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Contemporary Ballet

Kazakhstan’s Astana Ballet Stages a Dance of Gold and Steppe Wind

The Astana Ballet hosted the premiere of Altyn Gul - The Secret of the Golden Tulip, a production that has drawn attention in the art community. In the new performance, archaeology and national mythology meet contemporary choreography in a single stage narrative. The theater’s chief choreographer, Abubakhrieva Mukaram Saidakimovna, known professionally as Mukaram Avakhri, an Honored Worker of Kazakhstan, turned to one of the most recognizable symbols of the Kazakh steppe, the wild tulip, transforming it into a metaphor for memory, continuity, and the search for identity. From the first minutes, the audience was captivated by the beauty of the music, costumes, and dance. A spectacle unfolded on stage, with warriors in red and gold armor marching into battle, followed by beautiful beings of the steppe whose forms seemed to shift between nymphs and flowers. The starting point for the performance was a real archaeological artifact, a gold plaque from the 3rd-2nd centuries BCE depicting a tulip, found in the Tenlik burial mounds. This small object of ancient jewelry became more than a museum discovery. It offered a way to reflect on how natural symbols survive through the ages and remain preserved in a people’s cultural memory. At the center of the story is a master jeweler, a young man named Zerger, who is inspired by the beauty of the steppe flower. The image of the tulip he creates gradually becomes a symbol of beauty, harmony, and the creative power of nature. Yet Altyn Gul is less a historical reconstruction than a philosophical parable. The protagonist’s path unfolds as an inner journey filled with symbolic trials and discoveries, while the tulip accompanying him gradually reveals itself as a sign of renewal, continuity, and the bond between human beings and the world around them. For Avakhri, turning to nature and historical memory was a logical continuation of her artistic direction. In her previous productions, Jusan, Ot Qyz, and The Silk Road, the choreographer had already explored the relationship between cultural heritage and contemporary movement language. Avakhri has said the central image of the steppe tulip symbolizes the fragility and strength of life. She also said the combination of national traditions with classical ballet and contemporary dance was intended to make the performance accessible and meaningful to today’s audience. According to theater director Tair Karatayev, the new production has taken a special place in the Astana Ballet repertoire. Altyn Gul has become an example of how national artistic images can receive a contemporary stage interpretation while preserving their connection to history and cultural heritage. The music for the production was written by Renat Gaissin, Honored Worker of Kazakhstan and one of the country’s leading contemporary composers. The libretto was created by Bakhyt Kairbekov, also an Honored Worker of Kazakhstan, and the costumes were designed by Aigerim Altybasarova. The premiere performances were accompanied by the theater’s symphony orchestra under chief conductor Arman Urazgaliyev. Altyn Gul closed the Astana Ballet theater season with an attempt to reinterpret one of the oldest cultural images of...

