In September 2026, Princeton University returned to life after the summer recess, with students back on its Collegiate Gothic campus and the Princeton Triangle Club holding auditions for its latest annual musical. Exactly a century earlier, the same student troupe opened Samarkand, a lavish romantic comic opera named after the Central Asian city, before a paying audience in nearby Trenton, New Jersey.

No footage of the production is known to survive, and its undergraduate performers have long since passed from living memory. But the centenary of this forgotten play offers a revealing glimpse into the American collegiate imagination of Central Asia in the 1920s, when Samarkand could serve as shorthand for a sumptuous, composite Islamicate Orient rather than for anything particularly specific to the city or the region.

Princeton’s Samarkand

Princeton’s century-old student-run Triangle Club provided the institutional setting where an Orientalist imagination of Central Asia could become the subject of a polished Ivy League theatrical production. Founded in 1891, the Club is the oldest touring collegiate musical-comedy troupe in the United States, having built its reputation by staging an original show each academic year and taking it beyond Princeton. Undergraduate students write and perform each production, while professional directors and choreographers prepare it for public performance. Samarkand, billed for the 1926-27 academic year, was the Club’s 38th annual comic opera production and was staged four years before the opening of McCarter Theatre, where the annual tradition has since been anchored.

    True to the Club’s traditions, Samarkand was a product of undergraduate authorship and performance combined with professional theatrical supervision, and its premiere brought Princeton’s Orientalist fantasy before a paying public in the Garden State’s capital. On December 15, 1926, the production opened at the Trent Theatre in Trenton, a public commercial venue twelve miles (nineteen kilometers) from Princeton. In operation from 1903 to 1972, the Trent Theatre predated McCarter and served as a temporary stage after the destruction of the on-campus Casino Theatre briefly left Princeton University without a suitable theatrical venue.

Undergraduates wrote the libretto, lyrics, music, and dialogue and filled every credited role in the cast and chorus. Because Princeton admitted only men until the 1969-1970 academic year, male students also performed the female characters. Donald Clive Stuart, a professor of dramatic literature at Princeton, directed the show, while other theatrical professionals staged its dances and arranged and orchestrated its score (no playwright or script adviser was credited).

    Samarkand presents a rather conventional comic-operatic mixture of prophecy, romance, court intrigue, and sudden acquisition of power. Act I opens in the throne room of Haroun-El-Emenope, Caliph of Ashkabad, whose court includes his daughter Shelmardeen, the magician Attar-Bey-Bey, and the ambitious wazir Raschid. A voice from a feared magic urn foretells Haroun’s death and Shelmardeen’s marriage to a vagabond. Zahirudin, a mysterious adventurer from Samarkand whose name is said to mean “Fate,” arrives in search of the renowned princess, courts her with songs about the Golden Road to his native city, and eventually departs with her.

Raschid plots the Caliph’s death, seeks Shelmardeen for himself, and directs jealousy and suspicion against Zahirudin. A dancing girl named Yasmini, two rival suitors, four conspirators, and the Djinn of the urn complete the principal cast. Act II takes place in an enchanted garden, where the prophecy is fulfilled through a convenient reversal: death claims the cruel Caliph of Samarkand instead of Haroun, after which Zahirudin is proclaimed Caliph and marries Shelmardeen.

An Orientalist Fantasy of Central Asia

    The surviving visual materials for Samarkand presented Central Asia through generalized Orientalist imagery of luxury, mystery, and theatrical exoticism. The play’s black-and-gold playbill cover features an enthroned, elaborately dressed figure before an immense peacock tail, with dense ornament covering nearly every part of the design. The play’s orange-and-black sheet-music cover presents a turbaned man and a richly costumed woman beneath a drooping tree as the man points toward a distant city of domes and minarets under a crescent moon. The program’s costume drawing of Attar-Bey-Bey depicts the court magician in a long robe, broad sash, extravagant jewelry, and elaborate headdress against a dark flame-shaped backdrop. None of these elements is distinctly Central Asian.

The most candid commentary on this imagery appears in a garment advertisement beneath the program’s setting descriptions. A cartoon turbaned figure dreams of a modern outfit while the caption declares, “All this Oriental splendor stuff reminds us we’ve some pretty splendid male wardrobings for Americans. At least Princeton undergrads and alumni tell us so.” The joke makes explicit what the covers and costume imply: the play’s Samarkand was a marketable image of “Oriental splendor,” and the advertisement addressed its theatergoers directly as American consumers, particularly Princeton students and alumni.

Samarkand on Tour

    Samarkand took Princeton’s Orientalist fantasy on a national tour that eventually encompassed twenty-four performances, and reviewers across its itinerary consistently valued the production’s humor, spectacle, and theatrical polish. After three performances in Trenton on December 15-17, 1926, the Club appeared in Washington (December 18), Baltimore (December 20), New York’s Metropolitan Opera House (December 21), Pittsburgh (December 22), Cincinnati (December 23), Nashville (December 24), and Birmingham (December 25). After a one-day interval on the day after Christmas, the tour resumed in Memphis (December 27), followed by Little Rock (December 28), St. Louis (December 29), Chicago (December 30), Indianapolis (December 31), Cleveland (January 1, 1927), Syracuse (January 3), and New York again (January 4). The Club later performed in Orange, New Jersey (February 18), Newark (February 21), and Philadelphia (February 25-26). On June 17-18, shortly after the end of the spring semester, the play was staged one last time at Princeton’s University Gymnasium (destroyed in a fire in 1944).

All twenty-four known performances occurred during the 1926-27 academic year, and no evidence has emerged of a later revival. After opening night, The Daily Princetonian declared that Samarkand “took its place among the best of recent Triangle Club plays,” although it observed some roughness in the most demanding dances. The New York Times called the Metropolitan Opera House performance “a hit” and praised its songs, jokes, dancing, costumes, and settings. Newspapers in Nashville, Birmingham, St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, Syracuse, and other stops repeatedly commended the catchy music, clever lines, scenic effects, colorful costumes, disciplined chorus, and professional finish. The surviving notices offered little discussion of the play’s geographic or cultural accuracy.

A City Reduced to a Dream

    In Samarkand, the city honored in its title serves primarily as a geographically and culturally distant realm whose name promises romance, wealth, happiness, and power. The program identifies the setting of Act II only as “an enchanted garden in Samarkand,” and the city receives none of the social or physical detail of an actual urban setting. In a musical sequence titled “The Pilgrimage,” the Spirit of the Urn commands the characters to travel eastward over the sand, past swaying caravans and through low shadows, along a golden road where their “fondest dreams ever come true.”

Zahirudin similarly describes the place as a “dim-mooned city of delight,” and the ballet libretto calls the Golden Road to Samarkand “the pathway that leads to the land where dreams come true.” Samarkand offers rewards at every level of the plot: the journey promises riches, joy, and power; it secures the lovers’ union; and it raises the vagabond Zahirudin to the caliphate. No streets, monuments, institutions, or ordinary inhabitants appear, as the city is reduced to sand, caravans, bells, magic, an enchanted garden, and a distant promise of fulfillment.

A Composite Orient

    The cultural setting of Samarkand is a composite Orientalist fantasy that blends Arabic, Persianate, Turkic, Central Asian, and South Asian references while offering almost nothing specific to Samarkand or Central Asian history and culture. Its Arabic materials include a caliph and wazir, a Djinn from a magic urn, and the song “We Know All About the Arabian Nights (But What About the Days?).” The cast bears Arabic- and Persianate-adjacent names, while “Come to Our Altar Fires” and the “Hymn of the Fire-Worshippers” connect it to Zoroastrianism. Samarkand and “Ashkabad” are the principal regional markers, accompanied by generic palaces, deserts, and caravans; historically or geographically specific Central Asian features are virtually absent.

The suitor Haidan Sikh even introduces a South Asian religious identity into the mixture, primarily to facilitate an English pun. The religious setting is equally unstable: subjects of a caliph chant to idols, burn incense, seek prophecy from an urn, and sing to altar fires. Even the name Ashkabad presents a chronological puzzle. The city now known as Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, officially bore the name Poltoratsk from 1919 to 1927. The coincidence was presumably inadvertent.

Inventing the East in English

    The pseudo-Islamicate names in Samarkand reveal a genuinely amusing side of the production’s Orientalism, as their foreign-sounding forms seem designed to deliver jokes in English. The rival suitors Peke Abou and Haidan Sikh are phonetic disguises for “peekaboo” and “hide-and-seek.” Haroun-El-Emenope can be heard as “around L-M-N-O-P” (an alphabetical sequence), while Attar-Bey-Bey appears to echo “attababy.” The adventurer Zahirudin seems to suggest “They hear you, Dean,” echoing the name of his eventual bride, Shelmardeen – “She’ll marry Dean.” Four conspirators named Iambad, Heezbad, Urbad, and Wirbad identify themselves as “I am bad,” “He’s bad,” “You’re bad,” and “We’re bad.” Although these puns demonstrate undergraduate ingenuity, their mechanism treats Islamicate names as decorative sounds detached from cultural context.

Before Princeton: Imagining Central Asia in the West

    The composite setting of Samarkand may be seen as part of a longer Western tradition that located Central Asia within a loosely bounded Persianate and Islamicate Orient. Montesquieu’s Lettres persanes (1721) used the wealthy Isfahani nobleman Usbek, his seraglio, and a passing allusion to the khan of Tartary as materials for a French satire of European society. Goethe’s engagement with Hafez, Ferdowsi, and Zoroastrian texts informed his own experiments in Persianate poetry and contributed to his later conception of world literature (Weltliteratur). Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859) subsequently made a stylized Persian past extraordinarily popular among the English-speaking public.

More geographically explicit representations followed the routes of Arminius Vámbéry, Pyotr Semyonov-Tyan-Shanskiy, Nikolay Przhevalskiy, Sven Hedin, and Mannerheim, whose journeys across Central Asia generated travel narratives, maps, ethnographic collections, and photographs under scientific, imperial, and military auspices. Stephen Graham’s illustrated Through Russian Central Asia (1916) carried this tradition into English travel writing only a decade before Samarkand. The Russian painter Vasiliy Vereshchagin’s Turkestan Series juxtaposed bazaars, monuments, and local figures with conquest and death, while the Russian photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky’s early color photography presented Central Asian cities, architecture, rulers, and inhabitants with striking immediacy. Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot, which premiered in Milan less than eight months before Samarkand, offered a contemporaneous example of cultural conflation: its Persian-derived title means “daughter of Turan,” although its title character is a Chinese princess and the opera is set in imperial China and incorporates Chinese folk melodies.

Tamerlane and the Western Imagination

    Western fascination with Tamerlane (Timur) had endowed Samarkand with much of its dramatic reputation long before 1926, although the Princeton play omitted the conqueror who had made the city his imperial capital. Christopher Marlowe’s two-part Tamburlaine the Great (c. 1587-1588) presented Timur as a Scythian shepherd whose military genius and boundless ambition carried him to dominion over vast territories. Around 1700, Andrea Celesti’s monumental Tamerlane and Bajazet portrayed the victorious ruler receiving the captive Ottoman sultan amid an invented display of Oriental magnificence. Nicholas Rowe’s Tamerlane (1701) offered a contrasting image of a restrained and virtuous monarch, commonly interpreted as an analog for William III, while Bajazet represented Louis XIV.

The defeat and captivity of Bayezid subsequently provided the shared historical premise for George Frideric Handel’s Tamerlano (1724), Antonio Vivaldi’s Bajazet (1735), and Josef Mysliveček’s Il gran Tamerlano (1771), all of which combined imperial conflict with captivity, dynastic romance, and suicide. Across the Atlantic Ocean, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tamerlane” (1827) imagined the dying conqueror lamenting that his pursuit of power had cost him his youthful love. These works assigned Tamerlane radically different roles – insatiable conqueror, enlightened sovereign, sadistic tyrant, or tragic lover – and repeatedly used him to examine ambition, kingship, political rivalry, and unfulfilled love. By 1926, the name Samarkand therefore carried centuries of associations with imperial power, danger, magnificence, and romance, even though Samarkand detached those associations from Timur and his empire.

From Bukhara Carpets to the Golden Road

    The city of Bukhara appeared frequently in Western commercial accounts, as the city’s name became shorthand for Oriental luxury in the carpet trade. By the turn of the twentieth century, so-called “Bokhara rugs” had become fashionable furnishings in Paris, London, and other European and North American markets. Travel narratives reinforced the city’s reputation as a remote seat of Islamic tradition and monarchical wealth, and Prokudin-Gorsky’s 1911 color portrait of Emir Alim Khan, the last emir of the Emirate of Bukhara, preserved an especially vivid image of its royal splendor. The use of “Bokhara” in Western commerce closely parallels Princeton’s theatrical use of Samarkand: both place-names promised magnificence while conveying little about the cities and peoples they denoted.

    By 1926, Samarkand had become a familiar Western literary emblem of sensual abundance, imperial grandeur, distant suffering, and alluring travel. John Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes (1820) invokes “silken Samarcand” amid a feast of candied fruits, spiced delicacies, gold, silver, and perfume whose imagined geography extends from Fez to Lebanon (with Samarkand nearly 2,000 miles beyond this spectrum). Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tamerlane” invites the reader to behold Samarkand as the “queen of Earth,” the supreme monument to Timur’s pride and power.

Oscar Wilde’s “The Young King” (1891) treats the city as one point in a remote Oriental panorama of splendor and catastrophe. James Elroy Flecker’s The Golden Journey to Samarkand (1913) was the Princeton production’s most immediate literary precedent, and the published score confirms the inspiration by printing two stanzas from Flecker above the cast list. The musical echoes Flecker’s pilgrims and caravans, desert shadows, ringing bells, “dim-moon city of delight,” and “Golden Road to Samarkand,” but turns his restless pursuit of adventure and forbidden knowledge into a promise of romance, riches, joy, and political power.

Orientalism for the Jazz Age

    The Orientalism of Samarkand bore the unmistakable imprint of the expanding consumer culture of the United States in the 1920s, most conspicuously in the material rewards promised by its songs at every stage of the journey eastward. Contemporary American life repeatedly intrudes upon the supposedly ancient court, where characters joke about “airplane rugs,” call old-fashioned dancing “déclassé,” invoke the blues and the Black Bottom, and warn that a Morris chair is no place for the decade’s newest steps. For Princeton students and audiences across the country, Samarkand became an imagined treasure trove of worldly pleasures that magnified familiar ambitions for wealth, leisure, fashion, romance, and social advancement, while the playbill’s myriad advertisements for clothing and hats marketed purchasable tokens of its splendor after the curtain fell.

A Century Later

    Princeton University’s relationship with Central Asia has changed profoundly since Samarkand, and the play’s centenary invites recognition of both the distance between the theatrical imagination of the region it invoked and the scholarship that has since emerged. The play’s cultural imprecision partly reflects the institutional setting of 1926, when Princeton had not yet established the department that would become Near Eastern Studies, sustained academic interest in Central Asia was inconspicuous, and Central Asians had little visible presence in the Ivy League. Leon B. Poullada, a former diplomat and political scientist who earned his doctorate at Princeton and became a prominent scholar of Afghanistan, helped lay the groundwork for this change: the memorial lecture series established in his honor in 1995 has repeatedly addressed Central Asian history and Islam.

His son, Peter Poullada, a 1975 Princeton graduate in Near Eastern Studies, later published a notable study of Turkmen history, while the department now hosts the Leon B. Poullada Postdoctoral Research Associateship in Central Asian Studies. As a relatively small university, Princeton still lacks a regional program devoted exclusively to Central Asia, but the region receives sustained attention through the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia and the Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies within the Department of Near Eastern Studies, as well as research conducted by faculty and doctoral students in the History, Near Eastern Studies, and East Asian Studies departments.

Princeton-trained historians such as James Pickett have become leading scholars of Central Asia; the Department of History has hosted Sarah Cameron as a visiting scholar; and recent conferences and colloquia held at Princeton have featured lectures delivered by Artemy Kalinovsky and Scott Levi. Princeton Near Eastern Studies professor Michael Reynolds’s forthcoming biography, A Life Lived like a Storm, follows Enver Pasha through a final, dramatic chapter of the former Ottoman war minister’s career in Central Asia. In March 2024, Princeton’s Central Asian Student Association received formal recognition as an undergraduate organization. A century after Samarkand staged Central Asia as a playground for American fantasy, Princeton is now a leading institution in the study of the region.

By Diego Benning Wang.

Diego Benning Wang is a historian of Eurasia and Eastern Europe. Having received a PhD in history from Princeton University, an MA in Russian studies from Columbia University, and a BA in Russian studies from New York University, he is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

The post Ivy League Orientalism: Staging Samarkand in Princeton, 1926 appeared first on Novastan English.

Uzbekistan has increasingly treated Afghanistan not only as a security concern but as a potential trade and transit bridge linking Central and South Asia. In this interview, Aziza Mukhammedova, Leading Research Fellow at the Center for Afghanistan and South Asian Studies at Uzbekistan’s Institute for Advanced International Studies (IAIS), discusses the rapid growth of bilateral trade, the future of the Termez-Hairatan corridor and Trans-Afghan railway, the risks posed by Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions, and what would need to happen for Afghanistan to become a genuine regional economic connector.

For years, Afghanistan was discussed in Central Asia primarily through the language of security, instability and border risk. Uzbekistan has increasingly tried to change that framing.

Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Tashkent has pursued an increasingly pragmatic relationship with Kabul, expanding trade, energy links and transport cooperation while promoting Afghanistan as a potential bridge between Central and South Asia.

The economic relationship has grown quickly. Uzbekistan’s trade turnover with Afghanistan rose from around $674 million in 2021 to almost $1.68 billion in 2025, while Afghanistan became one of the most important markets for Uzbek exports. Cross-border infrastructure has expanded through the Termez International Trade Centre, cooperation on the Hairatan-Mazar-i-Sharif railway has continued, and Uzbekistan has continued to promote the much more ambitious Trans-Afghan railway towards Pakistan.

But the larger ambition remains uncertain.

The Trans-Afghan railway is still under development, financing remains unresolved, and the economic viability of the project will depend on whether substantial and reliable freight flows actually materialise. At the same time, tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, water disputes around the Amu Darya and questions over whether Afghanistan itself would benefit economically from transit all complicate the picture.

To understand what is changing, and what remains aspirational, Novastan Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine spoke with Aziza Mukhammedova, Leading Research Fellow at the Center for Afghanistan and South Asian Studies at Uzbekistan’s Institute for Advanced International Studies (IAIS). Her research focuses on Afghanistan and regional connectivity between Central and South Asia.

Novastan: Uzbekistan has invested heavily in the idea of Afghanistan as a connector rather than simply a source of security risks. Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, what has actually changed in Uzbekistan-Afghanistan economic relations? Which developments would you identify as the clearest evidence that this approach is producing tangible results?

Aziza Mukhammedova: I would separate the bilateral economic results, which are already quite visible, from the broader idea of Afghanistan as a regional transit connector, which is progressing but has not yet been fully realised.

Since 2021, the most important change has been that Uzbekistan has moved from simply preserving economic ties with Afghanistan to systematically building economic infrastructure around those ties. Engagement has become much more institutionalised.

The clearest evidence is trade. Uzbekistan’s trade turnover with Afghanistan stood at roughly $674 million in 2021, but increased to $1.14 billion in 2024 and almost $1.68 billion in 2025. Bilateral trade has therefore grown by approximately two and a half times compared with 2021. Afghanistan also became one of Uzbekistan’s most important export markets, with Uzbek exports reaching around $1.5 billion in 2025.

A second tangible result is the creation of physical and institutional infrastructure for cross-border commerce. The Termez International Trade Centre, formally opened in August 2024, is particularly significant because it is not simply another political initiative. It provides Afghan entrepreneurs with simplified access to Uzbekistan, including a special visa regime, commercial facilities and access to services. According to Uzbek government figures, more than 800,000 Afghan citizens visited the centre in 2025, while exports through it reached about $320 million.

We can also see growing institutionalisation of bilateral trade. Uzbekistan opened trade houses in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif in May 2025, and the two sides signed a preferential trade agreement in June 2025. Cooperation on the Hairatan-Mazar-i-Sharif railway has also continued, with the Uzbek operator remaining responsible for servicing the line.

Energy is another important dimension. Uzbekistan exported around 1.8 billion kWh of electricity worth more than $90 million to Afghanistan in 2024, and the relationship is now moving beyond electricity sales towards infrastructure development, including the long-discussed Surkhan-Pul-e-Khumri 500 kV line.

However, I would distinguish these achievements from the larger claim that Afghanistan has already become a fully functioning connector between Central and South Asia. That transformation is still incomplete.

The most ambitious project, the Trans-Afghan Railway linking Uzbekistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan, remains under development. There has nevertheless been concrete progress: in July 2025, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a trilateral framework agreement to prepare a feasibility study for the Termez-Naibabad-Maidanshahr-Logar-Kharlachi route.

So I would say Uzbekistan’s strategy is already producing tangible results, but primarily at the bilateral and cross-border level. The next test will be whether these achievements can be converted into genuine regional connectivity.

Termez and Hairatan already form the most developed physical connection between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. How much further could this corridor realistically be developed without waiting for the Trans-Afghan railway?

There is considerable room to develop the Termez-Hairatan corridor further even without waiting for the Trans-Afghan railway.

In the short term, relatively modest improvements in border management, terminals and logistics may generate a higher return than building entirely new infrastructure.

The corridor already has the basic assets: the Friendship Bridge, road and rail connections, the Hairatan-Mazar-i-Sharif railway and a growing logistics cluster on the Uzbek side. Traffic is already increasing. In July 2026, the governor of Surkhandarya stated that freight transportation with Afghanistan by road, rail and river had doubled.

I would identify four areas where practical measures could have a substantial impact.

The first is customs and border processing. Reducing the time a truck or wagon spends at the border can be almost as important as increasing physical railway capacity. Uzbekistan has proposed a “one-stop” principle at border crossings, greater integration with its E-logistics platform, electronic vehicle registration and online cargo monitoring.

Second is railway-terminal capacity. The Hairatan-Mazar-i-Sharif line already provides a functioning 1,520-mm-gauge connection into northern Afghanistan. Capacity can still be increased through additional sidings, better loading and unloading equipment, faster wagon turnaround and terminal rehabilitation.

Third is developing Termez and Hairatan as a single logistics ecosystem. More bonded warehouses, cold storage, container handling, consolidation facilities and predictable truck scheduling could reduce both costs and congestion.

Fourth is road-transport regulation and fees. Harmonising charges, permits, documentation and vehicle requirements could make the route more commercially attractive without laying a single kilometre of new track.

So I would not see the choice as Termez-Hairatan versus the Trans-Afghan railway. Improving Termez-Hairatan now is probably the best way to prepare for the larger corridor later.

The Trans-Afghan railway is often presented as transformative. At this stage, which route and financing model appear most credible? Is there a risk that political enthusiasm is running ahead of demonstrated freight demand?

At this stage, the eastern route through northern and central Afghanistan to Kharlachi on the border with Pakistan appears to be the most realistic option, primarily because formal trilateral technical work is already under way.

In 2025, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to prepare a joint feasibility study for the Naibabad-Maidan Shahr-Logar-Kharlachi route.

Financing is much more complicated. The project is expected to cost several billion dollars, and a purely commercial PPP or BOT model would be difficult because a private investor would have to assume construction, political, security and demand risks simultaneously.

A more credible option would be blended financing combining state participation, concessional finance from international financial institutions, and private investment in terminals, rolling stock and operations.

The key question is the freight base.

The railway is unlikely to be economically sustainable if it relies only on trade between Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Its viability would require substantial transit flows from Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries, potentially Russia, stable Afghan export volumes and reliable access to Pakistani ports.

There is therefore a real risk that political enthusiasm could run ahead of demonstrated commercial viability.

The project has a strong strategic rationale because it would diversify Central Asia’s access to seaports and significantly shorten southbound routes. But a strategically important project is not automatically a financially viable one.

The current feasibility study needs to demonstrate that realistic freight volumes, tariffs and operating costs can support the project without simply assuming that large cargo flows will appear once the railway is built.

Could Afghanistan-Pakistan tensions now represent a greater obstacle to the corridor than insecurity within Afghanistan itself?

Potentially, yes, but I would distinguish between security risk inside Afghanistan and geopolitical risk at the corridor’s southern gateway.

Pakistan is not simply another transit country. It provides the connection to the ports that gives the entire railway much of its geoeconomic value.

Even if the Afghan section operates normally, prolonged disruption at the Afghan-Pakistani border could affect the corridor as a whole. The experience of 2026 illustrates this clearly: border closures significantly disrupted Afghanistan’s external trade, raised logistics costs and forced part of the traffic to seek alternative routes.

At the same time, I would be cautious about describing bilateral tensions as a fundamental obstacle.

The fact that Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan signed a trilateral agreement on the feasibility study and continued political consultations on regional connectivity demonstrates that all three sides recognise a substantial shared economic interest in keeping this direction open.

The railway should therefore not only be seen as dependent on political stability. It can also contribute to it.

Once significant commercial interests, transit revenues and access to regional markets become tied to the corridor, the economic cost of prolonged disruptions increases for all parties. That creates an incentive to insulate transport cooperation, as far as possible, from fluctuations in bilateral relations.

You have also examined the possibility of extending the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor into Afghanistan and towards Central Asia. Would integration with CPEC complement the Trans-Afghan railway, or risk creating new dependencies?

From Uzbekistan’s perspective, I would see integration with CPEC primarily as a complement to the Trans-Afghan railway rather than an alternative.

The two projects perform different functions. The Trans-Afghan railway is intended to create the north-south link from Central Asia through Afghanistan, while CPEC could provide access to an already developing network of transport, logistics and port infrastructure inside Pakistan.

For Uzbekistan, however, the key principle is not dependence on a single corridor, but multiplication of connectivity options.

This is consistent with Uzbekistan’s broader transport strategy. Tashkent is simultaneously promoting the Trans-Afghan Corridor, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway and routes towards the Caspian and Europe. CPEC should therefore be understood as one component of a diversified regional network.

Read more on Novastan: China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway: Who wins from Central Asia’s new trade route?

The optimal outcome would be interconnection without exclusivity.

Central Asian states have developed different relationships with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Do you see their policies gradually converging

I do see gradual convergence, but I would describe it as convergence in practice rather than convergence in perception.

Central Asian states increasingly accept that Afghanistan under the Taliban is a long-term regional reality and that economic isolation is neither practical nor conducive to regional stability.

New regional formats are significant in this regard. In February 2026, Central Asian representatives discussed Afghanistan collectively in Astana, and in April the first Central Asia-Afghanistan Consultative Dialogue was held in Kabul, focusing on trade, transit, connectivity and regional cooperation.

However, national approaches remain distinct.

Uzbekistan has gone furthest in conceptualising Afghanistan as part of the region’s economic architecture. Turkmenistan’s approach is similarly pragmatic but more infrastructure- and energy-driven. Kazakhstan has moved rapidly towards economic normalisation, while Tajikistan remains more security-sensitive, although even Dushanbe has become considerably more pragmatic.

So I would not say Central Asia is developing a single policy towards the Taliban.

What is emerging is a common regional minimum: engagement with Kabul, preservation of security dialogue, expansion of economic relations and an interest in Afghanistan’s greater regional integration.

How much leverage does Uzbekistan’s pragmatic engagement give Tashkent on issues beyond trade and security, particularly women’s education and political inclusion?

Uzbekistan’s engagement gives Tashkent a certain degree of influence, but I would describe it as access-based rather than coercive leverage.

Uzbekistan has maintained regular political contacts with the Taliban authorities, expanded economic cooperation and positioned itself as a constructive regional partner. This creates channels through which sensitive issues can be discussed.

However, the limits of this influence should also be recognised.

Issues such as women’s education and political inclusion are closely connected to the Taliban’s internal ideological and institutional calculations and are therefore much less responsive to bilateral economic incentives than trade, infrastructure or border security.

Read more on Novastan: Nilofar Ayoubi on Afghan women, gender apartheid and rebuilding life in exile

The fact that restrictions on women’s secondary and higher education remain in place in 2026 demonstrates how limited sustained international engagement has been on this issue.

Uzbekistan’s comparative advantage lies elsewhere: maintaining trust, keeping difficult issues on the agenda and encouraging gradual change without sacrificing the channels of communication that make such influence possible in the first place.

Water is becoming increasingly important in Afghanistan’s relations with its neighbours. Could the Qosh Tepa Canal reshape Afghanistan’s relationship with Central Asia?

Yes, but I would be cautious about drawing a direct parallel with Afghanistan-Pakistan hydropolitics.

The common factor is that Afghanistan is becoming a much more active upstream water user.

For decades, limited irrigation infrastructure meant that the Central Asian water balance developed largely without significant Afghan withdrawals. The Qosh Tepa Canal changes this reality. Afghanistan is not party to the existing regional water-sharing arrangements, while the canal could substantially increase its use of the Amu Darya.

Water also becomes more politically sensitive when supply is already under pressure from climate change, glacier loss, population growth and agricultural demand.

However, I think the Central Asian response is developing in a different direction.

Uzbekistan has deliberately framed Qosh Tepa as an issue for dialogue rather than confrontation. President Mirziyoyev has proposed involving Afghanistan directly in regional discussions on Amu Darya water use and establishing a joint working group to assess the canal’s impact.

The key challenge is to move from a system in which Afghanistan was largely outside regional water governance towards one in which it becomes an integrated participant in transparent, data-based basin management.

What would Afghanistan itself gain from becoming a major transit country? Is there a risk that corridors could cross the country without producing much local development?

Afghanistan could gain substantially, but the benefits should not be reduced to transit fees alone.

The more important opportunity is to use connectivity to lower Afghanistan’s own transport costs, expand access to regional markets and stimulate economic activity along the corridor.

There is a real risk of what I would call a “transit without transformation” scenario: trains cross Afghanistan, revenues are collected at the border, but relatively little value remains in the Afghan economy. Railways by themselves do not automatically create development.

To avoid this, the Trans-Afghan Corridor should be developed not simply as a transport line but as an economic corridor.

That means creating logistics centres, dry ports, warehouses and processing facilities around key nodes; connecting agricultural and mining areas through feeder infrastructure; encouraging Afghan companies to participate in transport and logistics services; and developing industrial or export-oriented zones along the route.

The distinction is between Afghanistan as a transit territory and Afghanistan as a participant in regional value chains.

The first generates some revenue. The second can generate jobs, investment, exports and new centres of economic activity.

Finally, looking towards 2030, what indicators should we examine to determine whether Afghanistan is genuinely becoming a bridge between Central and South Asia?

By 2030, I would look at several concrete indicators rather than at the number of agreements or political declarations.

The first is actual transit volume: how much cargo is moving through Afghanistan between Central and South Asia, and what share of that traffic is genuine through-transit rather than bilateral trade with Afghanistan itself.

The second is commercial reliability. A functioning bridge requires regular freight services, predictable transit times, competitive costs and the ability to move cargo throughout the year.

If businesses begin choosing the Afghan route because it is commercially rational rather than politically encouraged, that would be a very important indicator of success.

Third, I would look at network integration: whether Afghan routes are effectively connected northward to Uzbekistan and the wider Central Asian railway system and southward to Pakistan’s transport network and ports.

Fourth is Afghanistan’s own economic participation. If logistics hubs, processing industries, services, employment and Afghan exports grow around these corridors, Afghanistan would be becoming part of regional value chains rather than simply territory crossed by foreign cargo.

Finally, I would examine whether connectivity has become institutionalised enough to survive political fluctuations.

So by 2030, the decisive question should be very practical: are goods moving through Afghanistan regularly, competitively and in growing volumes, and is Afghanistan itself capturing part of the economic value created by that movement?

If the answer is yes, then the idea of Afghanistan as a bridge between Central and South Asia will have moved from geopolitical aspiration to economic reality.

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

The post Can Afghanistan Become Central Asia’s Bridge to the South? appeared first on Novastan English.

From growing up as a bacha posh in Kunduz to becoming an entrepreneur, journalist and women’s rights advocate, Nilofar Ayoubi has experienced the freedoms and restrictions imposed on Afghan women from unusually different perspectives. Now based in Poland, she speaks to Novastan English Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine about gender apartheid, political participation, exile, the legacy of Afghanistan’s pre-2021 media landscape and why the country should also be understood through its connections with Central Asia.

