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FIDE Chess Olympiad

Samarkand Expects Record Turnout for Chess Olympiad

Samarkand is preparing to host the largest Chess Olympiad yet, with organizers expecting 398 teams as Uzbekistan stages the tournament for the first time in Central Asia. The 46th Chess Olympiad opens on September 15 at the Silk Road International Tourism Center and runs until September 27, with the first round to be played on September 16, according to the official schedule. Organizers say 208 teams will compete in the Open section and 190 in the women’s competition. The expected field of 1,974 players includes 240 grandmasters. More than 4,000 guests are expected when coaches and delegation members are included. That turnout would exceed the 374 teams recorded by FIDE at the 2024 Budapest Olympiad. Both sections will be contested over eleven rounds, with four players competing for each team in every match. Teams may also register one reserve player. The Olympiad dates back to 1927. Its arrival in Samarkand brings the competition to a historic Silk Road city whose center is inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List. Uzbekistan enters the Open competition as the third seed, according to the organizers’ figures based on average team ratings. The United States leads the seedings, ahead of defending champions India. The U.S. team includes Fabiano Caruana, Wesley So, and Levon Aronian, while Hans Niemann is set to make his Olympiad debut. Vincent Keymer will represent Germany, and France’s squad includes Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. For Uzbekistan, Javokhir Sindarov and Nodirbek Abdusattorov bring top-ten credentials to the home challenge. Sindarov is fourth in FIDE’s September rankings, while Abdusattorov is seventh. The rankings cited by the organizers also place Nodirbek Yakubboev 39th and Shamsiddin Vokhidov 61st, giving the main squad four players among the world’s top 100. Former FIDE world champion Rustam Kasimdzhanov has also been named in the main Open lineup. His inclusion adds experience to a squad built around Uzbekistan’s younger grandmasters. The hosts will field three teams in each section, opening places for emerging players. Nilufarkhon Imomkuziyeva and Khumoyun Begmurodov, both 16, are among those making their Olympiad debuts. In the women’s competition, Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova is set to represent Uzbekistan after playing for the United States at the 2024 Budapest Olympiad. Nafisa Muminova, Uzbekistan’s first woman grandmaster, will serve as captain. The organizers cite Afruza Khamdamova’s position at 26th in the women’s world rankings, with Tokhirjonova 80th. Uzbekistan’s women have climbed 17 places since 2025 to 21st in FIDE’s federation rankings, while the Open side has risen 15 places to sixth. India is the top seed in the women’s competition. Kazakhstan’s lineup includes three-time women’s world blitz champion Bibisara Assaubayeva, who also won Norway Chess Women 2026, securing the title in Oslo with a round to spare. Ukraine’s first board will be 16-year-old Anastasiia Hnatyshyn, who won the European Women’s Championship in June after entering the tournament as the 76th seed. Samarkand will also host the third FIDE Chess Olympiad for People with Disabilities from September 10 to 18. Organizers expect a record 41 teams, compared with 26 at the inaugural event in...