Nuclear Legacy

Kurchatov: Kazakhstan’s Atomic City Finds New Life After Nuclear Tests

Strong winds, scorching sun, abandoned five-story apartment blocks standing next to occupied homes, crows and horses wandering the streets: this is how Kurchatov appears to visitors today. Once closed to outsiders, the city was the heart of Soviet nuclear science and military power. More than three decades after the closure of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, how does this unique corner of Kazakhstan live now? Construction of the test site began on August 21, 1947. It covered 18,500 square kilometers at the intersection of what are now the Abai, Pavlodar, and Karaganda regions. Two years later, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test here. Soviet nuclear scientists helped create the country’s “nuclear shield,” but it was Kazakhstan that decades later brought the tests to an end. On August 29, 1991, by decree of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Semipalatinsk test site was officially closed. Over 42 years, at least 456 nuclear tests were carried out at the site, affecting more than 1.5 million people. The history of Kurchatov began as a military garrison. Because of its secrecy, the city changed names several times, including “Moscow-400,” “Nadezhda,” and “Bereg.” It later became known as Kurchatov, after Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov, although for many years it remained better known by its code name: Semipalatinsk-21. The first builders and military personnel lived in extremely harsh conditions. “At first, many lived in dugouts, and the walls froze through completely,” older residents recall. “In winter, hair froze to the beds, and fingers were often frostbitten.” “I came to serve here from Moldova and thought I was going to a regional center. Instead, they sent us into the steppe, to the dugouts. No electricity, no heating, no gas. Cold, mud, wind. But I stayed anyway. I got married and later brought my parents here,” Viktor Bordei, who has lived in Kurchatov for 47 years, told The Times of Central Asia. [caption id="attachment_51250" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Viktor Bordei, a resident of Kurchatov; image: TCA[/caption] For many who served at the test site, their work felt like a matter of honor. “We didn’t think about the consequences,” Bordei admits. “We believed we were strengthening the Soviet Union’s nuclear shield. Nobody spoke about the harm until Nazarbayev announced the damage done to nature and people. Of course, it’s painful to realize we were kept in the dark.” Over time, memories of that period have become intertwined with nostalgia. Former residents recall developed infrastructure, well-stocked stores, and strict order. After the military left, Kurchatov took years to recover, losing both people and housing while preserving the spirit of its unusual past. “I remember how the walls shook during the explosions. I also remember the day the military left. It was frightening, and nobody knew what would happen next. Now it hurts to see abandoned buildings and horses wandering the streets, but I don’t want to leave. The city is changing, and I believe in it,” says local resident Elena Kazachuk, who was born in Kurchatov. Zoya Lapshina...

Venice Biennale

The Works That Waited: Uzbek Artist Vyacheslav Akhunov in Venice

Central Asia has made a striking impression at this year’s Venice Biennale. At the 61st International Art Exhibition, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan have each claimed visible space through national pavilions that speak to different realities: environmental devastation, shifting cultural identity, memory, and the long afterlife of Soviet power. The national pavilions are essential viewing for art lovers. During the Biennale, Venice also fills with officially recognized exhibitions outside the main venues and national pavilions. Known as Collateral Events, these shows are staged across the city in palaces, churches, foundations, and museums. Among the most compelling this season is “Instruments of the Mind” by Uzbek artist Vyacheslav Akhunov. Housed in the Neo-Gothic rooms of Palazzo Franchetti on the Grand Canal, the exhibition surveys decades of his career. Widely regarded as one of Central Asia’s most significant conceptual artists, Akhunov has developed a rigorous and wide-ranging practice since the 1970s. He has worked across drawing, text, installation, collage, and performance. The exhibition spans five decades but avoids a conventional chronological structure. Instead, it centers on the unrealized, foregrounding censorship, bureaucratic delay, and the near-total lack of institutional support in Uzbekistan that prevented many of Akhunov’s projects from being fully realized for decades. That emphasis also points to a wider shift. It shows the distance between the conditions under which Akhunov worked for much of his career and the significant cultural investment Uzbekistan is making today, particularly in contemporary art. As a result, several works conceived as drawings in the 1970s and kept in studio drawers ever since are presented here as full-scale installations for the first time. This fine-tuned curation presents the work of a seminal artist while also reflecting on the evolution of a country’s cultural landscape. The exhibition is curated by Sara Raza, Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent, one of the leading authorities on the region’s contemporary art development. “Instruments of the Mind is not about the past,” Akhunov has said. “It is about how thought survives.” The exhibition takes its title from a deconstructed reading of the Sanskrit word mantra, from manas, meaning mind, and tra, meaning tool. Language is positioned here as an instrument of consciousness. The show’s range is wider than that etymology suggests. It moves between introspection and absurdity, spiritual devotion and political satire, the intimate and the monumental. Mantras for Art Palazzo Franchetti, a striking building with a marble staircase, intricate floral decorations, and frescoed ceilings, welcomes visitors with a work that functions as a rite of passage. “Triumphal Arch” (1979/2026) transforms the entrance corridor into a tunnel covered with hundreds of real scissors: household scissors, surgical clamps, nail scissors, ribbon-cutting shears, chrome-plated and painted, tiny and oversized, all fixed to the wall. To enter the show, visitors must walk through this bristling passage. The work originates from a 1979 drawing. Its conceptual target is the grandiose Soviet ribbon-cutting ceremony, a televised ritual performed at the inauguration of projects that often went unfinished or were c trapped in...

