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Joe Luc Barnes

Regional Editor and Journalist

Joe Luc Barnes is a British journalist and author who focuses on the countries of the former Soviet Union. He has a Master’s degree in Russian and East European Politics from the University of Oxford. His book, “Farewell to Russia: A Journey Through The Former USSR”, will be published by Elliott and Thompson in Spring 2026.

Articles

FIFA World Cup

Colombia Uzbekistan: Diaz’s quality shows as Colombia win 3-1

In the breathless air of Mexico City, Colombia overcame a spirited Uzbekistan 3-1 in the first FIFA World Cup game involving a Central Asian side. In a game otherwise devoid of quality, the difference-maker was Bayern Munich’s Luis Díaz. He created Colombia’s first goal, scored the second after Uzbekistan had briefly equalized, and gave the favorites a cutting-edge that they had otherwise lacked. For Uzbekistan, the defeat was not a humiliation. Abbosbek Fayzullaev’s second-half equalizer, the first World Cup goal scored by a Central Asian country, will go down in history. There was even a spell late when Colombia were made to sweat, camped in their own half against a side that many saw as easy pickings. In the end, Jaminton Campaz's third in the eighth minute of stoppage time gave the result a gloss that perhaps flattered the South Americans, who were not at their best. Worlds Apart It is hard to think of two more contrasting countries than Uzbekistan and Colombia. One is arid and double landlocked, the other tropical, with coasts on the Pacific and the Caribbean. One is a staunch tea culture, the other one of the world’s great coffee exporters. Colombia is in the middle of a febrile election campaign, with a runoff vote due on June 21 that pits the far-left and the far-right. Uzbekistan, by contrast, has never had an election where the winner has received less than 80%. Fortunately, they both quickly found common ground on the pitch by playing some insipid, uninspiring football. Uzbeks are rightly famed for their hospitality, and there was no shortage of accommodation for the Colombian forwards as Uzbekistan welcomed the opposition into their half, sacrificing possession to maintain a solid defensive shape. Sitting back and inviting pressure was always a risk. Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, 2,200 meters above sea level and the scene of the World Cup finals of 1970 and 1986, was full of canary yellow Colombia shirts whose raucous cacophony grew as their side dominated possession of the ball. Toward the end of the first half, the spaces began to widen. Diaz hit the post, and soon after he fashioned the breakthrough, floating a delightful ball over the top for the onrushing Daniel Muñoz, the Crystal Palace right back who, until that point, had had little to do. His improvised finish sent the hordes of Colombians into delirium. Uzbekistan did well to keep the game tight until the break, after which they played higher and with more aggression. On the hour mark came the moment that those watching across Uzbekistan will have been dreaming of. Eldor Shomurodov, who had spent much of the game isolated up front, sent a crashing volley that forced the Colombian goalkeeper Camilo Vargas into a hurried save. The ball spilled loose, leaving Fayzullaev with the simplest of tasks to nod home from point-blank range. Uzbekistan had their first World Cup goal. For five glorious minutes, it looked like another vindication for FIFA’s expanded tournament. The 48-team format has been derided...

