Shahmardan Comes Out of the Well addresses a topic still harrowing for Kazakhstan a century on: the famine unleashed when the Soviets embarked on the collectivization of agriculture.
The surviving popularity of the komuz as a living instrument, rather than a museum artifact, and the flourishing tradition of Kyrgyz folk music is in no small way thanks to Malik Alikeyev, who died on January 17.
Vakhtang (Buba) Kikabidze, a Georgian singer and actor universally loved across the former Soviet Union, has died at the age of 84, drawing the curtain on an era.
Georgian cinema has been enjoying a renaissance, becoming a darling of the international independent film world. But it’s also running into political problems at home.