Uzbekistan Life & Culture - The Times Of Central Asia

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Archaeology

Bronze Age Trepanation in Uzbekistan May Be Central Asia’s Oldest Evidence of Surgery

Archaeologists working in southern Uzbekistan have uncovered what may be the earliest known evidence of surgery in Central Asia. The discovery involves the remains of a Bronze Age child whose skull bears signs of trepanation, a procedure involving the deliberate opening of the skull. The discovery was reported by the Turkish archaeology magazine Arkeofili, citing research conducted by a joint Italian-Uzbek archaeological team in the historic region of Northern Bactria, near the present-day border with Afghanistan. Researchers found the skeleton of a child who died at about age five in a shared grave with another child believed to have been about three years old. The burial dates to the late third millennium BCE, approximately 4,000 years ago. According to the researchers, the older child’s skull shows clear traces of cranial trepanation, likely performed using stone or bone tools. The marks indicate that the skull was intentionally opened, making it one of the oldest known examples of surgical intervention in Asia and potentially the earliest documented evidence of surgery in Central Asia. Trepanation was practiced in various ancient societies around the world. Scholars believe it may have been used to treat conditions such as head injuries, epilepsy, severe headaches, or behavioral disorders. However, researchers note that in prehistoric societies, the boundary between medicine and ritual practice was often unclear. The remains were discovered during excavations at Djarkutan, one of the major urban centers of the Oxus Civilization, also known as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex. The civilization flourished across parts of modern-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan between roughly 2500 BCE and 1500 BCE. It was known for its advanced agricultural systems, urban settlements, and rich material culture. The discovery adds to growing evidence that ancient Central Asia played a significant role in the development of early human societies. Last year, an international team of archaeologists reported finding evidence that hunter-gatherer communities in Uzbekistan’s Surkhandarya Valley harvested wild barley about 9,200 years ago. Researchers said the finding challenged the long-held view that the origins of agriculture were limited primarily to the Fertile Crescent.

Film Festival

Eurasian Film Festival in London Showcases Cinema from Central Asia and Beyond

The ninth edition of the ECG Eurasian Film Festival has concluded in London, bringing together films from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the wider post-Soviet space. The festival, held in partnership with the Romford Film Festival, was created to promote Eurasian cinema in the English-speaking world and connect filmmakers from the region with international audiences and industry professionals. It is also listed by FestivalFinder, the European Festivals Association’s platform for film festivals. The festival still gives filmmakers from smaller Eurasian film industries access to London audiences and industry professionals. Too often, movies from across Eurasia are framed through a narrow lens as “regional,” “political,” or useful mainly for their cultural differences. The London program suggests something broader. Its strongest entries were not simply statements about places, but stories about youth, memory, technology, art, identity, and imagination. This year, the top prize went to K-Poper by Iranian director Ebrahim Amini. The film follows a teenage girl who becomes fascinated by a Korean pop star and dreams of traveling to Seoul, despite her mother’s opposition. It is a story rooted in Iran, but its subject is immediately recognizable: pop culture, generational tension, and the private worlds young people build for themselves. Other winners showcased the range of the program. The animation prize went to Swiss photographer Bellopropello for a film about the way smartphones are reshaping human behavior. Best Documentary was awarded to Russian director Vladimir Sumashedov for a film about an artist who tries to confront the violence of World War II through art. The Best Book Trailer award went to Armenian writer Elena Aslanyan’s The Gold of the Aryans. Central Asian works also formed a key part of the selection. The Uzbek film Batyr Zakirov & Frank Sinatra: The Meeting That Could Have Happened... won the Audience Choice Award, imagining a cultural encounter between the Soviet East and American popular music. Kazakhstan was represented by Saule Rysbaeva’s Children, the Seeds of the Future, while Uzbekistan’s Legends of the Great Silk Road revisited the region’s cultural inheritance through animation. The value of festivals like ECG is not only in the awards. It is in giving audiences a chance to see Eurasian cinema as cinema first: varied, ambitious, and fully part of the global film conversation.

