EurasiaChat

To mark this last-ever edition of our EurasiaChat podcast, we decided to take a glance at the health of the media scene across Central Asia. The report card does not make for encouraging reading. Peter Leonard, Eurasianet’s Central Asia editor, kicked things off with Kyrgyzstan, which has been the site of some troubling developments of late. In the latest alarming sign of decline, a court there la...

Dastur, a newly released horror movie in Kazakhstan , has been smashing box office records. And so, in this latest edition of our EurasiaChat podcast, we decided to speak to our producer, Aigerim Toleukhanova, to find out what all the fuss is about. First, the plot: the narrative revolves around the fallout that ensues after the wild-child son of a rich businessman rapes a school-leaver walking ho...

Kyrgyzstan opened this New Year with a slightly new-look flag.  The changes were not, in truth, that great. The colors and the sun-like figure at the center of the standard remained more or less the same. But President Sadyr Japarov, who chivvied lawmakers into proposing this initiative in September, said the sun emblem needed to look less like a sunflower, which he believes to symbolize subservie...

On the occasion of the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Dubai, the latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast focused on how Central Asia is meeting the challenge. Turkmenistan made headlines with the announcement that it is signing up   to the Global Methane Pledge, a voluntary agreement that commits adherents to cut methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. The country has...

In this week’s edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, we turned our attention to the problem of gender-based violence. This topic has been in the news of late in Kazakhstan following the killing last month of a woman, Saltanat Nukenova, allegedly at the hands of her husband, a former top-ranking official in Kazakhstan’s government.   Kuandyk Bishimbayev, 43, is now in jail pending further investigati...

An explosion at a coal mine in central Kazakhstan last month claimed the lives of 46 workers in what has been described as the deadliest industrial accident in the country’s history. This week on the EurasiaChat podcast, co-presenters Alisher Khamidov and Peter Leonard opened by dwelling on how the public agenda has been dominated by speculation over who will end up owning the company that control...

Central Asia is grappling with another looming water crisis. In this episode of the EurasiaChat podcast, hosts Peter Leonard and Alisher Khamidov delved into the concerning drop in the Caspian Sea's water level, which has dire implications for the ecosystem and marine economy in the region. The decline in the Caspian Sea's water level is a complex issue influenced by both natural forces...

Russia is refocusing its attention on Central Asia. As Alisher Khamidov and Peter Leonard discussed in the latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, last week saw a notable visit to Kyrgyzstan by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in the country to attend a Commonwealth of Independent States leader summit.  Beyond the usual speechifying and deal-making, there was some symbolism of note. As...

 In the latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, resident co-presenter Alisher Khamidov opened with some questions about a visit that Peter Leonard, Eurasianet’s Central Asia editor, recently paid to Tajikistan. The standard narrative is that the country is in a perennial economic slump. And there is more than enough data to support that idea. Hundreds of thousands of people have to go abroad fo...

In this latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, EurasiaNet Central Asia editor Peter Leonard and co-presenter Alisher Khamidov first turned their attention to more bad news about media freedoms in Kyrgyzstan. As they had threatened that they would do, the authorities have gone ahead and ordered local internet service providers to block access to the website of independent news website Kloop.  T...

The latest edition of our EurasiaChat podcast kicked off with some thoughts from Eurasianet Central Asia editor, Peter Leonard, on his experience of doing the notoriously grueling Silk Road Mountain Race.  This annual bike race can last up to two weeks and takes participants through some of the most remote and challenging locations in Kyrgyzstan – from cold mountain passes to barren, searing valle...

In this week’s EurasiaChat podcast, co-presenters Peter Leonard and Alisher Khamidov turned their attention to the question of the recent visit of a Taliban business delegation to Kazakhstan. When the militant group seized power in Kabul in 2021, it caused palpable alarm across Central Asia. But that anxiety quickly dissipated, as the continued emphasis on economic ties has shown. Bilateral trade...

