, they brought in an expert for six months. “We found a professional oenologist in New Zealand, the director of a large vineyard there, who had a lot of experience in the field. She was Ukrainian, so she spoke Russian. It was perfect for us. She came here and lived with us. She was our teacher: she taught us everything.” After she left, other specialists, including some from France, took over to share their experience. It was also that year that Kamila’s family decided to create its own company.

If they chose to invest in vines, it is because in this Central Asian country, the climate is favourable to grape production. With more than 200 days of sunshine per year, Uzbek wines are distinguished by the intensity of their flavour. “It is very hot in summer and very cold in winter, but our temperatures are not too low. It is therefore an ideal climate for vines. Grapes like heat,” Kamila Akhunova says.

Cabernet Sauvignon, Jupiter, Pinot Noir, Bayanshiri, Riesling… Their production remains diverse. As for their vines, they are spread over two plots of land. One is near their property, the other in Parkent, a town about 30 kilometres from Tashkent. There, the vines cling to the mountainside. “What is very different in Parkent is the soil: the earth is black and rich, with many minerals. There is also a difference in temperature: it reaches a maximum of 28 degrees in summer, whereas here, in the plain, it gets very hot in summer.”

“Reviving the culture of the vine”

In this Muslim-majority country, viticulture nevertheless occupies an important place. Currently the leading wine producer in Central Asia, its earliest traces date back to Antiquity. “Uzbekistan is one of the countries that has preserved an indigenous grape variety — a vine variety originating from a specific region, where it has adapted over the centuries. Vines have been present there for a very long time. This dates back to the sixth century BC. There is therefore a long history between this country and wine. One could say it is a true heritage,” explains Benoist Simmat, a specialist in the history and economy of wine and author of the book The Incredible History of Wine.

Yet through the vicissitudes of history, this tradition experienced turbulent periods. In the nineteenth century, at the beginning of the Tsarist period, viticulture developed at an industrial level in the country. Dmitry Filatov, a Russian merchant, founded the country’s first winery in Samarkand in 1868, and trade developed around it. Factories multiplied, but this upturn was slowed by the advent of the Soviet Union.

Read also on Novastan : La vodka tadjike, un produit d’exportation oublié

Measures were then taken to combat alcohol consumption among the population. In the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev, then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, launched an awareness campaign. This was accompanied by the destruction of many vineyards across the Soviet republics, including in Uzbekistan. It was not until the fall of the communist bloc and the country’s independence in 1991 that they began to be revived. “They were replanted after the country’s independence. The objective was to revive the culture of the vine,” Kamila Akhunova explains.

Yet the economic isolation promoted by former president Islam Karimov placed another brake on wine production. In 2016, the arrival in power of Shavkat Mirziyoyev marked a turning point, triggering the modernization of viticulture. He introduced measures encouraging the growth of this culture, such as increasing vineyard areas, rational land use and the promotion of wine tourism.

However, the import of vine plants remains restricted in the country. “They are afraid of phylloxera. It is an insect that eats vines, especially their roots,” Kamila Akhunova explains. “And because it would also attack cotton, which is one of our main crops, the import of vine plants is very limited. During the Soviet Union, it was completely prohibited.”

The first wine festival in Uzbekistan

Alongside wine production, the Akhunov family wanted to diversify. Tastings, cellar visits and estate tours… Many events are organized throughout the year on the property. “We do all kinds of events: weddings, conferences, photo shoots, Uzbek film shoots. Sometimes even Uzbek stars come here!” Kamila Akhunova exclaims. Navruz, Halloween, Victory Day, Christmas… major holidays are also celebrated on the estate.

The family is also behind the Tashkent Wine Festival. It has now been held every year on their land for six years. “We were the first to create this kind of festival in Uzbekistan. At first, we only had 200 people,” the young woman says proudly. Last September, they gathered nearly 1,000 people on the lawns of their property. Crowded among the vines and bunches of grapes were politicians, doctors, business leaders and ordinary tourists, each strolling around with a glass of wine in hand.

Among this year’s participants, Irina, a psychologist working in the capital, came specifically to discover the vineyard and enjoy the tasting. “It is a very good way to discover the different wines they produce here,” she explains. “I did not know that wine was produced in Uzbekistan. Some friends told me to come. It is a good discovery.” A little further away, a group of Russians working in Tashkent sing songs while tasting the precious beverage. What they appreciate is “the slightly sweet taste”. Their preference is for “Jupiter”.

“For us, this festival is a huge showcase for our products,” Kamila stresses. Over the years, the Akhunovs have managed to develop partnerships with companies, but also with the embassies present in the capital, such as the French embassy in Tashkent. “We were present at the 14 July ceremony. We also had people taste our wine during the Independence Day celebration at the American embassy.”

A “micro-market” seeking expansion

Today, the objective of the young woman and her family is to continue “developing wine culture in Uzbekistan and its export”. “We focus on quality, not quantity,” she explains. “We produce 200,000 bottles per year; that is not much. We do not want to increase production, because we want to control it. The large factories in Uzbekistan produce much more, but the quality is not exceptional. They sell bottles for 85 euro cents for export to China or Russia, whereas our prices range from 12 to 50 euros.”

Read also on Novastan : Au Kazakhstan, découverte des vignes des routes de la soie

“Wine exports and production in Uzbekistan remain fairly low. There are micro-markets: a local micro-market, a Russian micro-market which also includes the countries of Central Asia, and a tourism micro-market. Does that make it a market in its own right? Currently, no. Especially since globally, there is overproduction, particularly of red wine,” says specialist Benoist Simmat.

Yet year after year, wine production continues to increase in the country. In January 2024, Uzbekistan’s large wine companies produced 708,400 litres of grape wine — an increase of 26.4% compared with the same period in 2023, according to official figures from the National Statistics Committee.

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For now, the Akhunov family has only a few partnerships with Uzbek restaurants in Russia, Kazakhstan and Malaysia. “It is not a large quantity in terms of exports. They just buy a few boxes for their restaurants,” Kamila Akhunova explains. As for France, their bottles are displayed at the wine museum in Bordeaux, where a special section is dedicated to Uzbekistan. They are currently in discussions to supply an Uzbek restaurant in Lyon and would like to develop partnerships with Uzbek restaurants in Paris.