For much of her childhood, Nilofar Ayoubi lived publicly as a boy.

Growing up in Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, she became a bacha posh – literally a girl “dressed as a boy” – a practice through which some Afghan families allow daughters to assume a male social identity, often giving them access to freedoms otherwise restricted to girls. Ayoubi has previously recalled attending school, practising karate, riding bicycles and moving through public space with freedoms that disappeared when, around puberty, she could no longer continue living publicly as a boy.

The experience would shape the political outlook that followed. Before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Ayoubi built businesses employing women, worked in journalism and founded the Women’s Political Participation Network in 2020, amid growing fears that women’s rights would be bargained away during peace negotiations. She also headed Asia Times Afghanistan and worked as an editor with Akhbar Afghan.

When the Taliban entered Kabul in August 2021, that public profile placed her at particular risk. On 23 August, she left Afghanistan with her husband and three young children and eventually rebuilt her life in Warsaw. She has since continued advocating internationally for Afghan women while maintaining contact with women inside the country.

Five years after the Taliban returned to power, women and girls remain excluded from secondary and university education and face sweeping restrictions on employment, movement and participation in public life. Ayoubi is among those campaigning for this system to be internationally recognised as gender apartheid.

Yet she is equally insistent that Afghan women should not be understood solely through what has been done to them.

“I survived things,” she tells Novastan. “But I also built things.”

Novastan: You spent much of your childhood as a bacha posh, experiencing freedoms that were denied to girls. When you eventually had to begin living publicly as a girl, what did that transition teach you?

Nilofar Ayoubi: It taught me something very early that many people spend a lifetime trying to articulate: freedom can be determined by something as arbitrary as how society perceives your gender.

For around thirteen years, I lived as a bacha posh. As a boy, I could go to school more freely, ride a bicycle, practise karate, move through public spaces and experience a degree of independence. Then I had to return to living publicly as a girl, and suddenly the world around me became smaller.

I was the same person. My intelligence had not changed. My courage had not changed. My abilities had not changed. Only society’s perception of me had changed.

That experience shaped almost everything I later became.

It made me understand that the restrictions imposed on Afghan women were never evidence of women’s inability. They were evidence of a system deliberately limiting their possibilities.

It also taught me that freedom is not abstract. Sometimes freedom is simply being able to walk somewhere without permission. To ride a bicycle. To study. To speak loudly. To occupy space without apologising for your existence.

Once you have experienced both sides of that invisible wall, it becomes impossible not to see it.

Before 2021, you built businesses and employed hundreds of women. Did you see giving women jobs and financial independence as a form of activism?

Absolutely.

I never separated women’s economic independence from women’s rights. A woman who earns her own income gains something beyond money. She gains bargaining power inside her family, greater control over her choices, confidence, mobility and, sometimes, the ability to leave situations she would otherwise be trapped in.

That is political power at its most practical level.

In Afghanistan, I saw women with extraordinary ability who were prevented from using it, not because a law necessarily prohibited them, but because of family pressure, social expectations, insecurity, lack of childcare, restrictions on movement, harassment and the constant calculation of reputation.

Read more on Novastan: Bound by Tradition: Silent Suffering of Daughters-in-Law in Uzbekistan

This is something international discussions about women’s rights sometimes miss. Changing a constitution is important, but a progressive law does not automatically change what happens behind the door of a home.

I wanted women working with me to earn, learn and understand that their labour had economic value.

Entrepreneurship therefore became another form of activism for me. Instead of only saying that women were capable, I could create environments in which they demonstrated it every day.

And they did.

You also worked in journalism. Looking back, what had twenty years of relatively open media actually changed in Afghan society, and how much of that legacy survives today?

Afghanistan’s media sector before August 2021 was imperfect, sometimes chaotic and certainly not completely free, but its transformation was extraordinary.

A generation grew up hearing women questioning politicians on television, journalists investigating corruption, young people debating religion, governance and society, and citizens openly criticising powerful people.

That matters.

Freedom of expression does not only produce newspapers and television programmes. It changes what a society believes it is entitled to ask.

We built that culture over twenty years, often at enormous personal risk. Afghan journalists were threatened, attacked and killed long before August 2021.

Today, the institutional space for that freedom has been devastated. Women journalists have been systematically pushed out of public life, censorship and self-censorship have become pervasive, and independent journalism operates under extraordinary pressure.

But I do not believe the intellectual legacy disappeared.

You cannot expose an entire generation to debate, information and freedom of expression and then completely erase the memory of it.

The Taliban can close a newsroom. They can intimidate a journalist. They can impose restrictions on what can be published. What is much harder is making millions of Afghans forget that another reality once existed.

That memory is itself a form of resistance.

You founded the Women’s Political Participation Network shortly before the previous political order collapsed. What did Afghan women involved in the network actually want from politics?

The women I worked with did not simply want seats in rooms. They wanted influence over the decisions being made inside those rooms.

There is a very important difference between representation and participation.

Read more on Novastan: More Women in Central Asian Politics – But Where Is the Power?

Too often, women’s political participation in Afghanistan became a numbers exercise: How many women are attending? How many women are in parliament? How many women are sitting at the table?

But the real question should have been: Do these women have power?

Can they influence negotiations? Can they shape budgets? Can they challenge decisions? Are women from outside Kabul included? Are younger women included? Are women from different ethnic, socioeconomic and political backgrounds represented?

Read more on Novastan: Uzbekistan: when women demand to have a voice

When we founded the Women’s Political Participation Network in 2020, the peace process was already creating enormous anxiety among women. Many could see that women’s rights were becoming negotiable in the pursuit of a political settlement.

We were not asking the international community to “save Afghan women.” Afghan women had been saving themselves, organising themselves and fighting for political space for years.

We were asking not to be traded away.

Unfortunately, that distinction was not taken seriously enough.

You argue that what the Taliban have created should be recognised internationally as “gender apartheid”. Why is that terminology important?

Because words determine how the world understands a crime.

What exists in Afghanistan today is not a collection of unrelated discriminatory policies. It is a systematic architecture of exclusion based on gender.

Girls have been denied secondary and university education. Women have been pushed out of much of employment and public life. Their freedom of movement has been restricted. Their visibility in public space has been deliberately reduced. Their access to parks, gyms and many other areas of ordinary life has been curtailed.

This is not simply “conservative governance.” It is not merely a women’s-rights problem.

It is a system.

When exclusion becomes systematic, institutionalised and enforced by the state because of the sex of the person being excluded, our language must reflect the scale and nature of what is happening.

That is why I advocate for recognition of gender apartheid.

Calling it discrimination risks making it sound as though women are experiencing unequal treatment within society. Afghan women are increasingly being denied the right to participate in society itself.

The terminology also matters legally and politically. Recognition creates pressure for accountability and makes it much harder for governments to normalise relations while pretending that the systematic persecution of half the population is simply an internal cultural matter.

No government should be permitted to make women socially invisible and still expect normal diplomatic legitimacy.

You remain in contact with women inside Afghanistan. How different are those conversations from discussions about Afghanistan at international conferences?

The difference can be enormous.

At international conferences, Afghanistan is discussed through phrases such as “engagement,” “stability,” “humanitarian access,” “dialogue” and “pragmatism.”

Inside Afghanistan, the conversation is about survival.

It is about a girl watching another academic year disappear. A woman wondering how she will support her children because she can no longer work. An activist deleting messages because she is afraid her phone might be searched. A journalist trying to continue working while navigating censorship and intimidation.

These are not theoretical policy questions for them. They determine the architecture of their daily lives.

One thing outsiders repeatedly underestimate is Afghan women’s agency.

Women inside Afghanistan are not sitting passively waiting for someone abroad to rescue them. They are teaching girls secretly, documenting abuses, working where they can, supporting families, organising networks and finding extraordinary ways to resist erasure.

Another mistake is assuming that silence means acceptance.

When speaking carries the possibility of detention, violence or retaliation against your family, silence cannot automatically be interpreted as consent.

Sometimes silence is survival.

You have also become one of the people international media turn to when telling the story of Afghan women. Do you feel frustrated by the way foreign media portray them?

Yes, very much.

Afghan women have suffered enormously, and we should never minimise that suffering. But suffering is not our entire identity.

I have always resisted the idea that Afghan women should be presented only through photographs of burqas, poverty and despair.

Before August 2021, Afghan women were journalists, prosecutors, judges, politicians, entrepreneurs, athletes, teachers, artists, activists, police officers and students.

After August 2021, they did not suddenly lose their intelligence, ambition or political consciousness. They lost the institutional space in which they were allowed to exercise them.

That distinction matters.

I know something about this personally. My own story has been reported internationally many times, and I am grateful that people have cared enough to listen. But I never want the most painful parts of my life to become the only explanation of who I am.

I survived things. But I also built things.

That is true for millions of Afghan women.

Victimhood may describe something that happened to a person. It should never become the total definition of that person.

You grew up in Kunduz, with deep historical and cultural connections to neighbouring Central Asia. Is Afghanistan too often viewed solely through South Asia, the Middle East or the “war on terror”?

Absolutely.

Growing up in Kunduz gives you a very different geographical imagination of Afghanistan.

Northern Afghanistan has always been connected to Central Asia through trade, migration, language, ethnicity, families and culture. The borders on modern maps are politically important, but human relationships across that geography are much older.

Afghanistan is often analysed externally according to whichever geopolitical crisis is dominant. During the last twenty years, it was overwhelmingly interpreted through terrorism, Pakistan, NATO and the war on terror.

That framework obscures how historically interconnected Afghanistan is.

Looking north reminds us that Afghanistan is not simply the western edge of South Asia or an appendage of the Middle East. It is also deeply connected to Central Asia.

For Kunduz, Balkh, Badakhshan and other northern provinces, understanding relationships with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan helps explain trade, culture, identity, security and political dynamics that cannot be understood solely through Kabul or Pakistan.

Afghanistan has always stood at a crossroads. Reducing it to a battlefield between competing powers has prevented outsiders from understanding the country as a society.

You had to rebuild your life after arriving in Poland. Has becoming an entrepreneur again in Europe changed how you think about economic independence?

Yes, because exile forced me to experience economic independence from another perspective.

On 23 August 2021, I left Afghanistan with my husband and our three very young children. I went from a life and career that I had spent years building to arriving in Warsaw and facing enormous uncertainty.

I had to start again.

There is something profoundly humbling about becoming a refugee. Your qualifications, reputation, networks and achievements do not necessarily cross a border with you in the same way your body does.

Rebuilding businesses and professional life in Europe reminded me that entrepreneurship is not only about financial independence. It is also about identity and dignity.

In Afghanistan, creating businesses was partly about expanding women’s possibilities within a restrictive environment.

In Europe, rebuilding became partly about refusing to allow displacement to reduce me permanently to the identity of “refugee.”

I am proud of surviving, but I do not want survival to be the highest ambition available to displaced women.

We should be able to rebuild, lead, create, employ people and contribute economically to the societies in which we now live.

Economic independence means different things in Warsaw and Kabul, but its psychological foundation is similar: the ability to make choices about your own life.

After years of conferences, meetings and appeals to governments, what kind of international action do you still believe can make a concrete difference?

After five years, I have become much less interested in statements and much more interested in consequences.

The Taliban have learned that international condemnation is often temporary and rarely carries sufficient cost.

We issue statements. We organise conferences. We express outrage. Then another meeting takes place, another diplomatic channel opens and another concession is described as “pragmatic engagement.”

Engagement without benchmarks becomes normalisation.

I am not arguing that the international community should abandon Afghanistan. Isolation that harms ordinary Afghans is not a solution either. Humanitarian assistance must continue, and Afghans should not be punished for the actions of the Taliban.

But engagement must have conditions.

There should be measurable requirements concerning women’s education, employment, movement and participation in public life. Afghan women and independent civil society must have meaningful representation in international discussions about Afghanistan, not ceremonial invitations after decisions have already been made.

There must also be accountability. That means supporting international legal mechanisms, documenting abuses, protecting journalists and human-rights defenders, and advancing the recognition of gender apartheid in international law.

At the same time, international support should reach Afghan-led initiatives directly, particularly women-led education, media, civil society and humanitarian networks.

I have spent years helping vulnerable Afghans, including women at immediate risk, journalists, activists and families trying to escape danger. One lesson has become very clear to me: sometimes relatively small, targeted interventions change an actual human life more effectively than another multimillion-dollar conference about Afghanistan.

What has failed is the repeated assumption that Afghan women’s rights can be postponed until some future political settlement.

We have seen where that logic leads.

Afghan women do not need the world to speak endlessly about how courageous they are. They need the international community to make their persecution politically, diplomatically and legally consequential.

I still believe international action can make a difference. Otherwise I would not continue doing this work.

But solidarity without consequences eventually becomes ceremony.

And Afghan women have had enough ceremonies.

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

The post “I survived things. But I also built things”: Nilofar Ayoubi on Afghan women, exile and resistance appeared first on Novastan English.

Uzbekistan’s Armenian community has rebuilt churches, cultural centres and schools since the end of the Soviet period. Yet as Armenian increasingly gives way to Russian in everyday life, community leaders face a more difficult question: what does it mean to remain Armenian when language is no longer the principal marker of identity?

Several years ago, an elderly woman arrived at the Armenian cultural centre in Tashkent carrying books.

She was around 80 years old and had decided to donate her Armenian-language library to the community. For Georgiy Saakov, one of the eldest figures of Uzbekistan’s Armenian community, the encounter seemed at first like an illustration of cultural continuity. Then he addressed her in Armenian.

She answered in Russian. She did not speak the language of the books she had preserved.

“A grandmother who is Armenian but does not speak Armenian – a hundred years ago, that would have been difficult to imagine,” Saakov recalls.

The episode captures one of the central paradoxes facing Armenians in Uzbekistan today. Since the late Soviet period, the community has reconstructed much of the institutional infrastructure that disappeared during the twentieth century: cultural organisations, Sunday schools, churches, publications and artistic groups. Yet the transmission of Armenian itself has become increasingly fragile.

For Saakov, who has been editing the magazine of the Armenian community in Uzbekistan and has spent decades involved in its cultural institutions, this is not simply a linguistic issue. It raises a larger question about how minority identities survive in a society where integration has been extensive, intermarriage is common and Russian often functions more naturally than Armenian within Armenian families themselves.

Uzbekistan’s Armenians are far from disappearing. But what it means to be Armenian in Uzbekistan is changing.

A community older than the Soviet Union

Armenian connections with what is now Uzbekistan long predate the establishment of modern Central Asian states.

Christian communities existed in the region centuries before the Russian conquest, and Armenian merchants, craftsmen and religious missioners travelled through Central Asian commercial centres at different moments. Historical sources also point to Armenians being moved towards Samarkand during the campaigns of Timur, although the scale and precise character of these movements are difficult to establish.

Saakov situates the community within this much longer history. He points in particular to Samarkand, one of the great crossroads of Eurasian trade, where Armenian merchants and craftsmen were among the many groups who settled over the centuries.

Yet the roots of today’s Armenian community are more recent.

Its modern formation accelerated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, alongside the Russian Empire’s expansion into Central Asia and the construction of the Trans-Caspian railway. Armenians arrived as railway workers, merchants, craftsmen, professionals and officials, joining the increasingly diverse urban populations of cities such as Tashkent and Samarkand.

By the early Soviet period, Armenians had established their own community institutions. Saakov describes Armenian Workers’ Houses operating in cities including Tashkent and Samarkand during the 1920s and 1930s, alongside cultural activities and an Armenian theatre.

This institutional life did not survive the Stalinist period. Independent ethnic, religious and cultural organisations were suppressed or absorbed into Soviet structures, while religious institutions across the USSR came under intense pressure.

As with many Soviet minorities living outside their titular republics, Armenians in Uzbekistan remained visible as individuals but increasingly lost the autonomous institutional spaces through which language and community life had previously been reproduced.

That distinction matters. Soviet modernisation did not necessarily eliminate Armenian identity, but it changed the mechanisms through which it was transmitted.

Rebuilding after decades of interruption

The late 1980s brought a new opening.

As perestroika loosened restrictions on cultural and religious organisation, Armenians in Uzbekistan began rebuilding community structures that had disappeared decades earlier. Armenian cultural centres emerged in Tashkent, Samarkand and Andijan from 1989 onwards, part of a broader revival of ethnic and cultural associations across the Soviet Union.

The process continued after Uzbekistan became independent in 1991.

The Armenian cultural centre in Tashkent established a Sunday school in 1993. In Samarkand, the Armenian Apostolic Church of Surb Astvatsatsin, built at the beginning of the twentieth century, reopened in 1995 after decades of closure. A second Armenian Apostolic church, dedicated to St Philip, was established in Tashkent in 2007.

Since 2001, Armenian organisations have operated within Uzbekistan’s system of national cultural centres, through which recognised ethnic communities organise language classes, cultural events and other activities.

For Saakov, this institutional reconstruction is one of the most important achievements of the post-Soviet period.

Today, Armenian cultural life in Uzbekistan includes dance and musical groups, educational initiatives, religious communities and the newspaper Depi Apaga, meaning “Towards the Future”, which began publication in 2006. Saakov has served as its editor since 2008.

The idea for the publication, he says, was encouraged by an encounter connected to Charles Aznavour’s visit to Samarkand for the Sharq Taronalari international music festival in 2005. For a dispersed community without its own territorial concentration, a newspaper offered another way of maintaining a shared public space.

The community also celebrates Armenian cultural figures whose lives became closely connected to Uzbekistan.

Perhaps the best known is Tamara Khanum, born Tamara Petrosyan, the Armenian-origin dancer and singer who became one of the most celebrated performers of Soviet Uzbekistan. Others include artists, musicians, academics and public figures whose biographies reflect the degree to which Armenian and Uzbek cultural histories became intertwined.

For Saakov, this is an important part of the community’s identity. Armenians in Uzbekistan do not understand themselves simply as a diaspora temporarily residing outside Armenia. Many families have lived in Central Asia for generations.

They are both Armenian and Uzbek.

How many Armenians are there?

The size of the community is difficult to establish precisely.

The last Soviet census, conducted in 1989, recorded more than 50,000 Armenians in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Saakov estimates that around 40,000 to 45,000 Armenians may live in Uzbekistan today, with the largest concentration in Tashkent.

That figure should be understood as a community estimate rather than the result of a recent population census.

Numbers alone also reveal relatively little about participation.

As in many diaspora communities, there is a substantial difference between identifying as Armenian and regularly taking part in Armenian institutional life. Churches, cultural centres and community organisations may represent the community symbolically while involving only a fraction of those who claim Armenian ancestry.

That gap has become one of the central challenges facing community organisations.

The problem is not necessarily hostility or pressure from the surrounding society. Saakov portrays Armenians as deeply integrated into contemporary Uzbekistan and emphasises that the community is able to operate openly.

Instead, the pressures are subtler: assimilation, generational change, migration and language loss.

When Russian becomes the family language

Of these, language may be the most consequential.

Russian has long played an important role among urban Armenian communities across much of the former Soviet Union. In Uzbekistan, it became particularly significant as Armenians interacted with other minorities and with Russian-speaking urban environments.

Read more on Novastan: How Central Asia became home for the Koryo-Saram

Over time, Russian also entered the home.

For many Armenian families in Uzbekistan today, Russian and Uzbek languages are used to communicate with neighbours or colleagues. But Russian is mostly the only language in which parents speak to their children and children speak to their grandparents.

But the survival of Armenian has been developing by many ways while the cultural identification remains strong.

Saakov has written about the role traditionally played by grandmothers in transmitting language, customs and memory. His formulation – “Cherchez la grand-mère” – reflects his belief that identity historically survived less through formal institutions than through families.

The elderly woman who brought Armenian books to the cultural centre therefore represented something larger than an individual biography. The books had survived. The language had not.

Perhaps that is one of the most important limit the post-Soviet Armenian revival in Uzbekistan encounters.

A Sunday school can teach vocabulary. A church can preserve ritual. A cultural centre can organise many events, including dance performances and commemorations. A newspaper can remind readers of Armenian historical and cultural identity.

Identity beyond language

Yet language loss does not necessarily mean the disappearance of Armenian identity.

This is where Saakov’s understanding of the community becomes particularly interesting.

He cites the Armenian historian Claude Mutafian’s formulation: “Être Arménien, c’est un choix” – being Armenian is a choice.

For Armenians in Uzbekistan, that choice may increasingly take forms other than speaking Armenian fluently.

It may involve attending church on major holidays, sending children to a Sunday school, participating in cultural events, reading about Armenian history, maintaining family traditions or simply continuing to identify with an Armenian ancestry that has existed alongside Uzbek, Russian and Soviet experiences for generations.

The community’s cultural groups reflect this attempt to preserve identity through practice.

Organisations and ensembles such as Mer Ojakh, Arvest and DAR bring together different generations around music, dance and cultural events. Their significance is not only artistic. They create spaces where a community that is geographically dispersed can physically encounter itself.

At the same time, the reliance on organised culture raises another question: what happens when identity becomes something performed at scheduled events rather than reproduced through everyday life?

That tension is not unique to Armenians.

Across Central Asia, smaller ethnic communities are negotiating similar changes. Soviet-era migration, urbanisation, mixed marriages, Russian-language education, independence and more recent emigration have transformed the relationship between ethnicity, language and citizenship.

The Armenian experience in Uzbekistan therefore offers a broader window onto the post-Soviet evolution of minority identity.

Integration without disappearance

Saakov strongly rejects the idea that Armenian identity and integration into Uzbek society are contradictory.

He describes Armenians as participating extensively in the professional, cultural and social life of the country and points to the absence of a strong divide between Armenian and Uzbek public identities.

There is historical substance to that argument. Prominent Armenians contributed to Soviet and post-Soviet Uzbekistan in fields ranging from culture to science, while generations of Armenian families have developed ties to cities such as Tashkent and Samarkand that are as biographical as their ties to Armenia.

But integration also complicates attempts to define where one community ends and another begins.

Read more on Novastan: At home in Central Asia: the lives and identity of the Lyuli/Mughat

An Armenian family may speak Russian at home, Uzbek at work or school, retain an Armenian surname, celebrate Armenian religious holidays and regard Uzbekistan as its homeland.

The resulting identity does not fit easily into models that imagine diasporas as culturally self-contained communities looking permanently towards an ancestral state.

For younger Armenians, Armenia may be important symbolically even when they have never lived there. Uzbekistan, meanwhile, is not simply a “host country” but the country in which their families may have lived for several generations.

Read more on Novastan: From Bukhara to Queens: The Global Journey of the Bukharan Jews

This distinction helps explain why the Armenian community’s future is unlikely to depend on preserving an unchanged version of the past.

Its challenge is instead to determine which parts of that inheritance remain meaningful.

A post-Soviet minority dilemma

The story of Uzbekistan’s Armenians is therefore not one of straightforward disappearance or revival.

The revival is real. Institutions that had vanished under Soviet rule have been rebuilt. Churches under the leadership of Ter Hovhannes Grigoryan, the spiritual mentor of the Armenian community in Uzbekistan, continues to function successfully. The Armenian National Cultural Center of Uzbekistan, led by Vladislav Safarov, along with regional cultural centers in Tashkent and Samarkand, headed by Armen Sahakyan and Armen Der-Avanesyants, are doing their best and carrying out extensive work across various fields. Cultural organisations operate openly and the Government of Uzbekistan extends full-scale assistance and support to the community organization.

Armenian history is commemorated. Children can attend community classes. Publications and artistic groups maintain a collective public presence.

At the same time, the social foundations on which those institutions once rested have changed profoundly.

The family is less reliably Armenian-speaking. Community participation is selective. Identity competes with migration, mixed backgrounds and increasingly individual definitions of belonging.

For Saakov, this makes transmission the decisive question.

The elderly woman who arrived with her books had preserved the physical objects of Armenian culture for decades. But the language connecting her directly to them had disappeared somewhere along the way.

Her story may seem melancholy, but Saakov does not present the community’s future simply in terms of decline.

If being Armenian is, as Mutafian suggested, a choice, then every generation makes that choice under different circumstances.

In Uzbekistan today, the question is no longer whether Armenian institutions can exist. They can, and they do.

The harder question is what people will choose to do with them.

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

The post Between integration and inheritance: How Armenians in Uzbekistan are redefining community appeared first on Novastan English.

In August-September 2026, the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Initially conceived as a platform for regional security cooperation, the organization used its 2026 summit to reiterate demands for a multipolar international order through appeals to Eurasian connectivity. State-overseen media in some of the organization’s authoritarian member states repeatedly invoked euphemistic terms such as “Silk Road” and “Digital Silk Road” alongside declarations of multipolarity. These references accompanied efforts by regional powers, particularly China and Russia, to secure recognition as global powers and challenge the predominance the United States has exercised since the end of the Cold War. For the post-Soviet states of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, embracing the Silk Road paradigm presents a particular dilemma, as they seek greater international recognition through a framework that designates them primarily as intermediaries between larger powers.

Read more on Novastan: In Central Asia, China is taking advantage of Russia’s isolation at war

The Making of the Silk Road Paradigm

 Since the early 2010s, the Silk Road has become a pervasive framework for representing Central Asia and the South Caucasus in tourism, scholarship, current affairs, and policy analysis. Many hotels and travel agencies in these regions bear the name or feature imagery of camels and caravans, while international tour operators market visits to these countries as Silk Road journeys. Conferences and institutional associations, including the Tbilisi Silk Road Forum and the Silk Road Universities Network, adopt the same designation. American academic institutions have also embraced it, most notably the Silk Road Studies Program formerly affiliated with Johns Hopkins University and Indiana University’s incipient Silk Road Studies program.

Uyghur and Uzbek restaurants across Western Europe and North America operate under names such as “Silk Road” and “Caravan.” The Chinese-American cello virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma applied the same paradigm to musical performance through his Silk Road project, conceived in 1998. Its eclectic ensemble reduces the rich musical traditions of various Eurasian nations to one or two representative performers, prioritizing national representation over demonstrating genuine historical musical connections across Eurasia. In a 2021 video from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the popular Emirati food blogger Khalid al-Ameri gleefully attributes the enormous portions of Tashkent-style pilaf (to’y oshi) to the appetites of merchants traversing the Silk Road, as if local culinary traditions existed chiefly to serve transient traders.

    The Silk Road paradigm was popularized in the former Soviet space during late perestroika, almost a quarter-century before China launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, as  late Soviet and early post-Soviet publications attest. UNESCO provided institutional endorsement by launching a research program dedicated to the “Silk Roads” in 1988. In 1994, the Samarkand Declaration on Silk Road Tourism established a framework for international cooperation to promote the region’s historical routes and cultural heritage. Four years later, Baku hosted a conference on the restoration of the historic Silk Road under the EU’s auspices. The United States adopted the designation for its own New Silk Road initiative in 2011. Uzbekistan’s 2009 postage stamps promoted the theme, followed by subsequent issues depicting mapped routes, camels, caravans, and other popular Silk Road imagery. Russia also issued a Silk Road commemorative coin honoring the Eurasian Economic Community. The tourism expansion across post-Soviet Eurasia in the 2010s further encouraged Silk Road branding. For the newly independent states of Central Asia and the South Caucasus, the paradigm offered a means of asserting historical identities and international significance after the Soviet collapse amid the limitations of established Western regional classifications, as Central Asia and the South Caucasus fitted awkwardly within conventional definitions of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or South Asia.

    Scholarship and popular historical writing in the English-speaking world have helped popularize the Silk Road as a framework for interpreting Central and Inner Eurasia. Valerie Hansen and Susan Whitfield have made substantial contributions to the study of underexplored communities and cultural encounters through works organized around this designation. Christopher Beckwith’s monograph applies the term to a broad history of Central Eurasia while emphasizing the historical agency of the region’s vernacular communities. Peter Frankopan adopts the pluralized Silk Roads for an expansive Eurasian synthesis for a general readership. In their accounts of premodern Eurasia, these authors organize historical interpretation around a designation that did not exist during the periods under examination. Maps of the Silk Road and its supposed branches, now ubiquitous in tourist promotions and geopolitical analysis, further reinforce the impression that the term describes a coherent framework. References to the Silk Road also supply historical context in prominent Anglophone media outlets’ reporting on the dire human rights situation of the Uyghurs.

    The Silk Road paradigm often entails a teleological interpretation of Eurasian history by projecting the modern concept of globalization onto premodern exchanges. Conventional accounts describe a network of routes linking China with Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean from the period when the Han and Roman empires coexisted to the mid- or late fifteenth century, before the Age of Discoveries fundamentally reshaped global connections. Replacing a single road with a plurality of routes leaves largely intact the presumption that these exchanges constituted a coherent and enduring trans-Eurasian system. The term itself was a nineteenth-century coinage, appearing in Carl Ritter’s work in 1838 before the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen gave it greater scholarly prominence in 1877. The existence of exchanges between distant regions does not establish that the people involved shared a conception of a unified system joining Eurasia’s eastern and western extremities. Treating their activities as successive stages of globalization risks attributing a common direction to interactions shaped by distinct local circumstances and changing sociopolitical realities. The conventional fifteenth-century endpoint similarly obscures the continuation of overland exchange across the Eurasian landmass into the modern period.

    The Silk Road has also acquired a geographical scope that encompasses entire regions of Central and Inner Eurasia. In this usage, Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia fall under a common designation derived from their association with routes connecting China with Europe. The term consequently covers the political, social, religious, and cultural histories of these territories, including developments whose significance extends well beyond commercial or cultural transmission. This usage conflates the history of connections among regions with the histories of the regions themselves. Establishing that a society participated in a network of exchange provides limited justification for treating that network as the principal framework for interpreting its historical development.

Between China and Europe

    The Silk Road paradigm presents China and Europe as the principal cultural and commercial centers of premodern Eurasia, relegating the intervening lands and peoples to an intermediary position within a linear rather than territorial conception of space. This hierarchy obscures the development of local political institutions and intellectual traditions, assigning historical importance primarily according to a society’s contribution to exchanges between the two endpoints.

The mathematical scholarship of al-Khwarazmi, the philosophical and medical writings of Avicenna, the musical theories of al-Farabi, the astronomical discoveries of al-Biruni, the linguistic and ethnographic works of Mahmud al-Kashgari, and the poetry of Ferdowsi, Rumi, Omar Khayyam, Ahmad Yasawi, Yusuf Balasaguni, and Ali-Shir Nawa’i exemplify contributions whose significance exceeds the transmission of ideas between distant centers and deserves consideration in its own right. Even when exchange remains the principal subject of inquiry, emphasizing these two endpoints understates India’s importance. During the Roman period, Mediterranean commerce with India, often through Central Asia, was considerably more voluminous than commerce with China. The Seleucid Empire and the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms had sustained earlier political and cultural connections, whose Hellenistic legacies persisted beyond their rule.

    The Silk Road paradigm’s Sino-centrism and Euro-centrism often obscure the cultural agency of vernacular communities in Central Eurasia. Communities selectively adapted and appropriated cultural imports, changing their forms and significance before they circulated further. Scholars such as al-Khwarazmi elaborated the Indian system underlying Arabic numerals before it reached Europe. Chess acquired new rules, pieces, and social meanings as it spread from India through Persia and onward to Europe, with “checkmate” being a Persian loan. Christian communities adapted Syriac script to write Sogdian and Old Uyghur. Regional variants of instruments such as the zurna, qanun, and kamancha differ in construction and performance practice, reflecting the musical traditions and preferences of the communities that developed them. Regional preparations of noodles (laghman, lamian), dumplings (chuchvara, manti), fried dough (çäkçäk, tush, sachima), and fruit leathers (lavashak, guodanpi) also require attention to local specificities.

Exchange Beyond Trade

The Silk Road paradigm’s emphasis on commerce often obscures the role of conquest, pastoral mobility, and permanent migration in facilitating cultural exchange across Eurasia. Scythian expansions and the Arab, Mongol, and Timurid conquests intensified cultural contacts through military service, imperial rule, and population displacement, frequently under conditions of extreme violence. Timur’s deportation of artisans from conquered cities to Samarkand made forced migration a major source of the Timurid capital’s architectural and artistic achievements. Similar developments followed Shah Abbas I’s deportation of Armenians from Nakhichevan to Isfahan, where churches combined Armenian and Safavid architectural characteristics. Nomadic communities sustained other forms of exchange through seasonal movement and recurrent encounters with settled populations.