TCA Interviews

Uzbekistan’s New Visual Language: How OZBE Reimagines Culture Through Streetwear

Uzbekistani fashion is increasingly moving beyond traditional interpretations of national motifs. A new generation of local brands is engaging with cultural heritage through streetwear, using the visual language of youth culture and contemporary identity to resonate in Uzbekistan and internationally. The Times of Central Asia spoke with Raupjon Eshtemirov, a representative of the Uzbekistani streetwear brand OZBE, about how Uzbek ornaments, symbols, and cultural references are being transformed into modern fashion, why young people are rediscovering their cultural roots, and whether Uzbekistan’s fashion scene can gain greater international visibility. TCA: Please tell us a little about the OZBE brand. How did it begin, and what idea did it grow from? Raupjon: OZBE emerged as a local streetwear brand based on the idea of expressing the modern perspective of a new generation through clothing. We started with small drops, and gradually a community formed around the brand. TCA: How would you describe the philosophy of OZBE? Is it more about fashion, culture, self-expression, or a new interpretation of Uzbek identity? Raupjon: For us, OZBE is a combination of all these things. We use fashion as a tool for self-expression and for a contemporary reinterpretation of local culture and identity. TCA: OZBE is often seen as a brand that speaks to young people in a modern visual language. How do you see your audience? Raupjon: Our audience consists mainly of teenagers and young people for whom self-expression through style, visual culture, and clothing is important. At the same time, our audience also includes tourists and people who want to represent modern Uzbekistan through a local brand and its aesthetic. [caption id="attachment_49659" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] @OZBE[/caption] TCA: Why did you choose streetwear as the main form for working with culture and local identity? Raupjon: Streetwear is a modern form of fashion that remains timeless and extremely popular among young people and tourists. It is one of the easiest ways to combine style, culture, and a contemporary view of Uzbekistan. TCA: Uzbekistan has a strong visual tradition, including ornaments, architecture, crafts, and patterns. How do you work with this heritage in your collections? Raupjon: We draw inspiration from local aesthetics, but we try to adapt them to a modern visual context through forms, graphics, details, and presentation. TCA: For you, it is important not simply to use national motifs, but to reinterpret them. What does that process involve? Raupjon: Traditional patterns, ornaments, and cultural elements always remain recognizable and popular. For us, it is important not just to copy them, but to adapt them to modern styles and make them relevant for a new generation and for global streetwear culture. TCA: How can Uzbek patterns, symbols, and cultural references be made to look modern and organic for younger audiences? Raupjon: Through reworked design, modern presentation, and the use of bright, memorable phrases that attract the attention of young people and bring cultural elements closer to contemporary streetwear aesthetics. TCA: Which aspects of Uzbek culture inspire you most: ornaments, language, urban life, music, history, or everyday...

Art and Culture

Central Asia Steps Out of the Post-Soviet Shadow

Central Asia is rarely presented on its own terms. It is more often viewed through exterior lenses like Russian imperial memory, Chinese reach, Silk Road romance, or great-power rivalry. The result is a region made to look secondary to the forces around it, even as its five countries carry deep histories, distinct languages, and identities that cannot be reduced to a backdrop. That old frame is starting to crack. Central Asia is finding new ways to tell its own story. The shift goes beyond tourism or national branding. It is about who gets to define the region, which is still too often seen through the things done to it or extracted from it. Culture depicts the other side of that narrative, a place that has shaped history, not merely endured it, with traditions and ideas that have long carried influence far beyond its borders. [caption id="attachment_49147" align="aligncenter" width="2048"] Sky above Almaty: Qandy Qantar; image courtesy of Saule Suleimenova[/caption] Kazakhstan offers one visible example. The Almaty Museum of Arts opened on September 12, 2025, adding a major institution for modern and contemporary art. Its arrival builds on a broader shift in which private galleries, international platforms, and artists such as Aigerim Karibayeva and Saule Suleimenova are moving Kazakh art beyond folkloric shorthand toward identity, postcolonial memory, and urban life. The reopening of the Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture, in a former Soviet-era cinema, adds a sharper symbolic layer. A building once tied to Soviet public culture has become a platform for modern Central Asian voices, reflecting a scene increasingly rethinking nomadism rather than simply reproducing it. [caption id="attachment_49148" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Image: The Tselinny Center of Contemporary Culture[/caption] Uzbekistan has made culture central to its international reemergence. The inaugural Bukhara Biennial brought contemporary art into a city more often seen through its monuments, turning madrasas and caravanserais into exhibition spaces for Uzbek and world artists. The same push is visible in the Tashkent Centre for Contemporary Art, Uzbekistan’s presence at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and design projects such as When Apricots Blossom, which link heritage, craft, and the environmental disaster of the Aral Sea. Artists such as Oyjon Khayrullaeva show a younger generation reworking Islamic ornament, textiles, and public space into new visual languages. At the same time, the State Museum of Karakalpakstan in Nukus, with its Soviet-era censored works, gives the country’s art history deeper heft. In Tashkent, the Islamic Civilization Center is working on a different scale. Recognized by Guinness World Records in 2026 as the largest museum of Islamic civilization, it gives Uzbekistan a stronger role in shaping how that legacy is understood today. [caption id="attachment_49146" align="aligncenter" width="2048"] Image courtesy of Oyjon Khayrullaeva[/caption] Kyrgyzstan’s confidence rests on different ground. The sixth World Nomad Games are scheduled for August 31 to September 6, 2026, with events in Bishkek and around Issyk-Kul. That gives Kyrgyzstan a stage for living nomadic traditions, not a static museum display of them. Its contemporary art scene adds a more intimate layer, with artists such as...

