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Kazakh National University of Sports Joins Olympic Studies Network

The Kazakh National University of Sports in Astana says it has become the first university in Central Asia to join a global network of academic Olympic studies centers. It announced the recognition on September 17. The Academic Olympic Studies and Research Centres network connects institutions researching the Olympic Games and the Olympic Movement. The university says around 80 such centers operate worldwide. Their work includes teaching, scientific events, and the publication of research. The network is coordinated by the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Studies Centre in Lausanne and provides a forum for cooperation between academics in different countries. The university trains coaches, physical education teachers, sports managers, and other specialists. Its training also extends to staff for rehabilitation centers and organizers of mass sporting events. It is now developing a Center for Olympic Studies, Education and Legacy, which will focus on research into the history, values, and long-term impact of the Olympic Movement. Membership in the international network will allow the Astana center to work with universities and research centers overseas and exchange research and teaching practices, the university said. The university said support from the National Olympic Committee was an important condition for recognition. It is already working with Kazakhstan’s committee on projects involving Olympic education and research. The new center is intended to bring students and lecturers into discussion with researchers and sports professionals, making Olympic studies part of the university’s sports science and education work.

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SOCAR and BP Prepare for Exploration Drilling in Uzbekistan’s Ustyurt Region

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR, Britain’s BP, and state-owned Uzbekneftegaz are preparing for exploration drilling across six blocks in Uzbekistan’s Ustyurt region. Following completion of a 3D seismic survey, the next stage involves processing the data and selecting a site for the first exploration well. Drilling will help establish whether preliminary estimates of 100 million metric tons of oil and 35 billion cubic meters of gas could translate into commercially recoverable reserves. The work covered the Boyterak, Terengquduq, Birqori, Kharoy, Qoraqalpoq, and Qulboy blocks in the Republic of Karakalpakstan. The seismic survey covered more than 3,000 square kilometers, compared with a minimum commitment of 1,000 square kilometers. The partners reviewed the completed fieldwork and discussed preparations for exploration drilling at a managing committee meeting in Tashkent on September 7. The data still need to be processed and interpreted, and no drilling location or date has been announced. Total investment in the project has been estimated at approximately $2 billion, with development dependent on a commercial discovery. The partners remain at the exploration stage and have committed to drilling one well. Decisions on further investment will depend on its results. Uzbek officials expect the six blocks could contain around 100 million metric tons of oil and 35 billion cubic meters of gas. Potential annual oil production has been estimated at five million metric tons. All three figures remain projections: seismic data help identify promising structures, but drilling is needed to confirm the presence and characteristics of hydrocarbons. Uzbekistan’s Energy Ministry, SOCAR, and Uzbekneftegaz signed a production-sharing agreement covering the six blocks in July 2025. SOCAR was designated the operator. BP joined the project in May 2026, acquiring a 20% interest from each of the two original partners. The British company now holds 40%, while SOCAR and Uzbekneftegaz retain 30% each. The deal marks BP’s return to exploration in Uzbekistan, where it first signed exploration agreements with the same partners in 2018 before withdrawing in 2021. The acquisition coincided with BP’s renewed emphasis on oil and gas investment. The company had previously reduced its exploration portfolio as part of a shift toward low-carbon energy, but subsequently revised its strategy and refocused on its traditional business. When BP joined the project, its regional president for Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, Gio Cristofoli, said the company saw significant resource potential in Uzbekistan. He said participation in the agreement would expand BP’s exploration portfolio and support its long-term organic growth. For SOCAR, the Ustyurt survey is its largest seismic exploration project outside Azerbaijan. In June, the company reported that more than 80% of the seismic program had been completed and that initial results were providing insights into deeper geological structures. SOCAR announced the completion of fieldwork in July, with data processing expected to finish in the first quarter of 2027. The partners have developed a work plan through 2029. Uzbekneftegaz head Abdugani Sanginov previously proposed accelerating the project and beginning drilling by the end of 2027, but an approved drilling schedule has not been published. Uzbekistan needs to find...

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Artists Build a Temporary White Salt City in Karakalpakstan

