Born in Latvia and raised in Kazakhstan, Lena Wolf grew up with fragments of a history that Soviet society rarely discussed openly. In her graphic memoir, she retraces the deportation of her German family to Kazakhstan, their struggle to preserve language and identity, and her own journey from Aktobe to Germany.

For our readers in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan:

Lena Wolf’s e-book is now available at reduced regional prices on Google Play Books in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Available in English and Russian.

For much of her childhood, Lena Wolf believed that all Germans came from Kazakhstan.

Aktobe was home. Her grandmother cooked German dishes alongside baursaki and manti, organised clandestine religious gatherings and spoke German to her grandchildren, even when they answered her in Russian. Around them lived families whose own histories had been shaped by deportation, repression and displacement.

Yet Wolf also learned early that being German could set her apart.

“I don’t think I really understood what being German meant to other people until I was called a fascist for the first time,” she recalls. “I was probably about six.”

Decades later, Wolf began piecing together the family history that had reached her in fragments behind closed doors. The result was a graphic memoir illustrated by Christoph Heuer, tracing almost two centuries of migration, persecution and repeated attempts to build a home.

Her grandmother Emilia was 25 when she was deported to Kazakhstan in 1941 with two young children. Like many Soviet Germans, the family initially believed the displacement might be temporary.

“They left behind their houses, land, animals – everything – still hoping they would return,” Wolf says.

They never did.

Even after Stalin-era special-settlement restrictions were lifted in 1955, Soviet Germans were not allowed to return to the areas from which they had been deported. Emilia eventually built a new life in Aktobe.

“Kazakhstan did become home for her, partly because she knew she could never return to her village in Ukraine,” Wolf says. “She found her people there and had her family around her.”

The contradiction would become central to Wolf’s understanding of her family history: Kazakhstan was both a place of forced exile and the country in which several generations of the family made their lives.

“Somewhere along the way, she too became a German from Kazakhstan.”

Growing up German in Soviet Kazakhstan

For Wolf herself, Kazakhstan carried no such ambiguity during childhood.

“For me, Kazakhstan was simply home. I didn’t know anything else,” she says. “In fact, when I was very little, I thought all Germans came from Kazakhstan.”

Read more on Novastan: Beyond any borders: a new multicultural generation in Kazakhstan

Her family’s German identity nevertheless remained clearly marked in Soviet society.

Official documents continued to identify Soviet Germans as nemets or nemka, even as German-language education, religious life and much of the community’s institutional culture had been suppressed.

“You were expected to stop being German, but you were never allowed to forget that you were German,” Wolf says.

In her family, survival meant avoiding attention. Her father’s advice was encapsulated in the Russian expression тише воды, ниже травы – “quieter than water, lower than grass.”

“Don’t attract attention. Don’t stand out. That was how you survived.”

Wolf remembers the word “German” being routinely associated with “fascist”, decades after the Second World War. Soviet Germans’ own experience of deportation and repression was largely absent from the history taught in schools.

“When you don’t know the history, you fill the gaps with your own explanations,” she says. “So people assumed that because we had been deported, we must have been guilty. The deportation itself became proof of our guilt.”

As a child, she even changed her surname when helping an elderly Soviet woman whose husband and son had died during the war.

“I invented another name for myself: Volkova instead of Wolf.”

The Russian name, she says, became a form of protection.

When Russian became the common language

Language is another thread running through Wolf’s memoir.

Her grandmother spoke German to her; Wolf usually answered in Russian. She later recognised almost exactly the same pattern among Kazakh families: grandparents speaking Kazakh while younger generations responded in Russian.

“When that happens, it isn’t only language that gets lost,” Wolf says. “Stories, traditions and knowledge can no longer be passed on in the same way.”

She remembers receiving some Kazakh-language teaching at school but says it was far too limited for children to become proficient.

Russian, meanwhile, dominated education, television and popular culture.

“You didn’t necessarily have to force children to speak Russian,” she says. “Education, television, culture and opportunities were in Russian, while Kazakh was often seen as old-fashioned or backward. Of course children were going to choose Russian.”

Read more on Novastan: The Lexicon of Kazakh Decolonisation

Looking back, she says she is glad to see the Kazakh language gaining greater prominence today.

A garden as survival – and as home

One image reappears throughout Wolf’s family history: the garden.

Her ancestors had originally migrated eastward to work the land. After deportation, a garden helped her grandmother and a neighbour survive wartime shortages. Decades later, during Wolf’s own childhood in Kazakhstan, home-grown food helped sustain the family when Soviet shops were empty.

But the garden came to represent more than food.

Wolf recounts the story of her father, whose mother was sentenced to the Gulag after attempting to leave the deportation zone and return to Ukraine. He was sent to an orphanage in Zaporizhzhia shortly after the war.

One teacher once invited him to her home for dinner. While she cooked, he played in the garden with her son.

“He remembers standing there among the flowers and plants and realising, for the first time, that the world was beautiful,” Wolf says.

The memory remained with him throughout his life.

Now 91, he can no longer maintain a large garden but still cares for flowers on his balcony in Offenbach, Germany.

“Perhaps that is what a garden means in our family,” Wolf says. “It feeds you when there is nothing to eat, but it also gives you beauty when there isn’t much beauty around you. And wherever you end up, you can plant something and make that place your own.”

A ‘return’ to a country they did not know

In 1989, Wolf and her family left Kazakhstan for Germany.