Contemporary Art

From Bukhara to Venice: How Uzbekistan Is Building a Contemporary Art Scene

Uzbekistan has long known how to attract foreign visitors with its past – Samarkand, Bukhara, the Silk Road, and Islamic architecture. Now the country is trying to interest the world in what it is creating today. In just a few years, Uzbekistan has launched the Bukhara Biennial and established a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. On September 6, the country’s first permanent center for contemporary art opened in Tashkent. The Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent (CCA Tashkent) occupies a 1912 industrial building that once served as a diesel station and tram depot. French architecture firm Studio KO preserved its industrial character while incorporating local materials and craft techniques. Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, chairperson of Qatar Museums, attended the opening. Three days earlier, Qatar Museums and the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation launched a five-year collaboration covering exhibitions and artist residencies, professional development for museum specialists, and work with Islamic heritage. For the young Tashkent center, this offers a route into established international museum networks. Over the past two decades, Qatar has built one of the Middle East’s most prominent museum networks. The connection with Doha could give Tashkent access to artists, curators, and museum networks developed over years. [caption id="attachment_55705" align="aligncenter" width="819"] Image: ccat.uz[/caption] The Foundation Behind the Push One organization stands behind several of Uzbekistan’s major contemporary art projects: the Uzbekistan Art and Culture Development Foundation (ACDF). It organizes the Bukhara Biennial, oversees the new center in Tashkent, and presents the country’s national pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The foundation was established in 2017 and now operates within the Presidential Administration. It is headed by Gayane Umerova, who also leads the administration’s Department of Creative Economy and Tourism. The foundation’s projects have also received support from Saida Mirziyoyeva, head of the Presidential Administration. That context helps explain where the funding and scale come from. Contemporary art in Uzbekistan is developing with direct state support, while exhibitions and biennials have become part of a broader effort to reshape the country’s cultural image abroad. Bukhara provided the first major test. In 2025, the ancient city hosted its first contemporary art biennial, Recipes for Broken Hearts. Works were installed among madrasas, mosques, and other buildings in Bukhara’s historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. According to the organizers, the biennial drew more than 1.8 million visitors over its run. It was an unusual experiment for the region: contemporary art was not separated from the architecture that has drawn tourists to Bukhara for decades, but placed directly inside it. Tashkent is trying something different. Here, artists now have a permanent space where they can not only exhibit but also work. [caption id="attachment_55708" align="alignnone" width="1024"] ccat.uz[/caption] From Uzbek Ceramics to Kimsooja The center’s inaugural exhibition is called Hikmah – “Wisdom.” Curated by the center’s chief curator, Sara Raza, it explores craft, memory, material, and knowledge passed between generations. Among the participating artists is Shokhrukh Rakhimov, who grew up in a family of Uzbek ceramicists. His work continues that tradition...

Labor Force

Kazakhstan’s Factory Expansion Faces a Skilled Labor Shortage

Kazakhstan plans to create tens of thousands of jobs at new factories, but lacks qualified workers. Around 200 industrial projects are scheduled to be launched in 2026, followed by new metallurgical, engineering, and chemical plants. The facilities can be built within a few years, but training the staff needed to operate them may take significantly longer. A 2025 estimate suggested the shortage of qualified workers in manufacturing, construction, and engineering-related fields could exceed 100,000. The projects planned for 2026 are worth a combined 1.7 trillion tenge, or approximately $3.6 billion, and are expected to create around 18,000 permanent jobs. The next wave of projects will require several thousand more workers. Seven new projects in ferrous metallurgy are planned for 2027–2028, creating more than 3,500 permanent jobs. Another six facilities in non-ferrous metallurgy are planned for the same period, creating more than 800 jobs. Behind those plans are facilities producing steel and ferroalloys, copper and aluminum products, trucks, road machinery, and chemicals. Kazakhstan is seeking to process more of its own raw materials domestically and export products with higher added value. For an economy that remains heavily dependent on oil, metals, and other commodities, the success of that policy will shape its prospects for further diversification. The Asian Development Bank has identified higher productivity and stronger human capital as important conditions for that transition. In March 2025, National Engineering Academy President Bakytzhan Zhumagulov said the shortage of qualified workers in construction, manufacturing, engineering and technical fields could exceed 100,000. Meanwhile, in April 2026, Science and Higher Education Minister Sayasat Nurbek warned that the gap between the specialists being trained and the needs of the economy was widening. The Ministry of Labor has pointed to another imbalance: on the Enbek electronic labor exchange in May 2025, demand for workers with mid-level qualifications exceeded supply by 16%. Tomorrow’s Factories and Today’s Labor Market The government is already trying to reshape vocational education. In 2025, 70% of state-funded college places were allocated to technical fields, including mechanical engineering, transportation, energy, IT, and construction. Kazakhstan operates a system for forecasting the economy’s labor needs, estimating demand by occupation, region, and industry several years ahead, taking into account both newly created jobs and the need to replace people leaving the labor market. These projections are intended to guide state-funded education and vocational training. The potential scale of future demand is substantial. A forecast published in 2025 estimated that the economy would require around 1.6 million workers over the following six years, including about 900,000 people with technical and vocational education. Demand for workers in skilled trades alone was estimated at more than 400,000. Construction, agriculture, and manufacturing were expected to be among the main employers. Yet the current labor market still reflects a fairly traditional pattern. Kazakhstan has a short-term vocational training program for unemployed people. Employers submit requests for the specialists they need and guarantee employment, while the state pays for their training. More than 11 billion tenge, approximately $23 million, was allocated to the...