In this desire for international recognition, reforms aim to position Uzbekistan as a major player in the international wine market. Initiated in August 2023, one of them aims to establish a system of agro-industrial wine clusters. At the same time, the state has committed to strengthening financial support in this sector.

“Our objective is to take our country to a higher level in terms of production and export,” Kamila emphasizes. “Now that our quest to rebuild a collection of grape varieties in Uzbekistan is complete, this is our new mission.”

Louise Simondet,
Correspondent in Uzbekistan for Novastan

Translated by Mathieu Lemoine

Thank you for reading this article! If you have time, we would appreciate your feedback, either through this anonymous form or by email at editorial@novastan.org. Thank you very much!

The post In Uzbekistan, one family wants to support the revival of wine production appeared first on Novastan English.

Relations between Kazakhstan and China are deepening fast. As a linchpin in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, Astana hopes to pluck the fruits of this global infrastructure development strategy, which aims to boost overland trade connections between East and West. However, China’s treatment of ethnic Kazakhs in the Xinjiang province, the region’s second-largest Turkic community after the Uyghurs, remains a sensitive subject that is complicating further rapprochement between the two countries.

This text was originally published on 20 October 2025 by our partner media outlet Lossi 36.

On a cold winter’s day in February 1997, thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of the city of Yining, known to locals as Ghulja, in China’s Xinjiang province to protest against growing ethnic discrimination and religious repression. As the demonstration grew in strength, people started chanting “God is great!” and “Independence for Xinjiang!”. Chinese security forces soon mobilised and cracked down on the crowd, killing dozens and arresting hundreds. The exact casualty figures of the massacre remain unknown. The 1997 Ghulja incident is now looked upon as a precursor to the brutality against the predominantly Muslim population in China’s westernmost region.

Nearly three decades later, tensions are still palpable in Yining. Travelling through the city, there is a distinct presence of CCTV cameras and police patrols on the streets. Important intersections in the downtown area are overseen by well-equipped Chinese soldiers next to armoured vehicles with mounted machine guns. They appear suspicious of people taking pictures of the local street life and seem uncomfortable with foreigners freely roaming about a region where, according to most observers, China is perpetrating grave crimes against humanity. Several countries have also accused Beijing of committing genocide, though some human rights groups contend that there is insufficient evidence to support this qualification.

One of the targeted communities are the Xinjiang Kazakhs, the region’s second-largest ethnic minority after the Uyghurs. Because of their mostly Turkic-Muslim background, the Chinese authorities see them as a threat to the state ideal of creating a homogeneous nation, united under the red banner of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In accordance with a policy of “preventative repression”, Beijing has sought to dilute the province’s demographic makeup through the state-sponsored in-migration of Han Chinese and has invested heavily in surveillance technology and infrastructure while building an enormous network of so-called re-education camps. 

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A short history of repression

After the takeover of Xinjiang by the CCP in the waning days of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the position of the Kazakhs in the region steadily grew worse. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mao Zedong implemented his Great Leap Forward, which caused tens of thousands of local Uyghurs and Kazakhs to defect to Soviet Central Asia. 

The exodus coincided with a gradual deterioration of relations between Moscow and Beijing. The Soviets launched a propaganda offensive against China, promoting the migration of minority groups while trying to destabilise Chinese authority over Xinjiang by appealing to separatist movements. The local Soviet consulate enabled the emigration of ethnic minorities by issuing passports. 

When Beijing found out, they stopped distributing exit visas, which sparked fears among local Kazakhs and other minorities of being cut off from their kin in the USSR. A resulting demonstration was brutally put down, encouraging thousands of others to flee as well. Eventually, in 1962, the Sino-Soviet border was closed after between 60 and 100 thousand had left, and remained so for most of the Cold War.

Read more on Novastan: 70 years of Xinjiang: Beijing celebrates and enacts new political doctrine

Isolated from the outside world, the economic situation in Xinjiang worsened, while elsewhere the “Chinese economic miracle” was just gaining steam. Uneven regional development, combined with interethnic tensions due to the continued inflow of Han Chinese settlers, eventually resulted in a wave of separatist terrorism in the 1990s and 2000s, followed by a ruthless clampdown on the region by Chinese authorities. This eventually culminated in the ongoing Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism, which started in 2014.

Atajurt Eriktileri (Homeland Volunteers), a Kazakhstan-based human rights organisation in the forefront of advocating for the release of ethnic kin in Xinjiang, has documented thousands of cases of ethnic Kazakhs who have been incarcerated in China without a trial. Although the number of imprisoned Kazakhs is much smaller than the several hundred thousand Uyghurs currently detained in prison camps, Atajurt has done most to highlight the plight of all ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.

Yet, as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) brings a surge of investment into Kazakhstan, deepening ties between the two countries place Astana in a delicate position amid domestic concerns over the repression of the Xinjiang Kazakhs.

Crossroads Khorgos

About a hundred kilometres by road to the northwest of Yining, on the Chinese side of the Sino-Kazakh border, lies Khorgos. This newly planned town with a skyline that, from a distance, rivals that of any major European city, is part of a recently created special economic zone. It includes a massive area full of highways, warehouses, manufacturing sites, residential areas for workers and their families, and a duty-free shopping zone.

Khorgos is key to Beijing’s BRI. This multi-billion infrastructure development strategy, colloquially known as the New Silk Road, aims to expand China’s economic and political influence around the globe by boosting trade connections between East and West. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as well as heightened instability in the wider Middle East, the route passing through Khorgos – the shortest overland transport route to Europe – has rapidly grown in importance. 

That strategic relevance is also visible on the Kazakh side of the border. Here, Khorgos transforms from a geopolitical pivot into a logistical hub. The importance of Khorgos lies in the fact that the Chinese operate with a different track gauge, so any rail transport making its way to Europe has to change trains here. This happens just inside Kazakhstan, on a vast asphalted harbour-like complex, surrounded by barbed wire fence and dense with brightly-coloured shipping containers, towering cranes, and a warren of railway tracks. 