Officially, such migration was often presented as a return to an ancestral homeland. In practice, Wolf discovered that Germany was another unfamiliar country.

“What surprised me most was that in Germany I wasn’t seen as German,” she says.

“After everything our families had gone through in the Soviet Union because they were German – persecution, discrimination and sometimes literally fighting for survival – we arrived in Germany and suddenly we were foreigners.”

At 17, Wolf initially tried to assimilate as completely as possible. She stopped speaking Russian, avoided food associated with her Soviet childhood and even began using the name Helene.

Inside the family home, however, the opposite transformation was taking place.

“In Kazakhstan my parents had tried to preserve what was German,” she recalls. “In Germany, suddenly they started cooking the food they missed from Kazakhstan – plov, beshbarmak, baursaki.”

Read more on Novastan: Between integration and inheritance: How Armenians in Uzbekistan are redefining community

Wolf eventually realised that Kazakhstan could not simply be removed from her identity.

“I am a German from Kazakhstan.”

It is a formulation she prefers to the widely used German term Russlanddeutsche, or “Russian Germans”.

Wolf points out that neither she nor her parents lived in Russia. Her family had lived in Ukraine before deportation to Kazakhstan, while earlier generations had been Germans of the Russian Empire.

“The term also hides how diverse these German communities actually were,” she says. Germans deported to Kazakhstan came from Ukraine, the Volga region, Crimea, the Caucasus and elsewhere.

“For myself, I simply say: I am a German from Kazakhstan.”

Turning fragments into a history

Wolf’s decision to tell the story as a graphic memoir was partly motivated by younger generations of her own family.

Her nieces and nephews had grown up in Germany knowing little about the experiences of their grandparents and great-grandparents. She wanted to make the history accessible without reducing its complexity.

Works such as Maus and Persepolis showed her that graphic narrative could make difficult histories accessible across generations.

Some experiences, she says, were also easier to communicate visually.

“I could describe in a few sentences how people were transported for weeks in overcrowded trains, cold and hungry, and how people died along the way. But I wanted readers to see their faces, the exhaustion, the desperation and the conditions in which they were deported.”

Illustrator Christoph Heuer eventually drew more than 1,200 panels by hand, reconstructing historical environments from photographs and other archival material.

For Wolf, the research also transformed her understanding of the stories her grandmother had told her.

As a child, she had regarded them almost as dangerous family secrets: accounts of famine, deportation and death that contradicted what was being taught publicly.

“Who do you believe – your grandmother or your country and your teachers?” Wolf asks. “That’s quite a big decision for a child to make.”

Researching the memoir made her realise not only how much her grandmother had told her, but how much she had withheld in an attempt to protect her.

It also changed Wolf’s understanding of resistance.

Her grandmother’s defiance was not dramatic. It meant continuing to practise religion in secret, speaking German to her grandchildren, preparing traditional food and preserving family memories despite decades of pressure to assimilate.

“Her resistance wasn’t loud,” Wolf says. “It was quiet and persistent.”

Writing the book ultimately turned inherited fragments into a coherent family history.

“I think I had to write this book to understand who I am,” she says.

The answer to the question that once troubled her – “Where are you from?” – now comes easily.

“My answer is very simple: I am a German from Kazakhstan. And now I know what came before me.”

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

The post ‘I am a German from Kazakhstan’: Lena Wolf on deportation, memory and finding home appeared first on Novastan English.

Disability-rights expert Janina Arsenjeva discusses how activism is changing across Central Asia, why progress cannot be measured by legislation alone, and what governments, international organisations and the EU still get wrong about inclusion.

Disability rights have gained greater prominence across Central Asia over the past fifteen years. Governments have adopted new legislation and policies, disability-rights organisations have become more visible, and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has provided activists with a common framework for pushing for change. Yet progress across the region remains highly uneven – and laws on paper do not necessarily translate into greater autonomy, accessibility or inclusion in everyday life.

For Janina Arsenjeva, who has worked with disability-rights actors across all five Central Asian countries for many years, some of the most significant changes are taking place beyond legislation. A new generation of activists increasingly approaches disability as a question of equality and rights rather than charity, while grassroots organisations led by persons with disabilities themselves are becoming more diverse and assertive. At the same time, people with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, those living in rural areas and other groups remain particularly underrepresented.

In an interview with Novastan English Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine, Arsenjeva discusses why there is no single Central Asian trajectory on disability rights, what meaningful participation should look like, and why international organisations need to rethink the way they work with local disability organisations. She also examines how the European Union can prevent its growing investments in Central Asia from creating new barriers, and argues that greater visibility of problems should not necessarily be interpreted as evidence of failure. Sometimes, she says, it can be the first sign that genuine reform has begun.

Novastan: You have worked with disability-rights actors across all five Central Asian countries over many years. Looking back, what has genuinely changed?

Janina Arsenjeva: One of the biggest changes for me is the disability movement itself. There are more grassroots organisations genuinely led by persons with disabilities, including younger people and women. There are also more organisations representing groups that previously had very little voice. And I see a new generation of activists who really understand disability as an issue of equality and rights, rather than charity or “curing” people. They may not always know or use the international human-rights vocabulary, but the values are there. That feels very different from fifteen years ago.

Where is the biggest gap today between what exists on paper and what a person with a disability actually experiences in everyday life? What tells you that reform is working?

