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e-Commerce

Kazakhstan E-Commerce Grows as Shoppers Spend over $8 Billion in 2025

Kazakh consumers spent 3.77 trillion tenge (about $8.2 billion) on online purchases in 2025, roughly 50% more than two years earlier. E-commerce now accounts for 14.3% of the country’s retail market, with most sales taking place through marketplaces such as Kaspi.kz, Wildberries, and Ozon. A marketplace is a digital platform that brings together products from multiple sellers rather than operating as a single retailer’s online store. In 2025, they accounted for 86% of online retail sales, up from 84.9% a year earlier, according to Kazakhstan’s Bureau of National Statistics. The share of sales through retailers’ own websites fell from 15.1% to 14%, although their turnover still rose in absolute terms. The online shopping basket is changing as well. Phones and gadgets remain the largest category, accounting for 17.1%. Clothing, footwear, and sporting goods make up 12.4%, household goods 12.1%, home appliances 10.3%, and food 7.4%. Growth in the grocery segment is changing delivery requirements. Five dark-store projects – facilities used to process online orders – were built in Almaty, Astana, Karaganda, and Aktobe last year. Marketplaces also installed 2,300 new parcel lockers. The rapid growth of the market has been supported by the widespread use of cashless payments, banking apps, and retail fintech. Domestic platforms are developing alongside major foreign players, intensifying competition for Kazakh consumers. But the presence of large cross-border platforms also creates additional logistical risks. In July, Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries logistics facilities in Russia affected Kazakh sellers that relied on the company’s Russian infrastructure. Following the attacks, Wildberries began searching for additional warehouse capacity in Kazakhstan, where the company is already developing logistics complexes in Almaty and Astana. Expanding domestic warehousing and infrastructure can shorten delivery times and reduce the dependence of some trade flows on logistics centers abroad. New Kazakh players are also emerging. In Karaganda, for example, the Teez marketplace is developing its own warehouse infrastructure and nationwide delivery network. The market’s growth has also brought problems for sellers, with Kazakh entrepreneurs citing difficulties with international payments and double taxation among the main barriers to growth. For small businesses, marketplaces provide access to a large customer base, but they also make sales dependent on the platform’s commissions and logistics. The rules for foreign players are changing as well. Since January 1, 2026, foreign marketplaces serving Kazakh consumers have been required to comply with new tax laws. The VAT rate for foreign platforms has risen from 12% to 16%. The legislation also allows Kazakhstan to suspend access to platforms that ignore registration notices. The government is anticipating further e-commerce growth. The Ministry of Trade’s official target is to increase its share of retail turnover to 18.5% by 2029. In 2024, the market was worth about 3.2 trillion tenge and accounted for 14.1% of retail trade, the Ministry of Trade and Integration said its volume had increased roughly fivefold since 2020. E-commerce is now expanding from a much larger base. Marketplaces already account for the overwhelming majority of online sales, so the next stage of market development will depend not...