2 hours ago

FIFA World Cup

The World Cup Begins, and Central Asia Is Finally Part of It

Tonight, at midnight local time, the FIFA World Cup will get underway while Central Asia sleeps. For the first time, however, the region will be part of the story. When Uzbekistan walk out at the Estadio Azteca on June 17, they will be representing a region that has waited more than three decades to see one of its own at football’s greatest tournament. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asia has produced Olympic champions, world-class boxers, judokas, wrestlers, weightlifters, cyclists, tennis stars and chess players. It has staged major events, built new arenas and invested heavily in elite sport. But football, the world’s global game, has long been something the region watched rather than participated in. Uzbekistan are the first Central Asian country ever to reach the FIFA World Cup. Their qualification, sealed last year with a tense 0-0 draw against the United Arab Emirates in Abu Dhabi, was the culmination of years of investment in youth football, academies, domestic infrastructure and a generation of players no longer burdened by the near-misses that defined earlier campaigns. [caption id="attachment_50322" align="aligncenter" width="1774"] Uzbekistan's players celebrate qualifying for the World Cup. Image: TCA[/caption] The country had come close before, most painfully in qualifying campaigns for 2006 and 2014. FIFA’s decision to expand the tournament to 48 teams, derided by many as money-grabbing, has also played its part in expanding opportunity to countries that were formerly locked out. Uzbekistan’s breakthrough also comes at a moment when football across Central Asia is becoming harder to dismiss. Kairat Almaty’s Champions League campaign ended in defeat to Arsenal in London, but the Kazakh club’s presence at that level was itself a marker of change, and the chance to play against Real Madrid's Galácticos was savoured by many. Kazakh sides have also started to attract more recognizable names, including former Manchester United winger Nani and former Chelsea forward Victor Moses. These are still early signs, but they suggest that the region’s football ecosystem is becoming more ambitious, more professional and more visible. The face of Uzbekistan’s own shift is Abdukodir Khusanov. The Manchester City defender endured a difficult start in England, recovering from a gaffe-strewn debut to become an assured presence in one of the most scrutinized teams in world football. For some City fans, his arrival had initially looked like a gamble. “Uzbekistan isn’t exactly known for being a production line of talent,” Manchester City fan Ant Clayton said, recalling his skepticism when the club signed him. After Khusanov’s debut, Clayton thought the signing "looked like a big mistake". But by the end of the season, Khusanov had become a rock at the heart of City’s defense, helping the club to an English cup double and giving Uzbekistan something it had never previously possessed: a genuine world-class star playing at the summit of the European game. “Many of Europe’s best forwards have played against Khusanov in the last 12 months,” Clayton said. “In my opinion, not one of them has got the better of him.”...

7 days ago

Middle Corridor

Opinion: A New Southern Gate – How the EU-Armenia Summit Unlocks a Critical Branch for the Middle Corridor

For the first time in its history, the European Union held a full summit with Armenia. The meeting, which took place in Yerevan on 4–5 May 2026, was not merely a diplomatic milestone for Armenia. It also sent a signal to governments thousands of kilometers away in Central Asia that the trade route linking Asia to Europe through the South Caucasus is becoming more real, and more politically backed, than ever before. The centerpiece of the summit saw the signing of a “Connectivity Partnership” between Brussels and Yerevan. The European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, described Armenia as "uniquely positioned" to connect Europe with the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Under the EU's Global Gateway program, investments in Armenia are expected to reach €2.5 billion. A further €3 billion is earmarked specifically for the Middle Corridor – the trade route that runs from China across Central Asia, over the Caspian Sea, through the South Caucasus, and into Europe. “We will support your integration into key transport networks like the Trans-Caspian Corridor. It is a route that is also of strategic importance for Europe, given the growing flows of trade between our two regions,” von der Leyen stated. A Route That Is Already Moving Fast The Middle Corridor, formally known as the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), has grown at a pace that few predicted. Cargo volumes rose 70 percent in the first nine months of 2024 alone, reaching 3.4 million tons. By the end of that year, the total had climbed to 4.1 million tons – up from just 350,000 tons in 2021. The World Bank projects that the route could handle up to 11 million tonnes a year by 2030. It's important to maintain some perspective. These numbers are small fry when compared to the billions of tons of trade that moves between Europe and Asia by sea. However, the Middle Corridor does offer important diversification, particularly given the spillover effects of wars in the Middle East and piracy in the Red Sea. [caption id="attachment_48602" align="aligncenter" width="1274"] Image: Trans Caspian International Transport Route and it’s southern part, China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan Railway project. Source: middlecorridor.com[/caption] Where Uzbekistan Stands For Uzbekistan, the Middle Corridor is both an opportunity and a work in progress. In January 2025, President Mirziyoyev signed a decree to upgrade road and rail connectivity, and in September 2024, Tashkent co-founded the Eurasian Transport Route Association alongside Austria, Azerbaijan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkey. In December 2024, Uzbekistan sent its first block train all the way to Brazil – through Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and the Georgian port of Poti – proving the route is operationally viable. But costs remain a challenge. Shipping a 40-foot container via the Middle Corridor currently costs between $3,500 and $4,500, compared to $2,800–$3,200 on the Northern Corridor through Russia. Europe, meanwhile, accounts for only around 3 percent of Uzbekistan's exports and 13 percent of its imports — a share that Tashkent wants to grow significantly. The China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan (CKU) railway — a $8 billion, 573-kilometre project whose...