I don’t think legislation is the alpha and omega of reform. You can do a lot even with imperfect laws. You can change attitudes, challenge prejudice and make persons with disabilities more visible in public life. Interestingly, one sign of progress is when we start hearing more about problems. It may look as if things are getting worse, but often it simply means somebody has finally started monitoring and talking openly about what is happening. Ultimately, though, the test is very practical. Can someone leave their home? Get support in education or employment? Find the services they need in their community? Uzbekistan, for example, has spent the last few years developing its social workforce and community-based support. That may be less glamorous than passing a big new law, but this is where reform starts changing people’s lives.

Read more on Novastan: When reform reaches everyday life: Lessons from Uzbekistan and Mongolia

How misleading is it to talk about Central Asia as though the five countries were moving along the same trajectory?

Very misleading. These are five different countries, with different politics, priorities, capacities and disability movements. Kyrgyzstan, for example, has done interesting practical work on accessibility, accessible communication and culture, and disability-inclusive emergency preparedness. In Kazakhstan, activists have done excellent work using the courts to restore the legal capacity of persons with disabilities, and there is also a growing social entrepreneurship movement. Organisations of women with disabilities are particularly strong in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. And Tajikistan has only just ratified the CRPD. So yes, there is a shared history and there are common challenges. But there is definitely no single Central Asian trajectory.

How can we tell whether participation of persons with disabilities has actually been meaningful rather than symbolic?

By now, simply saying “we consulted persons with disabilities” isn’t enough. The first question is: who did you consult? One established organisation cannot represent everybody. You need women, younger people and people with different disabilities around the table. And organisations need to be strong and independent enough to say things the government may not want to hear. Their expertise also has value, and we should stop expecting them to provide it for free. The process matters too. Was it accessible? Did people get enough information and enough time? And was this a one-off meeting, or is there a real mechanism for participation? I do see progress. Activists in several countries tell me that government doors are more open than they used to be, and governments increasingly understand that they actually need persons with disabilities if they want reforms to work.

How much has the shift from a medicalised understanding of disability towards a rights-based model actually happened?

It is uneven, but I think the shift is real. Uzbekistan is an interesting example. The creation of the National Agency for Social Protection has helped move the discussion away from a very paternalistic and medicalised approach and towards support, inclusion and living in the community. I also see the change among activists themselves. More and more people are talking about equality, autonomy and rights rather than charity. Of course, there is frustration that change is too slow, and I understand that. These are huge systems and they don’t transform overnight. But the direction matters, and so does continuing to push so that this direction is not lost.

Read more on Novastan: “Disability is a Mirror for the Development of Societies” – A Conversation with Dilmurad Yusupov

What do international organisations still get wrong in promoting disability inclusion in Central Asia?

The way international funding reaches grassroots organisations! Some of the people who know their communities best would never get through a fifty-page funding application in English with all the technical language and complicated budgets. Yet they may know exactly what women with disabilities in their community need, or what is happening to families in a remote village. They may also understand how to navigate a difficult political environment much better than an outsider does. Of course, public money needs accountability. But surely we can design funding processes that don’t exclude the very people whose expertise we need. I would also like to see much fairer partnerships between big international organisations and local groups, where local organisations are not simply there to implement somebody else’s project.

What would it mean in practical terms to make the EU’s growing investment in Central Asia disability-inclusive from the outset?

The basic principle is very simple: EU money should not be used to build new barriers. The EU already has rules and standards around accessibility, procurement, human rights and responsible business, although applying them consistently to international cooperation and investment is more complicated. But accessibility has to be considered from the beginning. If you build a railway station, public building or digital platform that people with disabilities cannot use, fixing it afterwards will be much harder and more expensive. You also need monitoring and real consequences when accessibility requirements are ignored. We haven’t solved all of this inside the EU either.

Which people are still least visible in disability policy in Central Asia? Are there issues governments and international organisations remain reluctant to confront?

People with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities are still particularly invisible, including within the disability movement itself. People living in rural and remote areas are also much less likely to be heard. And then there are issues that are simply much harder to talk about. Disability can look like a relatively easy development issue if we talk about wheelchairs, social benefits or accessibility. But then you get to legal capacity, political rights, abuse and torture in institutions, or punitive psychiatry. Those are much more difficult conversations. Local activists should guide how these issues are raised, but we also shouldn’t expect them to carry all the risk. Sometimes international organisations can say things that local activists simply cannot safely say themselves. The important thing is to do that with them, not on their behalf or without understanding the consequences.

Is a genuinely regional disability-rights movement emerging in Central Asia?

Not yet, in my view. Organisations across the region know one another and there are good examples of cooperation, particularly among organisations of women with disabilities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. But I don’t yet see a strong, regular regional movement built around common priorities. Central Asia also falls between different international regions. Sometimes it is grouped with Europe, sometimes with Asia, so disability organisations don’t necessarily have an obvious regional home. I do think a stronger Central Asian network could be very valuable. These countries share borders, experiences and many challenges. But I would want it to be built around where the region wants to go next, rather than simply around the fact that all five countries share a Soviet past.

What makes you optimistic about disability rights in Central Asia today, and what change would you most like to see over the next decade?