4 weeks ago

Kurultai Election

Kazakhstan’s First Kurultai Election Draws Broad Observation

When Kazakhstan goes to the polls on August 23, it will elect the first 145 members of the new Kurultai and set its redesigned parliamentary system in motion. The vote, held less than two months after the new Constitution took effect, will be followed by 777 accredited international observers and a broad range of Kazakh monitoring groups. The foreign contingent spans 42 countries and 13 international organizations. Some are professional election monitors who have been working in Kazakhstan for weeks; others are parliamentarians, foreign election officials, or bilateral guests. Their roles are different: ODIHR provides the detailed technical scrutiny, while the wider contingent gives the election a broad international audience. The most detailed technical assessment will come from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, or ODIHR. Its core team and long-term observers have been in the country since July, and the organization requested 300 short-term observers for election day. They will follow polling station opening, voting, counting, and tabulation, while the wider mission examines election administration, the campaign, political finance, media coverage, and complaints. On the mechanics of election administration, ODIHR reported in its August 7 interim report that preparations were on schedule. Nationwide training and voter education were underway, and the Central Election Commission (CEC) had promptly published its decisions. Most people consulted by the mission expressed confidence in the administration’s technical capacity, although some questioned the impartiality and independence of lower-level commissions. Kazakh organizations are preparing their own observation efforts. By August 3, 13 civil society groups had received national accreditation, and 247 had been accredited through territorial commissions. The El Dauysy Public Foundation says it has trained more than 6,000 observers since 2020, creating an experienced pool that has participated in successive national votes. After uncertainty over new foreign-funding rules, the CEC clarified that foreign support alone would not invalidate accreditation and that cases would be considered individually. The closest recent regional comparison is Uzbekistan’s 2024 parliamentary election. Uzbekistan accredited 851 international observers across 11,028 polling stations, while Kazakhstan has accredited 777 across 10,423. That makes the international observer presence broadly comparable relative to the number of polling stations. The clearer difference lies in domestic monitoring. According to ODIHR, Uzbek law contained no provision for citizen observation, while Kazakhstan has accredited civil society organizations at both national and territorial levels. In Kyrgyzstan’s 2025 election, the election commission accredited only two citizen organizations, each of which appointed one observer. The contrast is wider with Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. ODIHR cancelled its planned mission to Tajikistan’s 2025 parliamentary election after the authorities failed to assure that observers would be accredited and allowed to work. In Turkmenistan in 2023, ODIHR sent a small assessment team that did not systematically monitor voting, counting or tabulation. Across the region, Kazakhstan stands out for the combination rather than any one measure: a full ODIHR mission, a large and geographically varied foreign contingent, and legally accredited domestic organizations preparing extensive coverage of the same election. Observer totals cannot determine the quality of...

4 weeks ago

Nuclear Energy

Uzbekistan Plans Second Nuclear Power Plant Before First Is Ready

Uzbekistan will soon begin preparations for the construction of a second nuclear power plant (NPP), President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced during an August 17 visit to Khorezm region. The announcement came a little more than two months after construction officially began on the country’s first NPP. The authorities have not yet disclosed where the new plant will be located or how much capacity it will have. They have also not named a technology partner. Discussing energy in connection with new industrial projects, Mirziyoyev said investors need an acceptable electricity price and a guarantee of uninterrupted supply. Uzbekistan is building its first NPP with the participation of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom. On June 4, first concrete was poured for the foundation of the first unit of the integrated NPP in Farish district, Jizzakh region, officially marking the start of construction. Mirziyoyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the project by video link. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi also participated in the ceremony. The project itself has changed considerably over the past two years. In 2024, Uzbekistan and Russia agreed to build a small nuclear power plant with six RITM-200N reactors, each with a capacity of 55 MW. Tashkent later decided to combine small modular and large-scale nuclear generation at a single site. Under the current configuration, the Jizzakh project will have two large VVER-1000 units and two small RITM-200N units. The complex will have a total capacity of 2.11 GW and is expected to generate about 15.4 billion kWh of electricity annually. The first small reactor is expected to come online in 2029. The first large unit could begin operating in 2033, with the entire complex expected to be commissioned by 2035. Plans for a second NPP come as electricity demand is rising rapidly. Uzbekistan’s 2020–2030 electricity plan aimed to raise annual generation from 63.6 billion kWh to 120.8 billion kWh by 2030. A more recent government forecast puts electricity consumption at 121 billion kWh by 2035. Some of the growing demand is expected to be met by solar and wind power. Nuclear energy is intended to provide baseload generation, including for industry. Mirziyoyev specifically linked preparations for the second plant to investors’ need for a stable electricity supply. Uzbekistan is therefore expanding its nuclear program before its first reactor has entered operation. The country is continuing to develop the infrastructure and expertise needed for the new industry. Following a June review, the IAEA said Uzbekistan had made significant progress but needed to complete work on its nuclear regulatory body and finalize feasibility studies. So far, Mirziyoyev has said only that preparations for the second NPP will begin. Its cost, timetable, capacity, and technology have not been announced, nor has a potential contractor been named. The first NPP involves long-term cooperation with Russia’s nuclear industry. Rosatom is participating in the project, which will use its reactor technology. Mirziyoyev said in June that Uzbekistan planned further nuclear power projects with Russia, but whether the same model will be used for the second plant or Tashkent will consider...

