The Uzbek government is gaining more and more control of all areas of social life. The grip on civil society gained speed after the events in Andijan but the supressing infrastructure was already set up before that crackdown on the population.
The NYT has a lengthy story on the release of a 70-minute video recording of the events in Andijan in May 2005. (A shorter version is already in circulation, mostly through the Uzbek embassies, and can be viewed at Registan.) Pretty early on it becomes clear that the video can be viewed from any […]
In the two largest cities, Tashkent and Samarkand, the cars are a mixture of modern Daewoo and Soviet era Lada and Volga. While in Bukhara, Urgench and smaller communities they are almost exclusively Daewoo, with the overall number of automobiles much lower in smaller communities. High end cars can be seen in Tashkent but […]
Why is it that I am immediately suspicious of an article entitled ‘Central Asia Rediscovers its Muslim Roots’ (courtesy of Reuters)? Is it because I think it will perpetrate the myth that Islam was totally dead during Soviet rule? or is it because I fear it will repeats old canards about Central Asian muslims […]
The New York Post has an interesting article about one of the most succesful Uzbek immigrants-Yakov Arabov A.K.A. Jacob “The Jeweler” Arabo.
The famed Manhattan purveyor of diamond-encrusted “bling” to Madonna, Diddy, hoop star Allen Iverson and other celebs was busted yesterday on charges he helped two coke kingpins launder some of their […]
Coca-Cola’s Uzbekistan business has always been worth a story as it is so neatly interwoven with some Karimov family gossip.
A quick background: In 1991, President Karimov’s daugther, Gulnora Karimova, got married to Afghan-Uzbek enterpreneur Mansur Maqsudi. Not long after that, Maqsudi approached Coca-Cola offering the company to manage their Uzbekistan operations. It only took […]
During the last few weeks, a number of international NGOs have been closed or been threatened of closure in Uzbekistan. Since the end of April this year, the speed of closures seems to have increased. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. The anniversary of the Andijan events and the upcoming presidential […]