This infrastructure, together with additional roads and railways for onward transport, has been financed with Chinese loans. Critics of the BRI have voiced concerns about what they call “debt-trap diplomacy”. This alleged strategy, however, has been repeatedly disproven by experts. In the case of Kazakhstan, Nargiza Muratalieva, associate professor at the American University of Central Asia, states that “[s]trong institutions, public understanding, a diversified loan portfolio, and sustainable projects” allow Kazakhstan to effectively manage its debt.

That is not to say there are no risks to deepening economic ties with China. China is facing considerable economic challenges, as it struggles with deflation and an ageing population. These internal problems could easily spillover into BRI countries. Should Kazakhstan continue to take on BRI-related investments in the long term, infrastructure projects like Khorgos might become a liability. 

Views on China

China has come to recognise growing unease over its expanding economic footprint in Kazakhstan. Beijing has responded by promoting soft power initiatives, especially through boosting educational and cultural exchanges and increasing the production of Kazakh language content through Chinese media outlets. These efforts are aimed at moving beyond the elite-level political and economic ties China previously depended upon.

So far, this strategy has not been very successful. Apart from economic concerns, the (mis)treatment of ethnic kin in Xinjiang continues to influence public opinion on China in Kazakhstan. Over the past few years, several demonstrations have been organised to protest against China’s Xinjiang policy.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s government under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has been mostly silent on this issue. Although the resettlement of several thousand ethnic kin from China has given the impression that Astana is trying to address the situation with Beijing, the country’s political leadership carefully avoids direct criticism. Tragic but true, the pursuit of economic interests undercuts any meaningful response to human rights abuses on the other side of the border. 

Read more on Novastan: China in Central Asia: Fact-checking and myth-busting

The awarded reportage Kazakhstan-Xinjiang, the Border of Tears describes how many Kazakh survivors, upon their return to Kazakhstan, face indifference with regard to their experiences in China: “All the violence they have endured is not recognised, and seems to exist only in their private lives: denied by the Kazakh authorities, generally ignored by civil society, invisible to the medical community.”

In recent years, Astana has tried to actively thwart activists and grassroots organisations concerned with the suffering of Xinjiang Kazakhs. Most notably, in 2019, Atajurt Eriktileri’s founder and frontman Serikzhan Bilash was charged for inciting inter-ethnic hatred and arrested. When he was released after seven months of detention, he was forced to leave Kazakhstan. Attempts by his organisation to enter national politics were obstructed by the authorities, and little has been heard about these efforts. 

The BRI paradox

To pre-empt domestic unrest linked to China’s Xinjiang policy, Kazakhstan’s government is committed to making the BRI work. The latest Central Asia Barometer shows a correlation between the current boom in trade between China and Kazakhstan and more favourable views on China, especially among the youth. This finding reveals a striking paradox. Kazakhstan’s growing economic dependence on China could be softening Sinophobic sentiment – even as the BRI facilitates the repression of Muslims in Xinjiang, a cause that has provoked outrage among Kazakhs. 

In China, BRI projects have gone hand-in-hand with a sharpening of security measures. The new highway connecting Khorgos with Yining, for example, is strewn with police checkpoints, and at airports and train stations throughout Xinjiang security controls are strict and time-consuming. The Chinese government has long perceived the expression of minority identity as an obstacle to regional development and worked to pacify separatist resistance.

Scholars have argued that the economic benefits of BRI-related infrastructure development befall disproportionately upon the non-local Han Chinese population, while the ethnic minorities of Xinjiang have played a significant role in the workforce behind BRI projects — possibly under conditions that amount to forced labour. If true, these findings would suggest that the promise of the BRI would sooner increase than diminish regional inequalities. 

Ultimately, managing the fine line between fostering economic development and addressing human rights issues leaves Kazakhstan in a tricky situation. The ongoing struggles of ethnic Kazakhs in China highlight the significant tensions that form a major obstacle for further rapprochement between Kazakhstan and China.

Julian Postulart for Lossi 36

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The post The story of the Xinjiang Kazakhs: silent suffering along the Belt and Road appeared first on Novastan English.

As Kazakhstan officially starts the construction of its new nuclear plant, the region is overwhelmed with an extreme heat wave. The climate change is especially noticeable in the continental climate: in the land where summer temperature peak at 49 degrees Celcius is even the slightest upgrade dangerous. But the efforts to become climate neutral country prove to meet some complications. 

The temperatures in Kazakhstan – as anywhere in the world – are rising. The winter of 2024/2025 has been classified as ‘anomalously’ warm, as temperatures exceeded the norm by 2 to 6 degrees. Spring and summer have been way too hot as well: monthly reports show temperature records. Over the last 75 years, the average yearly temperature in Kazakhstan has risen by 6 degrees.

The efforts to counteract climate change, or at least to slow it down, are extremely relevant in this context. But the current starting point makes the green future look rather distant.

Fuel dependence in the background 

In 2023, Kazakhstan’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev signed the ambitious Strategy of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Achieving Carbon Neutrality by 2060. Nevertheless, in a country where the economy is deeply reliant on the fossil fuel industry, the shift toward renewable energy poses considerable difficulties.

Since Kazakhstan’s independence (now well over three decades ago), subsequent governments were betting on the extraction of fuel for continued economic growth, as well as securing investments through selling the exploration and recovery rights to fossil giants like British Petroleum, Exxon and Shell. Petroleum currently makes up 52,5% of Kazakhstan’s export, which earns the country up to 34,8 billion GBP annually. Whilst Russia is subjected to sanctions as a result of its war against Ukraine, western countries are looking for alternative suppliers. And Kazakhstan has proven to be an interesting partner in that regard – a fact reflected in the signing of new contracts, primarily for oil exports to Europe.

The fossil fuel industry remains far too profitable to scale back, let alone to significantly reduce oil production. Yet such a decline seems inevitable: if not driven by environmental imperatives, then by sheer necessity. Current forecasts suggest that known oil reserves could be exhausted within just 30 years at present production rates. While this projection may align with broader climate objectives, governments continue to pursue new exploration efforts in regions considered geologically promising.