Historical Research

Opinion: Scents of the Silk Road – Recreating the World of 1001 Nights

Editor’s note: This guest essay is by Efim Rezvan, editor-in-chief of Manuscripta Orientalia and a researcher involved in the Essences of the 1001 Nights project. What was the most valuable cargo carried by medieval caravans crossing Central Asia, or aboard Arab-Muslim ships transporting goods through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to the Middle East and Europe? Silk? Porcelain? Yes, in terms of overall volume, that is true. But if we compare volume or weight with value, prized incense and aromatic resins rank among the most valuable goods, with some varieties often compared with gold. Historical data and modern zoological studies suggest that a Bactrian camel in a Silk Road caravan could carry about 150 to 300 kilograms. Aromatic resins and other incense materials were often compared with gold, which helps explain why a relatively small load could represent extraordinary value. Of course, merchants would not treat gold and incense as identical cargo: the caravan system, refined over centuries, prioritized the safety and preservation of goods. As today, wars and epidemics influenced trade conditions, but the pricing trend remained the same. Why did people value incense so highly for thousands of years? Answers to this and many other questions may emerge through the scientific and exhibition project Essences of the 1001 Nights, the launch of which was announced by the international academic journal Manuscripta Orientalia. Researchers from the International Center for Islamic Studies at the Kunstkamera and Saint Petersburg State University are studying the history of Eastern fragrances in an effort to “bring medieval manuscripts to life” and, for the first time, present the public with the olfactory dimension of the legendary tales. Modern research now makes it possible to imagine more clearly what scents might have filled, for example, the bedroom of Scheherazade or the library of Shahryar, the protagonists of One Thousand and One Nights. The project promises not only comprehensive academic research. It will also take the form of an innovative exhibition, a journey through time and space, from the oases of Hadramaut in Yemen to the evergreen region of Dhofar in Oman, long associated with frankincense production and trade; from the streets and mosques of Bukhara and Samarkand to the shores of Sumatra and Java; from manuscript libraries to the offices of historians, chemists, and pharmacologists. The project’s main artistic innovation is the use of olfactory storytelling; narrative through scents. Organizers plan to present ten aromatic compositions that will serve as guides into the world of the Islamic Golden Age. [caption id="attachment_50999" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Incense seller. Sanaa, Yemen.[/caption] Scents of the Islamic Golden Age Why scents? The corpus of One Thousand and One Nights had largely taken shape by the early 16th century. Its oldest roots and many of its plots originated in India. Persian culture served as a bridge between India and the Arab world. It was the Persian collection Hezar Afsaneh (“A Thousand Tales”) that became the direct precursor of One Thousand and One Nights. The framing story of King Shahryar and the...