The West’s campaign of trade sanctions against Russia has put Kyrgyzstan in a bind. Last week, the U.S. Treasury announced it had slapped sanctions on four companies in the country for enabling the circumvention of export bans of dual-use material to Russia.  As Alisher Khamidov, a Eurasianet contributor based in Bishkek, notes in the latest edition of our EurasiaChat podcast, this may be the pric...

That Uzbekistan’s presidential election would be won by the incumbent, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, was a given . So in this edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, Alisher Khamidov and Peter Leonard discussed how this vote came to be and what it implies for the future of Uzbekistan. The authorities insist the election was needed because of the changes made to the constitution earlier this year. “The argument...

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, its cultural exports have been viewed with suspicion all over the world, including in traditionally receptive Central Asia. The latest Russian artist to learn that to his cost is Grigory Leps, a popular singer who has come in for criticism over his support of the war. Leps was due to hold a concert on July 8 at the Macao Luxury Village Resort in the southern Kaza...

Alisher Khamidov opens this edition of our EurasiaChat podcast by dwelling on how military conscript recruiters in Tajikistan resort to extreme lengths to hit their quotas. The mass recruitment drives take place in the spring and the fall. Recruiters resort to devious, not to say violent, methods to round up young people . Around 16,000 young men are enlisted annually in Tajikistan through conscri...

In this edition of EurasiaChat, Alisher Khamidov shares some insights on his recent stay in the U.S. city of Philadelphia, which he describes as being like a “new Almaty or new Tashkent” for all the Central Asian migrants that have settled there. Alisher was on a quest to find love, which, unfortunately, ended fruitlessly. What he did find, however, were communities of Kyrgyz, Tajiks and Uzbeks th...

In our podcast this week, Alisher Khamidov, Peter Leonard and Aigerim Toleukhanova provide an update on how Central Asian countries may be abetting Russian efforts to circumvent international sanctions , and what Western officials are doing to tighten these loopholes. Senior U.S. officials traveled to the region in late April and issued fresh warnings about a possible fallout from enabling sanctio...

In our podcast this week, Alisher Khamidov and Peter Leonard discuss a Kyrgyzstan man held as a slave laborer in Kazakhstan for 32 years. His plight is party the fault of convoluted working regulations in Kazakhstan, where thousands toil without papers, making them vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. This is a problem across the region, yet it rarely makes headlines or draws public indignation. ...

In our podcast this week, Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss how reports of a small group of separatists in northern Kazakhstan have outraged Kazakhs. But how credible is the threat? And why has the group emerged now? Regional governments are good at using fears of separatism to argue that citizens must fall into line, to silence protests and democratic movements.  Uzbekistan has be...

In our podcast this week Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov revisit the “ relokanty ” – Russians who fled the war – who are now receiving expedited Kyrgyz citizenship, buying property and opening businesses. But their presence is no longer as controversial as it was last year when the sudden arrival of thousands upset local economies and stoked inflation.   Central Asians watched the Putin-...

This week on our podcast, Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss local cynicism about the American commitment to Central Asia following U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit . Russia is more dependent on good relations with Central Asia than ever before, and China gives billions without demanding reforms. Kazakhstan, which will hold parliamentary elections this weekend, still o...

This week on our podcast, Aigul Adzhieva, a documentary filmmaker investigating Kyrgyzstan's epidemic of gender-based and domestic violence, discusses how the scourge is fueled by social fragmentation, the growing wealth gap, and a lack of kindness in Kyrgyz society.  She and hosts Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov then reflect on the anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion o...

In our podcast this week, hosts Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss how Central Asians see the Turkish earthquake: a tragedy in a friendly country, first, but also a frightening portent.  Shoddy construction, dodgy inspection regimes, and active fault lines – the Central Asian states look a lot like Turkey. Moreover, many construction firms behind the region’s ongoing building boom a...

In our podcast this week, hosts Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss attacks on Central Asian journalists, the changing impact of Russian propaganda, and Kazakhstan’s new nameless McDonald’s .  Plus, Peter Leonard and Joanna Lillis describe their reporting on the violence last summer in Karakalpakstan. The trial concluded today with a long sentence for an activist who refused to join...