What makes me optimistic is the people. I have just come back from Uzbekistan, where I met activists and persons with disabilities who are building support in their communities and pushing for alternatives to institutions. They are incredibly persistent and creative. Over the next decade, I would really like to see a more diverse disability movement, with much stronger voices from younger people and from groups that are still underrepresented: women and girls, Deaf people, persons with intellectual disabilities and others. I would also like to see better data, stronger monitoring and human-rights institutions that really play their role. And perhaps most importantly, I want us to become much more comfortable talking honestly about what isn’t working. Finding a problem doesn’t mean reform has failed. Sometimes it is the first sign that real reform has begun.

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

The post Janina Arsenjeva: “Finding a problem doesn’t mean reform has failed” appeared first on Novastan English.

Uzbekistan’s first World Cup appearance is often told through the players who carried the national team there: Eldor Shomurodov, Abbosbek Fayzullaev, Abdukodir Khusanov, Oston Urunov and the rest of a generation that made Uzbek football visible far beyond Central Asia. But national teams do not emerge from nowhere. They are built from clubs, cities, stadiums, academies, rivalries and local football cultures.

Over the past three decades, Uzbekistan’s domestic game has developed through several different models. There are old Soviet-era institutions, post-independence regional powers, prestige projects, industrial clubs, state-company teams, academy-driven structures and smaller provincial sides that rarely dominate the headlines but help give the league its geography. Together, they form the football map behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup dream.

The most famous point on that map is still Pakhtakor Tashkent. No club carries more symbolic weight in Uzbek football. Its name evokes cotton, Soviet Uzbekistan, the capital and one of the deepest tragedies in the country’s sporting memory: the 1979 air disaster that killed the team. Pakhtakor is not only a club with trophies. It is a national institution, a vessel of memory and the historic reference point against which other Uzbek clubs have often measured themselves.

If Pakhtakor is memory, Nasaf Qarshi is one of the clearest examples of regional achievement. Based in Kashkadarya, away from the capital and the Fergana Valley, Nasaf showed that a club outside Tashkent could build patiently, compete seriously and win internationally. Its 2011 AFC Cup victory remains one of the most important achievements in Uzbek club football. Nasaf’s story matters because it is not built around glamour. It is built around structure, continuity and the idea that a regional club can become more than a local project.

Navbahor Namangan represents something different again: popular passion. In the Fergana Valley, football is not only a sport but a form of civic identity. Navbahor’s name, meaning “spring”, gives the club a softer and more poetic image than many of its rivals, but its supporter culture is intense. Namangan’s Markaziy Stadium has become one of the emotional centres of Uzbek football, and Navbahor’s fan base has helped make the club a symbol of regional pride. If Uzbek football has a popular heartland, much of it beats in the Valley.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

Neftchi Fergana adds another layer to that same geography. Where Navbahor expresses Namangan’s football passion, Neftchi represents Fergana’s industrial memory. Founded as Neftyanik and linked to the oil-refining world of Fergana, the club dominated the early years after independence. It shared the first Uzbek league title with Pakhtakor in 1992, then won the championship outright in 1993, 1994 and 1995. Under Yuriy Sarkisyan, who coached the club from the late Soviet period into the post-Soviet era, Neftchi became the first great provincial power of independent Uzbek football.

Bunyodkor Tashkent belongs to another category entirely. Founded in 2005 and rapidly transformed into a prestige project, it tried to make Uzbek football visible through money, infrastructure and global names. Rivaldo came. Zico coached. Luiz Felipe Scolari followed. Samuel Eto’o did not sign, but even the rumour was enough to make international media look at Tashkent. Bunyodkor’s story is brilliant and excessive, but also fragile. It showed both the attraction and the limits of football spectacle in late Karimov-era Uzbekistan.

These five clubs explain much of Uzbek football’s recent history. Pakhtakor is memory. Nasaf is regional achievement. Navbahor is passion. Neftchi is early independence power. Bunyodkor is ambition. But the map does not end there.

Also read on Novastan: Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory

Lokomotiv Tashkent is the most obvious next point. Founded in 2002, the club is closely associated with Uzbekistan Railways, and its nickname, the Railroaders, gives it one of the clearest institutional identities in the country. Lokomotiv became especially important in the mid-2010s, when it broke through as a serious domestic force. After several seasons as runner-up, it won the Uzbek league in 2016, 2017 and 2018, turning a railway-backed club into one of the strongest teams of the period. If Bunyodkor was the glamour project, Lokomotiv was the state-company model in a more disciplined form: less spectacular, but highly effective for several years.

AGMK, from Almalyk, shows another version of the industrial club. Its name comes from the Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine, the company that has been central to the club’s identity and sponsorship. Almalyk itself is one of Uzbekistan’s major industrial towns, associated with mining, metallurgy and copper. AGMK therefore belongs to the same broad family as Neftchi and Lokomotiv: clubs whose football identity is inseparable from a major economic institution. Its importance is not only sporting. It shows how Uzbek football has often developed through the relationship between local industry, company patronage and regional visibility.

Sogdiana Jizzakh gives the map a historical and regional dimension. Founded in 1970, the club takes its name from Sogdia, the ancient region that once connected Central Asia to wider Eurasian trade, culture and empire. In football terms, Sogdiana has rarely dominated Uzbekistan, but it has mattered as a durable provincial club. Its 1992 bronze medal in the first season of the independent Uzbek league and its 2021 runner-up finish show that Jizzakh has periodically produced teams capable of challenging the established hierarchy. Sogdiana is not a giant, but it gives Uzbek football one of its strongest historical names.