1 month ago

Champions League

Kairat Fall In the Champions League but New-Look Kazakh Football Is on the Up

On a chilly Wednesday evening in London, Kairat Almaty’s debut season in the UEFA Champions League ended with a 3-2 loss to English league leaders Arsenal. It completed a drawn-out baptism of fire in European football for the Kazakh champions, who finished bottom of the 36-team league, earning just one point from eight games. That point came from a 0-0 draw at home to Cypriot club Pafos, also debutants in the competition, and who played almost that entire game with ten men after their striker Joao Correia was sent off in the fourth minute. “We clearly see the difference in speed, decision-making, pace, and level between top European clubs and those in our league,” the club’s owner, Kairat Boranbaev, told The Times of Central Asia in the build-up to the Arsenal match. “It became clear that European success isn’t a one-season undertaking.” The club’s fans were also sober in their analysis. “The main lesson is that even small mistakes are costly in European competitions,” Kairat fan Rauan Mutair told TCA. [caption id="attachment_42912" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Kairat in the second qualifying round of the Champions League; image: Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] Silver Linings Playbook Nevertheless, Boranbaev was determined to take positives from the experience. He described the campaign as “a crucial moment in Kairat’s growth as a club,” and declared that his team “not only participated but were competitive.” He saw the campaign as a vindication of the Kairat model, which focuses on developing youth players. Now, he believes, that model needs “acceleration and scaling.” Despite the defeats, the competition has also served to raise the profile of Kazakh football. Kairat were just the second Kazakh side to compete in the competition after FC Astana in 2015, and they produced creditable displays in their highest profile away games, losing by just one goal to Arsenal and Milan’s Internazionale. Back home, even the least likely bars and restaurants screened Kairat’s games, creating a wave of excitement amongst a new cohort of fans. [caption id="attachment_42911" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Kairat has seen packed attendances for both its league and Champions League games this season; image: Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] New Signings Kairat’s campaign is not the only tailwind for Kazakh football. The domestic season will start in March, and the Kazakh league’s profile has been given a further boost after two high-profile signings this week. The first of these was Luis Nani, the former Manchester United winger, who has joined FK Aktobe. The following day, Kaysar Kyzylorda made an even more unlikely splash by signing Victor Moses, once of Chelsea. Earlier in their careers, the pair gained fame as regulars in the English Premier League. While neither was a superstar, both were part of the furniture of the competition, the type of player known as a “Barclaysman” to nostalgic fans. Nani initially struggled to stand out in a Manchester United side that included Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez, and a silvery Ryan Giggs, but he nevertheless became a key part of title-winning sides in 2011 and 2013....