Space Exploration

Uzbekistan Plans to Send First National Cosmonaut Into Space by 2028

Uzbekistan plans to send its first national cosmonaut into orbit by October 2028, according to officials from the country’s space agency, as Tashkent expands its ambitions in the field of space exploration. Uzbekcosmos Deputy Director Muhiddin Ibrohimov said the mission is expected to last about 14 days and is currently under discussion with the three countries capable of conducting human spaceflights: the United States, Russia, and China. According to Ibrohimov, all three countries have expressed their readiness to cooperate with Uzbekistan on the project. He said the future Uzbek cosmonaut is expected to return from space with the results of scientific experiments carried out during the mission. The authorities are planning to establish a government commission responsible for selecting astronaut candidates and coordinating training and flight preparations. Officials said applicants must be between 27 and 40 years old, hold a university degree, and meet physical requirements, including a height between 160 and 190 centimeters and a weight between 50 and 95 kilograms. Knowledge of foreign languages will also be required. The selection process is expected to take the form of a nationwide program open to the public. The mission is expected to include a program involving experiments in medicine, biology, genetics, and other priority fields. Uzbekistan’s plans build on earlier statements from Russian officials offering support for the country’s space ambitions. The Times of Central Asia previously reported that the Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov had said Moscow was ready to assist Uzbekistan in preparing and sending its first national cosmonaut into orbit, as well as launching the country’s first artificial satellite. Manturov said President Shavkat Mirziyoyev had set the goal of developing Uzbekistan’s space capabilities, including human spaceflight and satellite technology. Russia has also recently expressed its willingness to support other Central Asian countries in space exploration. In April, Russian Ambassador to Turkmenistan Ivan Volynkin said Moscow was prepared to help train a Turkmen cosmonaut if Ashgabat showed interest.

UFO Files

Pentagon UFO Files Include 1994 Tajik Air Report Over Kazakhstan

On May 8, the Pentagon released the first batch of U.S. Department of War files on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), including a State Department cable describing a 1994 sighting by Tajik Air pilots over Kazakhstan. The new archive, called the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters, was created in response to a directive from U.S. president Donald Trump. It covers unresolved cases where the government cannot make a definitive determination from available data, with further releases expected “every few weeks.” The department uses the current term UAP as well as the older term unidentified flying object (UFO). The release includes a three-page unclassified State Department cable from the U.S. embassy in Dushanbe. Dated January 31, 1994, it is titled “Tajik Air Pilots Report Unidentified Flying Object” and carries a State Department “Released in Full” stamp dated February 25, 2026. The same cable had previously appeared in CUFON’s archive of State Department UFO records, released in 2000 in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. According to the cable, Tajik Air chief pilot Ed Rhodes, identified as a United States citizen, and two American pilot colleagues reported that they had encountered a UFO on January 27, 1994, while flying at 41,000 feet in a Boeing 747SP. The location was given as latitude 45 north and longitude 55 east, over Kazakhstan. The pilots described the object as an intensely bright light approaching from the east at high speed and at an altitude far above their aircraft. They said they watched it for about 40 minutes as it moved in circles, corkscrews, and 90-degree turns. Rhodes reportedly took several photographs with a pocket Olympus camera and said copies would be sent to the embassy and to the Tajikistan desk at the State Department if they came out. No such photographs appear in the released cable. The crew could not identify the object’s shape because it was dark. They described its light as resembling a “bow wave,” and later said the aircraft flew beneath contrails left by the object after sunrise. Rhodes estimated those contrails to be at about 100,000 feet. The embassy suggested that the object might have been a meteor entering and skipping off the Earth’s atmosphere. Rhodes and the other pilots rejected that explanation, saying their years flying passenger aircraft for Pan Am had given them extensive experience with meteors and space junk. Based on the object’s reported speed and maneuverability, Rhodes expressed the view, which the cable says his crew seemed to support, that it was “extraterrestrial and under intelligent control.” The U.S. government recorded what the pilots said, but the cable does not confirm what they saw, as demonstrated in the file’s cautionary note: “We have no opinion and report the above for what it may be worth.” The release adds an official U.S. record to a regional history in which unexplained aerial reports have surfaced in Soviet research programs and, more recently, in media and online claims. During the Soviet period, reports of anomalous...