For three days, a city appears on the Barsakelmes salt flat in Karakalpakstan. It has no permanent residents, shops, or spectators. There are tents and yurts, art installations, music, and several dozen people who have come to build, paint, perform, cook, and live together. Then the city disappears. The second international YONAR experimental art festival is taking place in Uzbekistan’s Kungrad District from September 17 to 19. Its site is about 200 kilometers from Nukus. Organizers call the temporary settlement White Salt City. There is no conventional festival audience: anyone who comes to YONAR becomes a participant. They can create an installation, play music, run a workshop, help build the camp, or take responsibility for part of the community’s daily life. Participation is free, subject to application. There is no commercial trade or advertising. After three days, participants are expected to dismantle the camp and remove their belongings and waste. YONAR follows a leave-no-trace principle: the salt flat should be left without signs of the temporary city. YONAR was created by the team behind Stihia, an electronic music, art, and science festival that originated in Karakalpakstan. Some of its principles clearly echo Burning Man: instead of a stage and an audience, there is a space created by the participants themselves; instead of commerce, exchange and communal living; instead of permanent architecture, structures built to last only a few days. The setting gives YONAR its particular character. The white surface of the salt flat has almost none of the usual landmarks. During the day, there is salt, horizon, and harsh light; at night, darkness and an open sky. Against this backdrop, even a temporary structure begins to look like part of the landscape. The first YONAR was held here on September 11-13, 2025. According to Uzbekistan’s Tourism Committee, 35 local and international participants created six major installations: Sphere, Monolith, Teleport, Statue of Amorphosis, Hologram of the Future, and Art Car Scorpion. Participants lived in five yurts, with generators providing electricity. At the end, Sphere and Teleport were burned, the other structures were dismantled, and the camp area was cleaned. This year’s theme is dreams. Surrealism, absurdity, and the space between reality and imagination come with an almost ready-made setting here: an empty salt horizon. More than 70 applications were submitted. Organizers expected around 40 participants from Tashkent, Nukus, Moynaq, Almaty, Bishkek, Berlin, Vienna, London, Moscow, and other cities. Barsakelmes is in Karakalpakstan, in the wider Aral Sea region. But describing the festival site simply as the dried bed of the Aral Sea would be misleading: YONAR takes place on the distinct Barsakelmes salt flat in Kungrad District. Outside Central Asia, Karakalpakstan has for decades appeared in the news largely alongside the words “Aral Sea,” “environmental disaster,” and “desertification.” YONAR uses the region’s stark landscape differently, as a space for contemporary art. The state is also taking an interest. The festival is being held with the support of Uzbekistan’s Tourism Committee. The Tourism Committee has announced familiarization tours for journalists, bloggers, and...

Business & Economy Kyrgyzstan Business & Economy

Kyrgyzstan Pharmaceutical Logistics Complex Begins Construction in Bishkek

Construction has begun in Bishkek on what officials describe as Kyrgyzstan’s first state pharmaceutical logistics complex of its level. The new warehouse is intended to improve the storage and distribution of medicines in a country where imports account for 97% of the market. The complex is being built for Kyrgyzpharmatsiya, a state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Health that centrally procures and supplies medicines and medical products to public healthcare facilities. It will occupy a 7.1-hectare site. The project will cost 650 million som, or about $7.4 million. The facility will operate in accordance with international Good Distribution Practice, or GDP, standards, which set requirements for the storage, handling, and transportation of medicines to preserve their quality throughout the supply chain. The warehouse will form part of a broader overhaul of Kyrgyzstan’s national pharmaceutical supply system. Established in 2023, Kyrgyzpharmatsiya centralizes orders from public healthcare institutions and enters into direct contracts with manufacturers. Buying in larger volumes is intended to reduce the number of intermediaries and lower procurement costs. A unified state digital platform is also being developed to connect healthcare facilities’ requests with procurement, deliveries, and inventory data. Together with the warehouse, it is intended to provide traceability of medicines from the supplier to the healthcare facility. Funding for medicines and medical products in 2026 is budgeted at 6.8 billion som, or about $77.8 million, compared with 100 million som, or $1.1 million, in 2021. Kyrgyzstan, however, obtains nearly all of its medicines from abroad. Domestic producers account for only about 3% of the market, while medicine imports were projected to reach 34 billion som, or about $389 million, in 2025. This dependence leaves the market vulnerable to exchange-rate fluctuations, border delays, and disruptions affecting foreign suppliers. A domestic logistics center will not reduce the share of imports, but it could reduce storage losses, make it easier to maintain stocks of high-demand medicines, and speed up deliveries to hospitals. Illegal imports remain a separate problem. In November 2025, a Health Ministry official said that 2022 data put the share of smuggled medicines at around 30-40%, an estimate he said remained relevant. The figure is based on older data and should not be treated as a current measure of the market. The new complex addresses an important infrastructure gap, but by itself it does not guarantee lower prices or end shortages. The outcome will depend on procurement planning, contract transparency, and the distribution of medicines from the central warehouse to the regions.