5 months ago

Education and Culture

The Battle to Keep Kazakhstan Reading

Mika’s Books and Pencils was a hole-in-the-wall bookstore in Almaty, but in December 2025, it was forced to vacate its former premises in the center of the city. “The rent was simply too high,” the store’s owner, Elmira Kireyeva, told The Times of Central Asia. Mika’s is not Kazakhstan’s only struggling bookseller. Kireyeva describes the situation for bookstores across the country as “extremely difficult,” even for the large chains. Physical bookstores are firstly threatened by the growth of e-commerce. In 2024, Kazakhstanis purchased over 2.3 million books on Wildberries, a Russian site similar to Amazon. This represented a 52% increase from 2023. But the economic situation is also having an effect. “Taxes have increased, including VAT on books. At the same time, people’s incomes are shrinking, so books are becoming a luxury,” Kireyeva said, noting that books are often printed abroad, which has seen them become a victim of the falling purchasing power of the national currency, the tenge. More worryingly for booksellers is that people are reading less than they once did. This is part of a global phenomenon, particularly among the young. A large share of undergraduate students in the United States claim to have never read a book. British historian Sir Niall Ferguson has recently argued that this decline is evident across the West, while the number of Russians who read at least once a week fell from 49% to 28% between 1994 and 2019. Many believe technology is to blame. “In the age of social media, human attention faces unprecedented competition,” Shyngys Muqan, founder of Mazmundama, a Kazakh-language publisher, told TCA. “Platforms built around short-form video are especially effective because they exploit a basic neurological tendency: the pursuit of dopamine with minimal cognitive effort. Compared to reading, scrolling requires little concentration, imagination, or sustained mental work, yet it delivers immediate emotional reward.” Kireyeva agrees that screens have certainly had an effect. “It’s not just phones; it’s also information overload. People can’t read long texts anymore – social media has trained us to read only short fragments,” she said. [caption id="attachment_42613" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] The classic literature section in Meloman, one of Kazakhstan's largest book chains; image: Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] Kazakhstan has been affected worse than most. According to CEOWorld’s Book Reading Index 2024, Kazakhstanis read less than almost every country in the world. Of the 102 countries surveyed, Kazakhstan ranked 95th, with the average Kazakhstani reading just 2.77 books a year. This was behind every other Central Asian country surveyed (Kyrgyzstan – 3.96; Turkmenistan – 3.18; Tajikistan – 4.01), and far behind Russia (11). The results led one local newspaper to quip that, at this rate, it would take the average Kazakhstani 2.5 years to read the entire Harry Potter series. There are various structural factors which make Kazakhstan a particularly barren zone for readers. The first is geography – people in rural areas are very poorly served, and library collections are small. While Almaty residents spend an average of 2,300 tenge ($4.50) per family per quarter...

5 months ago

Media

Nomad TV: Russia’s Latest Media Venture in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan has a new TV station. At first glance, it’s the kind of cozy, local news channel satirized in 2004’s Anchorman. The headline item on December 10th was the fact that it had snowed in Bishkek, with the on-screen reporter treading around the city asking residents whether they felt cold. “Not really,” is the general response, given that plummeting temperatures are hardly a new phenomenon in the Kyrgyz capital. “What kind of precautions did you take against the weather?” the reporter asks one gentleman. “Put on a hat and gloves,” comes the droll reply. This piece is followed by an interview with a representative of the city’s police service, advising people to tread carefully on the icy pavements. Similar soft news items follow: an interview on the progress of Asman eco-city on Lake Issyk Kul; the modernization of a factory in Bishkek; and the announcement of a new coach for the national football team. These are hardly stories to make waves. Indeed, most people in Bishkek are unaware of the new channel’s existence. “It hasn't been a major discussion point; the only presence that I felt is this huge, green box that has been installed on the central square,” Nurbek Bekmurzaev, the Central Asian editor of Global Voices, told The Times of Central Asia, referring to the broadcaster’s temporary studio at the heart of the city. Yet Nomad is one of the best-funded media outfits in the country, offering salaries twice as high as those paid by rival organizations. And, in one form or another, it seems clear that the money is coming from the Russian state. So why has the Kremlin, which is hardly underrepresented in Kyrgyzstan’s media sphere, decided to throw such sums at a local news station? [caption id="attachment_40853" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Nomad TV’s temporary studio on Ala-Too square in the heart of Bishkek; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] A Bold Start Nomad’s initial coverage was not so banal. On November 23, the channel began broadcasting with a cascade of high-profile interviews linked to Vladimir Putin’s state visit to Kyrgyzstan on November 25-27. This followed a lavish launch ceremony at the city’s opera house, attended by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, and the Kyrgyz deputy Prime Minister Edil Baisalov. Putin himself lauded the new channel in his speech on November 26, and gave its chief editor, Natalia Korolevich, an exclusive interview the following day. This followed a feverish autumn, which the broadcaster had spent poaching talent from newsrooms around Bishkek. This included Mirbek Moldabekov, a veteran broadcaster from the state television channel, UTRK; the head of Sputnik in Kyrgyzstan, Erkin Alimbekov; and his wife, Svetlana Akmatalieva, a journalist from the National TV and Radio Corporation. The channel’s producer is Anna Abakumova, a former RT journalist who gained fame reporting from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine. These aggressive recruitment tactics have split the profession in Kyrgyzstan. Journalist Adil Turdukolov asserted in an interview with Exclusive.kz that anyone who has chosen to work for Nomad “is not particularly concerned with...