The main problem: coal

Oil is only part of the problem. The energy sector in general is Kazakhstan’s number one source of greenhouse gas emissions. Although energy demand from industry accounts for just over a fifth of final energy consumption, more than a third is spent on the building sector. This is where coal processing comes in.

Kazakhstan possesses vast coal reserves, though extraction remains costly. The country’s largest deposits are relatively shallow but consist of exceptionally thick seams, making mining operations less efficient. In 2023, a tonne of coal could be purchased directly from mines for around 9,000 tenge – approximately £15.75 at the prevailing exchange rate – well below global market prices. For domestic consumers, transportation costs can nearly double that price, yet coal remains the most affordable source of energy production. However, its widespread use is responsible for more than half of Kazakhstan’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Most of Kazakhstan’s coal is consumed domestically, primarily to supply the country’s thermal power plants. Coal accounts for 99% of heat generation and more than half of total electricity production. However, many of these power stations are outdated and, in some cases, in disrepair. Most were built during the Soviet era and have long exceeded their intended operational lifespan.

Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan stops investment agreement with ArcelorMittal after deadly explosion in Kostenko mine takes 46 lives

The government does not seem particularly willing to completely abandon coal. News outlet zakon.kz cites Kazakhstan’s Minister of Energy Yerlan Akkenzhenov: ‘We live on wealth. Coal-fired power generation is considered the cheapest option. In addition, the construction of combined heat and power plants also allows us to control the heat supply. As you know, all our cities are supplied by combined heat and power plants and a central heat supply. We must continue to pursue this approach […]’

As an alternative, the minister has proposed equipping the power plants with modern boilers that enable coal to be burned ‘without residue’. By 2035, ‘every combined heat and power plant will be gradually converted exactly to clean coal technology’.

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In a country with very cold winters, less than half of households are connected to a central heating network. In single-family detached homes, coal is frequently used as the main energy source for heating, which in turn contributes to the already high levels of smog produced by thermal power plants in big cities like Almaty. Taking into consideration the state of Kazakhstan’s housing stock, a considerable amount of energy gets wasted due to insufficient insulation or outdated heating systems. Ironically, even with the energy wasted, heating is still cheaper in the long term than investing in renovations.

Read more on Novastan: Breathing space: air quality and energy transition in Kazakhstan

Slow decarbonization in transport

A similar situation can be observed in the transport sector, the country’s second-largest energy consumer. The UN, in its roadmap for achieving the 7th sustainable development goal (‘Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all’), recommends that Kazakhstan decarbonize 15% of its passenger cars by 2050. Currently there are 6.17 million cars registered in the country, of which electric cars account for only 0.003%.

A quarter of a century is a long time – after all, 25 years ago, electric cars as we know them today did not even exist. However, the timeframe proposed by the UN seems optimistic for Kazakhstan: almost half of the cars in the country are at least 20 years old, and a significant proportion of these are cars would no longer pass vehicle safety tests, or would be banned from towns and cities for not meeting environmental standards. Although the government is planning to impose fines on car owners whose vehicles exceed emission standards, there are no plans to use the revenue to directly fund environmental initiatives. Many drivers only replace their cars when they are no longer roadworthy, and even then, they tend to turn to secondary and tertiary markets when looking for a replacement.

Switching to an electric car is not easy in Kazakhstan: all charging stations are located within the three largest cities – Astana, Almaty and Shymkent – and even there, their availability is limited. Due to the risk of fire, for example, it is prohibited to install charging stations in apartment parking areas. Electric car owners are hence dependent on public charging stations in large car parks and near shopping centres – which often do not supply green electricity.

According to internal research of a car manufacturer in the region, more than half of car owners do not consider electric cars as a purchase option when thinking about their next buy. After the boom in 2022/2023, when cheap electric cars were imported en masse from China, excitement has subsided. The urban population with above-average incomes who wanted and could afford an electric car, have already purchased it; for the rest these cars are just too expensive, far too impractical, far too unfamiliar. Car dealers are now focusing on hybrid models instead, which could serve as a transitional solution. Yet even these are no option for the majority of the population, given the current state of infrastructure in Kazakhstan.

Clean energy: only a fraction in the market

It is not that Kazakhstan produces no clean energy at all.

Hydroelectric power plants, however, play only a minor role in the country’s energy mix — for understandable reasons. Most of them were built in the same era as the aging thermal power plants. Moreover, water resources are steadily dwindling, raising doubts about whether there will be enough water to sustain hydroelectric production in the coming years.

Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan: Residents suffer from lack of water

Despite Kazakhstan’s favorable geographic conditions, solar and wind energy remain surprisingly underused. As of 2024, the country operated just 59 wind farms and 46 solar parks — a modest number given its vast, sparsely populated steppes that are ideally suited for renewable energy generation. The southern regions enjoy between 2,200 and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year — two to three times more than the United Kingdom. Kazakhstan also has excellent wind potential: average wind speeds of 5–6 m/s are common across most of the country, reaching up to 8.27 m/s in certain areas. Experts estimate Kazakhstan’s total wind energy potential at around 920 billion kWh per year.

Yet, this immense potential remains largely untapped. The main reason is economic. At current price levels, the clean energy sector is unattractive to private investors. Equipment must be imported at high cost, while the electricity produced can be sold for no more than seven pence per kilowatt hour, VAT included. For most households, retail prices are roughly half that. As a result, revenues barely cover maintenance, and the payback period for new projects is so long that, by the time investors see a return, much of the infrastructure is already outdated and in need of further investment.

It has long been evident that energy prices in Kazakhstan will have to rise to finance sector modernization and accelerate the shift toward green energy. The controversial new nuclear power plant will not be profitable otherwise: experts estimate that the price of nuclear power will be 12.5 pence per kilowatt hour in the first 15 years. Ultimately, however, it is sustainable energy that must take the lead. Sergei Agafonov, chairman of the Kazakh Association of Energy Suppliers, envisions an optimal energy mix in which renewables provide at least half of the demand, while nuclear power accounts for roughly the global average – projected to reach 12% by 2040. ‘Yes, renewable energies will have to dominate our energy balance over all other types of energy generation. The main thing is that we carry out this change carefully [..]’, said Agafonov in an interview with Orda.kz.

