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Art and Culture

Kazakhstan Joins Alliance for Cultural Heritage in Asia as Observer

Kazakhstan has been granted observer status in the Alliance for Cultural Heritage in Asia, an organization established at China's initiative. The Ministry of Culture and Information announced the decision on October 18 following a meeting in Hangzhou. Representatives from more than 20 countries attended. Kazakhstan hopes to pursue joint archaeological research and use new technologies to preserve historical monuments. The alliance was established in 2023 and is headquartered in Beijing. It has operated as an intergovernmental organization since 2024. It focuses on preserving Asia's historical heritage, supporting archaeological expeditions, restoration projects, and the exchange of scientific data. Kazakhstan has joined as an observer for now, with the possibility of full membership remaining open. At the meeting in Hangzhou, Kazakhstan's Vice Minister of Culture and Information, Aibek Sydykov, proposed joint research into the Silk Road, training for restoration specialists, and the use of digital technologies and artificial intelligence to assess the condition of historical sites. Silk Road heritage sites are of particular interest to Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is home to the remains of ancient settlements and archaeological complexes associated with this trade. Some are part of the UNESCO World Heritage property Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor, a transnational designation encompassing sites in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. The three countries already share obligations under UNESCO to preserve the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor. In 2025, the World Heritage Committee called for outstanding management plans for the heritage sites to be completed and requested a joint report on their state of conservation by December 1, 2026. In March 2026, Kazakhstan announced that the Zharkent Mosque and Almaty's Ascension Cathedral had been added to UNESCO's Tentative List, an inventory of sites being considered for possible nomination to the World Heritage List.

Iranian Cinema

Iranian War Thriller Screened at Tajikistan Film Festival

An Iranian thriller about a cyberattack on a major bank in Iran during the 12-day war in 2025 is among films being showcased at a festival in Tajikistan. The Gambler, directed by Mohsen Bahari and starring Shabnam Ghorbani, is among several Iranian films featured at a state-backed festival in Dushanbe, which shares a Persian-language cultural heritage with Iran. The Toji Somon National Film Festival, which ends on October 20, also includes movies and documentaries from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Iranian cinema includes films made within the state-regulated industry and some independent movies that challenge the government and may be banned from screening in Iran. The films being screened at the festival in Tajikistan have a diplomatic role. They were part of an effort by both countries to promote “cultural cooperation,” according to Khovar, Tajikistan’s state news agency. Iran’s Farabi Cinema Foundation, which is handling international distribution of The Gambler, noted that the film has won the special jury prize at the Across the Lake International Film Festival in North Macedonia, and that Ghorbani won the best actress award at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Film Festival in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The Across the Lake festival said the thriller is set during the 12-day war, in which Israel and Iran attacked each other and the United States struck Iranian nuclear facilities. The film centers on an intelligence official who suspects a bank programmer is behind the enemy cyberattack. Bahari said in an interview with Iran’s Mehr News Agency that he would have preferred the 2026 film about cyberwarfare to be released “under normal circumstances,” but added that “our film is about the 12-day war and deals with a part of the war that has been less covered and shows a new aspect of it.” Another Iranian film on the schedule at the Dushanbe festival is “In the Arms of the Tree,” a film about two young brothers struggling with the divorce of their parents. The film was Iran’s submission for the 2025 Academy Award for best international feature film. Variety magazine said the film “spins platitudes” but showcases director Babak Khajeh Pasha’s “gift” with actors. At the Fajr International Film Festival in Tehran in 2023, Pasha won the best screenplay award and received an honorary diploma in the first-time director category. The kind of Iranian film that directly criticizes the government was absent from the Dushanbe program. Such films include “It Was Just an Accident,” directed by dissident Jafar Panahi. The 2025 film, which tells the story of several former political prisoners who encounter their suspected prison interrogator, won the Palme d’Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. In the 2024 film “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” a Tehran judge comes into conflict with his own wife and daughters after the disappearance of his service weapon at home. The film explores state repression. Director Mohammad Rasoulof fled Iran after being sentenced to jail and flogging after making the film. The cultural ties being promoted by the governments in Iran and Tajikistan run...