6 months ago

trans-Afghan railway

Icy Relations Between Pakistan and Afghanistan Threaten Central Asian Trade Plans

On November 25, the Afghan authorities accused Pakistan of a new round of airstrikes in eastern Afghanistan. The bombing killed nine children and a woman, injuring several others. The attacks are the latest escalation in rapidly worsening tensions between Islamabad and the Taliban-led government in Kabul, with key border crossings currently closed, and Afghan refugees being expelled from Pakistan. At the heart of the crisis is Pakistan’s claim that Kabul is providing support to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban, or TPP), a militant group seeking to topple Pakistan’s government and impose its strict interpretation of Islamic law. The fallout may ripple beyond bilateral relations, with significant consequences for Central Asian trade, particularly the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan plan for a Trans-Afghan railway. The planned 647-kilometer line is set to connect the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif with Peshawar in Pakistan. When combined with existing infrastructure, this will mean that trains can travel from southern Uzbekistan all the way to the Pakistani ports of Gwadar and Karachi, granting landlocked Uzbekistan and Afghanistan a long-sought gateway to the Indian Ocean. But mounting instability, along with Islamabad’s willingness to shut borders as leverage, may now place the project in serious jeopardy. “The moment a state weaponizes geography, every financier in Tashkent, Moscow, or Beijing prices in risk, delays commitments, and quietly explores alternative alignments,” Anant Mishra, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at the International Centre for Policing and Security at the University of South Wales, told The Times of Central Asia. So, what are the prospects for salvaging the Trans-Afghan railway? How can Pakistan and Afghanistan de-escalate? And what does this turmoil mean for Central Asia’s wider economic ambitions? A sudden frost On July 17, Uzbekistan’s Transport Minister Ilkhom Makhkamov, Pakistan’s Railway Minister Muhammad Hanif Abbasi, and Afghanistan’s acting Public Works Minister Mohammad Esa Thani signed an agreement to conduct a feasibility study for the proposed railway. Many hoped the railway would presage a new era of fraternal relations between Central and South Asia. “Civil society, the intelligentsia, media, and business community of Pakistan have been loudly calling for intimate trade relations with the Central Asian Republics,” Khadim Hussain, Research Director at the Centre for Regional Policy and Dialogue (CRPD), Islamabad, told TCA. For Uzbekistan, which has aggressively pursued diversification of trade routes to reduce reliance on transit through Iran and Kazakhstan, the project promised a cheaper, faster corridor to global markets. According to Nargiza Umarova, Head of the Center for Strategic Connectivity at the Institute for Advanced International Studies, University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent, the trans-Afghan is one of two high-priority transport projects, along with the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway – work on which began in April 2025. But the ink had barely dried on the July accord when tensions between Afghanistan’s Taliban government and Islamabad began escalating, throwing the ambitious railway into doubt. [caption id="attachment_40211" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Uzbek passenger and freight trains parked in Andijan; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] In early October, Pakistan launched an airstrike in Kabul targeting the leader of the...