Research on mountain routes through Inner Asia suggests that pastoral mobility helped establish some of the connections subsequently used by long-distance traders. The migrations of Qypchaqs, Seljuks, Kalmyks and other Oirat groups, and Alans carried military practices, oral literature, and material culture into new settings, where interactions with settled populations encouraged further adaptation. Jewish diasporic communities across Central Eurasia maintained connections through kinship, religious institutions, and scholarship, sustaining exchanges that extended beyond the activities of merchants, best exemplified by the Moroccan-born rabbi Yosef Maimon’s efforts to promote religious education and Sephardic liturgical practices among Bukharan Jewish communities in Central Asia during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Commerce itself often depended on the routes and social relationships established through these movements.

Silk Without China

The history of silk production further undermines the Silk Road paradigm’s Sino-centrism. Sericulture had spread into Central Asia and Iran well before the thirteenth century, and tenth-century geographical accounts describe silk production across much of Iran. Communities developed their own practices of silkworm breeding and textile manufacture, while Shaki and Shamakhi in modern-day northern Azerbaijan became important centers of silk production and trade in the Caucasus. Before Azerbaijan took control of the city in late 2023, one of the main streets of Stepanakert (Khankandi), the de facto capital of Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh, was called Silk Weavers’ Street (Metaqsagorts’neri poghots).

The smooth, colorful khan atlas (“royal silk”), produced most famously in the ancient city of Margilan in the Ferghana Valley, is widely regarded as a national symbol of Uzbekistan. The expansion of production diversified the sources of silk entering regional and distant markets while sustaining its commercial importance. Raw silk remained a major export of Safavid Iran in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Iranian workshops produced luxury fabrics for domestic consumption and foreign buyers. In Shaki, wealth from silkworm breeding and cocoon sales supported urban development in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as reflected in the magnificent summer palace of the Shaki khans. These economies depended on local agricultural conditions and commercial institutions and could sustain production and exchange without continuous input from China. The association of silk with China, therefore, provides little justification for assigning a subordinate historical role to societies that became substantial producers and exporters themselves.

From Historical Metaphor to Geopolitical Strategy

    The Silk Road paradigm’s retrospective Sino-centrism also lends historical legitimacy to the Chinese government’s contemporary geopolitical ambitions. China’s position among the largest premodern economies provides an insufficient basis for assuming comparably extensive political influence, cultural ties, or transit connections with the principal centers of Central Eurasia and beyond. The extent and character of these connections varied considerably across periods, depending on changing political arrangements and networks sustained by communities and Eurasian land empires with their own interests and institutions.

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

Official Chinese presentations of BRI invoke the pluralized historical Silk Roads to portray contemporary transit investments as the renewal of historical connections. This presumed continuity frames the expansion of Chinese interests as restoring a lost position, encouraging acceptance of Beijing’s ambitions to reshape Eurasia’s political and economic development. Central Asia and South Caucasus states embrace the same framework to attract Chinese investment, promote transit infrastructure centered around China, and secure greater international recognition. Their self-presentation as intermediaries risks making that recognition contingent on their usefulness to larger powers, while reinforcing a historical hierarchy that privileges China’s geopolitical objectives.

Read more on Novastan: China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway: Who wins from Central Asia’s new trade route?

Marco Polo and the Politics of Eurasian Space

    The Silk Road paradigm’s anachronistic Sino-centrism also appears in bestselling American author Robert Kaplan’s use of Marco Polo’s travels to interpret contemporary geopolitics. In The Return of Marco Polo’s World, Kaplan uses the Venetian traveler’s itinerary to explain the strategic significance of China’s expanding connections across Eurasia and the Indian Ocean. The itinerary of a single traveler offers limited grounds for establishing either the density of historical exchange or a common geopolitical orientation among the societies he encountered. Polo’s journeys depended on Mongol imperial arrangements and networks maintained by merchants, religious communities, and local authorities, whose activities served numerous purposes beyond connecting Europe with China.

Kaplan explicitly presents Kublai Khan’s empire as a guide to contemporary Chinese strategy, encouraging the interpretation of Mongol-era connections as precedents for China’s present ambitions, although Chinggisid imperial domains encompassed much of Eurasia and included political centers well beyond China. This analogy risks attributing a continuous geopolitical agenda to distinct political entities and subordinating other Eurasian societies to a narrative of Chinese resurgence. Kaplan’s advocacy of a sustained American naval presence also exposes a tension in his emphasis on Chinese centrality: American naval power helps sustain the maritime trading system on which China depends, while US military positions and alliances along the First and Second Island Chains constrain China’s pursuit of predominance in the western Pacific.

What the Eurasian Frame Leaves Out

    The Silk Road paradigm’s Eurasian frame also erases the Western Hemisphere when used to interpret contemporary global power dynamics. The United States, which emerged from the Cold War as the sole superpower, lies outside this paradigm’s geographical space. The postwar economic order still depends on financial arrangements shaped by American power, with the US dollar retaining its central role in international transactions, banking, and reserve holdings. The scale of the US economy and the global operations of US corporations sustain commercial relationships that cannot be adequately represented through routes joining China and Europe. American corporations, especially those based in Silicon Valley, occupy leading positions in the global high-technology industry. US military deployments and alliances, including a naval presence along major shipping routes, remain integral to the security arrangements within which much of this commerce occurs. Interpreting Chinese infrastructure expansion primarily through a Eurasian historical frame risks overstating China’s capacity to displace American dominance by discounting the United States’ pivotal role on the global stage.

When Influence Ran East

    The history of China’s Tang dynasty (618–907) challenges Sino-centric accounts of Eurasian exchange that portray China primarily as a source rather than a recipient of cultural influence. Conventionally celebrated as an apogee of Chinese cultural achievement, the Tang period coincided with extensive political and cultural engagement with Central Asia. The Tang capital, Chang’an (Xi’an), maintained close ties with the region, where Tang campaigns and protectorates established a substantial, though uneven, presence. Turkic soldiers and commanders contributed significantly to Tang military power, while Uyghur allies provided crucial assistance during the eighth century. Central Asian music and dances shaped Tang court entertainment, notably through Sogdian dances, while the pipa, often called the Chinese lute, developed from Middle Eastern and Central Asian prototypes. Elite men and women adopted Central Asian clothing and equestrian fashions; Crown Prince Li Chengqian dressed as a Turkic khan, established a tent camp within the palace grounds, and ate mutton cut with his sword. Sogdian communities in Chang’an and other urban centers contributed to commercial, artistic, and religious life, with manuscripts recovered from the caves of Dunhuang preserving evidence of their activities and beliefs. Imported fruit varieties, vegetables, and livestock, including peaches from Samarkand and prized Central Asian horses, further demonstrate the material significance of these contacts.

Christianity and Manichaeism reached Tang China through networks connecting Iran and Central Asia. Translations of Buddhist and Christian scriptures expanded Chinese religious literature, while Buddhist translation continued an earlier process of incorporating Sanskrit terms into Chinese. Li Bai (Li Bo), among China’s most celebrated poets, may have been born in modern-day Kyrgyzstan. Popular narratives about the battle of Talas in 751, fought between the Tang dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate, often obscure the political agency of Central Eurasian communities by crediting the Abbasid victory with bringing Chinese westward expansion to a definitive end. The conflict emerged from regional rivalries involving Ferghana and Chach, whose ruling families sought allies to advance their own interests. Karluk forces played an important part in the Tang defeat, with Chinese accounts attributing the outcome partly to their defection to the Abbasid side. Tang expansion depended heavily on Turkic troops and commanders and alliances with Sogdian rulers. Tang garrisons remained in the Tarim Basin after Talas, while An Lushan’s rebellion in 755 and subsequent Tibetan advances led to Tang’s decline. An Lushan (Rokhshan in Sogdian), a general of Sogdian and Turkic ancestry, captured two Tang capitals and forced the emperor to flee, while the prolonged conflict severely weakened the dynasty.

Beyond the Silk Road

    Prominent historian of Central Asia Scott Levi has advocated the scholarly embrace of the Silk Road paradigm despite its conceptual laxity. However, its acceptance in Western academia would inevitably lend greater legitimacy to the expansive agenda of an authoritarian dictatorship whose repressive policies have actively destroyed the communities and cultural legacies that have long formed the backbone of Western imaginations of the Silk Road.

By Diego Benning Wang.

Diego Benning Wang is a historian of Eurasia and Eastern Europe. Having received a PhD in history from Princeton University, an MA in Russian studies from Columbia University, and a BA in Russian studies from New York University, he is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

The post The Silk Road Paradigm and the Dilemma of In-Between appeared first on Novastan English.

Mongolia’s position between Russia and China is often portrayed as a geopolitical constraint. Researcher and writer Bolor Lkhaajav argues that Ulaanbaatar instead seeks to combine strong ties with both neighbours with an increasingly ambitious “third neighbour” policy spanning critical minerals, energy, technology, diplomacy and security.

Bolor Lkhaajav is a specialist in East and Northeast Asia who has published more than 200 articles and commentaries in multiple languages. She writes regularly on diplomatic history, foreign and security policy, geopolitics, economics, politics and society. She is currently working on Mongolia’s foreign-policy grand strategy and has been accepted to a PhD programme beginning in autumn 2027.

In this interview with Novastan, she discusses how Mongolia is navigating the geopolitical consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the growing importance of South Korea and other “third neighbours”, the country’s critical-mineral potential, environmental pressures and Mongolia’s distinctive position in a rapidly changing Northeast Asia.

Novastan: You are currently working on Mongolia’s foreign-policy grand strategy. How would you describe the country’s strategic approach today, and how has it evolved in the changing geopolitical environment since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine?

Bolor Lkhaajav: In 2011, the Mongolian Parliament adopted the country’s Foreign Policy Concept, a legal document mapping out Ulaanbaatar’s foreign-policy strategy to meet modern-day demands while maintaining a balance between its two neighbours – Russia and China.

One of the important elements of the concept was the formal introduction of the “Third Neighbour” Doctrine. The idea of a “third neighbour” had long existed in Mongolian history and diplomatic circles, but it had never been explicitly defined and applied in such a transparent way. Since 2011, the policy has become one of the pillars of Mongolia’s foreign-policy grand strategy.

Read more on Novastan: “Mongolia cannot be understood through one lens”: Dr. Mendee Jargalsaikhan on democracy, China and Central Asia

It is specifically intended to strengthen Mongolia’s diplomatic, political, economic and cultural links with countries outside Russia and China, while at the same time reinforcing bilateral and trilateral engagement with Moscow and Beijing.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mongolia has experienced the consequences of Russia prioritising its domestic energy supply. Given Mongolia’s heavy dependence on Russian fuel, intermittent shortages have become a regular occurrence over the past six months. This also highlights why it is crucial for Mongolia to invest in renewable energy and work with third-neighbour partners to strengthen the country’s energy sector. I would not say that Mongolia can achieve energy independence at present, because that is simply not realistic.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has also changed the geopolitical and security dynamics of Northeast Asia. For Mongolia’s foreign-policy grand strategy, it is crucial that its only two neighbours remain free of conflict.

Mongolia’s grand strategy seeks to position Ulaanbaatar as a stable, democratic actor on the world stage. It is not dependent on the foreign policies of its neighbours, or of any other country, nor on their global engagements. Mongolia may respond differently to external challenges, but these will not fundamentally alter the country’s foreign-policy grand strategy.

Mongolia’s “third neighbour” policy has been central to its diplomacy for decades. Which relationships do you think have the greatest potential to deepen in the coming years – whether with South Korea, Japan, India, the European Union, the United States or others – and why?

Mongolia’s “Third Neighbour” Doctrine provides a much broader framework that envisages mechanisms for cooperation across different sectors and stages of development. It is not restricted to the mining sector.

At its core, the Third Neighbour Doctrine is both a concept and a foreign-policy practice encompassing multiple mechanisms that support Mongolia’s geopolitical balance between the two major powers surrounding it, Russia and China, while also placing an emphasis on reinvigorating the country’s bilateral and multilateral engagements outside their respective spheres of influence.

Within the region, relations between Mongolia and South Korea have certainly expanded tremendously. This is partly because of South Korea’s successful commercial presence in Mongolia and its more recent interest in diversifying its critical-mineral supply chains. Japan’s interest and investment follow, although not to the same extent as South Korea’s.

European partners will continue to play a crucial role in Mongolia’s democracy and development. Building on strong bilateral relations with European partners, Ulaanbaatar aims to increase cooperation on climate change, renewable energy and sectors that align both with Mongolia’s development priorities and with European standards and regulations.

Read more on Novastan: “Heritage is something alive”: Ganzorig Miimaa reimagines Mongolia through photography

With the United States, however, environmental and renewable-energy cooperation is unlikely to be a central focus under Donald Trump’s administration. In many respects, the current administration’s priorities do not align with Mongolia’s core values at present.

The US has shown interest in Mongolia’s critical minerals. However, given Washington’s posture towards both Moscow and Beijing, Ulaanbaatar is not particularly confident about the prospects of concluding a major deal.

One of the largest US contributions to Mongolia to date has been the successful implementation and launch of the Water Compact funded by the US Millennium Challenge Corporation.

You have written extensively on Mongolia’s relationship with South Korea, as well as on India and the European Union. How far can these partnerships help Mongolia translate diplomatic diversification into real economic diversification, given the constraints of geography, infrastructure and export routes?

Mongolia’s partnerships with South Korea, India, the European Union and others vary considerably according to the kinds of investment each partner is interested in pursuing. These are not all equivalent partners, and each can offer something different.

For example, India’s $1.7 billion soft loan for Mongolia’s first major greenfield oil refinery is a major boost for the country’s domestic supply and also has potential for exports.

The EU, on the other hand, is more interested in investing in human capital and civil society, promoting democratic values, and supporting the green transition, forestry and governance. Mongolia has a great deal to gain from its relations with the EU.

For example, the Mongolian government can learn from the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act as the country moves towards establishing data centres and becoming a more digital nation. These ambitions will in turn create a need for greater cybersecurity capabilities, which countries such as South Korea, India and the United States can provide.

The logistical challenge involved in exporting Mongolian goods is obvious, and there are no magical solutions. All exports ultimately need to transit through Russia or China.

It is therefore strategically important for Mongolia to maintain the strongest and most stable possible bilateral and trilateral relations with both neighbours. Mongolia-China railway connections, as well as Mongolia-Russia transit corridors, are equally important for expanding Mongolian exports to Europe and elsewhere in the world.

Critical minerals and uranium are attracting growing international attention to Mongolia. What opportunities does this create, and what would Mongolia need to do to turn this interest into durable economic and strategic benefits?

Mongolia’s exploration and export of critical minerals and uranium form part of the country’s diversification strategy, even though they remain within the mining sector.

Mongolia holds an estimated $1-3 trillion in untapped mineral reserves, including significant deposits of copper, fluorspar, coal and rare earth elements.

South Korea is already working on building a stable supply chain to support its technological development. During South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s state visit to Mongolia in July, Ulaanbaatar and Seoul signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which included the elimination of 2-5 percent tariffs on critical minerals.

In 2025, a South Korean critical-minerals research hub was established in Ulaanbaatar. This was recently followed by the launch of joint scientific research between the Mongolian National Rare Earth Corporation and the Korea Basic Science Institute.

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

Given South Korea’s advanced manufacturing industries, including steel, automobiles and semiconductors, the country has considerable demand for high-purity molybdenum powder. Moreover, South Korea’s growing interest in becoming more active in the defence industry and manufacturing makes Mongolia’s natural resources a strategic asset.

France has also become the first European country to seal a major uranium deal, signing a $1.6 billion investment agreement in 2025. These interests can be mutually beneficial: France requires uranium for its nuclear-energy sector, while Mongolia can use the partnership to diversify its exports.

For Mongolia to continue attracting investment from global partners, however, the country’s political system needs to be stable.

More than anything else, I think the constant changes of government, government plans and budgets, changes to the taxation system, and corruption are among the main obstacles to Mongolia’s development.

Mongolia recently hosted UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, a subject you have also written about. Beyond the diplomatic visibility of hosting a major UN conference, what could COP17 realistically mean for Mongolia in areas such as desertification, land restoration, water security and environmental finance?

This year’s COP17 included discussions on finance, water, land and people, and food systems. Each of these issues has direct implications for Mongolia.

Water security, water pollution and land restoration in particular are closely linked to major mining operations in the country. Over the years, we have come to understand that environmental-protection clauses must be included as part of responsible mining. These requirements are understandably costly, but they are something the Mongolian side needs to demand regardless.

Read more on Novastan: From the Pamirs to the Aral Sea: Following the Amu Darya Through Central Asia

During COP17, mining giants such as Rio Tinto announced strategies to contribute to Mongolia’s fight against desertification and water pollution and to restore forests, including planting 5,000 hectares of forest, investing in renewable energy for company use and introducing new technologies to replenish groundwater.

Oyu Tolgoi, one of Mongolia’s largest mining operations, began paying water-pollution fees in 2026, with regular quarterly payments of 150-200 million Mongolian tugrik, or roughly $42,000-$55,000. These practices are intended to set an example for other major mining companies operating in the country.

Water security and water pollution will become even more important issues in the coming years as the construction of data centres is already being discussed at government level.

Their environmental impact needs to be studied thoroughly, and Parliament will need to develop appropriate legal and regulatory mechanisms for such projects.

You have also written about the changing geopolitical environment in Northeast Asia. What new opportunities or challenges does this create for Mongolia, particularly as relations among Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan continue to evolve?

Over the last five years, Northeast Asia has become a hotspot of geopolitical transformation, and recent events have only highlighted these shifts in the post-Second World War international order.

These are dynamic and complex international-relations issues, but I will mention the most significant ones here.

Russia’s war in Ukraine created tremendous opportunities for North Korea. Pyongyang is moving towards becoming a de facto nuclear state, most likely with the backing of both Russia and China.

For Mongolia, regional peace and security are crucial, and this includes peace on the Korean Peninsula. Mongolia currently maintains, and will continue to maintain, open diplomatic channels with North Korea regardless of Pyongyang’s actions. There are also some economic incentives for doing so.

Despite Mongolia’s landlocked position in Northeast Asia, one of its geopolitical advantages is that it is the only country in the region without territorial disputes or unresolved historical grievances with neighbouring states. This is a significant advantage for Mongolian diplomacy and creates opportunities for Ulaanbaatar to develop diverse political, economic and cultural engagements.

In the short to long term, Mongolia’s economic engagement with all regional actors is likely to continue.

Moreover, in order to diversify its energy sources – a need that has become more pressing because of the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine and fuel shortages – Mongolia will require support from China as well as third-neighbour investment in the energy sector.

India is currently supporting Mongolia’s first greenfield oil refinery, which is expected to become operational in 2028.

Finally, what aspect of Mongolia’s international position do you think remains most misunderstood outside the country, and looking five to ten years ahead, what would successful diversification actually look like for Mongolia?

I think one of the main misconceptions among observers of Mongolia is the idea that the country somehow has to choose between Russia and China.

Mongolia’s histories with Russia and China differ, and its diplomatic and economic relations with the two countries also differ tremendously. To think that Ulaanbaatar needs to choose between Russia and China in modern-day diplomacy is therefore not only a misconception, but also something that simply does not apply to Mongolian foreign policy.

The second misconception is that, because of Mongolia’s landlocked position between Russia and China, the third-neighbour policy is unsuccessful.

I have come across views that undermine Ulaanbaatar’s third-neighbour approach, arguing that the policy cannot genuinely counterbalance Russian and Chinese influence. But the misconception lies in assuming that this is what the policy is designed to do.

Mongolia needs robust relations with Russia and China. That is itself a foreign-policy priority. The Third Neighbour Doctrine is an addition to strong relations with Mongolia’s only two neighbours, not an alternative to them.

From both a foreign-policy and implementation perspective, since 2011 – over a period of 15 years – Mongolia’s third-neighbour relationships have flourished and will continue to develop through niche partnerships and new mechanisms for cooperation.

If one looks at the impact of Mongolia’s third-neighbour policy in its entirety, it becomes clear that it is not limited to economic diversification. It also encompasses culture, education, technology, innovation, modernisation and everything else that a modern society demands.

If there is one thing slowing Mongolia’s third-neighbour engagement, it is the country’s political instability, constant changes of government, shifts in investment laws and regulations, and, finally, corruption.

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

The post Bolor Lkhaajav: “Mongolia does not need to choose between Russia and China” appeared first on Novastan English.

Often portrayed through poverty and begging, Lyuli/Mughat communities have lived across Central Asia for centuries. Researchers and filmmakers are now drawing attention to a much richer story of language, craftsmanship, family life and belonging.

In Shakhzoda Mirakova’s documentary We Are (At) Home, the title itself carries an argument. The film was shot largely in different districts of Bukhara, where Mirakova and her team spent time with Lyuli/Mughat families and community members. For her, the idea of “home” was not simply geographical. “Despite often being treated as outsiders, Lyuli have built their lives, families and communities here,” she told Novastan. That tension – between being deeply rooted in Central Asia and still perceived as somehow outside it – runs through much of the history of the Lyuli/Mughat.

They have lived in the region for centuries and can be found across all five Central Asian republics, although the largest concentrations are generally associated with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and southern Kyrgyzstan, with smaller communities in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Their distant origins are usually linked by researchers to migrations from the Indian subcontinent, but their precise relationship with European Roma populations remains debated. Researcher Kamilla Zakirova argues that it is more accurate to understand them as a distinct Central Asian community that has often been placed within a wider Roma or “Gypsy” category, rather than simply describing them as a Central Asian branch of European Roma. Their identity today is unmistakably shaped by the societies in which they live: by Uzbek and Tajik languages, Sunni Islam, local neighbourhoods, extended families and the economic and cultural life of Central Asia.

One community, many names

Even the question of what to call the community is complicated. “Lyuli” or “Luli” is widely used in Uzbekistan and in Russian-language sources, while “Jughi” or “Jugi” is especially common in Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan. Historical names including Multoni or Multani and Ghorbat or Gurbat have also appeared in different parts of the region. “Mughat”, meanwhile, is an important self-designation for many people.

Zakirova notes that some community members prefer it precisely because names such as Lyuli or Jughi may carry derogatory stereotypes. At the same time, preferences differ by place and individual, meaning there is no single term that can be assumed to be universally accepted. For an international audience, she considers “Lyuli/Mughat” a useful compromise. The terminology reflects a broader difficulty: outsiders have often attempted to fit highly diverse communities into a single category. Different groups have developed within different linguistic and social environments, and this makes it difficult to speak of one single Lyuli language, occupation or lifestyle extending unchanged across Central Asia.

This distinction also matters when comparing Lyuli/Mughat with Russian-speaking Roma communities in the region, historically often referred to as Tsygane. Zakirova stresses that these are not simply interchangeable categories. The Lyuli/Mughat have developed within Central Asian society and have linguistic, religious and social practices shaped by that setting.

How important is the Indian connection?

The community’s distant South Asian origins are one of the most frequently mentioned aspects of its history, but they do not necessarily occupy the same place in the identity of people living in Central Asia today. During the making of We Are (At) Home, Mirakova encountered contradictory accounts. “We met several families, and their accounts were not the same,” she said. “Some people denied having a connection to the Indian subcontinent, while others claimed Indian ancestry.” One community leader the filmmakers met knew several words that he identified as coming from an Indian language and also described himself as having Indian ancestry, yet this kind of memory was not shared by everyone.

That distinction matters. A distant historical origin identified through linguistic or ethnographic research does not necessarily determine how people understand themselves generations later. For communities whose everyday lives have developed for centuries in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan, India may be an ancestral reference, a family story, or something largely absent from daily identity. The more immediate cultural environment is Central Asian, and this is reflected in language, religion, settlement patterns and social life.

Speaking the languages of Central Asia

Language demonstrates this particularly clearly. Zakirova describes Lyuli/Mughat communities as generally multilingual. In Uzbekistan, Uzbek and Tajik are widely spoken, while Russian remains present, particularly among older generations. Mirakova observed much the same thing while filming in Bukhara. “The people we interviewed could speak Uzbek, Tajik and Russian,” she said. “From what we observed, Lyuli generally speak the language that is common in the region where they live, rather than using one single language across Central Asia.”

Their religious practices likewise overlap extensively with those of neighbouring communities. Most are Sunni Muslims, and celebrations and rituals associated with Ramadan, weddings, circumcision and funerals form part of the broader religious culture of Central Asia. For Zakirova, differences between Lyuli/Mughat communities are therefore often shaped less by religion than by local history, language and different levels of integration into surrounding society. Most are no longer nomadic. Communities are generally settled, often organised around extended families, neighbourhoods and local networks. The image of the permanently travelling “Gypsy” community can consequently obscure as much as it explains.

Everyday life beyond begging

The most persistent public stereotype surrounding the Lyuli is begging, and it is also the image that Mirakova most wants to complicate. “Public portrayals tend to focus on poverty and begging, which gives a very narrow picture of the community,” she said. “Spending time with people showed us that there is much more to their everyday lives, including craftsmanship, family traditions, skills and cultural practices.”

During filming in Bukhara, the team encountered families involved in forms of craftsmanship that receive little public attention. Mirakova recalls people making everyday household objects such as plates and cups, as well as carpet-making. Other people worked in waste collection, seasonal labour and work connected to pastures. The range of occupations, she felt, was becoming more diverse rather than remaining confined to only a few traditional activities. Zakirova similarly points to longer traditions of music, performance, jewellery-making, woodworking and metalworking among different Lyuli/Mughat groups, and notes that some communities have historically been associated with professional music and entertainment.

None of these occupations should be treated as universal characteristics. Mirakova’s observations relate specifically to the families she encountered around Bukhara, while the economic lives of Lyuli/Mughat communities vary considerably across the region. But they help reveal a basic problem with the dominant stereotype: economic marginalisation has often become a substitute for describing an entire culture. Craftsmanship illustrates that invisibility particularly well. “Lyuli families make plates and cups – everyday objects that people often use without knowing who produced them,” Mirakova said. The producer may remain socially invisible even when the object itself circulates widely.

School, documents and changing opportunities

The situation of Lyuli/Mughat communities has improved in some respects over the past decade, according to Zakirova, but significant inequalities remain. Education is one area where the gap is particularly visible. In the families Mirakova met, girls generally remained at school until around the ninth grade. This observation cannot be generalised to the whole population, but it reflects broader concerns about limited educational attainment and low representation in higher and vocational education.

Earlier research and official reporting have also identified problems with school inclusion, poverty and the costs associated with education. Documentation has historically posed another obstacle. Mirakova encountered people who held passports and identity documents alongside others who did not. This problem intersects with the wider legacy of statelessness in post-Soviet Central Asia. Uzbekistan’s reforms on citizenship and birth registration, including the 2020 Citizenship Law, have helped tens of thousands of formerly stateless people obtain or confirm citizenship, although these measures were not designed specifically for Lyuli/Mughat communities.

For Zakirova, that distinction is important. Broader legal reforms can still matter greatly for groups that have historically faced barriers to documentation, even when they are not targeted at a particular minority. At the same time, major challenges remain in education, poverty, housing, employment opportunities and discrimination. Representation in higher and vocational education remains particularly limited.

Integration does not mean visibility

The paradox is that a community can be deeply integrated into the language, religion and everyday life of a country without being strongly represented in its public institutions. Zakirova describes national political representation of Lyuli/Mughat people in Uzbekistan as extremely limited. She is not aware of a nationally prominent elected politician who publicly identifies as Lyuli/Mughat, nor of a major national newspaper, radio station or political organisation representing the community specifically.

This limited visibility extends to cultural representation. For decades, Lyuli communities have frequently appeared in public discourse through stories about begging, social deprivation or marginalisation. What is much less visible is ordinary life: weddings, work, religious practices, family relationships, artisanship or changing aspirations among younger generations. That is one reason Zakirova sees the appearance of younger journalists and filmmakers interested in the community as significant. She pointed specifically to Mirakova’s We Are (At) Home as an example of a younger generation beginning to explore questions of Lyuli identity and belonging from a different perspective.

Filming a community usually seen from outside

Mirakova’s documentary did not emerge from a large institutional project. Most of the filming took place locally in Bukhara partly because the filmmakers had a limited budget, and they were also able to work through people who already knew community members and helped establish contact with families. This mattered because marginalised communities are frequently documented by outsiders who arrive with pre-existing ideas about the story they expect to find. Establishing relationships through trusted contacts gave the filmmakers a different entry point.

What they encountered was not a uniform community. Neighbours responded differently to Lyuli families. Some interacted warmly with them and showed genuine curiosity about their culture and traditions, while others viewed them overwhelmingly through negative stereotypes, particularly the association with begging. Mirakova said her team did not encounter any specific state, municipal or NGO programme designed explicitly for the families they met in areas such as education, employment, housing or documentation. That does not necessarily mean no such measures exist elsewhere, but it shows how limited their visibility can be at community level.

Family, weddings and cultural life

Some of the strongest impressions Mirakova took away from the documentary had little to do with poverty. She remembers conversations about family obligations in which people described leaving or separating from their own family for the benefit or needs of another family member. The exact form of this practice varied in the accounts she heard, but she was struck by the weight placed on family duty and sacrifice.

The filmmakers also encountered tattoos or markings that some people compared visually with an Indian bindi, although Mirakova stresses that these practices varied from person to person. Such observations should not be treated as evidence of historical origin, but they reveal the kinds of cultural details that rarely appear in public representations of the community.

She would particularly like to see more attention paid to weddings and craftsmanship. “I think their wedding traditions and craftsmanship, particularly carpet-making, deserve much more attention,” she said. “These are aspects of their cultural life that are rarely visible in the way the community is usually portrayed.” That absence is itself significant. Minority communities are often made visible precisely at moments of crisis: when discussing poverty, exclusion, documentation or discrimination. Cultural life is then treated as secondary. For Mirakova, reversing that hierarchy was one of the lessons of spending time with Lyuli families.

“We are at home”

The title of We Are (At) Home ultimately returns the discussion to belonging. Lyuli/Mughat communities may have distant histories connected with South Asia. They may retain names, memories or forms of identification that distinguish them from surrounding populations. But their contemporary lives have developed over generations in Central Asia. They speak Uzbek and Tajik, practise Islam alongside their neighbours, attend the same schools, work in local economies, produce household goods and build families in the same cities and villages. Yet they can still be described as outsiders.

The contradiction is perhaps most visible in the language used about them. “Nomadic”, “Gypsy”, “beggar” and “marginalised” can all become labels through which a highly diverse population is compressed into a single social image. None of this means overlooking real inequalities. Education, documentation, housing, poverty and discrimination remain significant concerns, and representation in higher education and national public life remains limited. But reducing the community to those problems reproduces another form of exclusion.

Mirakova’s experience suggests a different starting point. “I think their skills and everyday cultural life are largely missing from public portrayals,” she said. The most revealing thing about the Lyuli/Mughat may therefore not be how different they are from Central Asia, but how thoroughly their history has become part of it.

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

The post At home in Central Asia: the lives and identity of the Lyuli/Mughat appeared first on Novastan English.

In 1890, French photographer Paul Nadar travelled through Russian Turkestan, documenting cities, landscapes and everyday life along the newly built Trans-Caspian Railway. In 2026, Spanish photographer Pablo Martínez Muñiz retraced part of his journey, using Nadar’s archive to explore how Uzbekistan – and the way outsiders see it – has changed.

Paul Nadar’s journey to Turkestan

The history of nineteenth-century photography is full of epic journeys in which adventurous photographers set off to explore distant places carrying cumbersome photographic equipment.

Their motivations varied. Some, such as Girault de Prangey, travelled east as part of a broader investigation into the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. Others, such as Francis Frith, used travel to produce hundreds of photographs from around the world and build an international photographic business.

Paul Nadar’s journey to Turkestan in 1890 belongs to this tradition.