4 weeks ago

Archaeology

Ancient Royal Seal Discovered in Tajikistan

Archaeologists from Tajikistan’s National Museum say they have made a significant discovery, a royal seal made of fired clay from the Kushan period, which began about 2,000 years ago and lasted for several centuries. The circular, pea-green seal has a perforation for threading a cord and was found in very good condition in the Abdurahmoni Jomi district of Khatlon region in southwest Tajikistan, the museum said on August 14. “This discovery may mark a new stage in the study of the Kushan period in the region, providing a solid scholarly basis for reassessing certain existing theories and interpretations concerning its history,” the museum said in a statement. The Kushan Empire extended across a vast area at the height of its power, including swaths of present-day Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India. It emerged from the Yuezhi, a nomadic people who had migrated from what is today northwestern China and established themselves in Bactria, an ancient Central Asian region. The decorated surface of the newly discovered seal, engraved within a circular field measuring six centimeters in diameter, features what the museum’s archaeologists describe as significant political, cultural and artistic elements of the Kushan period. “The composition includes a Bactrian inscription, geometric ornamentation, a bust of a king wearing a crenellated crown, depictions of mountain goats, symbols associated with the royal authority and statehood of the Kushan rulers, as well as motifs associated with the authority of local rulers and other symbolic elements,” the Tajik museum said. Specialists from the Department of Archaeology and Numismatics at the National Museum are analyzing the seal and, once finalized, their findings will be shared with a wider circle of researchers. Arkeonews, an archaeology news platform, said the Bactrian inscription on the seal could be especially important because it might “help determine whether the seal belonged to a royal official, a local ruler or another figure operating within the Kushan political system.” The platform said “the seal may ultimately provide evidence for the relationship between Kushan rulers and regional elites in what is now southern Tajikistan.” Arkeonews said that until the museum’s analysis is complete, some of the “most important questions -- who used the seal, what it was intended to authenticate, and how it functioned within Kushan administration -- remain unanswered.”