7 months ago

Transport

Metro Expansion Key to Almaty Infrastructure Plans

Next year, Almaty plans another incremental step in the development of its public transport infrastructure with the opening of a new station at Kalkaman. This should see the tentacles of the transport system shift towards the west of the city. In the future, there are also plans to extend the metro north to Alatau, where the government’s “smart city” is being developed. Investment in public transport is welcome, particularly with vocal complaints from residents about ever-increasing traffic problems and their contribution to the city’s winter smog. “The expansion of the metro is considered one of the key tools for improving the environmental situation in Almaty,” a spokesperson for the Almaty mayor’s office (or Akimat), told The Times of Central Asia. “Increasing the share of passenger transportation via the subway reduces the use of cars, decreases traffic congestion, lowers emissions, and contributes to improved air quality.” The ambitious new metro project is in addition to over 600 new buses expected to be added to the Almaty Bus fleet this year. But despite these schemes, the traffic problem shows little sign of abating. It begs the question: has the city got public transport priorities right? [caption id="attachment_39565" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] New-look trolleybuses and electro-buses can be seen as part of Almaty’s modern fleet; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] The rise of the automobile “Traffic jams in Almaty began in the early 2000s, when the economic situation improved and people started buying cars,” Dauren Alimbekov, a high-profile blogger on Almaty transport, told The Times of Central Asia. He adds that the privatisation of other forms of public transport exacerbated this problem. The tram network was suspended in 2015 after two high-profile accidents, with the tracks being dismantled in 2017. Its disappearance coincided almost exactly with the arrival of ride-hailing services such as Yandex Go! in July 2016. By 2023, over 200,000 residents were moonlighting as Yandex Go! drivers to earn extra money. “In recent decades, the city has been planned with cars in mind, with major thoroughfares such as Al-Farabi almost totally lacking in convenient pedestrian crossings,” said Alimbekov. This influx of drivers has created problems. Private cars are a major contributor to air pollution in the city. On some days earlier this year, Almaty recorded the worst pollution in the world. [caption id="attachment_39564" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] A lack of dedicated bus lanes slows journey times and prevents more people from using public transport; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] Public transport That is not to say that there is no public transport in the city. Indeed, the Almaty Metro is the only metro system in Central Asia to have opened since the collapse of communism. Trains began running in 2011, but they only travelled between an initial five stations. Two more opened in 2015, which saw a spike in passenger numbers. Today, there are eleven stations, although most of these remain along Abay Avenue, giving it little practical value to most residents. The metro system does not connect to either of the city’s main train...

7 months ago

Made in Kazakhstan: Building an AI for a Nation

On a cold November morning at Al-Farabi University in Almaty, students gathered in a drafty lecture hall, many still wrapped in their coats. The setting was more reminiscent of a forgotten Soviet-era classroom than a venue for cutting-edge technology. But amid the peeling paint and rickety seats, some of the country’s most ambitious young researchers had come to discuss Kazakhstan’s latest steps into the world of artificial intelligence. The star billing came from the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence (ISSAI) at Nazarbayev University in Astana. Last year, the institute released KazLLM, its first Large Language Model (LLM), to much fanfare, inspired by a philosophy of building AI systems that understand the country’s language and culture rather than borrowing second-hand from Silicon Valley. But can Kazakhstan keep pace in the global AI race? And despite the government’s efforts to back local products, can it convince the population to use them over Western alternatives? Recent developments The Institute’s founder, Doctor Huseyin Atakan Varol, was keen to stress that steps have been taken to develop Kazakhstan’s native AI ecosystem over the past twelve months. “Since the release of KazLLM last year, we have witnessed what I would describe as a ‘Cambrian explosion’ of generative AI development,” he told The Times of Central Asia. “The KazLLM project enabled us to create the team and amass the know-how to build a new generation of multilingual and multimodal models tailored to Kazakhstan’s needs.” Among these, he lists Oylan, a multimodal language–audio-vision model; MangiSoz, a multilingual speech and text translation engine; TilSync, a real-time subtitle and translation engine; and Beynele, a text-to-image generation model. All these models have been fine-tuned to better reflect Kazakh culture and linguistic norms. “In short, we are building AI made in Kazakhstan, by Kazakhstani youth, for Kazakhstan –models that understand the language, culture, and needs of the people,” said Amina Baikenova, ISSAI’s Acting Deputy Director of Product and External Affairs, in an interview with TCA. [caption id="attachment_39061" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] The old lecture hall at Al-Farabi University, Almaty; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] Much of this progress stems from the enthusiasm of a generation of students, whom Kazakhstan has invested heavily in training. Indeed, the country has become a magnet for young researchers from across Central Asia. “After completing my bachelor’s degree in Kyrgyzstan, I was looking for opportunities to build my research career. That’s why I moved to Kazakhstan,” said Adam Erik, an ISSAI student from Bishkek. “Kazakhstan has become a scientific center of Central Asia.” Erik believes strongly in building local language models. “There is a thing called bias in data sets,” he said. “Models from the U.S., China, or Europe are incredible, but they’re trained mostly on Western culture and literature. Local solutions are still necessary.” These sentiments reflect a common frustration among researchers: even the best global AI systems stumble when asked about Kazakh idioms, rural social norms, or local history. The data used to train the world’s most powerful models rarely includes more than a sliver...