City Planning

Almaty and Astana Set to Retain Central Asia’s Economic Lead

Almaty long combined Kazakhstan’s political and commercial functions and established itself as Central Asia’s leading business center. After Astana became Kazakhstan’s capital, the two cities developed increasingly complementary roles, with Almaty remaining the region’s largest business and financial hub while Astana accumulated political, institutional and corporate weight. Kazakhstan’s updated figures put Astana’s growth at about 10% and Almaty’s at about 5%. Together, the two cities generated roughly $107 billion in 2025. Together, they have become a two-city engine anchoring much of Central Asia’s commerce. Almaty and Astana benefit from an economic scale unmatched elsewhere in Central Asia. Kazakhstan alone accounts for more than half of the region’s GDP and roughly two-thirds of its inward FDI stock, according to TCA’s Central Asia Balance Sheet. That scale helps generate the fiscal resources needed to build and maintain the municipal infrastructure that supports business activity. Kazakhstan also has Central Asia’s most developed capital markets. The combination of the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange (KASE) in Almaty and the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and Astana International Exchange (AIX) in Astana gives companies access to equity, debt, institutional investors and financial infrastructure at a scale no other market in the region currently matches. Kazakhstan is also the only Central Asian country with an investment-grade sovereign rating, lowering the country-risk premium and helping reduce financing costs for companies and projects relative to lower-rated regional markets. These advantages have been reinforced over decades. Almaty and Astana have long served as regional bases for major global companies, creating an established ecosystem of corporate management, finance, professional services and skilled labor. That track record, in turn, strengthens their ability to attract further investment and regional headquarters. Tashkent and Bishkek are also growing rapidly Then there is Tashkent. Uzbekistan’s political and commercial capital had an economy of about $29 billion in 2025, about 40% the size of Almaty’s and three-quarters that of Astana. Tashkent has also experienced rapid growth, with its economy growing by 11.3% in real terms in 2025, according to preliminary national figures. Tashkent benefits from Uzbekistan’s demographic scale. The country’s population is almost twice Kazakhstan’s, giving its capital access to a much larger domestic market and labor pool. But that scale also raises the need for sustained job creation and continued investment in housing and infrastructure. If productivity and investment fail to keep pace with population growth, the demographic advantage could increasingly act as a constraint rather than help Tashkent close the gap with Almaty and Astana. Almaty and Astana, meanwhile, generate substantially more economic output per resident. In 2025, Gross Regional Product (GRP) per capita was approximately $29,900 in Almaty and $23,700 in Astana, compared with about $9,300 in Tashkent, using reporting-year average exchange rates. These figures measure output per resident, not labor productivity, household income or living standards. Like Tashkent, Bishkek combines the roles of political capital and principal economic center. On the reporting years used here, however, its economy is only about 30% as large. Its economy grew by 15.8% in 2024, according to Kyrgyzstan’s...