Paul Nadar (1856-1939), the son of the celebrated French photographer Félix Nadar, embarked that year on a two-month journey from Paris to Tashkent. He left Paris on 24 August aboard the Orient Express and reached Constantinople three days later. From there, he crossed the Black Sea by ship to Batumi before travelling via Tiflis to Baku.

Read more on Novastan: A condensed history

After crossing the Caspian Sea, he arrived at the Russian port of Uzun-Ada, the starting point of the recently constructed Trans-Caspian Railway. He then travelled by train through Bukhara to Samarkand, before completing the final stretch to Tashkent by horse-drawn carriage.

During the journey, Nadar took approximately 1,800 photographs. Most of the negatives are now preserved at the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie in Paris. The Getty Research Institute also holds an album entitled Photograph Album of Turkestan, 1890, containing 74 images in an unusual circular format. Other prints are scattered across private collections.

His photographs cover a remarkably broad range of subjects. He documented the Trans-Caspian Railway, its stations, workers and passengers. He photographed local rulers – emirs and beys – in portraits strongly influenced by contemporary Orientalist aesthetics. He also captured everyday scenes in the bazaars, streets and squares of Samarkand, Bukhara and Tashkent, as well as monuments, landscapes and equestrian and falconry competitions.

Taken together, the photographs constitute an extraordinary documentary and ethnographic record of Central Asian society at the end of the nineteenth century.

Nadar travelled not only with the equipment required to make large 30 × 40 cm glass-plate photographs, but also with two innovative cameras: the Kodak No. 2 and the Express Détective Nadar. Their capacity to take instantaneous photographs had a noticeable impact on the visual character of his work.

Yet Nadar’s photographs also reflected a European gaze shaped by Orientalism and by the geopolitical context of Russian expansion in Central Asia. They contributed to an image of Turkestan associated with the Western fascination with the “Orient”.

Read more on Novastan: A mosaïc wall

These photographs were therefore not neutral documents. They participated in the construction of a particular European idea of Central Asia, linked to colonial imaginaries and the romantic representation of the East that developed during the nineteenth century.

For me, one of the most interesting aspects of Nadar’s work lies precisely in this tension between documentation and cultural construction. His photographs have enormous historical and ethnographic value, but they also reveal a particular way of looking at and representing a territory, conditioned by the political and cultural context of his time.

Uzbekistan, 2026

During the first half of April 2026, with support from Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Tourism through the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Spain, I travelled to Uzbekistan to develop my photographic research and creation project, In the Country of Özbeg.

Taking Paul Nadar’s 1890 journey through Turkestan as its starting point, the project seeks to produce a contemporary reinterpretation of that experience through photography.

My aim was to return to some of the places photographed by Nadar and construct a new visual narrative about contemporary Uzbekistan. Rather than literally reproducing his historical photographs or indulging in nostalgia for an exotic past, I wanted to establish a dialogue between past and present – between two ways of looking at the same territory separated by more than 130 years of political, social and cultural transformation.

The Uzbekistan I encountered is, of course, radically different from the territory Nadar visited at the end of the nineteenth century. The Russian Revolution, the Soviet period and independence in 1991 were followed by profound urban, economic and cultural changes.

Read more on Novastan: Novastan Photo Contest 2026: the results

Infrastructure modernisation, the growth of tourism, the construction of a distinct national identity and the effects of globalisation have transformed both the physical landscape and everyday life.

Against this background, In the Country of Özbeg asks several questions. What remains today of the Orientalist imaginary constructed during the nineteenth century? How is Uzbek society represented now? How do contemporary processes of modernisation and tourism affect the visual representation of the country? And how can contemporary photography critically revisit images inherited from the past?

The project does not seek to provide definitive answers. Instead, it creates a space for visual reflection. I wanted to build a complex and open representation of Uzbekistan, avoiding exoticisation and focusing instead on tensions between tradition and modernity, memory and transformation, heritage and globalisation.

I worked in Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva – the latter being the only city among the four that Nadar did not visit.

Nadar’s archive remained a conceptual reference throughout the process. Some of my photographs establish direct relationships with his images, while others focus on aspects of contemporary Uzbekistan that have no direct nineteenth-century equivalent. Through this dialogue between historical archive and contemporary production, I wanted to reflect both on the transformation of the country and on the mechanisms through which photography itself constructs representations.

From Orientalism to spectacle

The nineteenth-century European Orientalist imagination perceived Central Asia as a world of madrasas, mosques and bazaars.

Today, however, there are other forms of architecture that can produce a comparable sense of visual estrangement while belonging to an entirely different historical and cultural context.

These include the striking examples of Soviet modernist and brutalist architecture found across Tashkent, from the city’s metro stations to Hotel Uzbekistan. But there are also more recent forms of architectural spectacle.

At Magic City in Tashkent, for example, an enormous fairy-tale castle reminiscent of Walt Disney architecture forms the centrepiece of an entertainment and commercial complex. It is a very different kind of exoticism from the one imagined by nineteenth-century Europeans, but one that is equally constructed through image and spectacle.

It is also significant to observe the Uzbek government’s construction of large cultural and religious complexes inspired by Timurid architecture.

This process of recovering and monumentalising the past creates new architectural icons intended both to project a national identity and attract cultural and religious tourism.

At the same time, these buildings reveal a tension between the recovery of tradition and the creation of genuinely contemporary architecture. Reproducing historical forms can produce an architecture close to scenography or pastiche, in which the past itself becomes an image used to represent the present.

Yet this tension becomes more interesting at the decorative level. Colours, geometries, latticework and motifs inherited from Central Asian traditions are being reinterpreted through new materials and technologies, producing a contemporary visual identity grounded in architectural memory.

The two images show the continuity and transformation of a characteristic Central Asian ornamental vocabulary.

Traditional combinations of brick and glazed ceramics in turquoise, blue and earth tones coexist with contemporary interpretations using glass, metal and modern construction techniques.

The same visual resources – colour, stars, diamonds and geometric grids – are rationalised into more regular patterns that not only decorate buildings but filter light and structure space.

This is therefore not simply a literal reproduction of the past. It is an aesthetic translation of heritage, in which historic forms and colours are abstracted and adapted to the present.

The Registan: from urban centre to global icon

Samarkand’s Registan is one of the places that most clearly illustrates the changes Uzbekistan has undergone over the past 130 years.

When Nadar photographed the square in 1890, it remained a centre of urban life: a place of commerce and movement, surrounded by madrasas that still served their original functions.

The buildings were in poor condition, but the space remained embedded in the everyday life of Samarkand.

Today, the Registan has become one of Uzbekistan’s most recognisable visual icons and a centre of the country’s booming tourism industry. Its monumental buildings have been extensively restored, while many of the cells that once accommodated madrasa students now contain souvenir shops.

The transformation is striking. The architecture survives, but the social function of the space has profoundly changed.

Representing Uzbek women

These photographs create a powerful visual contrast between two representations of Uzbek women separated by more than a century.

In Nadar’s photograph, the woman appears almost elusive, heavily covered and anonymous within the surrounding landscape. My photograph from 2026 presents a very different encounter: a grandmother and her granddaughter look directly at the camera with confidence and complicity.

The older woman’s traditional textile patterns coexist naturally with the younger girl’s pink sweatshirt. Their clothing, expressions and relationship suggest both continuity and change, while resisting the tendency to reduce contemporary Uzbek women to a single image of either “tradition” or “modernity”.

A globalised Uzbekistan

For me, these images capture Uzbekistan as a kind of living palimpsest, in which global modernity is written over layers of history without fully erasing them.

In the first photograph, a young Uzbek man poses in an FC Barcelona shirt. The club crest and Spotify logo form unmistakably contemporary symbols against a background of traditional brick architecture, illustrating the extent to which global mass culture has become part of local identity.

In the second, a balloon seller walks beside the historic brick walls of Bukhara’s Ark carrying a dense cluster of bright red heart-shaped balloons.

The plastic, ephemeral colour of the balloons stands in sharp contrast to the monumental architecture of a city that Nadar himself photographed in 1890.

Both photographs show how the symbols of the twenty-first century occupy the same spaces as the physical traces of historic Turkestan.

The road and the destination

These final two images bring the visual journey to a close by connecting movement with destination.

Nadar’s photograph documents the Trans-Caspian Railway, whose construction began in 1879. I find it fascinating to think that this infrastructure made his journey through the region – and therefore his photographic work – possible.

In his image, the railway appears fragile as it cuts across the desert landscape. To me, it evokes the epic quality associated with the early history of photography in this part of the world.

My photograph of Khiva’s walls represents the end of my own journey through Uzbekistan.

Read more on Novastan: In Khiva’s Old Town

Where Nadar’s image captures the infrastructure that enabled movement across the region at the end of the nineteenth century, my own gaze comes to rest on the solidity of Khiva’s adobe walls, glowing in the evening light at the final stop on my itinerary.

In placing these two photographs together, I wanted to connect the historical infrastructure that enabled Nadar’s exploration with the architecture that marked the conclusion of my own.

Epilogue

Travelling through Uzbekistan in Paul Nadar’s footsteps has helped me understand that photography documents not only space, but time.

In the Country of Özbeg was not conceived as an exercise in Orientalist nostalgia, but as a visual dialogue with a territory that is constantly being rewritten.

By confronting the photographic archive of 1890 with my own images from 2026, Uzbekistan emerges not as a static landscape, but as a society in which Timurid memory, the traces of the Soviet era and the symbols of globalisation coexist in everyday life.

My physical journey ended at the walls of Khiva, but the question of photographic representation remains open.

Looking at the present through the reflection of the past is, ultimately, one way of understanding how we construct our own identities in the mirror of history.

By Pablo Martínez Muñiz.

Pablo Martínez Muñiz is a Spanish photographer, university professor and researcher specialising in the history of nineteenth-century photography. He holds a PhD in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, where his doctoral research examined Orientalism in nineteenth-century photography and the relationship between photography, travel and representations of the East. His work combines artistic practice, academic research and teaching, with a particular focus on photography, territory, representation and Orientalist visual cultures. He is a professor and academic director of the Master’s Degree in Artistic Photography at the International University of La Rioja (UNIR) and a member of the Iranian Peoples Studies Group (GEPI) at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He is also part of the research project “Crossed Perspectives between the Iranian and Hispanic Worlds: Narratives and Representations in the Contemporary Era”, funded by Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Reference: PID2023-1502740A-100).

The post In the Country of Özbeg: Photographing Uzbekistan 136 Years After Paul Nadar appeared first on Novastan English.

Why Soviet borders do not make Central Asian statehood artificial

In January 2026, Russian state television commentator Vladimir Solovyov did what a small but persistent chorus of Russian nationalists has done regularly since the invasion of Ukraine: he described Central Asia as part of a natural Russian sphere of power and suggested that Moscow could extend its military operations there if it judged this necessary. The remark prompted a sharp response from Uzbek politician Alisher Qodirov, who dismissed it as propaganda and stressed that the states of Central Asia are sovereign and capable of defending their interests. The exchange was brief, but the argument behind it is familiar. Russian nationalist commentators periodically suggest that Central Asian sovereignty is somehow contingent – an accidental product of Soviet administrative borders rather than the outcome of a deeper political history. Western coverage often treats such statements primarily as geopolitics: another expression of Russia’s post-imperial anxiety or its competition with China for influence in the region. Recent analysis of Russian-Central Asian relations has documented the growing frequency of such irredentist rhetoric. That interpretation is not wrong, but underneath it lies a historical claim that deserves to be addressed on its own terms. The idea that Moscow simply “invented” the nations of Central Asia is misleading.

Soviet rule profoundly reshaped Central Asian nationhood. It territorialised identities, codified languages, built national institutions and created republics whose borders later became international frontiers. But that is very different from saying that Central Asian political identities appeared out of nothing in 1924. The process drew on pre-existing communities, political movements, religious institutions and local elites, and it was negotiated, appropriated and contested by Central Asians themselves. Modern Central Asian nations are therefore neither timeless entities that survived unchanged from antiquity nor arbitrary creations handed down fully formed by Moscow. They emerged from a much longer interaction between local political life, Russian imperial rule, indigenous reform movements and Soviet nationality policy.

Political life before the Bolsheviks

Central Asian nationhood cannot be understood by starting the clock in either 1917 or 1924. Pre-Soviet Turkestan was not an empty political space waiting for Bolshevik ethnographers to give it shape, although it would be equally anachronistic to imagine that the region already possessed mass national movements corresponding neatly to today’s five republics. Society was overwhelmingly rural, literacy remained limited, and modern political ideas about nationhood circulated mainly among relatively small urban and educated circles. Adeeb Khalid’s study of Jadidism and colonial society provides the key background for this pre-revolutionary political and intellectual landscape. Russian imperial rule had also transformed the region’s social and political structure well before the Bolshevik Revolution, particularly through settler colonisation, the creation of new administrative centres and the expansion of a Russian-speaking bureaucracy whose influence was disproportionate to the size of the settler population in many parts of the region.

The empire restricted indigenous participation in imperial politics while preserving a degree of local administration. At village and volost level, Muslim communities could manage taxation, minor judicial disputes and communal affairs, but their authority remained subordinate to Russian officials. Elections could be annulled, administrative decisions required approval, and Muslim political participation was constrained by the colonial state’s suspicion of wider political mobilisation. This system was therefore neither simple exclusion nor meaningful self-government. Russian rule combined political marginalisation with the selective preservation of indigenous elites deemed useful or reliable. The Emirate of Bukhara, for example, survived as a nominally sovereign protectorate under Russian domination, retaining its court, treasury and Islamic establishment. The Khanate of Khiva remained under a similar arrangement, while Kokand, regarded as less manageable and more threatening to imperial control, was annexed outright in 1876. Local political authority thus survived, but in fragmented and highly constrained forms determined by the priorities of empire.

Read more on Novastan: Bukhara Before the Border: Aini and the Politics of Tajik-Uzbek Memory

By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one of the most important new expressions of indigenous reform was Jadidism. The Jadids – their name derived from the usul-i jadid, or “new method”, of education – were Muslim modernists who founded schools, newspapers and theatres and sought to reform education, religious life and society in cities including Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara. Education stood at the centre of their programme. Some Jadid reformers advocated or experimented with education for girls well before the Soviet state later presented women’s emancipation as one of the defining achievements of socialist modernisation. Khalid’s work remains a foundational source on Jadid reform, education and indigenous intellectual life. This does not make the Jadids straightforward proto-nationalists in the modern sense, nor were they politically unified. But it matters because it demonstrates that debates over reform, identity and political authority already existed before Soviet power consolidated itself across the region.

The Jadids were not the only indigenous source of authority. The ulama – Muslim scholars, judges and teachers – represented another deeply rooted social and religious establishment. Some opposed Jadid reform, while others adapted to the changing political environment after 1917. Their authority was neither uniform nor uncontested, but it long predated the Bolsheviks and remained socially significant across much of Turkestan. A 2024 study of the Tashkent Ulama society documents how religious scholars organised politically during the revolutionary opening of 1917. By the time Soviet leaders began reorganising Central Asia, they were therefore not working on an empty political map. They were intervening in a region where multiple forms of authority, identity and reform were already competing, and where Muslim intellectuals, religious figures and local elites had their own ideas about how political life should develop.

What Moscow actually did in 1924

The decisive Soviet intervention came with the national-territorial delimitation of Central Asia beginning in 1924. The process reorganised the former territories of Russian Turkestan, the Bukharan People’s Soviet Republic and the Khorezm People’s Soviet Republic into new territorial units associated with particular nationalities. Yet the familiar image of Moscow drawing five modern states in a single bureaucratic exercise is misleading. The Uzbek and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics emerged in 1924, but Tajikistan initially became an autonomous republic within the Uzbek SSR before becoming a union republic in 1929. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan followed different territorial and constitutional trajectories, with their status continuing to evolve during the following decade. The map that ultimately became contemporary Central Asia was therefore produced through a process of repeated administrative and political decisions rather than one act of Soviet cartography.

Historian Francine Hirsch has shown that Soviet nationality policy was rooted in a particular Marxist understanding of historical development. Bolshevik officials believed societies moved through identifiable stages and that nationhood itself could be a necessary phase on the path towards socialism. This gave ethnography, census-taking and classification enormous political significance. Soviet experts attempted to identify populations, languages and national categories and then give them institutional and territorial form. The process was not simply descriptive: by deciding which languages would be codified, which categories would appear in censuses and which populations would become titular nationalities of republics, the Soviet state helped create the administrative reality it claimed merely to be recording.

Arne Haugen and other historians have placed greater emphasis on the political context in which delimitation occurred. Soviet leaders were wary of broader Turkestani, Muslim or Turkic political projects that might provide an alternative focus of mobilisation to Moscow, particularly after years of armed resistance and instability. The resulting territorial divisions therefore served both ideological and political purposes. But neither interpretation supports the simplistic idea that Central Asian nations were arbitrary inventions imposed on passive populations. Local elites participated extensively in delimitation debates, arguing over borders, cities, linguistic communities, economic resources and the status of particular populations. Their influence was constrained by Soviet power, and Moscow retained ultimate authority, but the process was not simply one of Russian cartographers drawing lines across a blank map.

This distinction matters because the argument that Soviet borders were politically constructed is true but insufficient. Nearly every modern state is the product of political construction, conflict and institutionalisation. The relevant question is not whether Soviet authorities drew borders but how those borders acquired political meaning and why they proved durable. Territorial delimitation nationalised space, but it did not by itself create fully formed nations. That required decades of institutional work carried out within the new republics themselves.

Nation-building was not a one-way process

Creating republics was only the beginning. Languages had to be standardised, alphabets repeatedly reformed, schools and publishing systems expanded, universities and academies established, literary canons assembled and histories written. New bureaucracies had to be staffed and new political elites trained. A central element of this process was korenizatsiya, or indigenisation, through which Soviet authorities sought during the 1920s to increase the presence of local nationalities in party structures, courts, ministries and other institutions. The policy was intended to make Soviet rule more legitimate and effective, but it also created cadres whose political careers, institutional interests and cultural projects became increasingly tied to the republics themselves.

Read more on Novastan: “Islands of Soviet power on the steppes”

Faizulla Khodjaev illustrates the complexity of this process. Born into a wealthy Bukharan family and active in the Young Bukharan movement before the consolidation of Soviet rule, he became one of the leading political figures of Soviet Uzbekistan. His career shows how pre-Soviet reformist politics could be absorbed into the institutions of the new republic. Similar processes occurred across the region as local teachers, writers, administrators and intellectuals entered Soviet structures and helped determine what Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik or Turkmen national culture would mean in practice. Their room for manoeuvre was never unlimited, but they were not merely passive executors of instructions produced in Moscow.

Soviet nation-building in Central Asia was therefore neither a unilateral imposition from the centre nor a freely chosen indigenous project. It is better understood as a process of co-production under profoundly unequal conditions. Soviet institutions provided the territorial framework, controlled the political boundaries within which nation-building could occur and possessed the coercive power to decide which political projects were permissible. Central Asian intellectuals, teachers, bureaucrats and political cadres nevertheless played indispensable roles in giving those institutions substance. The Soviet state did not merely classify nationalities; it also created institutional spaces in which local actors could standardise languages, construct national histories, develop cultural institutions and train republican elites whose interests increasingly became inseparable from the republics themselves.

This is why saying that Soviet rule shaped modern Central Asian nationhood is historically accurate, while saying that Russia “created” Central Asian nations and therefore somehow owns them is not. The institutions were Soviet, but Soviet was not synonymous with Russian. The Union itself depended on tens of thousands of Central Asian officials, writers, teachers and administrators who transformed republican institutions from bureaucratic categories into lived political and cultural structures.

The contradiction at the heart of Soviet nation-building

The same Soviet system that promoted national institutions also destroyed many of the people who had helped build them. This contradiction is essential to understanding the period and prevents the story from becoming either a celebration of Soviet modernisation or a simple narrative of national emancipation. The hujum, launched in the late 1920s, sought to transform women’s lives through a state-directed campaign against veiling and seclusion. The policy was presented as emancipation, but it also turned women’s bodies into symbols of a wider struggle over modernity, religion and political authority. The backlash was frequently violent, and women who unveiled could become targets of intimidation or murder. Soviet social transformation could therefore simultaneously expand certain forms of opportunity and impose them through profoundly coercive means.

A decade later, the Great Terror devastated the intellectual and political elites of the region. Many Jadids, former reformers and local Soviet cadres who had participated in building national schools, administrations and cultural institutions were arrested, purged or executed. Faizulla Khodjaev himself was executed in 1938. Adeeb Khalid’s work on Uzbekistan captures this contradiction particularly well: Soviet national institutions were built in part by a generation that the Soviet state later decimated. The system had encouraged local intellectuals to construct republican cultures, only to accuse many of those same intellectuals of nationalism once the political environment changed.

The republics, however, survived the people who had helped construct them. That fact complicates both Soviet triumphalism and the idea that the institutions of Central Asian nationhood were merely artificial shells. A school system remains a political reality even after its founders are purged; a standardised language continues to shape generations after the intellectuals who codified it have disappeared. By the middle of the twentieth century, the republics had become institutional ecosystems with ministries, universities, artistic establishments, party hierarchies and administrative borders that organised the lives of millions of people.

The republics outlived the Soviet Union

The political significance of those institutions became unmistakable in 1991. Central Asian republics did not generally campaign for independence with the intensity seen in the Baltic states, Georgia or parts of Ukraine. Kazakhstan was the last Soviet republic to declare independence, in December 1991, and its population had earlier voted overwhelmingly in favour of preserving a reformed union. Yet when the Soviet Union disappeared, the Central Asian republics did not dissolve into one another, and they did not surrender their sovereignty back to Moscow. Instead, each inherited national administrations, education systems, territorial borders, political elites and institutional cultures that had developed over decades. Their post-Soviet governments then reworked these inheritances to construct national narratives of their own.

This does not mean that Russian influence disappeared with the Soviet flag. Economic dependence, labour migration, Russian-language media, security arrangements and institutional ties kept several Central Asian states closely connected to Moscow for decades after 1991. Russia remained particularly important to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, while millions of Central Asian citizens continued to live and work in the Russian Federation. Political elites often maintained strong personal and institutional links with Moscow, and Russian remained an important language of administration, education and regional communication. The post-Soviet story was therefore not one of clean geopolitical separation.

But influence is not the same thing as ownership. The states of Central Asia continued to function as distinct political units because the republics created in the Soviet period had become much more than temporary administrative conveniences. Their borders structured economic life and political careers; their education systems created national publics; their cultural institutions produced literature, historical narratives and symbols that people increasingly understood as Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik or Turkmen. Post-Soviet elites had every incentive to strengthen these identities, because their own legitimacy depended on the continued existence of the states they governed. They did not need to invent national institutions from scratch. Much of the infrastructure of statehood was already there.

Why the argument matters today

This is where the historical debate becomes contemporary geopolitics. When Russian commentators describe Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan or other post-Soviet states as “gifts” from Russia, they rely on a particular reading of history: Soviet borders were bestowed by Moscow, and states created through those borders therefore possess less historical legitimacy than Russia itself. The implication is that sovereignty may be conditional, particularly when it conflicts with what Moscow defines as its historical sphere of interest. Recent FPRI analysis documents how this kind of irredentist rhetoric has increasingly targeted Central Asian states. That rhetoric echoes a broader revisionist understanding of the post-Soviet space in which Russia appears as the principal historical subject while its neighbours are reduced to administrative products of Soviet decision-making.

The war against Ukraine has made the political implications of such arguments impossible to dismiss. This does not mean that every provocative statement by a Russian television commentator signals imminent territorial ambition in Central Asia, and treating every rhetorical outburst as evidence of an approaching invasion would itself distort the political situation. But rhetoric matters because it helps normalise a hierarchy of sovereignty. Once some states are described as historically authentic while others are treated as accidental creations, territorial integrity becomes easier to present as negotiable.

Read more on Novastan: The Lexicon of Kazakh Decolonisation

Central Asian responses increasingly reject that hierarchy. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other states have diversified diplomatic, economic and security partnerships, expanded ties with China, Turkey, the European Union and Gulf states, and strengthened cooperation with one another. These policies are not necessarily anti-Russian. In many cases, governments continue to seek workable relations with Moscow while simultaneously reducing excessive dependence on it. What has changed is the growing willingness to articulate sovereignty as something inherent rather than something granted by participation in a Russian-led political space.

The history of Soviet nation-building helps explain that confidence. Modern Central Asian statehood was profoundly transformed by Soviet rule, and the republics, borders and institutions of the twentieth century remain central to the countries that exist today. But the region was not politically empty before the Bolsheviks arrived, and nation-building after 1924 was not carried out by Russians alone. It involved Muslim reformers, religious authorities, intellectuals, teachers, bureaucrats and political cadres from Central Asia itself – people who adapted to Soviet institutions, shaped them, resisted them and, in many cases, were eventually destroyed by them.

The historical reality is therefore more complicated than either nationalist myth allows. Moscow did not simply invent Central Asia, but neither did Soviet rule merely impose artificial borders on fully formed ancient nations. Modern Central Asian nationhood emerged from the interaction between older identities, imperial rule, indigenous reform movements, Soviet nationality policy and decades of local institution-building. The states that survived the Soviet Union are products of that history. That does not make their sovereignty artificial. It makes it historical.

By Shakhzoda Khusankhodjaeva. Shakhzoda is a researcher focused on conflict, gender, and regional politics, with a particular interest in Soviet and post-Soviet Central Asia.

The post Who Made the Nations of Central Asia? appeared first on Novastan English.

From Tashkent classrooms to Miami conservatories, violinist and researcher Irina Antsiferova traces how Uzbek composers transformed a Western instrument by drawing on local melodies, rhythms and performance traditions.

One of my childhood memories takes me back to Tashkent in 1992. I am sitting beside my mother in a taxi as we make our way through the city streets to my music school. The radio is playing, and suddenly the sound of a gijak, a traditional Uzbek bowed string instrument, catches my attention. I listen closely, fascinated by how familiar it sounds, and turn to my mother.

“It sounds so much like a violin!”

She nods.

We are on our way to the Uspensky Specialized Music School, where I was studying violin at the time, a school that continues to educate talented young musicians today. When I arrive for my lesson, I unpack my instrument and take out one of the pieces I am studying: Uzbek composer Nazarov’s Song and Dance.

Read more on Novastan: From Uzbekistan to Strasbourg: Aziz Shokhakimov, a conductor between cultures and languages

Suddenly, I hear a connection. The sound of the gijak that I had just heard on the radio and the music written on the page in front of me seem to belong to the same musical world.

Something clicks: this is how this music should sound.

I did not know it then, but perhaps a small researcher was already beginning to emerge inside me. That curiosity stayed with me for decades. Eventually, it led me to become a Doctor of Musical Arts and to devote my doctoral research to the role of Uzbek composers in developing repertoire for Western string instruments.

Discovering Uzbek music from America

When I later came to the United States as a student, I encountered an extraordinary mixture of musical cultures. In Miami especially, Latin American and Afro-American traditions are everywhere. I also encountered music connected with Native American traditions. Russian symphonic repertoire, meanwhile, is a familiar part of American conservatory and orchestral life.

Uzbek classical music was different.

Outside relatively specialised circles – particularly among musicians who had grown up in Uzbekistan or studied at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan – the composers I knew so well were largely unfamiliar.

Perhaps geography plays a role. Uzbekistan is thousands of kilometres from the United States. But its musical history is anything but isolated.

For centuries, the territory of present-day Uzbekistan stood at a crossroads of cultures. Persian, Turkic, Arab, Mongol and later Russian traditions intersected there. Its position along the Silk Road and centuries of political transformation produced a musical culture in which different traditions continually encountered and reshaped one another.

During the Soviet period, another major transformation took place. New theatres, concert halls and educational institutions appeared, including the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan, founded in 1936. Western classical forms and instruments increasingly interacted with Uzbek traditional melodies, rhythms and performance practices.

The result was not simply Western music with an “Uzbek flavour”. Over time, a distinctive musical language emerged, and with it generations of composers and performers who developed their own approach to Western classical instruments, including the violin.

Read more on Novastan: When the clarinet speaks Uzbek: bringing an overlooked classical repertoire to the world

One of the most fascinating figures in this story was Georgi Mushel.

Georgi Mushel: between Russia and Uzbekistan

Georgi Mushel was born in Tambov, Russia, in 1909 and studied at the Moscow Conservatory, where his teachers included Nikolai Myaskovsky, Mikhail Gnessin and the pianist Lev Oborin. The harmonic colours of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel also left a strong impression on his musical language.

In 1936, after graduating from the Moscow Conservatory, Mushel moved to Tashkent to teach at the newly established State Conservatory of Uzbekistan. The move transformed his musical life.

He immersed himself in Uzbek traditional music and became familiar with instruments such as the surnay, doira and dutar. He worked with Uzbek musicians and collaborated with ethnographer and composer Victor Uspenskiy. He eventually arranged 55 Uzbek folk songs, a project that became something of a compositional laboratory for him.

In his earlier compositions, Mushel sometimes quoted Uzbek melodies directly. Gradually, however, the influence became deeper.

Rather than simply inserting folk tunes into European compositions, he began to absorb their musical logic: modal writing, meaning music based on scales other than the conventional Western major-minor system; recurring rhythmic patterns; and textures that evoked the sound of instruments such as the dutar.

Read more on Novastan: Finding links between electronic and folk music in “Waiting for the Sea”

The Uzbek and European elements had begun to speak the same musical language.

A violin sonata that speaks Uzbek

One of the clearest examples is Mushel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Minor, composed in 1950 and dedicated to Mikhail Gnessin.

The three-movement sonata follows a recognisable Western classical structure, but listening closely reveals another musical world beneath it.

The second movement, Moderato con anima, is particularly striking. It is written in an unusual 5/4 metre – five beats to a bar – and draws on the Uzbek folk melody Gazhagim (“My Curls”), which Mushel had previously harmonised as part of his collection of 55 folk songs.

But melody alone does not explain why the movement sounds Uzbek.

Rhythm is equally important.

The heartbeat beneath the melody: usul

One of the fundamental concepts in Uzbek traditional music is usul, a recurring rhythmic pattern that provides the structural foundation for a piece.

Traditionally, usul patterns can be played on the doira, a frame drum widely used in Uzbek music. Performers produce contrasting sounds, often described as bum, a lower sound struck towards the centre of the instrument, and bak, a higher sound played closer to the edge.

What fascinates me as a violinist is the relationship between this stable rhythmic foundation and the freedom of the melody above it.

The usul can remain remarkably precise while the melodic line breathes with rubato – flexible timing in which the performer slightly stretches or compresses the tempo for expressive effect.

This matters when a Western-trained violinist approaches Mushel.

The notes may be printed using familiar Western notation, but playing them exactly as one might play Brahms or Beethoven does not necessarily reveal their character. Uzbek rhythmic interpretation can involve subtle emphases and flexibility that notation alone cannot convey.

The performer sometimes has to read between the lines.

In the second movement of Mushel’s sonata, rhythmic patterns can be connected to traditional Uzbek structures, including those associated with Chambarcha Irok (a 5/4 rhythmic pattern (usul) associated with the Irok repertoire of Shashmaqom). They can be heard particularly clearly in the left hand of the piano part.

There are other clues.

The movement’s modal language helps create its distinctive Central Asian character. At another point, Mushel seems to evoke the sound of the dutar, the traditional Uzbek plucked string instrument.

For the violinist, this changes the physical approach to the instrument.

I find that playing the pizzicato – plucking the violin strings rather than using the bow – closer to the bridge gives the notes greater clarity and helps suggest the sharper articulation of a plucked traditional instrument.

These may seem like small performance decisions. But together they reveal something important.

Performing this repertoire requires understanding not only what Mushel wrote, but also the musical culture from which those sounds emerged.

More than borrowing

This is what makes the Uzbek violin repertoire so interesting to me.

It would be easy to describe it simply as a meeting between “East” and “West”, but that formulation is too simple. What happened in twentieth-century Uzbekistan was more complex.

Western instruments such as the violin entered an environment with its own sophisticated traditions of melody, rhythm, ornamentation and performance. Uzbek and Uzbekistan-based composers did not merely place folk material inside European forms. They increasingly adapted those forms to another musical sensibility.

For performers, that means technique cannot be separated from context.