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Samarkand Chess Olympiad Hosts FIDE Election as Timur Turlov Outlines His Plans

The 46th FIDE Chess Olympiad in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, brings national teams together from September 15 to 27. Alongside the competition, delegates will elect the next leadership of FIDE, the International Chess Federation. Three presidential tickets have been approved for the September 26 election. Entrepreneur Jan Henric Buettner, co-founder of Freestyle Chess with Magnus Carlsen, is running with Malcolm Pein for deputy president. WR Chess founder and WR Group chairman Wadim Rosenstein is standing with Gordon Tang. Freedom Holding Corp. founder and CEO Timur Turlov, who also heads the Kazakhstan Chess Federation, is running with Viswanathan Anand. The Times of Central Asia spoke with Turlov about his experience of chess within his family and his proposals for managing the international federation. TCA: Before we talk about professional chess and FIDE, let’s start at the beginning. What is your personal history with chess? Turlov: I learned to play chess as a kid; my grandfather taught me. He saw it as a parenting tool, and it just became part of the family. Over time I drifted away from the game, but I eventually came back. What brought me back wasn't nostalgia or any urge to win; it was my kids, and the sense that real relationships are built on substance, on actually connecting with and sharing with people. Having six children has been one of the great blessings of my life, and when they started playing and asked me to join them, I had good reason to pick the game back up, this time as a parent, and not as a student. It's a small thing, but it reminded me how much family life keeps you grounded, thinking about someone other than yourself. Chess is one way for people to develop relationships and grow in virtue. TCA: You describe chess as a parenting tool as much as a sport. How does that work in practice? Turlov: With six children, finding one consistent way to connect with all of them isn't easy. They're each unique, of different ages, and with different personalities. Chess turned out to be that common ground for us that could be cultivated year after year. Sitting across the board from your child is different from a conversation at dinner. It's slower, calmer, and it opens the door to talking about things that usually don't come up otherwise. Honestly, some of my favorite moments as a parent have happened over a chessboard, not in spite of the game but because of it. TCA: Can you give an example of what a chess game actually teaches a child that a normal conversation can't? Turlov: Beyond strategic thinking- call it looking ahead- there's something in chess that matters even more: learning how to win, and especially how to lose. Chess is one of the few structured experiences where a child loses clearly, sees exactly why, and has to sit with that calmly, without a tantrum, without blaming anyone else. As a parent, that's also a moment for reflection. You can talk through the...

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South Korea Steps Up Central Asia Critical Minerals Push

The first South Korea–Central Asia summit, held in Seoul on September 16, capped three days of bilateral meetings that produced more than 70 agreements and memorandums. The leaders agreed to meet every two years, a separate C5+1 forum for industry ministers was established, and critical minerals took a central place on the new agenda. The main question now is how many of those documents will translate into mines, processing plants, and long-term contracts. South Korea needs reliable supplies of metals for its automotive, electronics, battery, and energy industries. Central Asia wants to use that demand to develop domestic processing and reduce its reliance on raw material exports. Seoul proposed combining the region’s resources with its own exploration, mineral processing, and manufacturing technologies. President Lee Jae Myung spoke of cooperation across the production chain, from identifying deposits to manufacturing finished products. Rare metals centers being established at key locations in Central Asia are intended to support joint research and specialist training. Until now, South Korea has worked with the region’s countries largely through bilateral ties. The new C5+1 format adds a regional mechanism to those relationships. Kazakhstan will host the next summit in 2028. Kazakh financier and analyst Rasul Rysmambetov believes the value of the new format will depend on the region’s ability to secure tangible industrial results. He sees South Korea as an attractive partner because of its experience with rapid industrialization and its strengths in building industrial facilities. “The priority for Central Asia is to stop selling raw materials. We need to establish processing in the region. The heads of state’s visit to Seoul was highly productive. In fact, all summits in similar formats have been productive. The main question now is how to move away from exporting raw materials and toward joint industrialization,” Rysmambetov told The Times of Central Asia. Uzbekistan put forward a broader regional proposal. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev called for an investment alliance for critical minerals, with processing clusters bringing together exploration, mining, and the production of high-value goods. Uzbekistan and South Korea are already developing a joint rare metals center and have agreed to strengthen cooperation throughout the production chain. Kazakhstan offered Korean businesses a broader package covering rare metals, nuclear and clean energy, and artificial intelligence. Urban development was also part of the talks, including the Alatau Smart City project near Almaty. The countries upgraded their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership and signed a memorandum on the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The energy agreements also cover conventional resources. In April, South Korea said it had secured 18 million barrels of Kazakh crude oil. In Kyrgyzstan, Korean organizations are working with their Kyrgyz counterparts to identify possible antimony and tungsten projects and strengthen exploration capacity. Tajikistan is also offering cooperation on antimony, as well as precious metals, building on the first Korea–Tajikistan Minerals Forum, which took place in August. The minerals agenda is complemented by Korean willingness to invest in transport and infrastructure. South Korea and Uzbekistan agreed to expand Korean participation in...