Migration Policy

Kazakhstan Prepares QazETA Entry Authorization for Visa-Free Travelers

Kazakhstan is preparing to change entry rules for citizens of countries that enjoy visa-free travel: before their trip, they may be required to obtain an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA). The system remains voluntary for now, but legislation already suggests that authorities are preparing for their phased mandatory introduction. The new rules will also affect Russians and citizens of other Eurasian Economic Union countries. An ETA is a form of pre-travel authorization used by a number of countries to screen visa-exempt travelers before arrival. QazETA is the digital platform through which Kazakhstan issues the authorization. It does not replace a visa or extend the permitted period of stay. Kazakhstan launched the platform in pilot mode earlier in 2026, with a new phase of implementation beginning on August 25. Citizens of visa-exempt countries are currently advised to apply through the mobile app no later than 72 hours before traveling. The authorization is valid for 180 days. For now, the absence of an ETA is not grounds for border authorities to deny entry. Kazakhstan’s Law on Migration already contains a separate article governing electronic travel authorization. It provides for a fee for obtaining an ETA, with the proceeds to be divided equally between financing the digital system and supporting tourism development. The government has not yet publicly set the amount of the fee. A detailed timetable reported from an earlier version of Serbia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs travel advisory indicated that the ETA could become mandatory for air travelers from November 1, then be extended to road crossings with China, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, followed later by the borders with Russia and Kyrgyzstan, and by mid-December to rail and maritime travel. However, the ministry’s current advisory no longer lists those dates. It says Kazakhstan will announce the dates for each stage, as well as the fee, separately. The same reports have also cited an indicative fee of around 3,900 tenge – approximately $9 – for a standard application and twice that amount for an application submitted directly at the border. In practical terms, the new system means that visa-free travel will remain in place, but travel itself will no longer be entirely free of advance formalities. Foreign nationals will still be able to enter without a visa, but they will likely have to register through QazETA and obtain an ETA before crossing the border. For Kazakhstan, the mechanism provides a way to obtain information about incoming travelers in advance and monitor migration flows more closely. Attracting Skilled Professionals At the same time, the government is seeking to make the country more attractive to skilled professionals and investors. In May, authorities presented a new migration model with separate arrangements for entrepreneurs, highly qualified workers, and other categories of foreign nationals. The new rules have attracted particular attention because of Russia. The two countries share a long land border, are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, and maintain visa-free travel. After Russia announced partial mobilization for the war in Ukraine in September 2022, Kazakhstan became one...

Central Asia Water Cooperation

Water in Central Asia: Can the Five States Reach an Agreement?

Central Asia is entering a period of growing water stress, as climate change makes supplies less predictable while demand continues to rise. Populations are growing, economies require new energy and industrial capacity, glaciers are shrinking, and agriculture continues to consume most of the available water. The region’s two main rivers – the Amu Darya and Syr Darya – cross national borders, making it impossible for any one country to solve the problem on its own. After decades of disputes, Central Asian states are increasingly trying to manage water jointly. In 2026, that cooperation has produced further practical steps, from plans for automated water accounting in the Syr Darya basin to new proposals for reforming regional mechanisms. The question now is whether the five countries can agree on rules when their water needs remain different. Water and Energy: An Old Conflict The structural conflict is rooted in the region’s geography. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are upstream states and use water in part for hydropower generation, particularly in winter. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan are downstream and need large volumes in summer during the irrigation season. During the Soviet period, a centralized exchange system was in place: upstream republics stored water in winter and released it in summer, receiving energy resources in return. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, that unified mechanism disappeared. Interstate agreements preserved a degree of coordination but did not eliminate the tension between upstream energy needs and downstream agricultural interests. Climate change is now adding another layer to the problem. Retreating glaciers in the Pamir and Tien Shan mountains are altering the timing and reliability of river flows, while populations and consumption are increasing. Countries across the region are planning new power plants, industrial facilities, mining projects, and data centers, while agriculture remains the largest consumer of water. From Seasonal Quotas to Joint Management The main formal mechanism for coordinating river allocations remains the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination of Central Asia (ICWC), established in 1992. Through it, countries coordinate water withdrawal limits and reservoir operating regimes in the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins. In late 2025, the countries agreed on water allocations for 2026: for the Amu Darya, the total withdrawal limit for the water-management year from October 2025 to October 2026 was around 55.4 billion cubic meters, while the Syr Darya allocation for the non-growing season was approximately 4.2 billion cubic meters. The five-state framework does not, however, cover every major user of the Amu Darya. Afghanistan is outside the regional allocation system, while its Qosh Tepa Canal, now under construction, has added another source of uncertainty over future downstream flows. Such agreements keep the shared system functioning, but many decisions are still made ahead of each new season. Climate change and rising demand require a longer-term model. In February of this year, Kazakhstan proposed developing a Central Asian Framework Convention on Water Use, while joint infrastructure projects, including Kyrgyzstan’s Kambarata-1 hydropower plant with the participation of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, are gradually adding shared economic interests...