TCA Interviews

Emre Erdur Interview: Central Asia’s Visual Language

For Emre Erdur, Central Asia’s visual language begins with the vast horizons of the steppe, the horse, the yurt, felt patterns – symbols that have carried memory across generations. The Istanbul-born artist, designer, and author spoke with The Times of Central Asia about Kazakhstan, cultural codes, and why artists need to understand the meanings behind the images they use. The Language of Visual Storytelling TCA: How would you introduce yourself to readers who are encountering your work for the first time? Emre Erdur: I was born in Istanbul, and since childhood, I have had a strong interest in drawing, visual design, and storytelling. Over time, this interest evolved beyond simply creating illustrations and developed into a multidisciplinary practice that combines visual communication, illustration, concept design, and narrative development. Throughout my career, I have worked on a wide range of projects across different fields of visual design and communication. From illustration and architectural projects to product and game design, comic books, documentaries, and film productions. I have been involved in many areas where ideas require a strong visual language to be understood and communicated effectively. TCA: You are an artist, designer, and author working with visual storytelling. How would you define the main focus of your practice today? Emre Erdur: Today, I can no longer define myself simply as an illustrator or a designer. In reality, such definitions are often shaped less by the artist’s own description and more by the body of work they create and the way they work. At the center of my work is visual storytelling. Whether through comics, film development, or cultural projects, my main objective is to make ideas related to history, culture, and collective memory visible through contemporary forms of expression. For me, design is not an end in itself; it is a powerful tool for conveying stories, ideas, and emotions. In recent years, I have focused particularly on cultural memory, identity, historical narratives, and the shared cultural heritage of the Eurasian region. The challenge is not only to interpret the past. It is also about building a new language for the future by understanding the memories and experiences that come from the past. Kazakhstan as a Living Archive TCA: In our previous conversation, we discussed your work, The Legend of Ergenekon, and the influence Kazakhstan has had on your creative practice. How has your understanding of this subject evolved since then? Emre Erdur: Perhaps my core idea has not changed, but it has certainly deepened. At first, I viewed Kazakhstan’s influence primarily as a historical and visual source of inspiration. Over time, I came to realize that it represents something much deeper: a matter of cultural memory and, to some extent, a shared perspective on the future. Anatolia is an extraordinarily rich and multi-layered cultural geography. For centuries, it has been home to different civilizations, empires, and cultures, creating a landscape where many historical layers coexist. This richness also shapes the way we view the past; it can sometimes lead us to romanticize certain...

Higher Education

Uzbekistan’s Universities Climb Sustainability Rankings as Afghan Training Program Expands

Fifty higher education institutions from Uzbekistan have been included in the Times Higher Education (THE) Sustainability Impact Ratings 2026, marking another year of strong international recognition for the country’s universities. The results were announced on June 24 during the Global Sustainable Development Congress in Jakarta, Indonesia, while separate education initiatives in southern Uzbekistan are also extending training opportunities to hundreds of Afghan citizens. The THE Sustainability Impact Ratings assess how universities contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), evaluating performance across education, research, governance, social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and international cooperation. According to the ranking results, 24 Uzbek universities placed among the world’s top 1,000 institutions, reflecting the country’s growing emphasis on integrating sustainable development principles into higher education. Two universities recorded Uzbekistan’s highest overall positions, both ranking in the 101-200 band: Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature and Tashkent State University of Economics. They were followed by the National University of Uzbekistan and the National Research University “TIIAME” in the 201-300 group. Uzbekistan's universities also achieved notable results in individual Sustainable Development Goals. Alisher Navoi Tashkent State University of Uzbek Language and Literature ranked eighth in the world for Gender Equality, while Tashkent State Technical University placed fifth globally for Affordable and Clean Energy. Fergana Polytechnic Institute ranked sixth in the same category, and two medical universities from Samarkand and Tashkent secured places among the world’s top institutions for Good Health and Well-being. The country’s presence in the rankings has expanded significantly in recent years. Uzbekistan was represented by 12 universities in 2021, rising to 30 in 2022, 47 in 2023, 53 in 2024, 59 in 2025, and 50 institutions in the 2026 edition. At the same time, Uzbekistan is continuing to position itself as a regional education hub. UzA reported that more than 600 Afghan citizens have completed free technical and vocational training courses at the Educational Center for Afghan Citizens in Termez District, Surkhandarya Region. The training formed part of the $2 million European Union-funded project, implemented in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, aimed at expanding educational opportunities and supporting the socio-economic integration of Afghan citizens. In addition to vocational training, the project covered tuition fees and scholarships for 136 Afghan students enrolled in higher education institutions. Thirty graduates with the strongest business proposals were awarded $2,000 vouchers to launch small businesses, while 39 participants received grants of up to $4,000 to purchase equipment and expand production or service-based enterprises. The project also upgraded the training center with new computer equipment, servers, a conference hall, a co-working space, and a 29-seat bus.