A violinist can play every written note correctly and still miss the character of the music. Understanding the rhythmic logic of the doira, the articulation of the dutar, the expressive flexibility of Uzbek melody or the sound world of the gijak can fundamentally change how a passage is approached.

That was the lesson I had already begun to discover as a child, without yet having the vocabulary to explain it.

From Tashkent to Miami

Mushel’s sonata remains part of my repertoire today.

And so does Nazarov’s Song and Dance – the piece I remember opening as a child after that taxi ride with my mother more than three decades ago.

There is something beautifully circular about that memory.

Back then, my mother and I were riding through Tashkent towards my violin lesson at the Uspensky School. I was a child trying to understand why the violin music on my stand sounded somehow connected to the gijak I had just heard on the radio.

Read more on Novastan: From Q-pop to Hip-Hop: Kazakhstan’s Multilingual Sound

Today, I drive myself to teach at a conservatory in Miami.

And the question that began in that taxi has never completely left me.

Only now, instead of asking my mother why these musical worlds sound connected, I explore that question as a violinist, teacher and researcher – and introduce my own American students to the Uzbek music that first taught me to listen differently.

By Irina Antsiferova.

Irina Antsiferova is a violinist, educator and Doctor of Musical Arts. Her research examines the influence of Uzbek musical traditions on repertoire for Western string instruments. She is currently based in Miami.

The post How Uzbek Composers Made the Violin Their Own appeared first on Novastan English.

What happens to a society when people are afraid not only of what might happen to them, but of what they might say about what has already happened?

In Uzbekistan, the memory of the 2005 Andijan massacre has long been shaped by silence. Nearly two decades later, Uzbek playwright Roma Egorov revisited the events in his theatrical piece Andijan Polka. But Andijan is not the only episode to raise questions about fear, memory and repression in Uzbekistan. The violence in Karakalpakstan in July 2022 also left its mark on a country undergoing profound transformation under the banner of Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s “New Uzbekistan”.

Nukus, July 2022

On 1 July 2022, thousands of protesters gathered in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, after proposed constitutional amendments threatened the republic’s special status and its constitutional right to hold a referendum on secession. What began as opposition to constitutional change became the most serious political crisis of Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s presidency.

Security forces used lethal and other excessive force to disperse protesters. Twenty-one people were killed and more than 270 injured, while more than 500 people were initially detained. Human Rights Watch later concluded that law enforcement officers had used excessive or unnecessary lethal force against largely peaceful demonstrators.

Read more on Novastan: Karakalpakstan: long prison sentences for participants in last year’s protests

The government declared a state of emergency and severely restricted access to information. Internet connectivity in Karakalpakstan faced major disruptions and near-total blackouts. I was in Uzbekistan that summer. For several days, Telegram – one of the country’s principal channels for news and public discussion – became inaccessible.

Information controls were hardly unprecedented in Uzbekistan. Following the 2005 Andijan massacre, the Karimov government had also sought to prevent independent reporting and restrict competing accounts of what had happened.

Yet the government’s response in 2022 also revealed an important difference from the Karimov era. Mirziyoyev travelled to Nukus and withdrew the disputed constitutional amendments, opting for political de-escalation even as security forces resorted to lethal force. Such a willingness to reverse a controversial policy in response to public pressure would have been difficult to imagine under Islam Karimov.

The concession, however, did not prevent the prosecutions that followed. The violence and subsequent trials exposed a contradiction at the heart of Mirziyoyev’s “New Uzbekistan”: the state had become more responsive and pragmatic, but its willingness to use coercion when its authority was challenged had not disappeared.

This combination of concession and coercion makes Nukus particularly revealing. It suggests that the reform era has changed the way the Uzbek state manages dissent without fundamentally altering the limits it places on political mobilisation.

Why Karakalpakstan reacted

To understand why the protests escalated so quickly, it is necessary to look beyond the constitutional amendments themselves.

Karakalpakstan occupies a distinctive position within Uzbekistan. The autonomous republic has its own constitution, while Uzbekistan’s Constitution historically recognised it as sovereign within the country and provided for the possibility of secession on the basis of a referendum. The proposed 2022 amendments would have removed constitutional provisions underpinning this special status.

For many Karakalpaks, this was not simply a technical legal change. It raised questions about autonomy, dignity and whether Tashkent was prepared to respect Karakalpakstan’s distinct political identity.

Geographically distant from Uzbekistan’s political centre and profoundly affected by the environmental catastrophe of the Aral Sea, Karakalpakstan has also faced serious economic and social challenges. Questions of representation, regional marginalisation and the relationship between the central government and the periphery formed part of the background against which the constitutional amendments were received.

As political scientist Sergey Horák has argued, the protests cannot simply be understood as a coordinated separatist campaign. Regional identity, constitutional anxiety and anger over the treatment of Karakalpak activists also shaped the mobilisation.

The government’s emphasis on separatism nevertheless helped recast a political dispute over constitutional rights, representation and regional identity as a question of state security. Once dissent was interpreted primarily through the language of threats to the constitutional order, the space for political dialogue narrowed considerably.

The events in Nukus therefore cannot be reduced either to a separatist movement or to a spontaneous outburst. They reflected a deeper unresolved question about the relationship between Karakalpakstan and the Uzbek state – and about how much political space the “New Uzbekistan” is prepared to leave for dissent.

What really changed under “New Uzbekistan”

The significance of Nukus becomes clearer when set against the substantial reforms introduced since Mirziyoyev came to power in 2016.

Following Karimov’s death, Mirziyoyev inherited a politically stable but economically restrictive and internationally relatively isolated state. At the centre of his reform programme was the concept of “New Uzbekistan” (Yangi O’zbekiston), which presented the new administration as a departure from the excesses and rigidities of the Karimov era.

The programme promoted economic liberalisation, administrative modernisation, regional diplomacy and greater international cooperation while preserving political stability and a strong presidential system. Its rhetoric presented Uzbekistan as a confident, reform-oriented state increasingly integrated into the global economy.

Some of the most consequential reforms occurred in the economic sphere. In 2017, the government liberalised the Uzbek som, ending years of rigid exchange-rate controls that had distorted the economy and sustained a large black market for foreign currency.

The change was visible in everyday life. Under Karimov, bazaars and streets were filled with informal currency traders calling out “Tenge! Dollars! Rubles!” With hard currency difficult to obtain at official rates, many Uzbeks relied on the black market. Currency liberalisation largely dismantled this system and was welcomed by international financial institutions and investors as a major step towards a more predictable economic environment.

It was followed by measures to ease business regulation, promote private enterprise and attract foreign capital. World Bank data show foreign direct investment net inflows increasing substantially over the longer term, from around $213 million in 2005 to approximately $2.7 billion in 2022, although flows varied considerably from year to year.

Equally important was Uzbekistan’s shift in foreign policy. Under Karimov, relations with neighbouring states were frequently characterised by mistrust, border disputes and limited regional cooperation. Mirziyoyev instead prioritised diplomacy and regional integration, improving relations with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan through reopened crossings, increased trade and negotiated settlements of long-standing disputes.

The difference could be felt at the border. Crossing Gishtkuprik between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan once meant long waits, cumbersome controls and, not infrequently, informal payments. For families separated by the border, even short journeys could become exhausting. The experience today is markedly different.

These changes matter. “New Uzbekistan” cannot convincingly be dismissed as a branding exercise. The country has become economically more open, internationally more engaged and, in important areas, administratively more responsive than it was under Karimov.

What did not change

Political liberalisation, however, has been much more limited.

Independent political parties continue to face major barriers. Elections remain tightly managed, while independent civil society organisations encounter significant obstacles to registration and operation. Freedom of expression has expanded compared with the most restrictive years of the Karimov era, but clear red lines remain.

Human Rights Watch, for example, has documented prosecutions under Article 158, part 3 of Uzbekistan’s Criminal Code, which criminalises public insult or slander against the president through the press, telecommunications networks or the internet and carries a maximum prison sentence of five years.

The apparent paradox is important. The reforms undertaken since 2016 were genuine, but genuine reform does not necessarily amount to democratisation.

Political scientist Vladimir Gel’man describes authoritarian modernisation as a model in which governments pursue socioeconomic development and technical reform while political freedoms remain outside the modernisation agenda or are postponed to an indefinite future. Although Gel’man develops the concept primarily in relation to Russia, it provides a useful framework for understanding the reform trajectory of Mirziyoyev’s Uzbekistan.

“New Uzbekistan” can therefore be understood as a form of authoritarian modernisation pursued through controlled liberalisation. Economic modernisation, improved public administration, international engagement and carefully managed openness can strengthen state capacity and legitimacy without fundamentally redistributing political power.

Rather than weakening the state, many reforms have made it more effective. Rather than dismantling presidential authority, they have operated within a system in which political power remains heavily concentrated around the presidency.

This is precisely why Nukus matters. The state has become more responsive, pragmatic and outward-looking, but political power has not been fundamentally redistributed. Authoritarianism was not dismantled. It was recalibrated.

Nukus and Andijan: continuity and adaptation

The comparison between Nukus and Andijan is central to understanding both what changed under “New Uzbekistan” and what did not. The two episodes were very different in scale and context, and equating them would obscure more than it explains. Yet the contrast between them reveals important continuities and changes in the Uzbek state’s approach to protest and coercion.

The defining episode of state violence under Karimov occurred in May 2005 in Andijan. Protests developed following the trial of 23 local businessmen accused of Islamic extremism and grew into a broader expression of anger over poverty, corruption and political repression.

Uzbek security forces opened fire on a largely peaceful crowd that included protesters and bystanders.

The true death toll remains disputed. The Uzbek government reported 187 deaths, while independent organisations, witnesses and activists produced considerably higher estimates. The New Humanitarian, reporting in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, cited local human rights activists who believed that more than 1,000 people may have been killed. No independent international investigation was permitted, and no one has been held accountable for the massacre.

The political aftermath was equally significant. The Karimov government rejected outside scrutiny and resisted international calls for an independent investigation. Uzbekistan subsequently entered a period of increased isolation from Western governments and institutions, while discussion of Andijan inside the country remained severely restricted.

The government’s behaviour during the 2022 unrest in Karakalpakstan was noticeably different. Mirziyoyev travelled to Nukus, acknowledged public opposition to the constitutional proposals and withdrew the amendments. The scale of the killing was also dramatically lower than the estimates associated with Andijan, and Uzbekistan did not retreat into the kind of prolonged international isolation that followed the 2005 massacre.

Yet the continuities remain difficult to ignore.

Security forces again resorted to unjustified lethal force against protesters. Protest leaders were prosecuted. Claims of torture and ill-treatment emerged. Meaningful accountability for the deaths and serious injuries has remained elusive.

The contrast with Andijan is therefore best understood not as a simple transition from repression to reform, but as a change in the way repression operates.

Karimov’s government answered political challenge with overwhelming force, denial and isolation. Mirziyoyev’s government showed a greater capacity for tactical retreat and political management. It withdrew the most controversial constitutional changes while simultaneously using coercion to reassert state authority.

Concession and coercion were not alternatives. They operated together.

That capacity to absorb pressure without surrendering political control may be one of the defining characteristics of the “New Uzbekistan”.

What happened afterwards

The authorities did not simply withdraw the constitutional amendments and close the episode.

More than 500 people were initially detained in connection with the July 2022 unrest. Human Rights Watch later reported that 61 people were criminally prosecuted over their alleged involvement in the demonstrations.

The most prominent was Karakalpak lawyer and blogger Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov. Before the unrest, he had spoken against the proposed constitutional changes and called for a peaceful protest. In January 2023, a court sentenced him to 16 years in prison on charges including organising mass riots and attempting to seize power.

His conviction has remained one of the most prominent symbols of the post-Nukus crackdown. In 2025, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that his detention was arbitrary and called on Uzbekistan to release him and provide reparations.

The pressure has extended beyond those directly prosecuted over the July demonstrations.

In February 2024, Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court designated the opposition movement Alga Karakalpakstan as “extremist” and banned its activities. Its leader, Aman Sagidullaev, who lives in Norway, had already been prosecuted in absentia and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Other people have subsequently been prosecuted for alleged membership in the organisation.

Uzbekistan has also pursued Karakalpak activists living abroad. Several diaspora activists in Kazakhstan were prosecuted in absentia, while Kazakh authorities detained others following extradition requests from Uzbekistan. Among them was Aqylbek Muratbai, a Karakalpak activist living in Almaty whose case Novastan has followed closely.

The crackdown therefore became transnational. Leaving Uzbekistan did not necessarily place Karakalpak activists beyond the reach of Uzbek criminal proceedings or extradition requests.

Accountability for the state’s own actions, meanwhile, has proceeded very differently. A parliamentary commission established to investigate the July 2022 events submitted its findings to parliament in December 2024, but the report was not made public. Human Rights Watch reported in 2025 that no one had been held accountable for 20 of the 21 deaths and that no senior official had been prosecuted over the excessive use of force.

The asymmetry is striking: numerous protesters and activists have faced prosecution, while accountability for the state’s use of lethal force has remained extremely limited.

The aftermath of Nukus therefore reveals the boundaries of political responsiveness under Mirziyoyev. The government could reverse the constitutional proposal that triggered the unrest, but it remained unwilling to accept autonomous political mobilisation challenging the state’s authority – or to subject the state’s own conduct to equivalent scrutiny.

What Nukus tells us about the limits of reform

“New Uzbekistan” is best understood as an authoritarian political system undergoing significant modernisation.

Its leaders have recognised that economic openness, administrative reform, better relations with neighbouring countries and international engagement can strengthen rather than weaken the state. They have also demonstrated that public pressure can sometimes require policy concessions.

But those changes have not extended to political pluralism, independent accountability or the redistribution of political power.

This brings us back to the initial question: what happens to a society when people are afraid not only of what might happen to them, but of what they might say about what has already happened?

Roma Egorov’s Andijan Polka matters because it returns through theatre to an episode long surrounded by silence. Nukus demonstrates that, despite significant political and economic change under Mirziyoyev, the state continues to influence the boundaries within which dissent, political mobilisation and collective memory can be expressed.

The contrast between Andijan and Nukus is therefore not a story of an authoritarian state simply becoming less violent. It is a story of an authoritarian system becoming more adaptive.

Karimov responded to a major political challenge with mass violence, denial and isolation. Mirziyoyev combined force with concession and political management. His withdrawal of the constitutional amendments demonstrated a flexibility largely absent under his predecessor, but the prosecutions, restrictions on political mobilisation and continuing lack of accountability demonstrated the limits of that flexibility.

The question is therefore no longer simply whether Uzbekistan has changed. It clearly has.

The more difficult question is how much of the past – and how much of the present – can be openly remembered, discussed and challenged in the “New Uzbekistan”.

Egorov’s return to Andijan through theatre suggests that memory can survive even when political space is restricted. Nukus poses the next test. The “New Uzbekistan” may have changed the way the state responds to dissent, but it has not yet resolved the fundamental question of what happens when citizens demand not only that the government change its policies, but that it answer for violence committed in its name.

Originally from Uzbekistan, Aliya Zaynullina is a human rights activist with a background in political science and law from Sciences Po Paris and Leiden University. Her work focuses on authoritarian regimes, human rights, feminist movements and foreign policy in Central Asia.

The post How New Is the “New Uzbekistan”? The Legacy of the Nukus Protests appeared first on Novastan English.

Historian Fernando Camacho Padilla, coordinator of the GEPI at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), discusses the cultural space linking Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and other Iranian-speaking communities – and why European academia still struggles to study these connections across modern regional boundaries.

Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan are usually placed in different academic and geopolitical categories. Yet the histories, languages and cultures of these countries – and of Iranian-speaking communities extending across Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East – have long been intertwined.

At the UAM, the Grupo de Estudios sobre Pueblos Iranios (GEPI) seeks to approach this wider Iranian world across modern political and disciplinary borders. Its members work on subjects ranging from history and literature to anthropology, gender studies, musicology and political science, while also examining the historical connections between Iranian and Hispanic societies.

Novastan spoke with historian Fernando Camacho Padilla, coordinator of the GEPI, about the meaning of the “Iranian world”, the place of Central Asia within it, the development of Iranian studies in Spain and the role academic diplomacy can play in maintaining connections across politically divided regions.

Novastan: To begin, could you briefly introduce yourself and explain how your interest in Iran and, more broadly, the Iranian peoples began?

Fernando Camacho Padilla: I had a certain familiarity with Iran from childhood, as one of my parents’ colleagues and friends was Iranian and we spent quite a lot of time with him. The Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War and the situation in the country frequently came up in family conversations.

Later, during the almost nine years I lived in Sweden, I met several Iranian exiles as well as young second-generation Iranians. In 2010, after reading extensively about the country and becoming increasingly interested in its geopolitical situation, I decided to travel to Iran.

I contacted the University of Tehran and proposed giving several workshops or courses on the contemporary history of Latin America, which was already my main field of specialisation. The response was positive and, in 2011, I had the opportunity to spend some time teaching at the university.

That experience allowed me to travel through different parts of the country for the first time. Between then and 2022, I travelled to Iran on nine occasions.

The name of GEPI refers to “Iranian peoples”, rather than simply Iran. How would you define this historical, linguistic and cultural space?

The “Iranian world” is still a relatively little-known concept and often causes some confusion, because its boundaries vary depending on the definition being used.

For GEPI, it refers to a broad cultural space encompassing areas of Central and Western Asia that have historically been shaped by Iranian civilisations or by the presence of peoples speaking languages belonging to the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family.

It is therefore not limited to the modern state of Iran. It also includes Afghanistan and Tajikistan, the Kurdish regions, and particular communities and historical areas in countries such as Syria, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, among others.

One element shared by many of these societies is the celebration of Nowruz, the new year festival with pre-Islamic roots that is closely associated with the Zoroastrian tradition originating in ancient Iran.

Read more on Novastan: Beyond fun and games – the politics of Nowruz

In Spain, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia are often studied separately. What do we lose by dividing regions with so many historical, linguistic and cultural connections into different academic categories?

This is an important problem in Spain, and one that specialists in the Iranian world have pointed out on many occasions.

So far, there has not been sufficient academic or political will to establish a distinct and permanent space dedicated to its study, as exists in other countries in Europe, Asia and North America.

Iran generally occupies a secondary place within programmes focused on the Arab or Muslim world, despite its obvious historical, cultural and linguistic particularities.

The countries of Central Asia, meanwhile, barely feature in Asian studies, which tend to concentrate on East and Southeast Asia.

Read more on Novastan: Bukhara Before the Border: Aini and the Politics of Tajik-Uzbek Memory

At GEPI, we try, within the limits of our resources, to help address this gap through academic and public-facing activities, including summer schools and short programmes dedicated to different countries, peoples and cultures of the region.

How have studies of Iran and the Iranian peoples developed in Spain? Which fields are relatively well established, and which remain largely unexplored?

The first courses on contemporary Iran and the Persian language began to be taught at the UAM in the mid-1970s.

Other institutions later followed, including the Complutense University of Madrid, the University of Salamanca and the University of Alicante, while some courses have also been offered occasionally in Granada and Barcelona.

The study of ancient Iranian history has a somewhat longer tradition, although it has generally been approached through archaeology.

By contrast, many other areas connected with the Iranian world remain almost entirely absent from Spanish university curricula. This is the case, for example, with the history and culture of Kurdish peoples, as well as the study of countries and regions such as Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

At GEPI, we try to fill part of this gap, although our possibilities are limited. The conditions at the UAM do not always make it easy to organise such courses, as they must be financially self-sustaining and cover all their costs through tuition fees. That means attracting a considerable number of students.

You coordinate the Group for the Study of Iranian Peoples at the UAM. Why was GEPI created, and what are its main objectives?

GEPI emerged from the need to bring together and coordinate Spanish lecturers and researchers – many of them of Iranian origin – interested in studying the Iranian world in all its breadth.

We also wanted to provide a common framework for the different projects and activities that were already under way, while establishing links with universities in the Ibero-American world and elsewhere.

The idea of creating the group first emerged in 2017, although it could not be formally established until December 2021. Our main objective is to give greater continuity and coherence to research on the Iranian world.

Read more on Novastan: From the Pamirs to the Aral Sea: Following the Amu Darya Through Central Asia

The group is interdisciplinary and brings together specialists in visual arts, history, gender studies, anthropology, musicology, political science and literature, among other disciplines, primarily within the humanities and social sciences.

In addition to regularly organising seminars and academic conferences, both in Spain and abroad, we have curated painting and photography exhibitions, created a podcast series featuring numerous interviews, and published books, academic articles and more accessible pieces for a general audience.

So far, we have developed three research projects, and we hope to launch new ones in the near future. These projects have already resulted in several books, as well as numerous articles and chapters in edited volumes.

Our research focuses primarily on relations, contacts and mutual representations between the Iranian and Hispanic worlds, both understood in a broad sense, although some members of the group also pursue research devoted exclusively to Iranian societies.

One of the main strands of your work concerns the historical relationship between Iran, Spain and Latin America. What have been some of the most important contacts between these regions?

Within GEPI, one of my main areas of interest is the historical and cultural relationship between the Iranian and Hispanic worlds. Contacts between them go back several centuries and encompass both political and social dimensions.

Among the most important sources are the chronicles written by diplomats who travelled in both directions from the 17th century onwards. These are of considerable historical and cultural value.

The work of the Spanish diplomat and traveller Adolfo Rivadeneyra is also particularly important. He travelled through Iran in the second half of the 19th century and left valuable descriptions of the country.

Curiously, despite being closer to us in time, the 20th century remains the least understood period in Iran’s relations with Spain and Latin America. Publications appearing in recent years are beginning to fill that gap, however, and GEPI has played an important role in this effort both within and outside Spain.

Among the lesser-known episodes are Ahmad Shah Qajar’s visit to Spain in 1922 and Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s visit in 1957, as well as the latter’s trips to Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico.

The growing presence of the Spanish language and Hispanic culture in Iran also deserves greater attention.

Personally, I am especially interested in the work of the Spanish representative in Iran during the First World War. In addition to protecting the diplomatic interests of powers belonging to both sides in the conflict, he intervened on behalf of Christian minorities in northwestern Iran during the second Ottoman occupation.

It was an especially dramatic period, marked by terrible massacres committed against Armenian and Assyrian communities.

Relations between Iran and Latin America are often portrayed as recent and driven primarily by contemporary geopolitics. What does a broader historical perspective reveal?

Unfortunately, that perception is widespread, largely because there is still a shortage of rigorous research based on historical archives.

The available sources show that relations between Iran and several Latin American countries began as early as the start of the 20th century and were marked by episodes of considerable interest that remain poorly understood.

During the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, these relationships became more intense and significant, particularly from the 1940s and 1950s onwards.

Iran developed important relations with countries including Argentina, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Peru and Chile.

It is a much richer history than is generally assumed, and one that still offers many possibilities for further research.

GEPI is involved in the project “Crossed Perspectives between the Iranian and Hispanic Worlds”. What does it mean to study these relations through “crossed perspectives”?

Speaking of “crossed perspectives” means studying these relationships in both directions, looking at how each space has come to know, interpret and imagine the other.

The project analyses images of the Iranian world constructed within Hispanic societies, while at the same time examining perceptions of Spain and Latin America that emerged in Iran and other societies shaped by Persian cultural traditions.

Through history, politics, literature and visual culture, we seek to understand which experiences, events and prejudices have shaped these representations.

We pay particular attention to periods of revolution, war and crisis, and to their impact on women, children and minorities.

The ultimate objective is to move beyond simplified representations and encourage a closer and more reciprocal understanding between the two worlds.

You have also studied the image of Kurdistan in the Hispanic world. How has that image developed historically?

The image of Kurdistan in Spain and Latin America is relatively recent.

Although earlier references existed in travel writing, literary works and specialist studies, for a long time they remained confined to a very limited audience.

Awareness began to grow in the 1970s and particularly in the 1980s, when the Iran-Iraq War and the development of mass media gave greater visibility to the Kurdish question.

Since then, the press, travellers’ accounts, literature and political solidarity networks have brought Kurdish struggles and experiences closer to Hispanic audiences, especially in the context of contemporary conflicts.

A generally positive image of Kurdish peoples has tended to prevail in the Hispanic imagination. They are often perceived as less fundamentalist than neighbouring societies, relatively more open on questions of gender and, above all, as victims of numerous injustices, persecution and repressive policies.

In Spain, the work of journalist Manuel Martorell has been crucial in bringing greater public attention to Kurdish history and society. In more recent years, I would also highlight the work of historian and writer Yashmina María Shawki-Aziz Gómez.

In your work, you have emphasised the importance of academic diplomacy. What can cooperation between universities and researchers achieve that traditional diplomacy cannot always accomplish?

Academic diplomacy has the capacity to build bridges where politics encounters obstacles.

Direct contact between universities, researchers and students makes it possible to share knowledge, establish networks of trust and maintain common projects even when relations between governments deteriorate.

It also helps people understand other societies beyond conflicts and the simplified images frequently presented by the media.

In the case of the Iranian world, these exchanges can reveal its cultural and social diversity and challenge many deeply rooted prejudices.

Academic diplomacy does not replace traditional diplomacy, but it can keep dialogue open during periods of tension and prepare the ground for greater mutual understanding and future forms of cooperation.

What practical difficulties stand in the way of academic cooperation between Spain and countries such as Iran, Afghanistan or the states of Central Asia?

The difficulties do not have a single cause, but rather reflect a combination of political, economic and institutional factors.

In the case of the Islamic Republic of Iran, relations are not a priority for Spain in the short or medium term because of the current context of war. Nor were they a major priority previously, given the nature of Iran’s government and the influence of the United States’ position.

Spain has generally maintained a somewhat closer and more amicable attitude towards Iran than some other European partners, although without developing a genuinely deep relationship. At the same time, it opposes the war, which it considers illegal and which has had terrible human consequences as well as repercussions for the global economy.

Read more on Novastan: Uzbekistan: towards greater cooperation with Iran?

With other countries in the region, the difficulties are different. Cooperation with Afghanistan is extremely complicated while the Taliban remain in power, particularly because of their treatment of women and other serious violations of basic human rights.

With Tajikistan, relations are practically non-existent.

The Kurdish question is also sensitive because one of the central principles of Spanish foreign policy is to avoid links or positions that could be interpreted as support for separatist movements.

In Iran, the Spanish Embassy provides support and assistance, and some individual initiatives receive funding. However, there is no substantial state budget prioritising this region, including through the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.

Political barriers, a lack of resources and limited knowledge therefore all play a role, although I would not necessarily describe the problem as a lack of interest.

The financial support received by some GEPI projects shows that there is a willingness to support initiatives focused on the region. At the same time, however, we also have to recognise that Spanish civil society and academia themselves need to show greater initiative in developing this kind of cooperation.

GEPI also organises public events, cultural activities and a podcast series. Why is it important for academic research to reach beyond the university?

We believe research acquires its full value when it is shared and helps people understand realities that often reach the public surrounded by prejudice or reduced entirely to political conflict.

That is why we combine seminars and conferences with exhibitions, cinema, music, public meetings and podcasts. These formats allow us to reach not only researchers and students, but also journalists, members of diaspora communities, cultural associations and anyone interested in Iranian peoples.

The response has been very positive, and we have achieved considerable reach beyond academia. Our mailing list now includes several hundred people, although only a minority attend events regularly.

What matters most is that many people with no formal connection to the university come to the UAM and participate in its activities.

Collaboration has been crucial to making this possible, including with other universities, associations such as the Centro Persépolis, different institutions and several embassies representing countries in Western and Central Asia in Spain.

These partnerships broaden our audiences and help turn the university into a more open space for encounter and dialogue.

Looking ahead, do you see opportunities to expand GEPI’s work on Central Asia and strengthen cooperation with researchers, universities and specialised media in the region and across Europe?

One of our next challenges is to develop more clearly defined research lines focusing on specific geographical areas.

We already have some experience working on Afghanistan and Kurdistan, but Tajikistan remains unfinished business for us, as do other parts of Central Asia about which there is still very little knowledge in Spain.

We believe there are good opportunities to strengthen cooperation with researchers, universities and specialised media both in the region itself and in Europe.

In particular, we are beginning to strengthen cooperation with the Centro Universitario Internacional para Europa del Este y Asia Central (CUNEAC) at the University of Cádiz, which already has solid academic links with several universities in Central Asia. So far, we have organised two major activities on Uzbekistan in Madrid, and we are beginning to plan others in Cádiz itself and at several Central Asian universities. We hope Novastan will be able to take part in some of these occasions.

We also want to continue the podcast series, broaden its themes and begin recording in more languages, rather than only Spanish and English.

We are particularly interested in developing closer links with the Portuguese-speaking world, especially Portugal and Brazil, and in conducting interviews in Persian, different varieties of Kurdish and other minority languages of the region.

In the longer term, we would like to establish an academic journal, although that will require greater institutional and financial support.

In any case, we remain optimistic. GEPI has continued to grow and expand its connections since its creation.

That has been possible thanks to the collective commitment of everyone involved in the group and their determination to develop initiatives that contribute to the growth of Iranian studies in Spain and Latin America.

Interview conducted in Spanish and translated into English by Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan English.

The post Iran, Central Asia and the Limits of Academic Geography 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.

Gulnoza Ismailova heads Uzbekistan’s El-Yurt Umidi Foundation, which supports Uzbek students and professionals pursuing education and training at leading institutions abroad. Her career has spanned academia, diplomacy, public administration and the Central Election Commission.

In this interview with Novastan Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine, she discusses Uzbekistan’s growing investment in human capital, the return of internationally trained specialists, cooperation with European universities, the changing expectations of young Uzbeks and the Foundation’s ambition to move “from mobility to co-creation.”

Novastan: To begin, could you introduce yourself to our readers? Your career has taken you through academia, diplomacy, public administration, the Central Election Commission and now El-Yurt Umidi. Looking back, what experiences have most shaped your understanding of Uzbekistan’s development?

Gulnoza Ismailova: Looking back, I realise that every stage of my career has shown me a different dimension of Uzbekistan’s transformation.

I began my career in academia, working with young people preparing for careers in the civil service and diplomacy. Those years convinced me that successful reforms always begin with people. They also showed me that Uzbekistan’s development depends on strengthening our own institutions while engaging confidently with the world, learning from international experience and sharing our own ideas and achievements.

My years in public administration taught me another important lesson: successful reforms are never simply about adopting the right policies. They also depend on strong institutions, professional civil servants and the trust of citizens. Building that trust takes time, consistency and people who genuinely believe in public service.

Together, these experiences naturally led me to my current role at the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation. If there is one lesson my career has taught me, it is that lasting reform begins with people. Strategies and institutions provide the framework, but it is talented and committed professionals who turn ambition into reality. That lesson continues to shape the way I think about education, public service and leadership today.

For readers who may not yet be familiar with it, what is the mission of El-Yurt Umidi? What challenge was the Foundation created to address?

Many people assume that the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation is simply a scholarship programme, but our mission is much broader.

The Foundation was created because the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, recognised that reforms require people with the right knowledge and international experience. A country can invest in infrastructure and technology, but without qualified specialists it is very difficult to achieve lasting change. That is where we come in.

Each year, we support around 500 talented young people who want to study or undertake professional training at universities and educational institutions included in the world’s top 300 rankings. Our scholars specialise in many different fields, from healthcare and engineering to public administration, education and digital technologies. What unites them is their desire to contribute to the country’s development.

Investing in human capital has become one of Uzbekistan’s key priorities. The economy is changing, technology is changing and the skills countries need are changing as well. If we want to remain competitive, we must prepare people who can work to international standards and introduce new ideas into our institutions and industries.

How has the way Uzbekistan thinks about education, talent and international cooperation evolved over the past decade?

I think the biggest change has been in the way we look at talent. Ten or fifteen years ago, studying abroad was often seen primarily as an individual achievement. Today, it is increasingly viewed as an investment in the country’s future.

There is also a much stronger understanding that education does not end with earning a diploma. We live in a world where technology, economies and labour markets are changing very quickly. Continuous learning, international exposure and the ability to adapt have become essential, both for individuals and for institutions.