New turning point

The strategy for achieving carbon neutrality in 2060 contains neither an implementation plan, nor success indicators, nor any sanctions for failing to achieve the set targets. In 2017, it was already announced at the EXPO in Astana that the share of renewables should increase to 30% by 2030. As things stand, the quota is only 6.2%. This still shows a 4% increase over the last seven years, but the growth estimate was clearly far too optimistic. Just four years after the EXPO, the target value has been halved.

A scenario in which Kazakhstan fails to meet its 2060 targets remains entirely plausible. The Climate Action Tracker has voiced similar concerns, rating the country’s climate policies as ‘insufficient,’ noting that ‘emissions will continue to rise until at least 2035 under current policies.‘ The lack of genuine political will to tackle the issue is perhaps best illustrated by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s abrupt change of stance. Speaking at a forum of the National Council for Science and Technology on September 26, Tokayev underscored the continued importance of coal and made a striking remark about climate change:

‘frankly, everything that is happening looks like a large-scale fraud.’

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The post Carbon neutral by 2060? Kazakhstan’s green pledge faces a reality check appeared first on Novastan English.

For over a year now, the billion-dollar fraud case surrounding former tech CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been causing an uproar. In Kazakhstan, too, the case caused a stir – mostly because of the Bankman-Fried’s connections to local businessmen. The Kazakh government is planning to regulate the industry more strictly: from January 2024, new guidelines on trading in digital assets will apply.

Steep rises can be followed by equally dramatic falls, especially in the world of cryptocurrencies. The industry experienced such a fall in November 2022 when FTX, the world’s second-largest trading platform for such assets, collapsed within a few days, taking several billion US dollars of investments with it. At the beginning of November 2023, the American federal court in Manhattan found Bankman-Fried guilty of embezzling the assets invested by customers of its crypto exchange FTX.

The sudden collapse was caused by revelations of dishonest business practices by the company’s management, above all by the CEO and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was once hailed as a child prodigy. At his behest, the hedge fund Alameda Research, a sister company closely linked to FTX, which he also co-founded and managed, had invested more than one billion US dollars from FTX investments in Kazakhstan. In turn, this contributed to the financial imbalance of the company network.

The scandal also made waves in Kazakhstan, where Alameda Research and other companies have fueled a veritable crypto boom in recent years. In response, the government is planning to regulate the promotion of and trade in cryptocurrencies more strictly.

Bitcoin rush in Kazakhstan

For FTX, Bankman-Fried requires enormous “mines” – industrial electricity and server farms the size of factory halls. The best conditions for building such mines were found in Kazakhstan at the end of the 2010s, where cheap electricity and relaxed regulations attracted many such projects. In 2021, Kazakhstan was the second largest Bitcoin producer in the world, with up to seven per cent of national energy production flowing into data centres at the peak of the Bitcoin frenzy. This is also where Bankman-Fried made his momentous investment. He had Alameda Research invest in Genesis Digital Assets (GDA), a company that is registered in Cyprus but operates primarily in Kazakhstan.

This Kazakh connection was reconstructed by the online portal Kursiv.media. GDA was founded in 2017 by the Kazakh investors Rashit Mahat, who worked on the board of directors of the telecommunications company Kcell between 2019 and 2021, and his business partners Abdumalik Mirahmedov and Andrei Kim. They joined forces with two German crypto specialists, Marco Krohn and Marco Streng, to get the company up and running.

Bankman-Fried joined the board of GDA in 2021. The money from Alameda flowed into a total of three data centres operated by GDA in Kazakhstan, where computer halls powered by cheap electricity generated coins that were later to be traded on Bankman-Fried’s exchange FTX. At least, that was the plan. By the beginning of 2022, Alameda had invested 1.1 billion USD in GDA – by far the hedge fund’s largest investment.

The beginning of the end for FTX

However, when the crypto market collapsed worldwide at the beginning of 2022, the value of the mining companies also fell massively. A venture that had seemed lucrative enough to risk more than a billion dollars just a few months previously now looked far less attractive. When the industry service CoinDesk also reported in November 2022 that Alameda Research’s core capital consisted of FTT, FTX’s platform-owned cryptocurrency, the situation worsened.

The almost uncontrolled growth of the industry in Kazakhstan was coming to an end at this point anyway. After the mass protests in January 2022, which in part were fueled by high energy prices, cheap energy for Bitcoin mining was no longer an option. In July 2022, a tax on electricity for mining projects was imposed.

The aim is to gradually regulate the industry and integrate it with state actors such as the Astana International Finance Centre (AIFC), a prestige project of the Kazakh government. In line with the external image of the AIFC, the country continues to see itself as a promising location for the digital industry. Yet, in the future, crypto start-ups will need to comply with certain framework conditions. The laissez-faire attitude that once attracted Bankman-Fried to Kazakhstan seems to be over for good.

Moving the mines

The regulatory efforts from 2022 were, at least in part, fueled by the sudden collapse of FTX. Following the CoinDesk report, the FTX and Alameda Research financial construction was exposed and confidence in the actual liquidity of Bankman-Fried’s company evaporated in one fell swoop. As a result, the industry leader and FTX’s biggest competitor, Binance, dumped its FTTs, causing the currency’s value to plummet – and Alameda Research and FTX with it.

GDA has relocated its data centres from Kazakhstan to the USA, where the company intends to continue its operations. New projects in North America and Sweden are now advertised on the company’s website, and former board member Bankman-Fried has completely disappeared from the company’s public image.

President Tokayev, who had even met with Bankman-Fried and other entrepreneurs in the industry at the end of 2021, finally issued the most far-reaching package of measures to date on crypto mining in Kazakhstan on 6 February 2023. According to kursiv.kz, these will come into force in January 2024.

New regulations, new investors

From now on, mines will require a state license to operate and will only be allowed to purchase electricity from the Kazakh grid if there is a surplus of electricity. From 2024, at least 50 per cent of the coins produced in Kazakhstan must also be traded via platforms registered with the Astana International Finance Centre. This quota is to rise to 75 per cent by 2025. The AIFC is not only intended to provide an attractive marketplace for the finance and tech industry but is also working on closer integration of the cryptocurrency sector with state authorities, as reported by the Astana Times.