4 weeks ago

Middle Corridor

Kazakhstan Middle Corridor Railway Cuts Detour, but Caspian Bottlenecks Remain

Kazakhstan expects to complete the roughly 323-kilometer Moyynty-Kyzylzhar railway across the Karaganda and Ulytau regions of central Kazakhstan by the end of 2026. The new line will shorten the Middle Corridor by 149 kilometers and ease congestion on the existing route via Zharyk. Kazakhstan Temir Zholy said in July that 202.5 kilometers of track had been laid. For the China-Europe route, however, the next test is the Caspian Sea. Containers must be transferred from trains at ports in Kazakhstan to ships bound for Azerbaijan, then returned to rail. The speed and regularity of these transfers will determine whether the hours saved within Kazakhstan translate into shorter delivery times. What the New Line Changes Moyynty-Kyzylzhar will give transit trains a more direct route from the Chinese border toward the Caspian and ease pressure on the Moyynty-Zharyk section, where east-west freight competes with domestic traffic. The project is designed to accommodate double-stack container trains and includes provisions for future expansion and electrification. The World Bank projects that capacity on the section will rise from 14 to 28 pairs of freight trains per day, while transit time via the new route is targeted to fall from eight hours to six by 2031. In February, the World Bank approved an $846 million guarantee intended to mobilize $1.41 billion in commercial financing for the project. Across Kazakhstan, the time savings will be more modest. Transit from Dostyk, on the Chinese border, to Aktau is expected to fall from about 72 hours to 68 hours by 2031. Farther west, the country is also modernizing the Shalkar-Beineu and Beineu-Mangystau sections leading toward the Caspian ports. The Caspian Remains a Bottleneck The European Union (EU) aims to reduce transit time along the Trans-Caspian route to no more than 15 days. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has estimated that the route has the potential to move cargo between China and Europe in around 18 days, but infrastructure and connectivity constraints have produced transit times ranging from 14 to 60 days. For shippers, reliability is as important as speed. Freight Is Growing Faster Than Caspian Capacity Pressure on the Caspian section is already increasing. In 2025, Kazmortransflot carried 59,400 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) on the Aktau-Baku-Aktau feeder route, more than 15% above the 2024 level of 51,400 TEU. In May 2026, container traffic between Aktau and Azerbaijan reached a company record of 7,451 TEU. Kazakhstan is expanding its port infrastructure as well. The EBRD and the EU are financing upgrades at Aktau, including two dedicated container berths and new handling equipment. The project is expected to double the port’s container-handling capacity. Caspian fleet capacity is another constraint as rail freight grows. Falling Caspian Sea levels are also limiting how fully some vessels can be loaded. From an Alternative to Russia to a Commercial Route After 2022, geopolitics increased demand for the Middle Corridor. It offered Europe a route to Central Asia and China that bypasses Russia, while providing Kazakhstan with another connection to European markets. The corridor increasingly has to compete on commercial terms....

4 weeks ago

Tourism

Tajikistan Creates Tourism Fund as Visitor Numbers Rise

Tajikistan has created a dedicated fund to reinvest money collected from tourists and travel companies in the country’s tourism industry. The move comes amid rising visitor numbers, with nearly 890,000 foreign tourists visiting the country in the first half of 2026, up 16.7% from a year earlier. The tourist fee predates the fund, which the government formally established by a resolution adopted on July 1. The fund will be used to improve tourism infrastructure and service standards. The money will be kept in a separate account at the Ministry of Finance’s Central Treasury, while the Tourism Development Committee is required to report to the government every six months on how the funds are used. Tourism permit fees and fines for nonpayment will provide additional revenue. The fund will also receive 5% of the value of outbound tour packages sold to citizens of Tajikistan, channeling money from trips abroad into tourism development at home. For foreign travelers, the fee depends on the type of accommodation and is based on Tajikistan’s “calculation indicator,” a government-set benchmark used for official charges. In 2026, one calculation indicator is set at 78 somoni, or about $8.40. Under the current rates, the fee is 0.2 of the indicator per day at hotels and similar accommodation, and 0.15 at guesthouses and hostels. That works out to 15.6 somoni a day in the first category and 11.7 somoni in the second, roughly $1.70 and $1.30 respectively. The charge is small relative to the overall cost of a trip to destinations such as the Pamirs. The government resolution does not state how much revenue the fund is expected to collect. Uzbekistan was the largest source market, accounting for more than half of the total, or 510,400 tourists. Russia accounted for 175,800 and Kyrgyzstan for 89,000. Another 23,100 came from Kazakhstan and 22,700 from China. The committee expects Tajikistan to receive more than 2 million foreign tourists in 2026. Russia remains one of the country’s main source markets. Russian tour operators report growing demand for the Pamir Highway and the Wakhan Corridor. The Fann Mountains and combined trips through Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are also popular. Operators cite expensive airfares and insufficient tourist infrastructure as obstacles familiar to independent travelers. Tajikistan has difficulty competing with Uzbekistan for travelers drawn primarily by the architecture of its Silk Road cities. Its appeal lies elsewhere, particularly in trekking and road trips through the mountains. Some infrastructure problems have eased in recent years as electronic visas and eSIM services have become available and more hotels and restaurants are operating. Tourist information centers have opened, and sections of the Pamir Highway are being repaired. Service quality outside Dushanbe and Khujand, however, remains uneven. There are also security concerns for travelers heading toward the Afghan border. Some of the country’s most spectacular routes pass through the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. After attacks from Afghan territory killed Chinese citizens in late 2025, Dushanbe increased security in border areas. The fund’s effectiveness will depend on how much it raises and...