The same shift has taken place in international cooperation. It is no longer simply about signing agreements or organising official visits. Today, partnerships are expected to produce tangible results, including joint research, academic exchanges, dual-degree programmes, scholarships, professional training and innovation. The emphasis is on creating long-term relationships that benefit both sides.

When selecting scholarship recipients, what qualities do you look for beyond academic excellence? What kind of future leaders does Uzbekistan hope to cultivate?

Academic excellence is certainly important, but it is only one part of the picture. High test results or admission to a prestigious university do not automatically mean that someone will make a lasting contribution to the country.

We also look for motivation, a clear sense of purpose and a genuine commitment to Uzbekistan’s development. We want to understand why a candidate has chosen a particular field of study and how they see themselves applying that knowledge when they return.

Another quality we value is curiosity. The world is changing so quickly that technical knowledge alone is not enough. We are looking for people who are open to new ideas, willing to learn from different cultures and able to work across disciplines and borders. These qualities are becoming just as important as academic achievement.

Many countries worry that students who study abroad will never return. How has Uzbekistan approached this challenge?

This is a question that every country investing in international education has to consider. There is no single solution, and I do not believe it is only about requiring graduates to come back. The more important question is whether they have meaningful opportunities when they return.

In Uzbekistan, our approach combines commitment and opportunity. El-Yurt Umidi scholars agree to return and work in Uzbekistan after completing their studies: three years for master’s graduates and five years for bachelor’s and doctoral graduates. We hope they see this not merely as a contractual obligation, but as an opportunity and a privilege to contribute to the country’s development at a time of profound transformation.

That commitment must be matched by real opportunities. Over the past several years, Uzbekistan has changed significantly. As reforms have accelerated, so has the demand for professionals with international education and experience across public administration, higher education, healthcare, industry and many other sectors.

Of course, our graduates may receive attractive opportunities abroad. What encourages them to return is the feeling that they can make a real difference here. They come back at a time when new ideas are welcomed, institutions are evolving and there is genuine space to contribute. Many tell us that this sense of purpose is one of the strongest reasons for building their careers in Uzbekistan.

Could you share some examples of former scholarship recipients whose experience abroad has made a tangible contribution to Uzbekistan?

There are many inspiring stories, and what I find most rewarding is seeing how differently our graduates contribute after returning to Uzbekistan.

One example is Bobur Turaev, a paediatric cardiac surgeon who studied at University College London with the support of the Foundation. After returning home, he became part of a team that successfully performed a highly complex heart-valve reconstruction on a six-year-old child using the patient’s own tissue. Today, he performs numerous life-saving paediatric heart operations, giving children the chance to grow up healthy and offering their families hope for the future.

Another example is Islombek Ismailov, a lecturer at Urgench State University. After completing his studies abroad, he dedicated himself to nurturing young mathematical talent. Under his guidance, his students have achieved outstanding results in international competitions. At the RUDN Math Olymp in 2025, they won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals. At the VI International Open Mathematics Olympiad in Ashgabat in 2026, they earned two gold, three silver and two bronze medals, while the university’s teams also received silver and bronze medals in the team competition. Editor’s note: RUDN Math Olymp is an international mathematics competition organised by RUDN University, also known as the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia.

I would also mention Husniddin Khidirov, who is involved in strategic projects at the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Company. He is applying the knowledge and international experience he gained abroad to one of Uzbekistan’s most important industries, helping strengthen the company’s strategic planning and project-management capacity.

These stories are very different, but they share a common thread. One graduate is helping save children’s lives, another is mentoring future mathematicians and another is contributing to the modernisation of a strategic industry. They remind us that the value of a scholarship extends far beyond the individual recipient.

This is how we assess the impact of our programme. We certainly look at the number of scholarships awarded, but what matters even more is what happens afterwards: whether our graduates improve institutions, introduce new ideas, advance research, mentor young people or contribute to the country’s development in other meaningful ways.

Which fields of study are currently the highest priority for Uzbekistan?

At the moment, our highest priority is STEM disciplines, as they provide the foundation for innovation, industrial development and economic competitiveness, all of which are central to Uzbekistan’s long-term development strategy.

Beyond STEM, we also focus on sectors that are driving the country’s economic transformation. These include energy, manufacturing, transport and logistics, agriculture and food production, tourism and services, healthcare, education and public administration.

We prioritise these fields because they are directly linked to Uzbekistan’s development goals. The country is modernising its economy, expanding digital infrastructure, improving public services, strengthening its healthcare and education systems and creating higher-value industries. Achieving these ambitions requires specialists who not only possess strong technical expertise, but also understand international standards and best practices.

As the country’s needs continue to evolve, our scholarship priorities evolve as well. We regularly review priority fields to ensure they remain aligned with Uzbekistan’s economic strategy and the skills that will be needed in the years ahead.

You have worked at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy, the Academy of Public Administration and now El-Yurt Umidi. How has the relationship between universities and public institutions changed?

I think there has been a very noticeable shift over the past decade. When I worked at the Academy of Public Administration and later at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy, cooperation between universities and public institutions certainly existed, but it was often limited to traditional areas such as internships, guest lectures or recruitment.

Today, the relationship is much more strategic. Universities are increasingly seen as partners in national development rather than simply as providers of education. Government institutions are working more closely with universities to identify the skills the country needs, develop new academic programmes, support research and innovation and prepare specialists for priority sectors of the economy.

At the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation, we see this transformation every day. We work closely with ministries, universities and employers to ensure that scholarship priorities reflect Uzbekistan’s long-term development goals.

Of course, there is still room for further progress. We need even closer cooperation between universities, government and industry to ensure that graduates have the skills employers are looking for and that research contributes more directly to innovation and economic development.

Compared with ten years ago, however, I believe we have made significant progress. There is now a shared understanding that developing human capital is a collective responsibility and that universities and public institutions achieve much more when they work together than when they work separately.

During your time at the Academy of Public Administration, you helped train future civil servants. What qualities do today’s public officials need that perhaps were not emphasised a generation ago?

The fundamental values of public service, including integrity, professionalism and responsibility, remain as important as ever. But I believe the expectations placed on public officials today are quite different from those of a generation ago.

One of the biggest changes is that we have become much more people-centred in the way we think about public administration. In the past, greater emphasis was often placed on hierarchy and administrative procedures. Since 2016, the focus has increasingly been on serving citizens, understanding their needs and improving the quality of public services. Ultimately, the success of any reform is measured by the difference it makes in people’s lives.

This shift requires a different set of skills. Today’s public officials need to be adaptable, open to new ideas and comfortable working across institutions. They need to use data and evidence to inform decisions, communicate effectively and build partnerships with universities, businesses, civil society and international organisations. Public administration has become much more collaborative.

I also believe that international exposure has become an important asset. It is not about copying what other countries do, but about learning from global experience and adapting successful practices to Uzbekistan’s own context. That is one of the reasons why the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation’s targeted traineeships are so valuable.

International education is about much more than acquiring technical knowledge. What ways of thinking do Uzbek students bring back from studying abroad?

I think the greatest benefit of international education is not simply acquiring new knowledge or technical skills. It is learning to understand context.

Today, almost any information can be found online. You can watch lectures from the world’s leading universities, read textbooks, access scientific journals and even learn new technical skills without leaving your home. But what you cannot learn from a textbook or the internet is how things actually work in practice.

When students study abroad, they are exposed to different academic cultures, institutions and ways of solving problems. They begin to see that every policy, institution and management system is shaped by its own history, culture and social context.

That experience changes the questions they ask. Instead of saying, “This is how they do it abroad, so we should do the same,” they begin to ask, “Why does this work in this particular context, and how can we adapt the underlying principles to Uzbekistan?”

I think that is a much more mature way of approaching reform. The ability to interpret context is one of the most valuable outcomes of international education. It is also one of the reasons why our graduates are often able to become effective agents of change within their own institutions.

Europe remains an important destination for Uzbek students. Beyond rankings, what makes European universities particularly valuable partners?

It is their educational philosophy. The mission of many European universities is not simply to produce highly qualified specialists, but to educate responsible citizens and future leaders who understand their role in society. This humanistic tradition has shaped European higher education for centuries and remains one of its greatest strengths.

Students are encouraged to think independently, question assumptions, engage in respectful debate and reflect on the broader social impact of their work. In other words, universities cultivate judgement, not just expertise. They place great emphasis on holistic development alongside academic achievement, helping students develop intellectual curiosity, ethical responsibility and a strong sense of civic engagement.

For us, this is particularly valuable. Uzbekistan needs highly qualified professionals, but it also needs people who are prepared to take responsibility, contribute to public life and help strengthen institutions.

That is why we look beyond rankings when choosing international partners. We value universities whose academic culture is built on openness, academic integrity, critical inquiry and a commitment to serving society. Those qualities help shape graduates who are not only excellent professionals, but also active citizens and future leaders capable of contributing to Uzbekistan’s long-term development.

What opportunities would you encourage French and European universities to explore in Uzbekistan?

I would encourage them to think beyond the traditional model of international cooperation. Student mobility will always remain important, but I believe the greatest opportunities now lie in building long-term institutional partnerships.

Our ambition is to move from mobility to co-creation: from simply sending students abroad to creating knowledge, innovation and solutions together.

I see particularly strong potential in joint research projects, dual-degree programmes, faculty exchanges, the co-supervision of doctoral students and collaborative research centres in areas such as green technologies, water and environmental sustainability, healthcare, space and engineering. These are fields where international cooperation can generate tangible benefits for both Uzbekistan and Europe.

I also believe there is significant untapped potential in strengthening cooperation between universities and industry. One example is our recent partnership involving the French National School of Civil Aviation, ENAC, Airbus and Tashkent State Transport University to develop a joint educational programme in civil aviation.

Initiatives like this demonstrate how academia, government and industry can work together to prepare specialists whose skills are directly relevant to the labour market, while also supporting technological development and innovation.

Can educational cooperation achieve things that traditional diplomacy cannot?

I believe higher education is one of the most powerful forms of diplomacy. Governments can sign agreements, but it is people who build lasting relationships. Universities create those human connections.

Every student, researcher or professor who spends time in another country gains something much more valuable than academic knowledge. They develop friendships, professional networks and a deeper understanding of another culture. Those relationships often last for decades and continue long after a particular project or government programme has ended.

In that sense, educational cooperation can sometimes achieve things that traditional diplomacy cannot. Diplomacy operates through governments, while universities connect societies. They build trust, encourage dialogue and create communities of people who continue working together throughout their careers.

I also believe education creates a different kind of ambassador. When students study abroad, they represent their country every day, not through official speeches, but through their work, their values and their interactions with others. At the same time, they return home with a deeper understanding of another society.

Political priorities may change over time, but relationships built through education, research and shared knowledge tend to endure. That is why I see higher education not only as an investment in human capital, but also as an investment in peace, mutual understanding and the future of Uzbekistan’s partnership with Europe.

Uzbekistan is becoming increasingly visible in Europe, yet many people still know relatively little about it. What would you most like European audiences to understand about the country today?

I think the biggest misconception is that many people still have an outdated image of Uzbekistan. Over the past several years, Uzbekistan has changed remarkably, and it is transforming much faster than many people outside the region realise. Today, it is a country of opportunities, yet perceptions often take longer to change than reality.

I would also encourage people to look beyond the headlines and discover Uzbekistan’s rich intellectual, scientific and cultural heritage. Central Asia has been a crossroads of civilisations for centuries, and Uzbekistan has a long tradition of scholarship, science and cultural exchange. Today, we are building on that heritage while embracing new ideas and international cooperation.

Finally, I hope more people will see Uzbekistan not simply as a country seeking partners, but as a partner with something meaningful to contribute. We believe international cooperation works best when it is based on mutual respect, shared learning and common goals.

Whether in higher education, research or innovation, we see our relationship with Europe as a genuine partnership, one in which both sides learn from each other and grow together.

Having worked with several generations of students and young professionals, how would you describe today’s young Uzbeks?

If I had to describe today’s young Uzbeks in a few words, I would say they are full of hope, dynamic, highly motivated and remarkably diverse.

They have a wide range of interests and aspirations. Some are passionate about artificial intelligence and engineering, others about entrepreneurship, science, public service, culture or the creative industries. This diversity is one of the greatest strengths of today’s generation.

I also find them to be much more globally connected than previous generations. As both an educator and a mother, I see this not only through the thousands of scholarship applicants I meet, but also through my own children. Their curiosity, confidence and ability to navigate an increasingly interconnected world reflect the qualities I see in so many young Uzbeks today.

What impresses me most is their confidence during interviews. They communicate easily across cultures and are eager to learn from the best universities around the world. At the same time, many of them have a strong desire to contribute to Uzbekistan’s future. They do not see international education as an opportunity to leave the country forever, but as a way to gain knowledge and experience that they can bring home.

Their expectations are also changing. They want opportunities to grow, to be challenged and to have their ideas heard. They value merit, openness and continuous learning, and they are looking for environments where initiative and creativity are encouraged.

Women are playing an increasingly visible role in Uzbekistan’s public and professional life. What trends have you observed among female scholarship recipients?

Over the past several years, I have seen a very encouraging change. More and more young women are pursuing international education, taking on leadership roles and building successful careers in fields in which women were traditionally underrepresented.

This progress has not happened by chance. It reflects the strong political commitment of the President of Uzbekistan to expanding opportunities for women and ensuring that girls’ education and women’s leadership are recognised as national priorities.

As a result, society has become increasingly supportive of women’s education, and today we see more women serving in senior leadership and decision-making positions across government, academia and the private sector.

At the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation, we see this trend very clearly. Nearly 30 per cent of our scholarship recipients are women, and every year we meet more talented young women studying engineering, artificial intelligence, medicine, public administration, economics and many other fields. They are ambitious, highly motivated and increasingly confident in pursuing their professional goals.

At the same time, I believe there is still more we can do, particularly in STEM disciplines, where women remain underrepresented around the world. This is not simply a question of representation. Countries are stronger when they are able to benefit from the talents of all their people.

That is why we are working with the British Council to launch a joint Women in STEM scholarship initiative. The programme is designed to support talented Uzbek women pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, while also encouraging more young women to consider careers in these fields.

We see this as an investment not only in individual scholars, but also in the future scientific and technological capacity of Uzbekistan.

Artificial intelligence, digitalisation and the green transition are transforming labour markets worldwide. How is El-Yurt Umidi adapting?

The pace of technological change means that no scholarship programme can remain static. We have to anticipate the skills that will be needed not only today, but five or ten years from now.

At the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation, we regularly review our scholarship quotas for priority fields to ensure they remain aligned with Uzbekistan’s national development priorities and the changing demands of the global economy.

This is an ongoing process. Every year, we assess emerging trends, consult with ministries, universities and industry and adjust our priorities accordingly.

Today, we are placing particular emphasis on areas such as artificial intelligence, information and communication technologies, cybersecurity, biotechnology, advanced engineering, renewable energy and other STEM disciplines.

At the same time, we recognise that technological transformation also requires strong expertise in public policy, education, healthcare and management to ensure that innovations are implemented effectively and responsibly.

But I believe the future will depend on more than technical expertise alone. The professionals who thrive in the coming decades will be those who combine deep knowledge in their field with adaptability, critical thinking, digital literacy and the ability to work across disciplines and cultures.

As technologies evolve, the ability to continuously learn, unlearn and relearn may become the most important skill of all.

Across the different institutions where you have worked, what have been the most encouraging changes in Uzbekistan’s governance? What challenges remain?

The most encouraging change, in my view, has been the transformation of public administration itself.

Today, there is a much stronger focus on strategic planning, project management, digital transformation, evidence-based policymaking and performance measurement. Public institutions are increasingly expected not only to implement policies, but also to think strategically, anticipate future challenges and evaluate the real impact of their work.

We have also seen a major shift towards a more people-centred approach to governance. A good example is the mahallabay approach, which brings public services and decision-making closer to communities by identifying needs and solving problems at the neighbourhood, or mahalla, level.

Today, success is measured not simply by whether a task has been completed, but by whether it improves people’s lives. I believe this represents an important evolution in the philosophy of public administration.

At the same time, every reform brings new expectations. One of the greatest challenges is ensuring that these new approaches become embedded in institutional culture rather than depending on the enthusiasm of individual leaders or teams.

Strategic planning, project management and digital transformation are not simply new management tools. They require new ways of thinking, stronger coordination across institutions and continuous investment in people’s skills.

Looking ahead, what would success look like for El-Yurt Umidi in ten years’ time?

I am a very ambitious person when it comes to investing in people and in my country’s future.

I hope the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation will be known not simply as a scholarship foundation, but as one of the key institutions driving Uzbekistan’s human-capital development.

I hope the Foundation will strengthen its broader strategic role. Beyond supporting individual scholars, we want to help identify the skills Uzbekistan will need in the future, strengthen cooperation between education, government and industry and contribute to shaping national human-capital policies.

In other words, I would like the El-Yurt Umidi Foundation to become not only a scholarship provider, but also a centre of expertise in talent development and workforce planning.

Internationally, I hope we will be recognised as a trusted partner by leading universities, research institutions and governments around the world. Our ambition is to move from mobility to co-creation, from sending students abroad to building long-term partnerships in education, research and innovation that create value for everyone involved.

I would like people to look back and say that El-Yurt Umidi helped shape a generation of professionals who transformed Uzbekistan not only through their knowledge and expertise, but through their integrity, openness and commitment to serving society.

If, in ten years’ time, our graduates are strengthening institutions, advancing science, improving healthcare, modernising industry and building lasting bridges between Uzbekistan and the rest of the world, I believe we will have fulfilled our mission.

Finally, what message would you like to send to European universities, researchers, students and policymakers about Uzbekistan today?

My message would be very simple: this is the right time to engage with Uzbekistan.

I would encourage European universities, researchers and policymakers to look beyond old perceptions and discover today’s Uzbekistan for themselves. You will find talented young people, ambitious universities, committed institutions and partners who are genuinely interested in learning, collaborating and creating knowledge together.

Uzbekistan is a country with a rich history, a vibrant culture and a young generation determined to shape a better future. We are proud of our heritage, but we are equally excited about the future we are building, one that is open, innovative and connected to the world.

I would also encourage students and researchers to consider Uzbekistan as a place for academic exchange, joint research and innovation. International cooperation should always be a two-way process. We have much to learn from Europe, but we also have our own experience, perspectives and ideas to contribute.

I sincerely hope that more European colleagues will visit our country, meet our people and experience Uzbekistan first-hand. I am confident they will discover not only a reliable academic and research partner, but also the warmth, hospitality and openness that define our nation.

The best way to understand today’s Uzbekistan is to experience it.

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

The post “This is the right time to engage with Uzbekistan”: Gulnoza Ismailova on education, talent and the country’s future appeared first on Novastan English.

Clarinetist Sayyod Mirzomurodov and pianist Mariya Akhadjanova have released Contemporary Uzbek Music for Clarinet and Piano, the first commercial album devoted entirely to contemporary Uzbek repertoire for the two instruments. Issued by the British label Clarinet & Saxophone Classics, the 72-minute recording brings together nine works by six composers, all presented as world-premiere recordings.

The project combines established pieces with new works written specifically for Mirzomurodov. It grew out of his effort to document, expand and bring international attention to a repertoire that had often remained inaccessible beyond Uzbekistan because of the scarcity of published scores, professional recordings and international distribution.

In this interview with Novastan’s Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine, Mirzomurodov discusses his path from Surkhandarya to the United States, the influence of maqom and other Uzbek musical traditions on contemporary composition, his collaboration with Akhadjanova and the wider challenge of bringing Uzbek academic music to international audiences.

Novastan: Could you begin by telling us about your path as a clarinetist and your relationship with Uzbek classical music?

Sayyod Mirzomurodov: I was born and raised in O’zgarish, in the Sariosiyo district of Surkhandarya, in southern Uzbekistan. Music was present in my family from an early age. My father, Sultonmurod Saidov, was an artist and founded the Tajik band Parvin, which was known not only in Surkhandarya but also in Samarkand, Bukhara, Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

He was a perfectionist who expected a very high standard from himself. His seriousness towards artistic work had a lasting influence on me.

When I was in the fifth grade, I moved to Tashkent and entered the V. A. Uspensky Specialized Music School, where I began studying the clarinet. I later continued at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan. My clarinet teacher, Bakhodir Salikhov, played an especially important role in my development.

Read more on Novastan: From Uzbekistan to Strasbourg: Aziz Shokhakimov, a conductor between cultures and languages

Another major influence was Timur Vyacheslavovich Mirzaev, the conductor of the student wind orchestra. His detailed and inspiring approach encouraged me to think beyond simply playing the correct notes and to understand the larger meaning, character and structure of the music.

In 2017, I moved to the United States to study with Amanda McCandless at the University of Northern Iowa, where I completed a Master of Music degree in clarinet performance. I later began a Doctor of Musical Arts programme at the University of Iowa, studying with Jorge Montilla and working as a teaching assistant.

Most of my early formal education was centred on the Western classical tradition. I played the standard European clarinet repertoire but did not yet have a deep understanding of the history and richness of Uzbek academic music.

As my career developed, especially after I left Uzbekistan, I became increasingly interested in my own cultural and musical roots. I began searching for works by Uzbek composers, speaking with composers directly, researching maqom and Uzbek musical history and presenting this repertoire in my recitals.

What began as a personal search eventually became a central part of my artistic work and a responsibility that I felt towards this repertoire.

How did the idea for an album devoted entirely to Uzbek clarinet music emerge?

The idea first came to me when I was an undergraduate at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan. Even then, I understood that the main problem was not necessarily an absence of repertoire. Much of the repertoire was simply insufficiently documented, professionally recorded, published or made available internationally.

When I began my doctoral studies at the University of Iowa, I learned that I could complete a major creative recording project as part of my doctoral work. I immediately knew that I wanted to record Uzbek music.

Initially, I imagined documenting several existing works. But I also wanted the project to stimulate the creation of new repertoire. I first approached Nurali Erkaev and explained my idea to him. He responded enthusiastically and wrote Sonata-Fantaziya for me.

Through that collaboration, I developed connections with other composers. Sherzod Sobirov wrote his Fantasy, Farrukh Akramov composed his Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, and Mustafo Bafoyev wrote Buxorcha. All four works were dedicated to me. Bafoyev later wrote another piece for me, Ston Serdtsa – Cry of the Heart – which will be included on my next album.

What began as a smaller doctoral recording project eventually expanded into a 72-minute album containing nine works by six composers.

I realised there was enough material for a complete album when I saw how the new commissions could be placed alongside important existing works, including Anvar Ergashev’s Eastern Capriccio, Mustafo Bafoyev’s Clarinet Concerto and lyrical pieces representing other dimensions of the Uzbek school of composition.

The album is therefore not simply a collection of unrelated works. It presents several generations, forms and artistic directions, including fantasy, sonata, song-poem, poem-ballad, lyrical miniature, capriccio and concerto.

Together, these pieces demonstrate that Uzbek clarinet music already possesses considerable artistic depth and diversity, even though none of them had previously been commercially recorded.

Who are the composers represented on the album?

The album includes six composers from different generations and artistic directions within Uzbek professional music.

Mustafo Bafoyev is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Uzbek music. His catalogue includes symphonic, chamber, operatic, ballet and stage music. His works combine Uzbek and Tajik intonational traditions with a sophisticated contemporary language.

Four of his works appear on the album, making him a central figure in the programme. They reveal different periods and dimensions of his music, from the early lyricism of Lirik Hikoya to the large-scale Clarinet Concerto and the newly composed Buxorcha.

Habibulla Rahimov is an established composer and educator with extensive experience writing for wind instruments. His music has been performed in Uzbekistan, elsewhere in Central Asia and internationally. His Poema-ballada represents one of the album’s more abstract and experimental sound worlds.

Anvar Ergashev was one of Uzbekistan’s most influential composers, as well as an accomplished pianist and conductor. His music is distinguished by vivid imagery, theatrical energy, rich instrumental colour and strong emotional intensity. He combined European classical forms with Eastern melodic and rhythmic traditions in a highly individual manner.

His Eastern Capriccio, written for the clarinetist Bakhodir Salikhov, is probably the most frequently performed Uzbek clarinet work represented on the album. It combines virtuosity, lyricism, improvisatory freedom and a strong theatrical character.

Nurali Erkaev is a composer, scholar and educator whose work combines serious academic research with creative imagination. His Sonata-Fantaziya brings together maqom-inspired phrasing, contemporary harmony, rhythmic transformation and the dramatic freedom of the fantasy genre.

Farrukh Akramov represents a younger generation of Uzbek composers connected with international contemporary-music festivals and masterclasses. His music combines modal lyricism and carefully developed musical ideas with modern harmony and texture.

Sherzod Sobirov is a composer and educator whose work includes chamber music, orchestration and music for traditional Uzbek instruments. His Fantasy has strong rhythmic energy, lyrical contrast and a contemporary treatment of Uzbek musical colour.

Together, these composers show that Uzbek academic music cannot be reduced to a single style. The album connects established senior figures with younger composers who are continuing and transforming the tradition in their own ways.

Is there something recognisably Uzbek about music written for Western instruments such as the clarinet and piano?

Yes, although it is not always a matter of hearing a direct quotation from a traditional melody. In many of these works, the Uzbek character is expressed through melodic behaviour, ornamentation, modal colour, rhythm, flexibility of phrasing and the relationship between instrumental music and the human voice.

Maqom and shashmaqom are especially important sources. Their influence can be heard in characteristic modal patterns, melodic turns, ornamental figures, rhythmic organisation and the gradual development of a musical line. Certain passages use modal inflections resembling a Phrygian colour, as well as augmented seconds and other intervals associated with Eastern melodic expression. Traditional rhythmic cycles, or usul, also influence contemporary works, sometimes through irregular or changing metres.

Another important quality is nola: an emotionally charged melodic sigh or cry. In Uzbek music, a line is often expected to breathe, bend, ornament and intensify almost as a singer would. The clarinet is particularly suited to this language because its sound can be very close to the human voice. It can move from an intimate, almost whispered tone to intense expression, laughter-like brightness or virtuosic energy.

Bafoyev’s Buxorcha, for example, draws on the musical world of Bukhara and on intonations related to mavrigi, shashmaqom and local song-and-dance traditions. The clarinet takes on a vocal and ornamented role, while the piano provides a flexible harmonic and rhythmic framework and participates actively in the musical dialogue. Together, the two instruments move between reflective lyricism and energetic, dance-like motion.

Sobirov’s Fantasy uses a Phrygian-flavoured sound world, song-like melodic lines, rapid changes of character and dance-like rhythmic energy. Erkaev’s Sonata-Fantaziya places maqom-inspired phrasing and rhythmic patterns within a contemporary harmonic framework.

Ergashev’s Eastern Capriccio uses augmented seconds, chromatic figuration, ornamentation, changing metres and rhythmic freedom to create an improvisatory character.

The music is therefore recognisably Uzbek not because every work imitates traditional music, but because the composers have absorbed its way of breathing, shaping melody, creating rhythm and expressing emotion.

How did the encounter between European classical forms and local traditions shape Uzbek composition?

The development of Uzbek academic music during the twentieth century involved a complex encounter between two musical systems.

Uzbekistan already possessed highly developed traditions such as maqom, shashmaqom, folk song, regional dance music and the ustoz-shogird teacher-student system, through which music was passed from one generation to another through listening, imitation, direct practice and close personal instruction.

During the Soviet period, Western systems of notation, harmony, counterpoint, formal design, orchestration and conservatory education became institutionalised.

This encounter transformed both traditions. Uzbek composers began using Western forms such as the sonata, concerto, symphony, opera, ballet and chamber ensemble while drawing on local modes, melodic gestures, rhythms, poetry and instrumental colours.

The move towards notation and institutional education was also important. Figures such as Yunus Rajabiy helped preserve and notate maqom repertoire, allowing later composers and conservatory-trained performers to study this material and reinterpret it for modern instruments.

Earlier composers such as Mutal Burhanov, Sulaymon Yudakov, Tolibjon Sadikov and Mansur Mansurov helped establish the foundations of Soviet-era Uzbek academic music. Later composers, including Felix Yanov-Yanovsky, developed increasingly individual and sophisticated musical languages.

Since independence, the interaction between national tradition and contemporary composition has continued, but it has become more stylistically diverse.

Some composers remain close to maqom, folk melody and recognisable regional traditions. Others use abstraction, dissonance, experimental textures or international contemporary techniques while retaining subtler elements of Uzbek musical thinking.

Contemporary Uzbek academic music is therefore not simply Western music with Eastern decoration. It is the result of more than a century of creative interaction between different systems of musical thought.

How did you locate the music, and what was it like to work directly with the composers?

The process was based largely on personal research and direct contact with composers, their families and performers connected with the repertoire.

None of the nine works on the album had previously been commercially recorded, although some, especially Ergashev’s Eastern Capriccio, already had a performance history.

Most of the scores were not available through international publishers or standard music catalogues. Many were sent to me directly by the composers or obtained during the collaborative process.

Eastern Capriccio requires a special explanation. Although the work circulated among clarinetists and appeared in certain collections, it had never been formally issued by a commercial publisher and could not be purchased through a regular catalogue.

I obtained the musical material from Anvar Ergashev’s widow, Namuna Ergasheva, who holds the copyright. I also consulted my former conservatory professor Bakhodir Salikhov, for whom the work was composed and to whom it was dedicated.

Bafoyev’s Clarinet Concerto had an orchestral performance available online, but there was no commercial recording and no known recording of the piano reduction used on the album.

For the newly commissioned works, the process was much more collaborative. The composers sent initial versions from Uzbekistan, and I played through the clarinet parts in the United States.

I then shared observations about register, breathing, articulation, technical difficulty, balance with the piano and which passages felt natural or less effective on the instrument. The composers revised the scores, and gradually polished versions emerged.

The artistic voice remained entirely the composer’s. My role was to contribute the practical and expressive perspective of the performer and to help the composer use the clarinet as effectively as possible.

During a meeting with Nurali Erkaev in Tashkent in the summer of 2024, we discussed Sonata-Fantaziya in detail, including its musical character, phrasing, harmony, form and the relationship between the clarinet and piano. This direct discussion had an important effect on the way I interpreted the work.

Four of the newly written pieces were premiered during my doctoral recital in March 2025 with Mariya Akhadjanova. Performing them before the recording allowed us to understand what worked in a live setting and continue refining our interpretation.

For me, this was one of the most meaningful aspects of the project. I was not only preserving repertoire from the past. I was participating in the creation of repertoire that had not previously existed.

How did your collaboration with pianist Mariya Akhadjanova shape the recording?

My collaboration with Mariya began while we were studying at the State Conservatory of Uzbekistan. We performed together frequently in concerts, masterclasses and special events in Tashkent.

She was the natural and ideal partner for this project. She is an outstanding pianist and collaborative musician, with a beautiful sound, refined technique, musical intelligence and the ability to understand both the large structure of a work and its smallest expressive details.

I was also fortunate that she was studying at the University of Iowa. Being at the same institution allowed us to rehearse regularly, return repeatedly to difficult passages and work over a long period rather than preparing the album in only a few concentrated meetings.

Mariya is from Uzbekistan and studied at the State Conservatory before continuing her education at the University of Northern Iowa and beginning her doctorate at the University of Iowa. She therefore has a deep understanding of both Uzbek musical traditions and Western classical performance practice.

That shared cultural background was important because many stylistic details are difficult to explain through words or notation alone. We often understood naturally how a phrase should breathe, where the music needed flexibility, how an ornament should be shaped or when a rhythm should feel more like speech or dance.

At the same time, we did not assume that cultural familiarity alone was sufficient. We studied the scores carefully, researched the composers, discussed the structure and character of every section and tested different balances, articulations, tempos and colours.

We also wanted to avoid treating the piano as a secondary accompaniment. In many of these works, the piano creates the rhythmic environment, dramatic tension, harmonic colour and orchestral scale. The clarinet and piano function as equal partners in a dialogue.

The album was recorded in December 2025 in the Concert Hall of the Voxman Music Building at the University of Iowa. Our aim was to respect the Uzbek character of the works while presenting them at a high professional chamber-music standard.

Why has Uzbek classical music remained relatively unknown internationally?

There are several interconnected reasons.