Mash’al Mubarek represents yet another kind of provincial football. Based in Mubarek, a town located in Kashkadarya associated with the gas industry, the club’s name means “torch”. That symbolism matters: in a football landscape full of cotton, oil, railways, metallurgy and construction, Mash’al carries the image of gas, flame and energy. Its greatest domestic achievement came in 2005, when it finished second in the Uzbek league behind Pakhtakor and qualified for the AFC Champions League. Mash’al has not become a permanent national power, but it remains a reminder that even smaller industrial towns have produced important chapters in Uzbek football.

Andijan brings the map back to the Fergana Valley. The club has not had the same national success as Navbahor or Neftchi, but it gives the Valley another emotional football centre. In many countries, football geography is not only shaped by champions. It is also shaped by cities whose clubs carry local loyalty through difficult seasons, relegations and returns. Andijan belongs to that category: a club whose importance is regional, social and emotional more than trophy-based. In the wider story of Uzbek football, it helps show why the Fergana Valley is not one football identity, but several competing city identities.

Surkhon Termez pushes the map south. Termez, on the Afghan border, occupies a very different place in Uzbekistan’s geography and imagination from Tashkent, Namangan or Qarshi. Surkhon’s role in Uzbek football is not primarily about trophies. It is about representation. A league that includes Termez is a league that reaches the country’s southern frontier, connecting football to a borderland city shaped by trade, military routes, religion, archaeology and proximity to Afghanistan. Surkhon gives Uzbek football a southern edge.

Also read on Novastan: Nasaf Qarshi: the club that put Uzbek football on Asia’s map

There are others too. Metallurg Bekabad (Tashkent region) reflects another industrial city and another metallurgy-linked identity. Kokand 1912 carries one of the oldest and most evocative city names in Uzbek football, rooted in the history of the Kokand Khanate and the Fergana Valley’s cultural geography. Qizilqum Zarafshon adds the mining landscape of the Kyzylkum desert and the gold-producing world of Navoi Region. Turon Yaypan (Fergana region) and other smaller clubs show how the football map continues to expand and contract as money, promotion, relegation and local support shift from season to season.

This diversity matters because Uzbek football is sometimes reduced to a national-team story or to a few famous names abroad. Shomurodov in Italy, Khusanov in England, Fayzullaev in Russia and other players in foreign leagues are now the most visible symbols of the country’s rise. But behind them stands a domestic structure that is more complicated than a simple talent pipeline. It includes Soviet legacies, regional pride, industrial sponsorship, state-company backing, academy projects, local administrations and fan cultures that vary sharply from city to city.

That structure has not always been stable. Uzbek clubs have often depended on powerful sponsors, state-linked companies or regional authorities. Budgets can rise and fall. Ownership can be opaque. Teams can surge quickly and decline just as quickly. Bunyodkor’s rise and fall showed the risks of spectacle. Neftchi’s long decline after its golden age showed how difficult it is to maintain dominance. Lokomotiv’s mid-2010s success showed how quickly a well-supported club can become a domestic force, but also how hard it is to turn a strong cycle into permanent mythology.

Yet this instability is also part of the story. Uzbek football has been built through experimentation. Some clubs have relied on memory. Some on fans. Some on factories. Some on railways. Some on academies. Some on local government. Some on the charisma of a coach or the ambition of a sponsor. The result is uneven, but it is not empty. It has produced institutions, rivalries and football environments that helped prepare the ground for the current generation.

Also read on Novastan: Discussions sur le développement du football féminin au Kazakhstan

The World Cup moment gives this domestic map new meaning. For years, Uzbekistan was one of Asian football’s nearly teams: technically strong, competitive, respected, but repeatedly falling short of the final step. Qualification changes the story. It allows the country to look back and ask not only which players made history, but which clubs, cities and football cultures helped make those players possible.

In that sense, the road to the World Cup did not begin only in national-team camps. It passed through Pakhtakor’s memory, Nasaf’s discipline, Navbahor’s crowds, Neftchi’s industrial Fergana, Bunyodkor’s academy fields, Lokomotiv’s railway-backed structure, AGMK’s metallurgical city, Sogdiana’s Jizzakh, Mash’al’s gas-town football, Andijan’s Valley loyalty and Surkhon’s southern frontier.

Uzbekistan’s football map is therefore not a straight line from Tashkent to the World Cup. It is a network. It runs through cotton, oil, gas, railways, mining towns, ancient cities, border regions and stadiums where local pride is turned into football identity. That is what makes the country’s first World Cup appearance more than a national-team success. It is the result of a football culture built across many Uzbekistans: capital and province, industry and academy, memory and ambition, spectacle and patience.

The next question is whether this moment can strengthen the clubs themselves. World Cup qualification can inspire young players, attract more attention to the domestic league, and make football more attractive to sponsors and families. But it can also widen the gap between the national team’s global visibility and the domestic league’s everyday realities. The challenge for Uzbekistan will be to use the World Cup not only as a celebration, but as a catalyst: better academies, better coaching, stronger governance, more transparent club structures and stadium cultures that can grow beyond occasional big matches.

If that happens, the clubs behind the World Cup dream will not remain only background stories. They will become part of Uzbekistan’s next football chapter. The country has reached the World Cup. Now its domestic game has to decide what kind of football nation it wants to become.

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

The post Beyond the big clubs: the football map behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup dream appeared first on Novastan English.