Assistive Technology

Teen in Kazakhstan Develops AI Sign Language Translator

Fifteen-year-old Sanzhar Yerezhepov is developing an artificial intelligence (AI) translator to make online information more accessible to deaf people in Kazakhstan. Called Tusin (“Understand”), the platform converts speech and text into lifelike sign language videos that reproduce facial expressions as well as hand movements. Yerezhepov attends Daryn, a specialized school for gifted children in Kokshetau, northern Kazakhstan. A boarding school for children with hearing and speech impairments is located nearby. Watching its students communicate in sign language made him wonder how easily they could access information online, giving him the idea for Tusin. Yerezhepov is from Shiyeli, a small village in Kazakhstan’s Burabay district. Neither of his parents works in science or IT. He is now working with the Kazakhstan Society of the Deaf to test an early version of Tusin and says five organizations have expressed willingness to work with him. The project reached the semifinals of an IT competition at Astana Hub, Kazakhstan’s international technology park for startups. In an interview with The Times of Central Asia, Yerezhepov explains why translating into sign language is more complicated than adding subtitles. He discusses the medical startup he put on hold and what he hopes to change in Kazakhstan’s education system. TCA: Tusin translates online content into sign language, but many videos already have subtitles. Why are those sometimes not enough for deaf viewers? Yerezhepov: For some deaf people, especially those whose primary language is sign language, understanding written text can be difficult. First, subtitles are not always available in a language they are comfortable with. They are often automatically generated and do not convey information accurately. Second, sign language has its own grammar and structure. So even someone living in Kazakhstan may have difficulty understanding subtitles in Kazakh or Russian. Many deaf people can read subtitles fluently, but others need sign language translation. TCA: Isn’t sign language the same around the world? Yerezhepov: No. Different countries use different sign languages. There is no single universal sign language that everyone on Earth understands. TCA: So which sign language is used in Kazakhstan? Yerezhepov: Kazakhstan, like some other former Soviet countries, uses Russian Sign Language. We do not have a separate Kazakh Sign Language, although some signs have been adapted. TCA: How do you teach artificial intelligence to understand and reproduce signs? Who checks its work? Yerezhepov: We work with representatives of the Akmola branch of the Kazakhstan Society of the Deaf and with sign language interpreters. Together, we examine each sign, check how accurately it is reproduced, and analyze the results. We have already demonstrated our technology to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and they understand what the platform communicates. TCA: A sign can change meaning depending on the situation. How does Tusin handle that? Yerezhepov: Quite well, although we are still working on it. The same sign can have different meanings depending on the context. That is exactly the problem we are addressing with artificial intelligence, which can take context into account and determine what is being communicated. Our platform...

AI in Journalism

Astana Media Week: AI’s Opportunities and Risks for Journalism

The tenth edition of Astana Media Week is taking place in Kazakhstan's capital from October 14 to 16, with media professionals from Central Asia and other regions discussing how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing journalism. Dzhanibek Suleyev, a veteran Kazakh web publisher, and Alexander Smolin, former editor of Orda.kz, once one of the country's most popular online news outlets, spoke to The Times of Central Asia about how to take advantage of this technological leap while minimizing its risks. A New Revolution in Information Production AI can generate large volumes of content in seconds, but Suleyev argues that the technology cannot replicate a journalist's judgment: finding an original angle, choosing the right person to interview, or persuading them to speak candidly. “I can't say definitively whether the invention of AI is a blessing or a threat. That's a question for philosophers,” he said. Suleyev sees parallels with the advent of online journalism. The media, he noted, have repeatedly adapted to new technology. What once seemed radical – reading news on a computer or phone rather than in a newspaper – quickly became routine. In the process, new professions emerged, including search engine optimization editors, audience analytics specialists, multimedia journalists, and social media editors, while demand for printing and newspaper distribution declined. Online publishing also dramatically lowered the cost of launching a news outlet. “Just as the media's move online in the 2000s did, AI is now reducing the cost of producing information. But there is a fundamental difference between these two revolutions,” Suleyev said. “The first changed how information was produced, distributed, and consumed. The second is also affecting the very process of creating journalistic content.” The Right to Fair Compensation That transformation raises an immediate financial problem: search engines can deliver AI-generated answers without users visiting the websites that originally reported the information. Suleyev says this is costing publishers traffic and advertising revenue. Evidence of declining traffic is already mounting. Google search referrals to more than 2,500 news websites worldwide fell by 33% between November 2024 and November 2025, according to a report by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Researchers cautioned, however, that it remains unclear how much of this decline can be attributed directly to AI-generated summaries. On October 12, major publishers, including The New York Times and The Economist, joined a coalition seeking greater control over how AI companies use their content and fair compensation for that use. Suleyev believes such issues must be discussed by the media community and addressed through legislation. Relying on AI Alone Is a Losing Strategy Smolin is more optimistic about AI's practical benefits. Tasks that once took a journalist two hours of searching can now, he said, be completed in minutes. Generating illustrations has also become easier, reducing the need for some in-house design work. “There's a saying I really like: to use artificial intelligence, you need to develop your own intelligence,” Smolin said. “I'm fully in favor of developing AI in the industry, but only in combination...

