Central Asia

Towards a more equal field in Central Asia research

(openDemocracy) Over a year ago, a series of articles by feminist scholars from Central Asia exposed the deep inequalities in knowledge production in Central Asian area studies. Academic discourse on the region…

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Slow Anti-Americanism: Social Movements and Symbolic Politics in Central Asia (New Book!)

(Stanford University Press) Negative views of the United States abound, but we know too little about how such views affect politics. Drawing on careful research on post-Soviet Central Asia, Edward Schatz…

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The Other Side of Oil

(УРАЛЬСКАЯ НЕДЕЛЯ) “The Other Side of Oil” documentary depicts the lives of ordinary people living right beside the largest oil reserves in Western Kazakhstan. Through striking images of the Kazakh…

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The Old Man and The Aral Sea

(RFE/RL) Now 90 years old, Omirzak Doszhanov was a fisherman on the Aral Sea before most of it dried into a dust bowl in one of the world’s greatest environmental…

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The Lethal Soviet Legacy In Kazakhstan

(RFE/RL) Forty years of Soviet nuclear bomb tests have left a toxic wasteland in Kazakhstan. The nuclear explosions have stopped, but Russia still rents vast swathes of Kazakh territory for…

Dictatorland: Tajikistan

(BBC) In this episode, Ben Zand travels to Tajikistan to experience the sinister and at times bizarre side to living in a dictatorship. But before he gets there, Ben has…

Dictatorland: Kazakhstan

(BBC) In this episode, Ben Zand travels to Kazakhstan to experience the sinister and at times bizarre side to living in a dictatorship. Beginning his journey in the capital city…

Drinking Vodka With Russian Separatists (Part 1/3)

(VICE) In the northeast region of Kazakhstan, near the Russian border, sits a stretch of land where the Soviet Union spent years testing the atomic bomb. During the Cold War,…

What’s Next For Uzbekistan?

(AL JAZEERA) Islam Karimov was Uzbekistan’s first and only president. He led the Central Asian country for more than 25 years, brushing off accusations of authoritarianism and brutality.

President for Life: Turkmenbashi’s Reign of Terror

(JOURNEYMAN PICTURES) President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan was the dictator famous in the West for his crazy decrees and bizarre personality cult. But for his people, there was nothing comical…

Turkmenistan’s Strange Presidential “Election”

(NEWEURASIA) Official Turkmen media coverage of the fraudulent presidential election. Original translations by myself and a fellow citizen-journalist for NewEurasia.

Lenin’s Children

(BBC) Lenin’s Children a new 45-minute BBC Persian/BBCUZBEK.COM/ documentary looking at life in Tajikistan twenty years after independence from the USSR. Once one of the smallest and poorest Soviet republics,…

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Towards a more equal field in Central Asia research

Slow Anti-Americanism: Social Movements and Symbolic Politics in Central Asia (New Book!)

The Other Side of Oil

The Old Man and The Aral Sea

The Lethal Soviet Legacy In Kazakhstan

Dictatorland: Tajikistan

Dictatorland: Kazakhstan

Drinking Vodka With Russian Separatists (Part 1/3)

What’s Next For Uzbekistan?

President for Life: Turkmenbashi’s Reign of Terror

Turkmenistan’s Strange Presidential “Election”

Lenin’s Children