Special series – The Clubs Behind Uzbekistan’s World Cup Dream

As Uzbekistan plays in its first-ever FIFA World Cup after a historic qualification campaign, Novastan looks at the clubs that shaped the country’s football identity. From Soviet-era Pakhtakor Tashkent to regional powerhouses such as Nasaf Qarshi, Navbahor Namangan and Neftchi Fergana, this series explores how club football helped build the foundations of the White Wolves’ rise.

In the first years after Uzbekistan’s independence, the strongest club in the country was not always Pakhtakor Tashkent. For much of the 1990s, Uzbek football revolved around Fergana, where a team born from the oil industry became the first great provincial power of the new national league.

That team was Neftchi Fergana. Founded in 1962 as Neftyanik and renamed Neftchi after independence, the club carried the world of Fergana’s industrial economy into football. Its name means “oil worker” or “oilman”, a direct reference to the city’s refinery, chemical production and working-class sporting culture. If Pakhtakor’s name evokes cotton and Soviet Uzbekistan, Neftchi’s evokes oil, labour and the industrial pride of the Fergana Valley.

The club’s importance lies above all in what it achieved after 1991. Neftchi shared the first independent Uzbek league title with Pakhtakor in 1992, then won the championship outright in 1993, 1994 and 1995. It added another title in 2001. In the formative decade of Uzbek football, Neftchi was not an outsider challenging the hierarchy. It was the hierarchy.

The roots of that dominance go back to the Soviet period. Neftyanik Fergana spent years in the Soviet lower leagues, developing within sports structures linked to the region’s oil industry. In 1990, it won its Soviet Second League zone and reached the Soviet First League. In 1991, the final year of Soviet football, it finished seventh in that division. When Uzbekistan became independent, Neftchi entered the new national championship with organisation, confidence and a squad already used to competitive football.

The figure who connected these eras was Yuriy Sarkisyan. Born in Yerevan, Sarkisyan made his football life in Uzbekistan. He joined Neftyanik as a player in the 1970s, finished his playing career in Fergana, and later became head coach. From 1987 to 2013, he led the club for more than a quarter of a century, an almost unimaginable tenure in post-Soviet football.

Also read on Novastan: Uzbekistan at the World Cup: The White Wolves Enter the Global Stage

Sarkisyan was more than a successful coach. He became the face of Neftchi’s golden age. Under his leadership, the club won five Uzbek league titles, two Uzbek Cups and nine silver medals. Local football media often called him the “Uzbek Ferguson”, a comparison to Sir Alex Ferguson that reflected not only his trophies, but his longevity, authority and ability to build a club culture over decades.

His approach also shaped Neftchi’s identity. Sarkisyan relied heavily on domestic and local players rather than building the team around foreign signings. That made Neftchi feel like a Fergana club in a deeper sense: not only based in the city, but built from its football environment. At a time when many post-Soviet clubs were unstable, changing names, sponsors, budgets and squads, Neftchi had a recognisable structure and a coach who became an institution.

The 1990s side became the foundation of the club’s legend. Neftchi’s early champions were not only title winners; they helped define the new Uzbek league. The club’s squads included players who would become important figures in Uzbek football, including Andrey Fyodorov, later one of the country’s best-known defenders and coaches, and Oleg Shatskikh, who passed through Neftchi before becoming associated with other major clubs. The team also relied on players from Fergana and the wider valley, reinforcing its regional character.

Also read on Novastan: Pakhtakor Tashkent: The Club That Carries Uzbek Football’s Memory

For supporters, Neftchi’s strength was not only about results. It was about the feeling that Fergana could stand at the centre of national football. The early years after independence were a moment of reordering, when cities, institutions and regions were looking for their place in a new state. Neftchi gave Fergana a football voice at precisely that moment.

The club’s home today is Istiqlol Stadium, opened in 2015 with a capacity of around 20,500 spectators. The name means “independence”, which suits Neftchi better than almost any other Uzbek club. Its greatest period came when independent Uzbekistan’s football institutions were being born. The stadium is therefore not only a modern arena, but a reminder of the era that made the club famous.

Fergana itself gives the team much of its meaning. The city is one of the main urban centres of the Fergana Valley, long associated with oil refining, chemicals, textiles and regional production. Around it lies one of Central Asia’s richest cultural landscapes: Margilan and its silk traditions, Rishtan and its ceramics, Kokand and the memory of the khanate. Neftchi belongs to that setting: industrial, regional, confident and deeply connected to the valley.

This identity sets it apart from the other clubs in this series. Pakhtakor Tashkent carries Soviet memory and national tragedy. Nasaf Qarshi represents regional ambition and Asian success. Navbahor Namangan expresses popular passion and supporter culture. Neftchi represents the first post-independence football order: disciplined, industrial, local and built around a coach who became part of the club’s mythology.

Its rivalries reflect that history. Matches against Pakhtakor were among the defining fixtures of the early Uzbek league, opposing the capital’s historic club to Fergana’s rising power. Matches against Navbahor Namangan carry the internal geography of the Fergana Valley. Navbahor represents Namangan’s emotional football culture; Neftchi represents Fergana’s industrial memory and early dominance. Their rivalry is not only about points, but about prestige between neighbouring cities.

Yet Neftchi’s story is not one of uninterrupted glory. After the 2001 title, the club gradually lost ground. Pakhtakor reasserted itself. Bunyodkor became the prestige project of the late 2000s. Nasaf developed its own regional model and won the AFC Cup. Neftchi, once the symbol of the new Uzbek league, began to look like a club living more on memory than on present success.