4 weeks ago

Swimming

Tashkent to Host Uzbekistan’s First Swimming World Cup Event

Tashkent will host a World Aquatics Swimming World Cup event for the first time from October 8 to 10, as Uzbekistan prepares to join the international swimming circuit. The competition will be the second leg of the 2026 Swimming World Cup, which World Aquatics has branded the Silk Road Tour. The series begins in Baku on October 1 before moving to Tashkent and concluding in Astana from October 15 to 17. More than 750 swimmers representing over 50 national federations are expected to compete across the three events. The series has a total prize pool of $1.2 million, with additional bonuses available for world records and swimmers who win the same event at all three stops. The tour will also serve as preparation for the World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m), which will be held in Beijing from December 1 to 6. Competition in Tashkent will take place at the Aquatic Palace in the capital’s new Olympic City. World Aquatics officials inspected the venue in January as preparations for the event continued. “Taking the Swimming World Cup to Uzbekistan for the first time ever is a very exciting milestone for World Aquatics,” World Aquatics President Husain Al Musallam said. Tashkent has previously hosted international competitions in other aquatic disciplines, including World Aquatics artistic swimming events in 2017 and 2018. The October competition will mark Uzbekistan’s first appearance as a host on the Swimming World Cup circuit.

4 weeks ago

Ukraine Baikonur Russia's War Drone Strike

Ukrainian Military Says Strike Hit Rocket Workshop Linked to Baikonur

Ukraine’s General Staff said on Wednesday that its August 15 missile strike on a Russian space center had hit an engine-assembling workshop for Soyuz rockets as well as an aircraft maintenance facility. The Ukrainian military said its assessment was based “on the analysis of additional data,” while Russia has acknowledged an industrial facility in the area was attacked without specifying whether there was damage to the Progress Rocket Space Center. The assessment follows the posting online of satellite imagery apparently showing damage from the missile strike. The Progress center produces Soyuz-2 rockets that are regularly launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Independent confirmation of the extent of damage from the strike in Russia’s Samara region, as well as whether the strike might affect future Soyuz launches from Baikonur, remain difficult. The Ukrainian General Staff statement also said a fire spanning about 5,000 square meters was recorded as a result of the strike on the Progress center, which it described as an important military target. The center “is one of the key enterprises in the Russian rocket and space industry, involved in the production of ‘Soyuz’ family rockets,” the statement said. “The company's products are used, among other things, to launch spacecraft into orbit and to deploy Russian satellite communication groups for the benefit of the Russian army.”