Although the initial gold rush mood in the country is over, it will not be the last we hear of cryptocurrencies in Kazakhstan. Binance, the major competitor of the collapsed FTX, continues to work closely with the Kazakh government and is optimistic about the country. The company is already as well connected as GDA once was. In October 2022, Zhaslan Madiyev, until then Vice Minister for Digital Development, moved into a management position at Binance Kazakhstan.

Binance was founded in China, but currently has no official headquarters. The company is now working on crypto products that are linked to existing national currencies. The CBDC Digital Tenge, a crypto counterpart to Kazakhstan’s national currency, was run as a pilot project until December 2022 and is being prepared for a broader market launch. The new currency should be available nationwide by 2025.

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The situation of queer people in Kyrgyzstan has worsened in recent years. Repressive laws and negative portrayals in the media are putting the community under increasing pressure. At the same time, there are still niches in which queer life can flourish.

The more homophobic and hostile towards queer people a society is, the more important it is to have safe spaces where LGBTQ people can be themselves. The only gay bar in Kyrgyzstan is one of these safe spaces. You won’t find it on Google, only insiders know where the “G.” bar is located. For eight years now, the bar in Bishkek, which is actually more of a night club, has been offering a safe space not only for members of the queer community, but also for women regardless of their sexual orientation. The large dance floor and cheap drinks are popular with young people, with up to 600 guests coming at the weekend, says Zhenya, the owner of the bar. It’s quieter during the week, but the bar is open every day, because you can always use a safe space: “People want to go somewhere. Not everywhere it is safe to show your affection to your partner or flirt with someone. So, they come to us.”

The bar is named after the G-spot: “A place where it feels good, but it’s not easy to find,” says Zhenya with a laugh. The fact that the address of “G.” is not publicly known and there is no sign on the door has to do with security. In spite of security measures, stones have been thrown at the bar, a neighbour has attacked guests and passers-by have called the police when they realised they had stumbled upon a gay bar. “The police have been causing us stress since day one,” says Zhenya, but the bar has not been seriously threatened.

In addition to “G.”, there are other safe spaces, such as the community centres of the LGBTQ organizations Kyrgyz Indigo and Labrys, where various events take place, from English-speaking clubs and craft workshops to information evenings on health issues. And safe spaces don’t have to be physical spaces, they can also be found on the Internet, for example the online medium “QueerQyz”. The activists Artur and Akbermet produce funny and informative videos in which queer people talk about their lives. “We have only a few media with queer representation in Central Asia. We think it’s important to show that there are many queer people in Kyrgyzstan,” says Artur. QueerQyz is a medium by queer people for queer people. Its aim is not to explain things to hetero-cis people, but to give queer people the opportunity to find themselves represented, to realise that others have similar experiences to their own.

Rejection and violence: homophobia in society

In Kyrgyzstan, many queer people keep their identity a secret in order to protect themselves from violence and discrimination. Filming and taking pictures are therefore prohibited in the “G.” bar. This is because outings – the involuntary disclosure of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity – can have serious consequences; from rejection by one’s own family and bullying by colleagues and classmates to job loss and physical violence.

“My family doesn’t accept me. I live with my girlfriend’s family. They accept us as a couple. Our freedom ends at her house. We can’t be a couple anywhere else. Not at work, not among friends.” This is how a study by the NGO Labrys quotes a lesbian woman from the Chui oblast. Another woman expresses a similar view: “I’m really tired of hiding. My girlfriend and I have been together for seven years. We’re only together in our bedroom. In all other places, we’re not together. On the street, we’re not together. We can’t go out together.”

Visibly queer people report being harassed on the street with inappropriate questions, such as why they paint their nails or look like a girl. In conservative families, there are often attempts to “cure” queer family members by means of psychiatrists or religious authorities.

Read more on Novastan: LGBTQIA Muslims – “An online imam with background music is hardly the absolute truth”

But there are also parents who accept and support their children. There even is a parents’ group that meets regularly in Bishkek and talks about their experiences as parents of queer children. In general, the situation for queer people in Bishkek is much better than in the regions. In the capital, there is better access to information and support, there are safe spaces and it is more likely to meet open and non-homophobic people than in villages. In more rural regions and smaller towns there are hardly any opportunities to come together as a community. “We don’t communicate with each other, it’s dangerous. Of course, we want to communicate, but the risk of being outed is too high, so we hide in small groups,” says a participant in the Labrys study who lives in Osh.

If a person’s sexual orientation becomes known, there is a high risk that they will experience violence, threats, and blackmail. A study by the organization ECOM documents several cases in which members of the state authorities lured queer people to fake dates and then extorted money from them by threatening to out the person in front of their family.

Most of the time, LGBTQ people who experience violence and discrimination do not press charges as they cannot expect any help from the authorities. At police stations, they are mocked and threatened, if not the police officers themselves were the attackers in the first place.

Exclusion from public life: the marginalization of trans people

Alongside HIV-positive people, trans people are among the most marginalised members of the Kyrgyz LGBTQ community. The risk of experiencing violence is particularly high for them, and ridicule and rejection are everyday experiences. In addition, there is no access to high-quality hormone preparations in Kyrgyzstan and as most trans women are involved in sex work, the working hours of the few available endocrinologists don’t fit their schedule. This means that many trans women do not have access to tests and examinations. Since a change in the law in 2020, it is also no longer possible to change the gender marker in official documents.

Situations in which ID must be presented are particularly tricky for trans people. Often, problems arise when the person’s appearance is not recognised as matching the stated gender. Many trans people therefore avoid going to the doctor, reporting criminal offences or even opening a bank account, as Anelya, coordinator of the MyrzAiym initiative, which supports trans people in Kyrgyzstan, reports. Anelya talks about her own experience with doctors: “Three or four years ago, I ended up in hospital. I had to have emergency surgery. The doctor who was supposed to operate on me came to me, saw me, saw my papers and said: I don’t operate on people like that.” It was only with great difficulty that a former colleague who had accompanied Anelya to the hospital was able to find a young doctor who was willing to perform the operation. Trans people cannot rely on receiving medical care. That is why many resort to self-medication.