Also read on Novastan: Nasaf Qarshi: the club that put Uzbek football on Asia’s map

The decline became severe enough for the club to spend time outside the top flight, a painful fall for a team that had once shaped the championship. That is why its recent revival matters. Neftchi’s return to the top of Uzbek football in 2025 was not simply another sporting success. It restored one of the original names of the independent Uzbek league to the centre of the domestic game.

The 2025 championship ended a 24-year wait. In Fergana, it was received as more than a trophy. It was the return of a club that had once made the city central to Uzbek football. Local media and regional officials presented the achievement as a source of pride, linking it to a wider ambition to strengthen football in the region. The title showed that Neftchi was not only a nostalgic reference to the 1990s. It could again shape the present.

The institutional context also remains important. Neftchi has long been closely connected to Fergana’s industrial and regional structures, above all through the oil-refining economy that gave the club its name and identity. Like many Uzbek clubs, it sits at the intersection of sport, local administration, industrial support and regional prestige. Its story is therefore not only about football results, but also about the way regional institutions, industries and local pride have helped shape club football in Uzbekistan.

Its present-day squad also gives it a link to the wider national-team environment. Goalkeeper Botirali Ergashev, who has been called up by Uzbekistan and plays for Neftchi Fergana, connects the club to the country’s current football generation. But Neftchi’s deeper contribution is historical rather than symbolic. The club helped create the competitive domestic culture from which Uzbek football developed.

Also read on Novastan: Discussions sur le développement du football féminin au Kazakhstan

That is why the club deserves a central place in any account of Uzbekistan’s football rise. It was there at the beginning of the independent league. It gave Fergana a national football voice. It had one of the longest and most successful coaching eras in post-Soviet football. It rose, declined, rebuilt and returned. Few Uzbek clubs offer such a complete football biography.

Neftchi’s story contains several layers of modern Uzbek football: the Soviet legacy, the first years of independence, regional ambition, industrial sponsorship, coaching continuity, collapse and revival. It is not only a club of the past, nor simply a revived champion of the present. It is a bridge between both.

As Uzbekistan steps onto the World Cup stage, Neftchi reminds us that national football identities are built over decades, often far from the spotlight. They are built in cities like Fergana, through clubs that give local pride a structure, a history and a stadium.

The road to Uzbekistan’s first World Cup passed through many places: Tashkent, Qarshi, Namangan, foreign leagues and national-team camps. But it also passed through Fergana, through Neftchi, and through the long shadow of Yuriy Sarkisyan, the coach who turned an oil-workers’ club into one of the founding powers of independent Uzbek football.

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

The post Neftchi Fergana: the oil-workers’ club that dominated early Uzbek football appeared first on Novastan English.

From July 31 to August 20, the Novastan editorial team will be on summer break.

Dear readers,

The Novastan editorial team will be on summer break from July 31 to August 20. During this time we will not post new articles and pictures of the day.

This is a good opportunity for you to look through our archives or to think about joining our editorial team – or perhaps to help us gain new momentum in the fall with a donation.

We will use the break to improve our website and work on new materials. Stay tuned!

Your Novastan Team

For more news and analysis from Central Asia, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, Linkedin or Instagram.

The post Novastan goes on summer break appeared first on Novastan English.