4 weeks ago

AI Content Creation

Kazakhstani AI Creator Alissa Kamorskaya on the Rise of AI Animation

Kazakhstani model and AI content creator Alissa Kamorskaya runs Chudno, a school and agency specializing in AI-generated content. Kamorskaya began publishing AI cartoons in February 2026, and one of her videos has since received more than 30 million views on Instagram. The Times of Central Asia spoke with her about the rise of AI animation and the role of social media algorithms in driving views. TCA: You began creating AI cartoons before the format became widespread in Kazakhstan. Why do you think your most-viewed video attracted such a large audience? Alissa: I think several factors played a role. One was that when I made my most-viewed cartoons, almost no one in the post-Soviet space was using this format. I posted my first one on February 3 this year. I wanted to tell my followers how I met my husband, but I simply didn’t have any video footage to illustrate it, so I decided to turn it into a cartoon. The views quickly took off, my social media audience started growing, and I realized it was a very promising niche. AI cartoons have now become hugely popular. You can see animated videos recommended on social media getting as many as 100 million views. They have spread across social media so quickly that it feels as though AI cartoons have been around for a long time. In reality, broadly speaking, they have only been this widespread for about six months. TCA: Why does animation work so well with a mass audience? Alissa: I think it’s because animation is almost universal. Very often it doesn’t need words at all. A cartoon can be understood by someone of any age, from any country, speaking any language. Someone could be sitting somewhere in Cambodia, see the video, and still understand what is happening. So the potential audience for this kind of content is enormous. TCA: Do you see that in the geographic breakdown of your audience? Alissa: I analyzed the statistics for several videos and noticed that a lot of viewers come from Turkey and Iran. I think that is partly connected to how my characters look. They have dark hair and darker skin, so viewers in those countries may find them more familiar-looking. I often see comments in Turkish under the videos, and I can tell that people recognize themselves in these characters. Visual identification is very important here. It works much like it does in movies, or when we were children and picked a favorite character and said, “I’ll be this one.” We want to recognize ourselves in characters and identify with them. TCA: Before AI animation, you ran a conventional blog for about five years. Why did cartoons change things so dramatically? Alissa: I had been blogging for about five years, constantly filming myself, and my audience barely grew. For several years, my follower count stayed at around 3,000. Everything changed only when I switched from making what I personally liked to what interested a much wider range of people. I used...

4 weeks ago

Women's History

Opinion: A Century Apart, Two Official Visions of Uzbek Womanhood

A century ago, in 1926, the Russian-language Uzbek newspaper Pravda Vostoka published an appeal to the “working women of the Soviet East” written by Clara Zetkin – a Marxist and a women’s rights advocate from Germany. In its appeal for women’s unveiling, it asked where the mullahs had been while women suffered through the “dark past” and promised that Soviet law now shone “bright rays” over a liberated and free Soviet present. It closed not with a tribute to women, but with a slogan: “Forward to socialism! Always ready to fight for world revolution!” There was a significant problem with this text. Literacy among Uzbek women was extremely low, particularly in rural areas, and those who could read generally read Uzbek rather than Russian. Historian Marianne Kamp documents this gap in her book The New Woman in Uzbekistan. The article calling women to political consciousness was, therefore, not directly accessible to the overwhelming majority of its stated audience. That gap is not just a flaw in the propaganda or evidence of its exaggerated reach. Rather, it explains how the propaganda worked. A Russian newspaper speaking to Uzbek women who largely could not read it depended on party cadres, activists, public readings, meetings, and other literate intermediaries who could disseminate the message in Uzbek. It did not address an existing constituency so much as construct one – handing local organisers a model of the politically awakened Soviet woman they were expected to promote in villages where practically no woman could have read the article herself. [caption id="attachment_54189" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] Uzbek women in the old city of Tashkent before going out into the street on International Women’s Day, March 8, 1924. Photo: Public domain.[/caption] The “working women of the Soviet East” were therefore both an audience and an emerging political category. That category served a larger claim the Soviet state was making about Central Asia: that the region was “backward” and required revolutionary socialist transformation. In Soviet rhetoric, as in some earlier Russian imperial writing, the condition of women became one of the principal measures by which a society’s level of development was judged. A society’s position on the imagined path from feudalism to modernity could be read from whether its women were veiled or unveiled, secluded or employed, illiterate or educated. Transforming women’s appearance and public role offered the state an especially visible means of demonstrating that Central Asia was leaving its supposedly backward past behind. This does not mean that Soviet female emancipation was merely an empty disguise for imperial domination. Many contemporary works by historians such as Adrienne Edgar, Marianne Kamp, and Shoshana Keller showcase the genuine changes produced by Soviet literacy campaigns, education, employment, family law, and women’s political participation. Soviet gender policy did not simply reproduce the restrained paternalism of the tsarist administration. It attempted, and in many ways succeeded, at a much more radical transformation in the realm of gender politics. What it does complicate is who was doing the defining. It is tempting to read...

4 weeks ago

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