Swimming World Cup

Astana Plays Host to the Swimming World Cup

More than 300 swimmers from 39 countries are competing in Astana for the final leg of the 2026 World Aquatics Swimming World Cup. This is Kazakhstan's first time hosting an event in the series, which will determine the overall men's and women's World Cup winners. The competition is taking place from October 15 to 17 at Barys Arena, concluding the three-stage Silk Road series, which began in Baku and continued in Tashkent. The World Cup is organized by World Aquatics, the international governing body for aquatic sports. Unlike the Olympic Games, swimmers compete in a 25- rather than a 50-meter pool, meaning races involve more turns. Competitors, whose ranks include Olympic and world champions, are vying for medals in freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly, and backstroke events over distances ranging from 50 to 1,500 meters. There are also individual medley and relay events. Athletes are also competing for overall standings points accumulated across the series' three legs. The series carries a $1.2 million prize fund. On the opening day, October 15, two Kazakh swimmers set national records. Aibat Myrzamuratov completed the men's 50-meter breaststroke in 26.50 seconds, while Sofia Spodarenko broke her own record in the women's 50-meter butterfly. Kazakhstan's Minister of Tourism and Sports, Yerbol Myrzabossynov, stressed the tournament's significance for local swimmers, who have an opportunity to compete against some of the world's leading athletes on home soil. Kazakhstan has entered 22 swimmers in the competition. Kazakhstan is expanding its calendar of international sporting events. According to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, the country expects to host seven world championships across various disciplines in 2026 and 2027. These include the World Wrestling Championships, which will take place at Barys Arena from October 24 to November 1.

Podcast

Pannier and Hillard’s Spotlight on Central Asia: New Episode Out Now

As Managing Editor of The Times of Central Asia, I’m delighted that, in partnership with the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, we are the home of the Spotlight on Central Asia podcast. Chaired by seasoned broadcasters Bruce Pannier of RFE/RL’s long-running Majlis podcast and Michael Hillard of The Red Line, each fortnightly instalment will take you on a deep dive into the latest news, developments, security issues, and social trends across an increasingly pivotal region. This week, the team looks at Kyrgyzstan unveiling plans that would require religious bloggers to be licensed and subjected to greater state oversight; further changes to the country's regional security leadership; one of the Central Asian states launching its first satellite into space; and a new round of CSTO military exercises in Russia that could have some troubling implications for the region. We'll also be looking at Turkmenistan marking 35 years of independence with a massive military parade showcasing a range of new weapons systems, as well as a week of blackouts hitting one of Central Asia's key cities. From there, we turn to our main story this week, where we'll be joined by two experts from the World Bank to discuss a major new report examining some of the biggest economic bottlenecks facing Central Asia, where those constraints are emerging, and what governments across the region will need to do to overcome them. Special guests: - Muneeza Alam (World Bank) - Luis Blancas (World Bank)