Dr Jade McGlynn has published an article for The Diplomat discussing the modernisation of Britain’s Central Asian Trade Strategy, based on her report for the Henry Jackson Society, entitled ‘A Steppe Change: Should Britain Be Bolder In Central Asia?’. In it, she states the UK “needs to think more ambitiously and coherently about its business aims with Central Asia”. In developing relations with the Central Asian states, the UK could balance trade with human rights and developmental assistance. So far, the UK has failed to develop such a strategy, and efforts remain focused on trading opportunities. McGlynn wants the UK to take head of the political realities of these states and ensure it champions and actively encourages democracy and greater human rights while simultaneously organising and developing trade agreements. Novastan spoke to Dr McGlynn to find out more about her strategy. An example of where the UK has failed to do as much is their increasing arms deals with Turkmenistan, considered by human rights groups as one of the world’s most repressive and authoritarian regimes. In comparison, the UK’s assistance to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan has benefitted both nations and given the UK considerable soft power through showing commitment to the region beyond trade. The emerging signs of democratisation in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s two largest economies and nations, show the region to be making a gradual change from what has long been considered an authoritarian area of the world. The landslide election of Sadyr Japarov in Kyrgyzstan should be cautiously championed for implementing democracy. By providing vocal support for Kyrgyzstan, the UK reminds the other nations that its trade, investment and support are connection to Kyrgyzstan’s continued democratic style of governance. This in turn could increase the likelihood for democratisation in the neighbouring states. The UK should take inspiration from the Obama administration’s C5+1 initiative and build on its positive reputation gained from development work in the region. This would then allow the UK to maintain channels with Turkmenistan and Tajikistan and shows they are open to trade should they ever move towards democratisation. The UK has not paid enough attention to Central Asia. When it has, only specific countries or aspects, for example trade with Kazakhstan, have been made the point of focus. A region-focused approach instead would benefit both Britain and countries where regional cooperation has not always been strong. Human rights must remain a priority As much as increased trade negotiations with these countries should be encouraged, she maintains that the UK cannot sign deals at the expense of human rights and jeopardization of a free and fair society. The UK’s current arms deals with Turkmenistan are a shocking example of sacrificing ethics in order to bolster trade. The lack of pressure on the UK to halter these deals is due to a lack of knowledge and media coverage of the area. Too often the mainstream, generalised media focuses on the bizarre rules put in place by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, shining the country in a comedic, ridiculous light. The reality of the brutal human rights abuses and widespread poverty despite the wealth of natural resources in the country is forgotten. Larger organisations rather than just specialised areas should give the country more attention in order to increase knowledge of Turkmenistan, something which would elevate pressure to stop these morally and ethically entirely unacceptable arms deals. These deals undermine the UK’s pronounced championship of human rights and should be stopped. Elsewhere, little has been done to improve the state of human rights for the citizens of Central Asia: despite claims by the governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as to the development of human rights, little evidence of this has yet been shown. Recent human rights abuses include censorship of journalists and oppression of the LGBTQ+ community. While democratic, the election of Sadyr Japarov in Kyrgyzstan and imprisonment of the most outspoken critic and presidential hopeful, Omurbek Tekebayev, puts the country as risk of returning to the populist authoritarianism overturned in 2010. It would be hypocritical of the UK to adopt a trade policy with such countries after public anti-authoritarian efforts in China and Russia and could demoralise activists in these countries who need the UK’s support. Implementing a human rights checklist backed up by independent NGOs from the region in order to assess milestones in terms of achieving greater democracy and freedom could encourage increased democratisation. This would enable the UK to measure economic engagement against human rights and democratisation milestones. Goals could be set for countries like Uzbekistan that claim to be installing more democratic milestones such as free access for election observers, the establishment of NGOs and funds to support independent media. Once reached, the country could continue to the next stage in economic relations. Putting a permanent representative in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, would symbolise the UK’s commitment to supporting the democratic potential of the region. Kyrgyzstan is currently the most democratic country and would demonstrate the UK’s hope that they should stay on this path. It would also reward and prioritise the most democratic country and encourage Sadyr Japarov, President of Kyrgyzstan, to continue this work. The UK alone would have enough power to rely on their influence to speed up democratisation in Central Asia. However, the European interest, particularly from countries who keep human rights as a core component of their foreign policy, namely Scandinavian countries, and desires in Washington for the Biden administration to continue with Obama’s policy, allow for a combined effort which ups the pressure for Central Asian nations. Background of Central Asia The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and subsequent independence for Central Asian countries led to a long-term struggle for democracy. Many of these countries contain deeply embedded ethnic tensions dating back to Stalin’s policies, for example in the Osh region of Kyrgyzstan. These countries have had to deal with civil wars, widespread humans rights abuses and as a result their economies have struggled to achieve their full potential. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan still rely heavily on remittances. However, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have seen a near doubling in per capita income in purchasing power parity since independence and political conflicts have not deterred interest from abroad in trade and investment. These countries are rich in natural resources, which constitute 65 per cent of exports in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as over 90 per cent in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The UK has now left the EU and thus has the freedom to pursue its own trade deal. Economic, security and geopolitical considerations make Central Asia a good trade partner, including the appetite for British goods in countries such as Kazakhstan and the pre-established trade and diplomatic presence of the UK in each of the nations. The Department of International Trade has put in effort to build on existing standing especially in Kazakhstan, where UK cultural, service and educational exports are popular. For example, 4,000 Kazakh students are currently studying in the UK and more visas are issues to Kazakh students than Australians. With two established UK trade offices in Kazakhstan, a comparatively large economy and a consistently open approach to free trade, McGlynn deems the country a promising contender for UK export growth. In comparison, Uzbekistan also has potential since the United Kingdom-Uzbekistan Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) signed in 2019 enabled the two to grant each other the most favoured nation (MFN) treatment. This is important because Uzbekistan does not belong in the World Trade Organisation. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have less ample economic opportunities due to widespread poverty, a relatively low GDP of $8.09 and $7.52 billion respectively, although it is still important to include them. The UK accounts for almost half of all Kyrgyzstan’s export, mainly gold, which provides leverage to promote democratisation. Trade between the UK and Turkmenistan has flourished under the auspices of the Turkmen-British Trade and Economic Council, even if it allows for a growth in controversial arms deals. The UK is not alone in the rush to take advantage of such lucrative deals: Italy has established a business forum with Central Asian countries, signing arms deals with Turkmenistan. The USA has just launched the Central Asia Investment Partnership and the Scandinavian nations have recently held the Kazakhstan Northern European Investment Forum. McGlynn advises the UK to hurry in these countries’ footsteps but paying heed not to lose sight of their moral and democratic values. Impact on other countries

Economic investment can also improve security interests, namely in helping to stabilise the countries. With a combined population of 75million, the average age of a Central Asian citizen is 27.6, highlighting the need for economic opportunities for young people. Without such opportunities, the likelihood for young people to become radicalised or turn to extremist groups is far greater. The UK’s trade influence can be used as a positive counter example to major geopolitical players in that region- Russia and China. The UK has condemned China’s campaign against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, a campaign which has also targeted ethnic Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, the Kazakhs being the second largest Turkic-speaking indigenous community in the region after the Uyghurs. It also contains many ethnic Kyrgyz. The UK’s economic approach must take into account these people, support them and help refugees.

 Lily Shanagher Edited by Tommy Hodgson

The post How can Britain develop trade in Central Asia? appeared first on Novastan English.