The first is access. Many scores by Uzbek composers are not distributed by major international publishers. A musician outside Uzbekistan may not know that a work exists, may not know where to obtain it or may need a personal connection with the composer, the composer’s family or another musician.

The second problem is the lack of professional recordings. A score is important, but notation alone cannot fully communicate all the stylistic details of Uzbek music.

A performer unfamiliar with the tradition may read the correct notes but still miss the national intonation, ornamentation, flexibility of phrase, rhythmic freedom or an expression such as nola. Recordings provide an essential interpretive reference.

Another reason is that Uzbek music abroad is often represented mainly through folk or traditional genres. Those traditions are extremely important, but they do not represent the country’s entire musical culture.

The contemporary academic layer – sonatas, concertos, chamber works, operas, ballets and symphonic works – is much less visible.

There have also been limited systems for publishing, professional recording, rights management, promotion and international distribution. An important work may be performed at a concert in Uzbekistan and then disappear from public access because the performance is not professionally documented or distributed.

Programming habits are another factor. International performers and institutions naturally return to established repertoire that already has scores, recordings, teaching traditions and audience recognition. It is much more difficult for unknown music to enter that cycle.

The album has already begun to change this situation. For the first time, all nine works exist together in a professionally produced commercial recording, released by the British specialist label Clarinet & Saxophone Classics and available internationally.

I am also collaborating with a publishing company, the composers and the relevant rights holders to prepare official editions of the scores. The recordings are already accessible internationally, and the scores are being prepared for publication so that the repertoire will also become officially and practically available to performers around the world.

Which works and composers would you recommend to listeners who want to explore Uzbek academic music further?

For a clarinetist beginning to explore this repertoire, I would recommend Anvar Ergashev’s Eastern Capriccio. It is virtuosic, colourful and theatrical, and is perhaps the most established Uzbek clarinet work internationally.

I would also recommend Nurali Erkaev’s Sonata-Fantaziya. It presents a particularly strong synthesis of Uzbek-inspired intonation, contemporary harmony, formal development, rhythmic energy and expressive freedom. It has a clear national character without depending on direct quotation, and gives both the clarinetist and pianist substantial artistic roles.

Bafoyev’s Buxorcha offers a strong connection to the musical traditions of Bukhara, while his Clarinet Concerto demonstrates the larger symphonic possibilities of Uzbek clarinet writing. Akramov’s Sonata and Sobirov’s Fantasy show two contrasting contemporary approaches.

Beyond the album, I would encourage listeners to explore composers such as Felix and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, Mirsodiq Tojiev, Ikrom Akbarov and Rustambek Abdullaev, as well as other composers whose work has shaped modern Uzbek academic music.

Uzbekistan is becoming increasingly connected internationally. Are you seeing a similar opening in its classical-music scene?

Yes, I believe there are clear signs of greater international openness. This process is already taking place through composers, performers, universities, festivals, recordings and digital communication.

Uzbek composers are increasingly participating in international festivals, masterclasses, research conferences and contemporary-music programmes. Farrukh Akramov’s music, for example, has been presented in the United States, Europe, Asia and other former Soviet countries. Sherzod Sobirov’s works have also been performed internationally.

Nurali Erkaev is another important example. He combines composition, scholarship and education, and his work is rooted in serious study of Uzbek orchestration and national musical identity while also using a contemporary language that can communicate internationally.

My collaboration with him demonstrates how these connections can develop. He wrote Sonata-Fantaziya for me in Uzbekistan while I was studying and performing in the United States. I premiered the work, discussed it with him directly in Tashkent, performed it at Carnegie Hall and at universities and concert venues, and then recorded it commercially for an international label.

Performers and students from Uzbekistan are also studying abroad and creating connections between institutions and musical communities. Digital platforms make it possible for composers and performers to exchange scores and recordings almost immediately, even when they live on different continents.

The release of this album by a British label is another concrete example of this opening. It has placed works by six Uzbek composers in an international commercial recording catalogue and made them available to listeners, libraries, educators, researchers and performers in different countries.

What would success for this project ultimately mean to you?

For me, this project is already a success.

It is the first commercial album devoted entirely to contemporary Uzbek music for clarinet and piano. The fact that these nine works now exist together in a professionally produced and internationally available recording is already a major artistic and cultural achievement.

They can be heard internationally, studied by musicians and researchers and used as interpretive references by performers who previously had no practical way of encountering this repertoire.

I am deeply grateful to Victoria Samek and her team at Clarinet & Saxophone Classics for believing in the project and helping bring it to completion. Their experience and commitment gave this repertoire a professional international platform.

The effect is also visible in live performance. After concerts, students, professors, clarinetists and other musicians regularly approach me to ask about the composers, recordings and scores.

Musicians are already studying the repertoire, requesting the music and beginning to perform it themselves. The album is therefore not simply being heard as a finished recording. It is generating further musical activity.

Even before the recording was completed, I saw an example of this effect. After I premiered several of the new works, another performer contacted one of the composers to learn more about a piece and discuss the possibility of commissioning another work. This showed that the repertoire had already begun creating new artistic connections.

The official publication of the scores is the next stage. I am working with the composers, rights holders and a publishing company so that musicians around the world can obtain and perform the complete repertoire represented on the album.

The project has demonstrated that contemporary Uzbek academic music can stand on an international stage not simply as a cultural curiosity, but as substantial, expressive and artistically valuable chamber music.

For people from Uzbekistan and Central Asia living abroad, the album can create a connection to culture, memory and the feeling of home. For listeners with no previous connection to Uzbekistan, it opens a musical world they may never have encountered before.

Contemporary Uzbek Music for Clarinet and Piano is available through Clarinet & Saxophone Classics.

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

The post When the clarinet speaks Uzbek: bringing an overlooked classical repertoire to the world 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.

From Kazakhstan’s pine-covered lakes to Kyrgyzstan’s walnut groves and the tugai forests of the Amu Darya, Central Asia is considerably greener than its international image suggests. But fires, mass tourism and development are testing whether landscapes designated as protected are also protected in practice.

In the height of summer, a spark can be enough.

It may come from a campfire left smouldering beneath the trees, a cigarette discarded beside a road or machinery operating in dry grass. Heat, wind and vegetation do the rest. For the foresters and rangers responsible for Central Asia’s protected landscapes, the first sign may be a thread of smoke rising behind a mountain ridge. By the time a fire is visible from the nearest village, reaching it may already require hours on rough tracks with limited equipment.

Wildfires have made forests an urgent political issue far beyond Central Asia. Yet the region is rarely included in international conversations about them. To many outsiders, Central Asia remains a land of steppe, high mountains and desert: spectacular, certainly, but largely treeless.

The reality is more complicated.

Spruce forests climb the slopes of the Tian Shan. Walnut and wild-fruit trees cover parts of southern Kyrgyzstan. Pine and birch grow among the lakes and granite formations of northern Kazakhstan. Juniper woodlands survive in the mountains of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Along the Amu Darya and other rivers, fragments of tugai forest still provide shelter to deer, wild boar and migratory birds. Turkmenistan’s mountains and deserts contain pistachio woodland, juniper, tamarisk and saxaul adapted to some of the harshest conditions in Eurasia.

These landscapes store water, stabilise soil, support rural livelihoods and shelter wildlife. They are also being asked to perform another function: attract a rapidly growing number of visitors.

The result is a regional dilemma. Central Asian governments are creating and expanding protected areas, promoting ecotourism and announcing ambitious restoration targets. At the same time, their forests and parks face hotter conditions, fires, grazing, construction, waste and, in several countries, limited enforcement capacity.

Read more on Novastan: From the Pamirs to the Aral Sea: Following the Amu Darya Through Central Asia

The important question is therefore not only how many national parks Central Asia has. It is how effectively they are protected.

A region greener than its reputation

Central Asia’s forests are not the continuous temperate woodlands found elsewhere. Many are fragmented, highly localised and adapted to mountain, river or desert environments. Their relative scarcity makes them particularly valuable.

In eastern Kazakhstan, Katon-Karagay National Park reaches from forest and meadow to alpine tundra in the Altai Mountains. Siberian larch, fir, spruce, birch and cedar pine provide habitat for maral deer, brown bears, lynx, ibex and the elusive snow leopard. Kazakhstan describes Katon-Karagay as its largest national park and one of its most intact protected landscapes.

Read more on Novastan: How Central Asia is trying to protect the snow leopard

Farther west, the pine forests of Burabay and Bayanaul emerge almost unexpectedly from the surrounding steppe. Their lakes and accessible landscapes have made them popular tourist destinations, but accessibility brings pressure: more vehicles, more informal campsites, more rubbish and a greater likelihood that human activity will start a fire.

In Kyrgyzstan, the walnut-fruit forests around Arslanbob are among the region’s most distinctive human landscapes. Walnuts grow alongside wild apple, pear, plum and hawthorn. Local families have long depended on collecting nuts and fruit, meaning that conservation cannot be separated from questions of access, income and community rights. Forests cover only a small proportion of Kyrgyzstan’s territory, but they remain an important ecological and economic asset.

Higher in the Tian Shan, Schrenk spruce and juniper forests surround parks such as Ala-Archa, Chong-Kemin and Besh-Tash. Camera traps in Besh-Tash recorded snow leopards, argali, Siberian ibex, wolves and foxes in 2025, a reminder that protected areas contain living ecosystems rather than simply scenic backdrops for visitors.

Read more on Novastan: Artists and activists raise awareness for Bishkek’s waste problem

Uzbekistan’s mountain parks protect juniper woodland, wild-fruit species and habitats used by bears, ibex, lynx, vultures and other birds of prey. In the west, the newly created Aralkum National Nature Park represents a very different experiment: protecting life emerging in and around the former bed of the Aral Sea. Uzbek authorities report that the park contains 25 animal species, including four listed in the national Red Book.

Tajikistan’s forests cover only a small part of the country, but their ecological function is disproportionate to their area. Juniper, pistachio, almond and riverine vegetation help hold mountain soils together and regulate water. Our media partner Asia-Plus has reported that forest cover is now approximately three percent of Tajikistan’s territory and that the country’s once-extensive tugai forests have contracted dramatically under agricultural pressure.

Turkmenistan relies less on the designation “national park” than its neighbours. Its conservation system is organised largely around state reserves, including Badkhyz, Köýtendag, Repetek, Kaplankyr and Syunt-Hasardag. These protect ecosystems ranging from pistachio woodland and mountain habitat to saxaul desert, along with species such as kulan, goitered gazelle, urial and markhor.

Together, these landscapes dismantle the idea of Central Asia as an ecologically uniform expanse of empty land.

How many parks does Central Asia have?

The simple answer is that no simple regional figure is entirely reliable.

Kazakhstan consistently identifies 14 state national nature parks. In Kyrgyzstan, however, published totals vary according to whether sources count only parks administered by the principal protected-areas department or include additional sites under different arrangements. Uzbekistan distinguishes between national parks, national natural parks, natural parks and other protected categories. Tajikistan uses several park and reserve classifications, while Turkmenistan’s system centres on state nature reserves and sanctuaries.

A regional total can therefore be misleading unless the legal categories are harmonised.

This is more than a technical problem. It demonstrates how governments can report growth in protected territory without necessarily making clear what each designation permits. A strict reserve may substantially limit human activity, while a national or nature park can contain zones for tourism, roads, grazing or other forms of use.

All five countries have framework legislation governing specially protected natural territories. Kazakhstan’s principal law dates from 2006, Kyrgyzstan’s current framework from 2011, Uzbekistan’s from 2004, Tajikistan’s from 2011 and Turkmenistan’s from 2012. But these laws operate alongside forest codes, land legislation, fire regulations and individual decisions establishing or rezoning particular parks.

The legal designation is therefore only the beginning. The practical questions are more revealing: Can a hotel be built inside the park? Can livestock graze there? How many rangers patrol it? Who responds when it burns? Can its boundaries be altered to accommodate development?

When ecotourism becomes mass tourism

Kazakhstan illustrates the contradiction particularly clearly.

Its national parks have become central to the country’s domestic-tourism strategy. New roads, visitor centres, accommodation and marked routes can make nature more accessible and generate income for remote regions. But growing visitor numbers also produce waste, soil erosion, traffic and fire risk.

Research and regional reporting have already raised concerns about damage to vegetation and soils along heavily used routes. Kazakhstan is now developing a new biodiversity framework for 2026-2035, under which the total area of specially protected natural territories is expected to increase from approximately 31 million to 33.2 million hectares.

The expansion is significant. Yet adding hectares does not by itself solve overcrowding in the most accessible parks or guarantee that tourism revenue is reinvested in conservation.

Kyrgyzstan faces a similar tension. More than 250,000 people visited the country’s protected zones in 2025, generating 38 million soms in revenue. Environmental specialists interviewed by 24.kg warned that roads and hotels were increasingly reaching previously undisturbed forests.

This raises an uncomfortable question: when a protected landscape becomes economically valuable as a destination, which institution is strong enough to say that no further construction should be allowed?

Tourism is not inherently hostile to conservation. Visitor fees can fund rangers, waste collection, trail maintenance and ecological monitoring. Guides and guesthouses can give local communities an economic reason to preserve wildlife and forests.

But this requires rules based on ecological carrying capacity rather than the assumption that every increase in visitor numbers represents success.

A park can receive more tourists and earn more money while becoming less capable of fulfilling the ecological purpose for which it was established.

New parks, old capacity problems

Uzbekistan is moving rapidly in the opposite direction: rather than confronting only the overcrowding of established destinations, it is significantly enlarging its protected-area system.

On 25 March 2026, the government created the Ovjazsoy-Moviy Toglar, Pskem and Fergana national natural parks, covering a combined 188,800 hectares. It also expanded Pop National Natural Park from 10,000 to 135,300 hectares.

The expansion follows earlier decisions enlarging the Nurata and Surkhan reserves and Zarafshan National Natural Park.

These measures could protect important mountain, forest and riverine habitats before roads, settlement or intensive tourism fragment them further. Uzbekistan is also working with UNDP and the Global Environment Facility on landscape restoration in the Western Tian Shan, Nuratau and Kugitang. The programme aims to improve the management of 1.3 million hectares of forests and rangelands.

Yet rapid territorial expansion produces its own challenge. New parks require trained staff, vehicles, fire equipment, ecological inventories, zoning plans, community consultations and reliable budgets. Without them, a park may exist immediately in law but only gradually on the ground.

The distinction between planting trees and restoring ecosystems is equally important. A plantation can increase an official forest indicator while providing less biodiversity than naturally regenerating native woodland. Saxaul planted to stabilise exposed soil has a different purpose from restoring juniper forest, walnut groves or riverine tugai.

The central question is not whether tree planting is valuable. It is what kind of landscape is being created, for whom and for how long.

Fire as the test of protection

Wildfire is perhaps the clearest test of whether a protected area functions beyond paper.

In Tajikistan, more than 430 hectares of forest were reportedly affected by fires across nine regions in 2025. Extreme heat and human carelessness were identified among the causes.

For a heavily forested country, that area might appear limited. In Tajikistan, where woodland is scarce and often protects vulnerable mountain soil, every burned hectare can have wider consequences. The loss of vegetation can accelerate erosion, damage pasture, reduce water retention and expose nearby settlements to landslides and flooding.

Across the region, remoteness complicates fire response. Protected forests may be separated from the nearest equipment by poor roads or mountain terrain. Rangers are expected to monitor tourists, prevent poaching, manage relations with local communities and respond to fire, often across vast areas.

Technology can improve early detection through cameras, satellite monitoring, drones and automated alerts. But an alert only helps when someone has the equipment, personnel and access needed to act on it.

Climate change further narrows the margin for error. Central Asia is already experiencing land degradation, water scarcity and stress on mountain and desert ecosystems. A hotter, drier landscape turns ordinary negligence into a potentially devastating event.

Who is supporting conservation?

Central Asian states are not dealing with these pressures alone.

The World Bank’s RESILAND initiative supports landscape restoration and climate resilience across the region. It also promotes transboundary protected areas and ecological corridors, recognising that watersheds and wildlife do not stop at political borders.

In Tajikistan, a World Bank investment of $45 million supports landscape restoration, sustainable natural-resource management and climate resilience. In Uzbekistan, the Bank has backed a much larger programme for forest and degraded-land restoration. Regional and national projects are also financed through the Global Environment Facility and implemented by UNDP, FAO and government agencies.

IUCN works with members and state partners in all five Central Asian countries, focusing on biodiversity, protected areas and conservation policy. UNESCO supports natural World Heritage sites and biosphere reserves, while the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund has channelled support towards civil-society organisations in the Mountains of Central Asia biodiversity hotspot.

In April 2026, the five Central Asian countries signed a regional declaration on biodiversity conservation in Astana. The declaration is politically important, but its value will ultimately be judged in less ceremonial settings: a ranger station with working equipment, a forest where illegal cutting has stopped, a tourism project relocated away from a fragile habitat, or a village given a meaningful role in managing nearby land.

International projects can provide money, expertise and technology. Their lasting contribution depends on whether they build institutions that continue functioning after a project cycle ends.

Protection with people, not against them

Forests are rarely empty spaces.

People collect walnuts and fruit, graze livestock, gather medicinal plants, work as guides and heat their homes with wood. Restricting access without creating alternatives can turn conservation into a source of conflict. Allowing unrestricted extraction, on the other hand, can gradually destroy the ecosystem on which those livelihoods depend.

This is why the human future of Central Asia’s protected areas matters as much as their legal status.

A family collecting walnuts in southern Kyrgyzstan, a guide leading visitors through the Tian Shan and a ranger watching for smoke may have different immediate interests. But all depend on the forest surviving.

Effective conservation requires communities to receive tangible benefits, participate in decisions and understand why some uses must be restricted. It also requires governments to resist projects that promise quick tourism revenue at the expense of long-term ecological stability.

Central Asia is creating more parks, restoring land and placing biodiversity higher on its regional agenda. Those are real developments. But the coming years will show whether the region is building resilient ecosystems or accumulating protected-area designations.

When smoke rises above a forest, the distinction becomes impossible to ignore.

A boundary drawn on a map cannot stop a fire. A law cannot patrol a mountain trail. A declaration cannot remove rubbish, prevent illegal cutting or persuade a developer to build elsewhere.

For that, a protected area needs people, resources and the political authority to remain protected.

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

The post Central Asia’s Forests Under Pressure appeared first on Novastan English.

Thousands of kilometres before rusting fishing boats appear in the sands of Muynak, the Amu Darya begins as mountain water.

Its headwaters descend from the Pamirs and northern Hindu Kush through the Panj and Vakhsh river systems. The Panj marks much of the Afghan-Tajik border before meeting the Vakhsh; downstream of their confluence, the river takes the name Amu Darya.

From there, it leaves the mountains and enters an entirely different world of deserts, irrigated plains, ancient cities and modern international frontiers.

For centuries, the Amu Darya – the Oxus of antiquity – has helped determine where people could settle and where political power could flourish. Irrigation drawn from its waters sustained some of Central Asia’s great civilizations. Changes in its channels could nourish one settlement while depriving another of water. In the twentieth century, Soviet planners attempted to engineer the river on a vastly greater scale.

Read more on Novastan: The Caspian Sea Is Retreating. Central Asia Is Not Ready

Following it today from the mountains towards the Aral Sea means travelling through many of the defining questions facing contemporary Central Asia: hydropower and climate resilience, Afghanistan’s growing use of the river, cross-border trade, irrigation, agricultural dependence and the ecological legacy of the Aral disaster.

The river changes character repeatedly along the way.

In the mountains it is born. Along the Panj it becomes a frontier. On the Vakhsh it becomes electricity. At Termez it both divides and connects Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. In Khorezm it becomes the hidden infrastructure of civilization.

And near Muynak, its story ends in a landscape transformed by water that stopped arriving.

Before the Amu Darya: mountain water

There is no single spectacular spring at which the Amu Darya suddenly begins.

Its origins are dispersed across an immense mountain system. The Panj drains highland areas of Afghanistan and Tajikistan and forms a large part of their border. The Vakhsh descends through Tajikistan before joining it. From their confluence, the combined river flows westward as the Amu Darya.

The landscape is almost the inverse of what waits downstream.

Steep valleys, snow and glaciated mountains ultimately feed a river that will later cross some of the driest inhabited territory in Eurasia. Water falling or freezing high in the mountains will eventually irrigate fields hundreds of kilometres away.

That physical connection is one reason climate and water management upstream matter so much farther downstream. The Aral basin itself ultimately depends heavily on river systems fed by mountain snow and glacial melt.

The Vakhsh: turning water into electricity

Before joining the Panj, the Vakhsh has acquired another role: energy.

Tajikistan has built much of its electricity system around hydropower, and the enormous Rogun project now under construction on the Vakhsh sits at the centre of that strategy.

In June 2026, the World Bank approved a further $300 million in financing for Rogun. Once fully operational, the plant is expected to generate around 14,400 gigawatt-hours of electricity annually – equivalent to roughly 60 percent of Tajikistan’s current electricity generation – while also allowing greater electricity exports to neighbouring countries.

This illustrates one of the recurring complexities of Central Asian water politics.

For Tajikistan, mountain rivers represent energy security, winter electricity and potential exports. Downstream, the same waters sustain irrigated agriculture.

These interests are not necessarily incompatible. Reservoirs can regulate flows as well as store water. But they mean that water cannot be understood simply in terms of quantity.

When it is stored and when it is released matter too.

Already, before the name Amu Darya even appears on the map, the river has become economic infrastructure.

Then the mountains recede.

Termez: Afghanistan across the water

At Termez, the geopolitics of the Amu Darya become tangible.

The river marks the boundary between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Beyond the Uzbek bank lies Balkh Province, while near the Friendship Bridge the Afghan border town of Hairatan forms one of Afghanistan’s principal gateways to Central Asia.

Here, Afghanistan is not an abstract subject of regional diplomacy.

It is physically across the water.

The Friendship Bridge carries road and railway connections across the Amu Darya. For decades it has accumulated political symbolism – Soviet troops crossed it during the withdrawal from Afghanistan – but today Uzbekistan increasingly wants Termez to represent something different: commerce, logistics and connectivity.

That shift is visible a short distance away at Airitom.

The Airitom Free Zone began operating in August 2024 near the Afghan border. It was explicitly created to promote international and cross-border trade and includes retail, logistics, hotel, medical and other facilities. Afghan citizens can enter the zone without an Uzbek visa for stays of up to 15 days.

The geography is striking: the zone sits beside the Amu Darya itself.

The same river that functions as a state boundary is therefore increasingly being treated as the edge of an economic corridor between Central and South Asia.

Afghanistan returns to the river

Trade is not the only way Afghanistan is reshaping the politics of the Amu Darya.

For most of the Soviet period, water allocation downstream was managed within a single political system. Afghanistan was never fully integrated into the institutional arrangements inherited by the Central Asian republics after 1991.

That asymmetry is now becoming much harder to ignore.

Afghanistan is constructing the 285-kilometre Qosh Tepa Canal across the country’s northern provinces, with the stated objective of bringing Amu Darya water to drought-prone agricultural areas.

From Afghanistan’s perspective, the argument is straightforward: the country has substantial agricultural needs and an interest in using a river flowing along its northern frontier after decades during which its ability to exploit those waters remained comparatively limited.

From downstream Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the same project looks different.

Every substantial withdrawal upstream potentially reduces what continues towards their irrigated regions. The project has therefore become one of the most consequential new questions in Central Asian water politics.

Yet portraying Qosh Tepa simply as an approaching “water war” would be misleading. The issue is better understood as the emergence of another major water user on an already intensely exploited river.

It reinforces the central fact of the Amu Darya basin:

Everyone has reasons to use more water.

Nobody can manufacture another river.

Turkmenabat: engineering the desert

Farther west, the Amu Darya enters Turkmenistan and passes Turkmenabat.

Here the relationship between water and human settlement becomes even more engineered.

Near the city, Amu Darya water enters the enormous Karakum Canal system, which carries it westwards through Turkmenistan.

The project embodied one of the defining ambitions of Soviet hydraulic planning: rather than accept the constraints imposed by aridity, engineers would move water across the desert.

And physically, they succeeded.

Water could sustain farms, settlements and industries hundreds of kilometres away from the river.

But the same logic was being applied across the basin. Irrigated agriculture expanded dramatically in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, while increasing quantities of water were removed before the Amu Darya reached its delta.

Yet large-scale irrigation itself was hardly a Soviet invention.

Downstream, communities had been redirecting the river for thousands of years.

Khorezm: a civilization built by canals

Few landscapes make that clearer than Khorezm.

Visitors arriving in Khiva encounter one of Central Asia’s most concentrated historic cityscapes: mud-brick walls, turquoise tiles, minarets and courtyards rising from an intensely arid environment.

What they do not encounter is the Amu Darya itself.

Khiva does not stand on the modern riverbank.

That apparent contradiction tells us almost everything about the historical relationship between Khorezm and water.

The city exists because the river was brought to it.

Khiva lies near the edge of cultivated land and historically received Amu Darya water through one of the major canals of the Khorezm oasis.

Long before modern states or Soviet hydraulic projects, inhabitants of Khorezm had learned to transform desert into an oasis through irrigation.

UNESCO’s documentation of the ancient towns and fortresses of the Aral Sea region dates irrigated agriculture in the lower Amu Darya to the end of the second millennium BC and directly links irrigation canals to the emergence of early cities in the region. Novastan has also explored the fortresses and historic landscapes of Khorezm, where the relationship between settlement and water remains visible across the region.

This history is not simply archaeological. The irrigation networks help explain why generations of people could live, farm, trade and build cities in an otherwise extremely arid landscape.

The lower river itself has never been completely stable.

Its channels shifted repeatedly. Canals silted up or were redirected. Settlements prospered and declined as their access to water changed. The Amu Darya still structures movement across Khorezm today, including crossings such as the pontoon bridge near Urgench previously featured by Novastan.

UNESCO’s documentation of ancient Khorezm explicitly notes that changes in the direction of the Amu Darya affected urban centres and that the region’s settlements were closely connected to the river’s shifting courses.

In Khorezm, controlling water meant controlling the geography of civilization itself.

Nukus: downstream of everyone

Approaching Nukus, the Amu Darya has travelled through an extraordinary accumulation of human interventions.

Upstream reservoirs regulate it.

Afghanistan is constructing new irrigation infrastructure from it.

Agricultural regions in Uzbekistan depend upon it.

Turkmenistan diverts part of it westwards.

By the time it reaches Karakalpakstan, the river represents the cumulative result of decisions made across an international basin.

Near Nukus, the Amu Darya spreads through a broad, flat landscape, its channel interrupted by exposed banks and low islands. It looks very different from the mountain water with which the journey began.

Nukus is downstream not simply geographically, but politically.

Communities near the end of a river do not determine their water supply alone. They receive the cumulative result of decisions made everywhere upstream.

That reality remains highly contemporary.

In June 2026, Uzbekistan, UNDP and the Global Environment Facility signed the concept for an Integrated Water Resources Management Plan for the Lower Amu Darya Basin. The initiative is intended to create a more coordinated and science-based framework for managing water resources and ecosystems in the lower river and Aral Sea region.

It represents an attempt to think of the lower Amu Darya increasingly as a connected hydrological system rather than simply as water divided between administrative territories.

But the scale of the historical damage becomes clearer farther north.

Muynak: a port without a sea

At Muynak, one of Central Asia’s most familiar images has almost become too familiar.

Fishing boats sit in sand.

Visitors photograph their rusting hulls. What was once evidence of economic collapse has acquired the strange afterlife of a tourist attraction.

But the boats matter because of what is absent around them.

Water.

The Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth-largest inland lake. Its hydrological balance depended heavily on the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. Massive diversion of river water for irrigation caused inflows to collapse and the sea to shrink and fragment.

For Muynak this was not simply an environmental statistic.

It meant the disappearance of the economic geography around which the town had developed.

Fishing and fish processing depended upon a shoreline that progressively moved away. As Oktyabr Dospanov recalled in Novastan’s interview, “My Childhood Was Spent on the Shore of a Sea That No Longer Exists,” Muynak was once a living port rather than the symbol of ecological catastrophe it has since become.

The rusting boats can be read almost as the final objects in a chain that begins in the mountains.

Reservoirs, canals, irrigation systems and agricultural decisions made hundreds or thousands of kilometres upstream all influence how much water ultimately reaches the lowest part of the basin.

The river’s history can almost be read backwards from Muynak.

The sea that did not entirely disappear

Popular descriptions often say simply that the Aral Sea “disappeared.”

The reality is more complicated.

The sea fragmented into separate bodies of water. Large parts of its former seabed are now exposed, while significant differences have developed between the remaining northern and southern water bodies. The ecological catastrophe has been immense, but the Aral is not literally gone.

That distinction matters.

It prevents the region from being reduced to a single image of irreversible apocalypse. The northern Small Aral has, for example, demonstrated that deliberate water-management interventions can produce at least partial ecological recovery.

On the Uzbek side, however, the landscape around the southern remnants conveys the scale of what has been lost.

One river, competing futures

It would be easy to tell the history of the Amu Darya solely as a story of environmental destruction.

That would also be incomplete.

The river continues to sustain millions of people and several very different development strategies.

Tajikistan wants electricity.

Afghanistan wants irrigated farmland.

Uzbekistan needs water for agriculture while attempting to make irrigation more efficient.

Turkmenistan remains deeply dependent on water transported away from the river through its canal system.

Karakalpakstan needs sufficient flows to sustain communities and ecosystems at the end of the basin.

All of these demands are understandable.

The difficulty is that they exist simultaneously.

Qosh Tepa therefore matters not because competition for the Amu Darya is new, but because the political geography of that competition is changing.

Afghanistan is becoming a far more significant water user in a system whose post-Soviet institutions were largely built without it. Tajikistan’s hydropower development, downstream irrigation, ecological restoration and climate pressures meanwhile have to coexist within the same hydrological system.

There is no single technological solution that eliminates that basic constraint.

More efficient irrigation can help. Better canals can help. Improved regional coordination can help. Basin-level management can help.

But none can make the Amu Darya infinite.

From ice to sand – and water again

The extraordinary thing about following the Amu Darya is how many different worlds can belong to a single river.

In the mountains, its water begins among snow and glaciers.

Along the Panj, it separates Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

On the Vakhsh, it becomes electricity.

At Termez, the river forms Uzbekistan’s frontier with Afghanistan while Airitom attempts to turn that frontier into a commercial gateway.

In Khorezm, canals carried the river towards cities that could never have survived without it.

Near Nukus, the consequences of decisions taken across the basin accumulate.

At Muynak, ships remain stranded where water once stood.

And farther beyond them, parts of the Aral Sea remain.

Central Asia’s cities are usually explained through monuments, rulers and empires – the walls of Khiva, Buddhist Termez, Nukus’s museums.

Another history runs beneath all of them.

It is a history of glaciers, channels, dams and canals.

The Amu Darya has determined where settlement was possible, where agriculture could flourish and where political power could accumulate for thousands of years.

High in the mountains, water still begins its journey towards the plains.

At the other end of that journey, ships stand in the desert while a diminished sea survives beyond them.

Between those two landscapes lies much of Central Asia’s past – and one of the defining questions of its future.

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

The post From the Pamirs to the Aral Sea: Following the Amu Darya Through Central Asia appeared first on Novastan English.

Archaeologist and museum specialist Oktyabr Dospanov on the lost world of Muynak, the memory of the Aral Sea and the cultural heritage of Karakalpakstan.

For much of the outside world, Muynak is represented by a single image: rusting ships stranded in a desert. For Oktyabr Dospanov, however, the town was once an island, a busy port and the setting of a childhood filled with ship bells, gulls, music and the smell of freshly caught fish. In this interview, the Karakalpak archaeologist and museum specialist recalls the human world that disappeared with the Aral Sea, explains why the region’s cultural history reaches far beyond the ecological catastrophe, and reflects on what should be preserved for future generations.

This interview was conducted in Russian and translated into English.

