Steppe Ahead - The Central Asia Podcast

Jonas and Thomas record a special football-focused Steppe Ahead podcast. They discuss Uzbekistan qualifying for its first World Cup in the expanded 2026 tournament and preview Group K. The conversation frames football as a tool for national branding and highlights upcoming events such as the 2027 U20 World Cup in Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. They review Central Asian talent and transfers, including...

In this episode of the Steppe Ahead Podcast, Jonas and Thomas discuss Alexander von Humboldt’s 1829 expedition through Russia and into Kazakhstan and Kazakhstan’s cycling team Astana as a global branding project. Jonas outlines how Humboldt, traveled for months from St. Petersburg via Moscow, the Urals and Altai toward northeastern Kazakhstan near the Chinese border to study geology, climate and n...

She won coding olympiads as a teenager, published robotics research at 20, landed at Google, quit to found a startup that failed, built a mentorship platform for Kazakh students, and now invests in Central Asian startups from Paris. Nazerke Kalidolda has packed several careers into her late twenties. In this episode we talk about what pulls Kazakh talent abroad and what could bring it back, and wh...

In this episode of the "Steppe Ahead" podcast, Jonas Thorsten and Thomas talk about Easter traditions and Thomas's trip to a Mix Markt in Germany, where he found almost no Central Asian products. The hosts develop a wish list of their favorite Central Asian products. They also talk about Kazakhstan’s commercial vehicle market and the growing importance of the Middle Corridor, including...

In this episode of the Steppe Ahead podcast, Jonas Thorsten and Thomas talk about the Kazakh car market and how Thorsten’s viral video highlighted the rapid change and what it means for German cars. They also discuss the absence of Kazakh on Duolingo, the rise of local AI-based apps like Alim and growing interest in learning Kazakh, and the ongoing debate over Latinization versus Cyrillic. 00:00 W...

In this episode of the Steppe Ahead podcast, Jonas shares impressions from the Leipzig Book Fair, noting 300,000 visitors and discussing Central Asian literature, including classic writers Mukhtar Auezov and Chingiz Aitmatov, and the Kazakh Library translation project, The conversation then shifts to Kazakhstan’s plan to build Alatau City near Almaty to relieve overcrowding, traffic, and pollution...

Jonas, Thorsten, and Thomas discuss Nowruz, the Persian “new day” spring festival, its 3,000-year-old origins, Soviet-era public ban, and current Kazakh traditions such as Nauryz kozhe, yurts, wearing traditional clothes, settling debts, and making peace before the holiday, alongside its timing near the end of Ramadan and its spread across Iran, Central Asia, and nearby regions. They then cover Uz...

In this episode, Thorsten, Jonas and Thomas discuss Kazakhstan’s referendum on a new constitution that would take effect July 1, dissolve the current parliament, and trigger new elections. They also cover Uzbekistan’s super app Uzum, which secured a huge investment from Oman’s sovereign wealth fund plus investment from Tencent, reaching a $2.3 billion valuation. Finally, they examine Russia’s McDo...

The hosts Jonas, Thorsten, and Thomas discuss how landlocked Central Asian economies rely on transit routes such as the Turkmenistan–Iran rail link and warn that disrupted oil supply could push prices above $200 per barrel, worsening inflation for energy importers like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan while creating mixed, risky effects for exporters such as Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The conversation...