Eurasianet

Changing tastes threaten askiya, a centuries-old Uzbek tradition that prizes wit, improvisation, and mastery of language.

A charismatic, handicapped singer has gone viral, triggering appearances with Russian superstars and a member of the ruling family.

Tashkent is regretting its early embrace of the Chinese app.

The Uzbek blogger who first raised these concerns was smeared, beaten, and now faces trial.

Eldor Shomurodov’s success making it into one of Europe’s most important national football leagues has generated a fresh flurry of ambition among young Uzbek players.

The project is intended to partially bridge the language knowledge gap with Russian.

While clumsy on COVID-19, Turkmenistan is being more sure-footed, or consistent at least, on the Afghanistan front. Plus, unsustainable agriculture. Our weekly briefing.

The government signals it is taking COVID a bit more seriously, without admitting the virus is running rampant. And Ashgabat gets down to business with the Taliban. This and more in our weekly briefing.

Central Asia’s largest nations are using unique coronavirus vaccines that haven’t been carefully studied. Do they have a choice?

Vaccine hesitancy in Uzbekistan is high, bred by social media conspiracies that seem credible in a country without accountable authorities.

But Russians are more ambivalent about having a Tajik-born singer represent them at the song contest.

Our Kazakhstan correspondent describes the waiting, the bureaucracy, and the anticlimax of getting his Sputnik V jab in Almaty.

Although Turkmenistan is rarely mentioned as a prospective member of the Moscow-led EAEU trading bloc, that notion is quite obviously on the Kremlin’s mind. Our weekly briefing.

The number of flights is still highly limited for the time being, however.

The region appears wholly unprepared for the latest rise in cases.