There are also hardly any opportunities for trans people to pursue a regular job or gain access to higher education. In a study by the organisation Kyrgyz Indigo, a trans woman says: “I wanted to go to medical school, but because of my gender marker they don’t allow me to study. I applied to study in 2021, but was not accepted.”

Public life remains closed to many trans people and fear is a daily experience. Another study quotes a trans woman from Bishkek: “I’m afraid to open my mouth in the street. Because there’s a man’s voice. I stand there like a mute. Because if I speak, it’s clear I’m trans. What would happen then, you can imagine. That’s why I always keep quiet in the street. It is especially frustrating when people come up to ask me something, I want to help, but I leave like a frozen person, because I am afraid that they will realise that I am trans.”

This makes safe spaces for trans people and mutual support within the community all the more important. Anelya has therefore set up a WhatsApp group where people can get in touch if they need help. The MyrzAiym initiative also regularly offers leisure activities such as volleyball or swimming in a safe environment to enable trans people to pursue hobbies that they cannot do in public, for example because they cannot show themselves in a swimming costume or in the changing room at the sports club.

The battle for “traditional values”: queer people as scapegoats

While the acceptance of queer people in Kyrgyz society has never been particularly high, their situation has deteriorated further since the beginning of Sadyr Zhaparov’s presidency in 2020. Zhaparov, who is in the process of transforming the country into an authoritarian state through numerous legislative changes, is pushing the narrative of Kyrgyzstan’s “traditional values” and placing questions of morality and national identity at the centre of his campaigns. Similar to state propaganda in Russia, in recent years the Kyrgyz mainstream media has frequently referred to a corrosive Western influence. Homosexuality is said to be a Western “import” that is destabilizing the country and its values.

During the 2020 election campaign, a secretly recorded video showing two men having sex was circulated on social media to discredit an opposition party. “These Kyrgyz people were not affiliated with a political party at all, but hoping for a homophobic reaction, Kyrgyz political technologists used their lives to promote someone else’s political interests,” reports the independent medium Kloop. However, such critical reports in the Kyrgyz media are rare. After monitoring the media between October 2022 and June 2023, the NGO Kyrgyz Indigo came to the following conclusion: “We analysed more than 200 stories that highlighted the queer community. Almost 80 per cent of the news items were stories that said that the existence of LGBT+ people leads to the destruction of national identity, morality and family values.” In the news items, NGOs that receive funding from abroad were also discredited. Many articles argued that they served Western interests and worked towards weakening traditional Kyrgyz values.

Queer tradition: a counter-narrative

LGBTQ activists are striving to counter the claims that homosexuality and queerness are at odds with Kyrgyz identity and tradition by showing that queerness has always been part of Kyrgyz history and can also be found in folklore and traditions. For example, the name of the medium QueerQyz refers to the historical name of Kyrgyzstan, which is composed from the words “kyrk” (forty) and “qyz” (girl). “There is a legend that tells that our nation was created by 40 girls, which is a little bit queer,” says Akbermet, one of the founders of QueerQyz.

However, such attempts to associate tradition and folklore with queerness provoke particularly negative reactions from conservative citizens. Akbermet talks about illustrations she created for QueerQyz’s Instagram page: “I drew our yurt with a rainbow coming from it and two girls that are kissing who are wearing our national clothes, which of course, caused a lot of hate.” There were many hate comments under the post, reproducing the propaganda narrative spread by the government and mainstream media. “Please don’t use national themes. Our people are not so depraved when it comes to this [homosexuality]. It’s fine in Europe, but it’s not welcome in our country,” reads one of the comments, with many others sounding very similar.

“LGBT propaganda” and “foreign agents”: Laws based on the Russian model

It is clear that the anti-queer propaganda is falling on fertile ground with many citizens. The government is also using the anti-queer sentiment to introduce restrictive laws. Since August 2023, it has been illegal to disseminate material among minors that denies traditional and family values and advocates “non-traditional sexual relationships”. The law is very similar to the Russian law of 2013, which also banned so-called “homosexual propaganda” among minors (recently this law has been replaced by a more restrictive one that bans all queer content in Russia). However, the Kyrgyz law is less clearly formulated than the Russian one, so that it is not clear in which cases the law is broken and in which not. In Russia it was for example possible to distribute queer content with “18+” warning labels. It is unclear whether such warning labels are enough to protect against prosecution in Kyrgyzstan. Such vaguely formulated laws are a license for repression, as they can be interpreted by the authorities and courts at will.

Queer organizations and media are dealing with the new law in different ways. Some are barely posting on social media anymore and are no longer organizing events, while others are continuing to invite people to events and publish information – albeit with “18+” warnings.

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For NGOs working for the rights of LGBTQ people, it is also generally unclear whether and how they can continue their work. In October, a draft law was passed in first reading by the parliament that is very similar to the Russian law on “foreign agents” and is aimed at NGOs that receive funding from abroad. LGBTQ organizations could not exist in Kyrgyzstan without money from abroad. If the text is signed into law, the affected NGOs will have to register as “foreign agents” and be subject to strict controls. Also, a new article is to be added to the penal code. It states that if someone founds or co-operates with an NGO that “violates the personality or rights of citizens”, they could face up to ten years in prison. What exactly it means to violate the “personality or rights of citizens” is not defined. So, the law can be used against unwelcome activists, who are already frequently exposed to the risk of attacks and outings.

The restrictive laws and anti-queer narratives in the pro-government media also mean that homophobic citizens feel confirmed in their resentment and see themselves as being on the right side when they attack queer people. “People feel safe that they can harm queer people. They just do it because they know the government won’t protect us,” says Akbermet, who herself was threatened and outed in front of her family.”

“Dark times”: defending the status quo

One activist from the organization Labrys speaks of “dark times” in light of these developments. There is a prevailing feeling of uncertainty in the queer community, as they don’t know what will happen next, what they can and cannot get away with. This lack of clarity is gruelling, says “G.”-Bar operator Zhenya: “As far as the draft laws are concerned, are we feeling their effects? Not yet. But it is very likely that we will feel them. I don’t know if it will affect us at all. But all the time we live in fear, what will be affected?” The medium QueerQyz has made their content invisible on Instagram until it is clear how exactly the law works.