See more on Novastan: Souvenirs éphémères

The story of the Aral Sea is usually told through statistics: falling water levels, rising salinity, abandoned ports and millions of tonnes of salt and dust lifted from the exposed seabed. Those figures describe the scale of the disaster, but they cannot fully convey what it meant to lose a sea that organised the economy, culture and daily rhythms of an entire region. Dospanov belongs to the last generation that remembers the Aral as an ordinary presence rather than a vanished world. Born in Muynak, he later became an archaeologist and museum specialist. His professional path began in 1979, when Igor Savitsky invited him to join an expedition at Janpyk Kala, an ancient Khorezmian settlement near the Sultan Uvays mountains. He subsequently worked at the museum in Nukus that now bears Savitsky’s name, devoting decades to the archaeology, ethnography, art and environmental history of Karakalpakstan.

Novastan: You grew up in Muynak when it was still a living port. What kind of town was it?

Oktyabr Dospanov: My childhood was spent in Muynak, which at that time was a real island in the Aral Sea. For me, it is not simply my birthplace. It was an entire world, filled with sounds, smells and the feeling of continuous life. It is difficult today to imagine that Muynak was once one of the region’s largest fishing centres.

The town’s life was inseparable from the sea. There were five large fishing collectives, twelve fish reception points and two cargo ports. One was in Muynak itself, on the shore, and the other was around twenty kilometres away at Usay, on the opposite side of the island. The fishing industry set the rhythm of the whole town.

Muynak seemed never to sleep. Even late at night, people were always walking through the streets: some going to work, others returning after their shift. Work continued around the clock. I can still hear the ship bells, the grinding of the port cranes, and the hum of fishing vessels and engines. These sounds were a natural part of everyday life.

The city was also remarkably diverse. Engineers, sailors, fishermen, teachers, doctors, scientists and artists came from across the Soviet Union. Karakalpaks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Russians, Tatars, Koreans, Ukrainians and many others lived side by side. In the mahallas, neighbours helped one another build houses, celebrated holidays together and supported families in difficult times. That sense of community was one of Muynak’s greatest riches.

What do you remember most vividly about the sea itself?

For my generation, the Aral was not a symbol of tragedy. It was the symbol of a happy childhood, filled with the sound of waves and the cries of gulls. Hundreds of vessels stood at Muynak’s quays: cargo ships, fishing schooners, tankers, barges and tugboats. The port operated day and night. It seemed impossible that the sea could ever disappear.

The coast was rich in life. There were reed beds, lakes and wetlands, and an extraordinary number of birds: pheasants, wild ducks, flamingos, pelicans and, above all, gulls. The silver gulls that local people affectionately called ‘laughing gulls’ accompanied us from morning until evening. Fishermen watched them because they could reveal the position of shoals of fish.

I also remember the clean, fresh air. The sea did not have the harsh salty smell that people often imagine. A constant wind made even the hottest summer days easier to bear. In winter, the sea froze and the cold was severe. We swam, fished and played football on the shore. Children came to the nearby pioneer camp from many parts of the Soviet Union, and the coast had holiday homes, sanatoriums and tourist facilities.

See more on Novastan: A sécher

What remains most powerfully in my memory is not a landscape but a smell. When I was five or six, my father and his friend Ibadulla took me out in a small wooden boat. Far from the shore, we met a large fishing seiner commanded by a man named Tazhibay-aga. He showed me the bridge, the cabins and the engine room. The hold was filled with fish. I pointed to the largest one, a huge catfish, and insisted that it was a shark. Everyone laughed.

We stayed on the vessel for almost two days. I saw how the fishermen worked and lived. The engine room smelled of diesel fuel, motor oil, metal, sea moisture, fresh fish, wooden decks and salt-soaked ropes. It was sharp, but warm and alive. To me, that was the smell of the real Aral Sea. Sometimes I close my eyes and I am back there, hearing the engine and the waves against the hull.

Muynak also had a social and cultural life that is rarely mentioned. Where did young people meet?

Muynak did not live by work alone. It had two cinemas. The best known was Sputnik, just a few steps from the shore and beside the market. After an evening screening in summer, people would walk along the waterfront, listen to the waves and stay outside talking for a long time. Later, in the second half of the 1980s, the Berdakh cinema opened in another part of the city. It was a modern cultural centre for films, concerts and public events.

The cultural centre of the fish-canning plant was another important place. It had a library and hosted theatre, amateur performances, concerts and celebrations. Young people especially loved the weekend dances. Many people met their future partners there.

There were also several cafes. The most famous was Tolqyn, which means ‘wave’ in Karakalpak. It was not simply somewhere to eat or drink tea. Families celebrated birthdays and weddings there, friends met, music played, and people exchanged news and made plans.

Music was everywhere. On warm evenings, young people gathered spontaneously in courtyards, on squares or near the sea. Someone would bring a guitar, accordion or bayan, and people would sing together. There were no mobile phones or social networks. People listened to one another and spent long evenings in company. At weddings and major family celebrations, bakhshi – traditional storytellers and musicians – performed epics and legends to the accompaniment of instruments such as the dutar. Ancient oral tradition and modern youth culture existed naturally alongside each other.

When did people understand that the retreat of the sea was irreversible?

The process was gradual. The first alarming signs became visible in the late 1960s and early 1970s. At first, people hoped it was temporary and that the sea would return. A special canal was dug from the port towards the receding water so that vessels could continue to sail. But the water withdrew faster than people could adapt.

Fishermen noticed the change first. Their catches became smaller. Fewer schooners went out. Ships that had entered the port freely began to run aground, surrounded by sand and salt blown from the exposed seabed.

Read more on Novastan: Football de rue

I remember how the sound of the city changed. Muynak had always lived through the noise of its port: bells, cranes, engines, fishermen’s voices, metal cables and waves at the quays. Then came silence. It arrived almost imperceptibly, but that silence was the most frightening thing. When the ships stop sounding, when the sea can no longer be heard and the port ceases to live, you understand that more than water is disappearing. An entire world is going.

The marine painter Rafael Matevosyan, who devoted more than half a century to the Aral Sea, described an early morning when he woke to voices and crying. Residents had gathered on the shore. Overnight, the water had retreated by dozens of metres. Boats that had been moored at the pier were lying on dry sand. Some people prayed, some cried and others simply stared at the departing water. Matevosyan later captured that moment in a painting called The Sea Has Gone.

The human consequences came quickly. Enterprises closed, fishing declined and families lost their livelihoods. Many people left Muynak for other cities or republics. The city lost not only employment and population, but also confidence in its future.

“Then came silence. It arrived almost imperceptibly, but that silence was the most frightening thing.”

What disappeared with the sea beyond the fishing industry?

Fishing was not just a source of income. It was one of the oldest forms of economic life in the Aral region and had shaped people’s identity for centuries. Archaeological excavations reveal fish represented on ceramics, bronze objects, wall paintings and household items. Fish also appeared in carpets, embroidery, jewellery, woodcarving and textiles. It symbolised water, life and prosperity in an arid region.

For many families, fishing and factory work passed from parents to children. To work at the fish-canning plant was considered respectable. People were proud that their labour mattered to the whole country. When the sea disappeared, traditions that had formed over generations also weakened: techniques and practical knowledge, recipes and fish cuisine, songs, stories and the everyday vocabulary of life by the water.

The psychological loss was equally important. Many residents came to feel that they had been left at the edge of a lifeless desert, far from the world’s attention, with the best part of their lives behind them. When former residents meet today, they often cry. Those tears express joy at seeing one another, but also nostalgia for a world that cannot be restored.

That is why the memories of the last witnesses matter so much. There are still people who remember the port cranes, the crowded waterfront, the smell of fresh fish and the horizon of open water, but their number decreases every year. Their oral histories, family photographs, songs and personal objects are part of the region’s heritage. The Aral Sea is not merely an environmental problem. It is the fate of millions of people.

Tourists now come to photograph the ship cemetery. What do you wish they understood about Muynak?

I am glad that people are interested in our region, but I would like them to see more than an unusual tourist attraction. Behind every ship is a human life. Behind every photograph are thousands of families who lost the world they knew. Every metre of exposed seabed contains the memories of people who sailed from this port, caught fish, built homes, raised children and believed the sea would last forever.

Visitors should try to imagine another picture: an expanse of water reaching the horizon, fishing vessels returning to port, gulls overhead, children laughing on the shore and a town full of movement. Only then can they understand what was lost.

At the same time, Karakalpakstan should not be reduced to catastrophe. This region has been a crossroads of nomadic and settled civilisations for thousands of years. The art of the Aral region carries images of animals, birds, plants, water and steppe. Its carpets, textiles, jewellery, embroidery, carved wood and yurt interiors preserve symbols that connect people to the natural world. Muynak was one part of a much wider cultural landscape.

Your own career began with archaeology. How did Igor Savitsky influence you?

My path into science began in 1979, when I met Igor Vitalyevich Savitsky. He invited me to join an archaeological expedition at Janpyk Kala, one of the great monuments of ancient Khorezm on the right bank of the Amu Darya. That expedition became my school of archaeology. It showed me how rich and insufficiently studied the history of Karakalpakstan was.

Savitsky later invited me to work at the museum in Nukus. He was not only a remarkable artist, collector and museum builder. He taught a whole generation to see culture as an interconnected whole. Through him, I understood that archaeology is not simply excavation. It is a way of understanding people, their worldview and their relationship with nature, history and art.

Karakalpakstan is an open-air museum. It has hundreds of archaeological sites, from antiquity to the late medieval period. Ancient Khorezm stood at the meeting point of major Eurasian trade and cultural routes. Nomadic and settled worlds interacted here, alongside influences from Iran, the Mediterranean, the steppe, Turkic states, the Arab world and Central Asia. Irrigation systems created from at least the first millennium BCE made possible cities, fortresses, palaces and settlements in desert landscapes.

The region’s spiritual history is equally layered. Zoroastrian, Buddhist, early Christian and Islamic traditions all left traces in monuments, rituals, ornament and symbolism. Archaeology records those processes in layers of soil and objects, while oral tradition preserves them in images and stories. Both are necessary.

Savitsky’s importance also lies in the way he built the museum. When he founded it in 1966, he created departments of archaeology and ethnography alongside the art collection. He had first come to Karakalpakstan through the Khorezm Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition, and during fieldwork he produced hundreds of paintings and drawings of archaeological sites, village life, plants, animals and the region’s changing light. He was interested in the smallest details of traditional culture – a ceramic ornament, carved wood, a textile pattern or a piece of metalwork – because he saw each of them as a language through which a people expressed its worldview.

His study of Karakalpak traditional woodcarving remains especially important to me. He showed how the decorative culture of the region emerged from the meeting of settled agricultural traditions and the nomadic culture of the steppe. At the same time, he understood that many Russian artists of the 1920s and 1930s had been erased from public life by repression and ideological pressure. He largely gave up his own artistic career to find, protect and collect their work. That devotion created one of the world’s most important collections of Russian avant-garde and early Soviet art.

He was equally committed to the emerging Karakalpak school of painting. Kydyrbay Saipov, then the region’s only professionally trained artist, became his close friend and ally. Together they encouraged younger artists, organised exhibitions and helped create an artistic environment in which remarkable talents could develop. Among the painters associated with this generation were Zhollybay Izentaev, Zholdasbek Kutymuratov, Abdulla Erimbetov, Bazarbay Serekeev, Aman Atabaev, Murat Khudaybergenov, Daribay Tazhimuratov and Amangeldy Utegenov.

My strongest memory of Savitsky is still from the expeditions. He was modest and extraordinarily hardworking. He could spend hours examining a ceramic vessel, an ornament or a fragment of cloth, explaining its symbols and the techniques used to make it. Every find and every meeting with a traditional craftsperson delighted him. He did not merely study culture; he lived through it.

Which landscapes or historical places best reveal the depth of Karakalpakstan?

The Ustyurt Plateau is unlike anywhere else. Its chinks, cliffs and canyons are magnificent, but the landscape also contains ancient and medieval burial mounds, necropolises, caravanserais, wells and signal towers. They recall the routes that connected East and West across an extremely demanding environment. The saiga is a symbol of Ustyurt, and images of these animals appear in rock art thousands of years old.

The former seabed is also becoming a new and extraordinary landscape. It attracts ecologists, geologists, archaeologists and palaeontologists. Along former shorelines, people find fossil shells, marine remains and, according to local accounts, even the teeth of ancient sharks – reminders that the geological history of this territory reaches back to seas far older than the Aral.

Karakalpakstan is therefore much more than a disaster zone. It is a place where one can read the history of the Earth and the history of human civilisation in the same landscape. Natural and cultural heritage are inseparable here.

Can the region recover environmentally, and what has changed through the planting of saxaul?

When the sea dried, its exposed bottom became a saline desert. Dust and salt storms carried sand, salt and chemical residues over enormous distances. Planting saxaul, kandym and other desert shrubs was one of the most effective ways to stabilise the soil. After decades of work, vegetation now covers significant areas of the former seabed, reducing the intensity of dust and salt storms and creating conditions for new ecosystems. Some animals and birds are returning.

This does not mean the crisis is solved. Safe drinking water, efficient water management, public health, education, transport and sustainable employment remain fundamental. Climate change adds pressure by altering rainfall, accelerating glacier loss in the Pamirs and Tien Shan, and changing the flow of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. The full restoration of the former sea is an extremely difficult question and cannot depend on one country alone. It requires regional cooperation and rational water use.

The most important lesson is that economic development must not again be built on the assumption that nature is inexhaustible. Any new investment should create dignified local employment, use water responsibly and meet high environmental standards. The people who live here must benefit directly.

Whose work should people read or see if they want to understand Karakalpakstan beyond the Aral Sea disaster?

First, I would name Berdakh, the great Karakalpak poet. His work became one of the spiritual foundations of the national culture. It speaks about the history of the people, moral values, love of the native land and the search for justice and freedom. No less important is Ajiniyaz, one of Central Asia’s major poets and thinkers, whose writing celebrated solidarity between peoples, humanism and respect for human dignity.

In the visual arts, one must of course return to Igor Savitsky and to the artists whose work he helped preserve. Rafael Matevosyan is also indispensable to the memory of the Aral Sea. For more than half a century he painted its water, boats, fishermen and everyday life. Gulls appear repeatedly in his work. After the sea had largely disappeared, he would visit the exposed seabed and say: ‘I believe my gulls will return.’ Those words were later inscribed on his grave.

There is also a deeply personal figure I do not want to omit: my uncle, the Karakalpak writer and translator Shaniyaz Mambetmuratov. He died when he was only 43, but he left an important mark on the literature and culture of Karakalpakstan. The Aral Sea was at the centre of his writing – its open waters, the Amu Darya, fishermen, the landscape and the lives, labour and hopes of ordinary people.

He was extraordinarily well read. It seemed that there was hardly a book in Muynak’s municipal library that he had not opened. He translated foreign authors into Karakalpak, hoping both to introduce local readers to world literature and to show outsiders the richness of his own culture. In the 1960s and 1970s, he used to say that one day Europeans would come to Muynak and the Aral Sea to discover the beauty, history and culture of this region. At the time, that sounded almost impossible.

Part of his work was translated into German and a collection was published in Germany, although he did not live to see it. In a sense, his prediction has now come true: people arrive from across the world, not only to witness an ecological catastrophe but also to learn about Karakalpakstan’s literature, culture, history and inhabitants. As long as his books are read, his voice continues to speak.

Dospanov shared two of his uncle’s poems, translated here, especially for Novastan, from Karakalpak via Russian.

The Seagull

1959

— Seagull, soaring high across the sky,
You seem a messenger of my love.
Why do you circle anxiously above me,
Calling me once more towards the seashore?

— Seagull, flying through the blue of heaven,
Why do you fill my heart with restless thoughts?
Had I not caressed the waves of the sea,
Would spring ever have returned to these shores?

The Blue Sea

1958

Do not judge me harshly when I praise the sea;
Simply look towards the blue edge of the earth.
Like a festive salute marking a great victory,
The blue sea laughs before my eyes.

This blue sea is my native Aral;
With all my soul, I breathe its fresh wind.
And should you wish to know what makes it so majestic,
Know this: within it live both my destiny and my age.

Who else should journalists speak to while the memory of the old Muynak is still alive?

They should begin with the remaining members of the older generation: former fishermen, ship captains, workers from the fish-canning plant and residents of the coastal settlements. They remember the cranes, boats, factory, crowded waterfront, fresh fish and uninterrupted horizon. Such memories cannot be reconstructed from official archives once the witnesses are gone.

It is equally important to record artists, musicians, traditional craftspeople and guardians of oral culture. Young ecologists, archaeologists, museum professionals, historians and civic activists should also be heard, because they connect the past with the region’s future. And journalists should not overlook teachers, farmers, doctors, students and women raising families. The real history of Karakalpakstan is made from many ordinary lives, not only from famous names.

We are among the last living witnesses of the full Aral Sea. That creates a duty to preserve oral testimony, family photographs, private archives, household objects, songs and stories. These materials are as important to the region’s heritage as archaeological monuments and museum collections.

What gives you hope when you think about the future of Muynak and Karakalpakstan?

Above all, people give me hope. Despite everything this region has experienced, its inhabitants have not lost their love for their land or their willingness to work for its future. Human resilience has always been the main strength of the Aral region.

I see a younger generation studying foreign languages, ecology, archaeology, art, museum work, science and information technology. Many of them do not want to turn away from their history. They want to preserve it and show the world that Karakalpakstan is a region of extraordinary cultural heritage and future possibilities.

The world’s growing interest also matters. Archaeologists, artists, scientists, photographers, travellers and students come not only because of the Aral Sea, but also for ancient Khorezm, Ustyurt, the Savitsky Museum and Karakalpak culture.

If I had unlimited resources, I would set three priorities. The first would be human welfare: drinking water, health care, education, infrastructure and good jobs, particularly so that young people can imagine a future here. The second would be ecological restoration and responsible use of natural resources, including water-saving technologies and continued planting on the former seabed. The third would be culture, science and international cooperation. I would like Karakalpakstan to become a major centre for archaeology, museum partnerships, artistic residencies, environmental education and cultural tourism.

The future cannot rest only on natural resources or only on economic growth. It must bring people, nature and culture into balance.

Is there one story you would most like European readers to carry with them?

I would tell them the story of the Camel Trail. Elders said that long before modern roads, caravan routes crossed Ustyurt and the shores of the Aral Sea. Camels connected Khorezm with the Volga region, Kazakhstan and lands farther east and west. They sensed the route better than people and could find wells and caravanserais even at night, in sandstorms or fog.

One trail, used by generations of caravans, led towards the Aral Sea. It was not merely a road. It carried trade, encounters, knowledge and culture. Merchants, craftsmen, poets and pilgrims travelled along it. Goods moved with songs, legends, ideas and traditions.

As the sea retreated, harbours vanished and routes were covered by sand. Yet people say the Camel Trail did not disappear. It survived in memory. You may no longer see it on a map, but you can feel it when travelling through the region. It is an invisible thread between past and present.

For me, the legend means that the most important roads do not cross only deserts and steppes. They pass through human memory. Today, the trail can acquire a new meaning. Where caravans once carried goods, it can now carry research, cultural projects, art and friendship between peoples. It can become a symbol of dialogue between Central Asia and Europe.

Perhaps the trail no longer exists on the ground. But while memory remains alive, the road never ends.

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

The post “My Childhood Was Spent on the Shore of a Sea That No Longer Exists” appeared first on Novastan English.

As Kazakhstan prepares to elect its new Kurultai, women are becoming increasingly visible in political institutions across Central Asia. Their presence, however, still falls sharply as offices acquire greater executive, territorial and economic authority.

Kazakhstan’s political parties have selected their candidates for the country’s first election to the new unicameral Kurultai, scheduled for 23 August. Seven parties submitted lists before nominations closed on 13 July, and the Central Election Commission has begun registering them ahead of the formal campaign.

Read more on Novastan: Kazakhstan’s Next Elections: Between Reform and Managed Competition

The election will help determine the shape of Kazakhstan’s new political system following the entry into force of its new constitution. It also raises a more specific question: what place will women occupy in the redesigned parliament?

Kazakhstan requires at least 30 percent of candidates on each party list to belong collectively to three categories: women, people aged 35 or under, and persons with disabilities. The same combined threshold applies when seats are distributed. The quota therefore guarantees representation for the three categories together, but no fixed proportion specifically for women.

All seven parties say their submitted lists meet the legal requirement. But the combined nature of the quota makes the number of women selected – and their position within the lists – particularly important.

The question reaches beyond Kazakhstan. Across Central Asia, women are more visible in politics than they were a generation ago. Quotas and electoral reforms have increased their representation in parliament, while women now lead legislative chambers and hold prominent positions in governments and presidential administrations.

Yet the closer one moves towards executive command, territorial authority and control over strategic areas of government, the more rapidly women disappear.

Women may occupy a substantial share of parliamentary seats, work throughout public administrations and sit on local councils while remaining much rarer among governors, mayors, district heads, party leaders and the ministers responsible for finance, energy and security.

Central Asia has therefore made more progress in bringing women inside political institutions than in placing them at the head of those institutions.

Parliament is the easiest place to count

Parliamentary representation provides the clearest evidence of change.

Women currently hold 58 of the 148 filled seats in the lower house of Uzbekistan’s parliament, or 39.2 percent. In Kyrgyzstan, women occupy 30 of the 90 seats in the Jogorku Kenesh, exactly one third of the chamber. Tajikistan’s lower house includes 18 women among its 62 members, or 29 percent, while women hold 31 of the 122 currently filled seats in Turkmenistan’s Assembly, equivalent to 25.4 percent.

These figures compare favourably with the global average of 27.5 percent recorded at the beginning of 2026.

Kyrgyzstan offers the most striking recent example of how electoral rules can transform representation. Its November 2025 parliamentary election introduced a system under which each three-member constituency had to return at least one woman and at least one man. Women’s share of seats rose by 12.9 percentage points – the largest increase recorded in any country holding parliamentary elections in 2025.

The change is significant. It created a much larger group of female MPs and could eventually expand the pool of women with the experience and public profile required for ministerial, party and executive positions.

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

But the Kyrgyz election also illustrates the limits of using gender statistics in isolation. The vote took place amid restrictions on political competition and pressure on opposition figures and independent media. A parliament can become more gender-balanced without necessarily becoming more politically pluralistic.

The same caution applies elsewhere in the region. A large share of female parliamentarians is an important measure of inclusion, but it does not by itself reveal how independently MPs can operate, how candidates are selected or how effectively the legislature can scrutinise the executive.

Representation remains meaningful. It is simply not the same thing as power.

What quotas can – and cannot – change

Quotas matter because political recruitment rarely corrects its own inequalities.

Parties tend to select candidates from familiar professional, business and administrative networks. Across Central Asia, these networks remain heavily male, particularly at the senior levels from which candidates for powerful positions are drawn.

Women may also face unequal access to campaign financing, fewer opportunities to develop relationships with party leaders and local officials, and social expectations that continue to place a greater share of family responsibilities on them. Political life can expose women to forms of scrutiny and harassment that their male colleagues are less likely to encounter.

Well-designed quotas can interrupt this cycle. Kyrgyzstan’s experience shows that rules affecting actual election outcomes can produce rapid change. Candidate quotas alone are less reliable: parties may formally include women while placing them in weaker positions or giving them little influence over party decisions.

Read more on Novastan: Women’s Day in Kazakhstan: hundreds gather for rally in Almaty

Kazakhstan’s current system raises a different problem. By grouping women, young people and persons with disabilities within one 30 percent threshold, the law allows parties considerable flexibility in deciding how that quota is filled. A list can comply with the rule without allocating any predetermined share to women.

The first party list registered in the current campaign illustrates the limitation of the available statistics. Respublica’s list contains 75 candidates, of whom 38 – 50.7 percent – collectively belong to the three quota categories. The official figure does not say how many of those 38 candidates are women.

Quotas can open doors. They do not determine what happens after women enter the institution.

They cannot guarantee committee leadership, influence over legislation or access to senior party structures. Nor can they ensure that parliamentary experience becomes a route towards executive authority.

Women ministers – but in which ministries?

The number of women in government matters, but the portfolios they receive often reveal more than the total.

Across Central Asia, female ministers and senior officials are regularly associated with education, healthcare, culture, labour, social protection, family policy and women’s affairs. These are substantial fields of government, frequently involving large budgets and responsibilities that directly affect millions of citizens.

Yet women remain much less visible in defence, interior affairs, energy, finance, infrastructure and the institutions closest to presidential decision-making.

Read more on Novastan: Hitting the road: the first female bus drivers in Uzbekistan

This reflects a wider division in political life. Women are frequently considered appropriate leaders in sectors connected to education, care, families and social welfare, while coercive power, natural resources and macroeconomic management remain overwhelmingly associated with men.

The distinction should not be used to dismiss social-policy portfolios as unimportant. Education, healthcare and social protection are central functions of the state. The question is why women’s access to government so often remains concentrated within them.

Counting ministers without examining their responsibilities can therefore produce a flattering but incomplete picture. Five women managing social portfolios do not represent the same distribution of authority as women heading finance, energy, the interior ministry or a presidential administration.

The issue is not simply how many women sit around the cabinet table. It is which parts of the state they have been entrusted to direct.

Inside local government, but rarely at its head

The divide becomes even clearer at the local level.

International comparisons usually focus on women elected to local councils. But “local government” can describe several very different positions: councillors, municipal employees, deputy mayors, village leaders, district chiefs and regional governors.

Combining them under a single percentage obscures the difference between working within an administration and controlling it.

National and Russian-language sources across Central Asia show that women are far from absent from local political life. They serve in representative councils, work throughout municipal administrations and occupy deputy positions. In some countries, women are institutionally assigned responsibility for family or gender policy within local government.

But women’s representation falls substantially at the top of the territorial hierarchy.

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In Kazakhstan, women form a large part of the public administration and are represented in local maslikhats. Yet regional akim posts and the leadership of the country’s largest cities have remained overwhelmingly male. The gap between women’s presence inside local government and their access to the post of akim is much wider than parliamentary figures alone would suggest.

The distinction is particularly important because akims are not merely local administrators. They oversee budgets, land use, development projects, public services and the implementation of presidential policy across their territories.

Kazakhstan’s gradual introduction of direct elections for rural and some district-level akims may create new routes into executive office. The Central Election Commission publishes information on elections for villages, settlements, rural districts and district-level cities, making it possible to trace the number of female candidates and winners over time.

In Uzbekistan, women hold a significant proportion of seats in local Kengashes and are systematically represented within local executives through deputy hokim positions dealing with family and women’s affairs.

This arrangement guarantees women a place within regional, district and city administrations. But it also places them in a specifically gendered field of responsibility. A female deputy hokim dealing with family policy does not exercise the same authority as the hokim responsible for the administration as a whole.

The system therefore combines inclusion with occupational segregation: women are present, but their institutional role is often defined in advance.

Kyrgyzstan presents another striking contrast. Women now occupy one third of the national parliament, but they remain considerably less visible among mayors, district akims and the heads of rural administrations. Its parliamentary success has not yet been reproduced across the territorial executive.

Tajikistan also maintains substantial female participation within public institutions and local representative bodies, while women frequently serve as deputy chairs in regional, city and district administrations. Far fewer reach the post of chair, where general executive authority is concentrated.

In Turkmenistan, women hold around one quarter of parliamentary seats and the Assembly itself is chaired by a woman. But the leadership of the country’s regions, districts and principal cities remains heavily male. Official appointments can be traced through presidential decrees and reports of government meetings, although the information is rarely consolidated into a single accessible gender breakdown.

The regional pattern is therefore not that women are simply excluded from local government.

It is that they often enter as councillors, administrators or deputies while men continue to dominate the offices that command entire territories.

How political parties imagine women

Statistics reveal where women are. Political language can reveal what parties and governments expect them to do.

Across Central Asia, official programmes regularly discuss women in connection with maternal health, family welfare, employment, small businesses, poverty reduction and protection from violence. Female entrepreneurship has become an especially common theme, combining economic participation with an image of individual responsibility that rarely challenges the wider distribution of political power.

Women appear less frequently as a political constituency whose access to decision-making should be expanded across all policy areas.

The distinction is visible in the way political documents frame women. They may be presented as:

• mothers and carers;
• entrepreneurs and workers;
• vulnerable citizens requiring protection;
• guardians of family and national values;
• beneficiaries of social programmes;
• political leaders and autonomous decision-makers.

These categories are not mutually exclusive. Family policy, childcare and social protection directly influence women’s ability to enter politics and remain in public life.

The problem arises when women’s political legitimacy is explained primarily through their family role. A programme may speak extensively about “supporting women” while saying little about candidate recruitment, party leadership, campaign finance or access to executive office.

A genuine gender-mainstreaming approach would not confine women to a dedicated section on family or social affairs. It would examine how taxation, transport, regional development, agriculture, employment policy and state budgets affect women and men differently.

The manifestos submitted for Kazakhstan’s Kurultai election will offer an immediate test. Will parties discuss women primarily as families, workers and beneficiaries, or will they set out concrete proposals concerning women’s political careers and access to decision-making?

Prominent women – and different paths to influence

Central Asia has produced several highly visible female political figures, but their careers illustrate different forms of authority.

Roza Otunbayeva remains the region’s only woman to have served as head of state. She became Kyrgyzstan’s interim president following the 2010 uprising and oversaw a constitutional transition during an exceptionally turbulent period. Her career demonstrated that a woman could reach the highest office, but it did not establish a lasting regional pattern.

Tanzila Narbaeva, chair of Uzbekistan’s Senate, represents a different route to prominence. She has held senior state positions and has become closely associated with labour, social policy and women’s rights. Her role makes her one of the region’s most institutionally prominent female politicians.

Dunyagozel Gulmanova, the speaker of Turkmenistan’s Assembly, similarly occupies one of the country’s highest formal offices. Yet the limited autonomy of Turkmenistan’s parliament makes it difficult to equate formal rank with independent political influence.

Saida Mirziyoyeva has emerged as one of Uzbekistan’s most prominent public officials through senior roles connected to the presidential administration and her visibility in areas including communications, education, culture and social policy. As the daughter of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, she also holds a distinctive position within Uzbekistan’s highly centralised presidential system. Her profile reflects both the senior institutional responsibilities she has assumed and her proximity to the executive centre.

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Her case should not be reduced either to a celebratory story of female advancement or to family ties alone. It instead illustrates how access to the highest levels of political influence in Central Asia can depend on a combination of official position, presidential confidence and proximity to the centre of power.

The region’s most visible women have reached prominence through very different paths: elections, administrative careers, parliamentary leadership, political upheaval and close association with presidential institutions.

A list of “famous women” therefore tells readers little unless it also asks where their authority comes from, what they control and whether their careers create opportunities for other women.

Beyond counting seats

Sustainable Development Goal 5 calls for women’s “full and effective participation” and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making. The wording is useful because “effective” participation cannot be measured by presence alone.

A fuller assessment must ask whether women:

• lead political parties;
• influence candidate selection;
• chair powerful parliamentary committees;
• control economic and security portfolios;
• govern regions, districts and cities;
• have access to campaign financing;
• can criticise executive policy;
• receive serious rather than gendered media coverage;
• can participate without harassment or intimidation.

It must also take account of the political environment itself.

A tightly controlled state can appoint women to senior offices while limiting the autonomy of all political actors. A more competitive system can still expose female candidates to discrimination, abuse and unequal access to resources.

Gender representation is therefore neither meaningless symbolism nor a complete measure of political openness. It is one important part of a larger political picture.

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Across Central Asia, the progress is real. Women occupy more parliamentary seats, electoral rules are beginning to alter candidate selection, and female officials have reached positions that would have been exceptional a generation ago.

But the gains are distributed unevenly.

Women are more likely to sit in a legislature than to govern a region. They are more likely to work inside a city administration than to serve as mayor. They are more likely to manage education or social policy than finance, energy or security. They are frequently praised as mothers, carers and community figures, but less often treated as unrestricted contenders for executive power.

Kazakhstan’s new Kurultai election offers a timely opportunity to observe this distinction.

The proportion of women elected on 23 August will provide one visible measure of change. The more consequential test will come later: which committees they lead, how much influence they exercise within their parties, and whether parliamentary representation becomes a route towards the institutions that command budgets, territories and strategic areas of government.

Across Central Asia, women have increasingly entered political institutions. The next question is whether those institutions are prepared to share power with them.

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

The post More Women in Central Asian Politics – But Where Is the Power? appeared first on Novastan English.