7 months ago

Identity

Petropavl – A City of Two Tales

No one seems to like the name Petropavl. The city, situated in northern Kazakhstan in a peninsula of territory that juts into Russian Siberia, has long lived between two worlds. From monuments to manhole covers, there have long been conflicting stories about who belongs here. In the Russian telling, the city was founded as a fortress on “empty steppe” in 1752 by Tsarist troops, named for Saints Peter and Paul – in Russian, Petropavlovsk. For over a century, it remained a frontier post that guarded the empire’s edge before the push into Central Asia in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet for Kazakhs, this place was never empty: long before the Cossacks came, nomadic Kazakhs from the Middle Zhuz grazed their herds here along the Ishim River, calling the place Qyzyljar – “the red ridge”. [caption id="attachment_38326" align="aligncenter" width="1600"] Manhole covers imprinted with Qyzyljar; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] Since independence, Kazakhstan has restored the names of thousands of cities, towns, and villages across the country in order to give the land a more Kazakh stamp. But Qyzyljar has not returned. Instead, the authorities’ immediate solution has been to Kazakh-ify the Russian name, leaving us with Petropavl. It’s a fudge that satisfies no one, and the official name is rarely heard on the city streets. In this overwhelmingly Russian-speaking city, most continue to call it “Petropavlovsk,” or even “Piter,” echoing Saint Petersburg’s nickname. Ethnic Russians Ethnic Russians now make up just under half the population of the North Kazakhstan region. In individual cities such as Petropavl, the proportion is far higher, although official information is hard to come by. The boundaries of Kazakhstan’s provinces, or oblasts, were gerrymandered in 1997 to soften perceptions of Russian dominance, but a mere walk around the city makes it clear that about two-thirds of the population is not Kazakh. These numbers and the region’s proximity to Russia have long made it a focus of uneasy attention. When Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014, President Vladimir Putin remarked that Kazakhstan had “never had statehood” before Nursultan Nazarbayev, and Dmitri Medvedev called it an “artificial state” in 2022 (although he subsequently claimed to have been hacked). Other Russian lawmakers have called northern Kazakhstan “a gift from Russia,” while nationalist commentators as far back as Solzhenitsyn have called for Northern Kazakhstan to be “reunited” with Russia. Dr. Petr Oskolkov, affiliated researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, was part of a team that undertook research on the ethnic Russian population in Kazakhstan in 2020-21, and believes that these fears are overblown. “Initially, there was a lack of public trust in the prospects of Kazakhstani statehood, especially among Russian-speakers. Nowadays, these doubts are absent,” he told The Times of Central Asia. “Moreover, the overall level of the identification with Kazakhstan, and the quality of life, have both grown significantly since the 1990s, so the idea [of separatism] has lost its main appeal.” [caption id="attachment_38320" align="aligncenter" width="1200"] Soviet mosaic; image: TCA, Joe Luc Barnes[/caption] Nevertheless, doom-mongers in Astana worry that Petropavlovsk...

8 months ago

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