Activist Meena (pseudonym) from Kyrgyz Indigo adds: “We are all very exhausted. We can’t even imagine, what is awaiting us and we can’t even guess, what can happen. We just move like we used to, try to live our normal life. But in the background, we understand that it’s not how it used to be. We don’t know how to act in the new realities. So, it stresses us out.”

Many activists seem to agree that it is not the time to be loud and fight for more visibility, but to protect the community and defend what has already been achieved. “I think right now what we have to do is to keep safe. Our goal is to keep what has already been done, because a lot of work has been done. I personally think that it’s not the time for growth. Maybe just to protect,” says Meena, but then adds: “But historically crises are the best time for breakthrough.”

Hope and resilience: carrying on despite an uncertain future

The queer community in Kyrgyzstan has achieved a lot in recent years. They have actively advocated for their rights and organised successful campaigns that have increased awareness of anti-discrimination issues. Safe spaces and active networks have been created, and queer people can find medical, legal and psychological help in several NGOs. LGBTQ artists and activists have successfully appropriated and reinterpreted symbols and narratives that many conservative, queer-hostile and nationalist citizens claim as their own.

Time and again, the community has proven its strength and resilience under adverse circumstances and demonstrated its determination to defend what it has achieved and carry on despite everything. And so, despite the difficult situation, queer life in Kyrgyzstan continues: at the end of October, a big queer Halloween party was celebrated in the centre of Bishkek with a drag show and vogueing on stage, and in November, the Fem Museum initiative opened a large exhibition of queer art.

All of this is still possible. Whether it will stay that way and what the future holds in Kyrgyzstan is uncertain. There are few reasons for optimism, but the community seems determined to continue to make use of the freedom that is still available and to fight to ensure that the situation does not deteriorate any further. “In a situation like this, it’s very difficult not to lose hope,” says Artur from QueerQyz. “But I always have hope.”

Written by Norma Schneider

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On the evening of Saturday October 28^th, a fire broke out in the Kostenko mine at a depth of 700 metres, followed by an explosion of a methane-air mixture. 201 of 252 miners on shift were able to exit on their own, 24 of whom had injuries and needed medical help. The rescue operation continued till Tuesday, October 31^st, when the last body was discovered. All 46 of the missing miners have been found dead.

Notorious employer

Kostenko mine, along with 7 other coal mines in Kazakhstan, belongs to ArcelorMittal Temirtau, a company notorious for its security negligence. Apart from mines it also has Central Asia’s largest metallurgical plant, a mining and processing plant, four iron ore enterprises, two heat and power plants, a pipe plant and several auxiliary enterprises in its portfolio, that were obtained with huge preferences during the privatisation campaign of the mid-1990s. Many of them had issues with safety and fatal accidents in the past.

The current mine explosion is the deadliest in recent history for Kazakhstan, but it is not the first. Since 2006, more than 150 people have lost their lives working for companies belonging to AMT JSC. In 2022 alone there have been six deadly occurrences in various companies and mines belonging to ArcelorMittal Temirtau – which resulted in 13 deaths. The most recent tragedy occurred in August 2023, when 5 workers died at the Kazakhstanskaya mine when conveyor belt caught fire. The governmental commission determined a “100% fault of the employer.”

In the company’s latest statement from October 29, 2023, following the last explosion in the Kostenko mine, ArcelorMittal Temirtau mentions that “the company has made significant efforts, which have been further strengthened since 2020, to improve safety performance at ArcelorMittal Temirtau’s operations.” But this seems a rather bleak attempt to restore the company image by blaming the “complex geology” of the mines that complicates their operation while the voices have been raised repeatedly about the emergency conditions over the last few years. Workers in the Karaganda region, where the mines are located, continuously tried to improve labour conditions and mentioned the company’s focus on profit with disregard to the miners safety in their appeals.

But mines are not the only dangerous enterprise. Emergency conditions at the factories are widely known, though the company itself never issued any statements mentioning it. In 2018, there were three cases of collapse of roofs and floor slabs at factories, a collapse of the walls of a closed coal storage facility, and a massive explosion at the gas pipeline – all owned by the ArcelorMittal Temirtau and its subsidiaries. In 2019 there was another accident with a deformation and collapsed roof at the metallurgic plant. In 2021, two floor slabs with a total area of 72 square metres collapsed in the forge and press shop of Kurylysmet LLP, a subsidiary of AMT. There were no casualties or injuries, but the conditions and company’s attitude towards workers’ safety have not improved.

ArcelorMittal was continuously fined and disciplined for negligence, failure to comply with safety regulations, failure to submit the mandatory tax declaration, and polluting the environment. In November 2022, after another catastrophe that took lives of 5 workers, the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, mentioned that the company has systemic problems, and “despite repeated warnings and instructions from state authorities, the situation is not getting better.”

A search for an inland investor

At the meeting with family members of the miners on October 28 the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, said that the government will withdraw from co-operation with ArcelorMittal Temirtau: “I have instructed to stop the investment co-operation with ArcelorMittal Temirtau. This company has turned out to be the worst in our history in terms of cooperation with the government and enterprise.” ArcelorMittal Temirtau issued a statement on October 28 to confirm that the company “recently signed a preliminary agreement for a transaction that will transfer ownership to the Republic of Kazakhstan.”

The government also stated that “subsequent transfer of AMT JSC to other foreign investors is not considered.” However, in a long-term, the state is not planning to invest into the development of the company. “We have no plans for the state to be the owner and invest budget money. We […] must attract a private investor, and they must invest at least 3 billion dollars in the next three years. Without such investments, the enterprise will not be able to develop normally,” prime minister Alikhan Smailov said at the briefing in Majilis. 1.3 billion dollars will have to be invested immediately to ensure “resolvement of industrial and labour safety issues, modernisation of all equipment and expansion of production.”

For now, the company will stay a state property. The president appointed Vadim Basin, Deputy head of Karaganda Region, as head the coal department of ArcelorMittal Temirtau.

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