11 Jun 2024

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Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Life & Culture, Business & Economy, Uzbekistan Business & Economy

Uzbekistan Plans to Earn $300 Million a Year From Medical Tourism

Nuz.uz reports that Uzbekistan plans to earn $300 million annually from medical services and tourism. At the meeting chaired by President Mirziyoyev, the program “Medical Hospitality” was announced, under which the budget will cover the costs of private clinics for international certification and participation in foreign exhibitions. Doctors traveling abroad to advertise and provide diagnostic services will be reimbursed for transportation and accommodation expenses. In addition, value-added tax will be refunded to foreign patients visiting clinics.

“Last year, more than 60,000 foreign tourists were treated in 86 sanatoriums and medical institutions of the country. Suppose the number of such institutions is increased. In that case, it is possible to attract an additional 100,000 foreign patients, making it possible to earn $300 million a year from medical services,” the publication notes.

Zumrad Bekatova, a member of the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis, said that Uzbekistan is paying special attention to expanding the network of private medical organizations, diversifying their activities, and strengthening their material and technical base. However, despite these efforts, only two private clinics have received international certification, and the share of foreign patients has yet to exceed 12%.

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Times of Central Asia

11 Jun 2024

photo: gov.kg

Central Asia, Environment, Kyrgyzstan Environment, Kyrgyzstan, Business & Economy

Donor Coordination Committee Established for Kyrgyzstan’s Kambarata HPP-1 Project

The Kyrgyz Republic International Energy Investment Forum, held in Vienna, on June 10, concluded with the establishment of a Donor Coordination Committee for the construction of Kambarata HPP-1 hydropower plant in Kyrgyzstan.

The Kyrgyz Cabinet of Ministers said that the doors are open to interested parties but to date, the committee comprises major international financial institutions and development partners, including the World Bank, the OPEC Fund, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Committee’s first meeting is scheduled for autumn this year.

An inter-ministerial agreement on cooperation on the Kambarata HPP-1 project was also signed by the Ministries of Energy of the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.

Summarizing the outcome of the forum, Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic Akylbek Japarov announced: “We have made significant progress in establishing contacts and a common understanding of further actions. I am confident that the created Donor Coordination Committee will be a continuation of actions to implement the national project — the construction of Kambarata HPP-1.”

Japarov told forum participants that “According to experts, by 2050 the population in Central Asia will increase by 27%, the demand for food by 35%, and the consumption of drinking water by 50%. At the same time, water is the main artery of life in the countries of the Central Asian region. Countries located at the sources of large rivers account for 80.7% of the region’s total water flow.”

Regarding different countries’ priorities for water usage – downstream Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan use water in irrigation mode in summer, and upstream Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in energy mode in winter -he warned “This situation affects the energy and food security in the region.”

He then provided a more detailed report on the Kambarata HPP-1 project: “Kambarata HPP-1 is located at the source of the glaciers. Effective operation of this power plant will allow the accumulation and rational use of water resources of the Toktogul reservoir. The Kambarata HPP-1 construction project has broad economic, environmental, and social benefits and prospects for both Kyrgyzstan and the Central Asian region. The project will provide the Kyrgyz Republic and Central Asia with clean energy at the lowest cost, which entails lower costs of the energy transition in the region. Electricity generation at hydroelectric power plants will reduce emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere.”

Reiterating the project’s key importance in meeting the growing demand for energy and increasing energy security in the region, Japarov continued: “The power plant will be sited in the upper reaches of the Naryn River. Its installed capacity will be 1,860 megawatts with an average annual generation of 5.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. The preliminary construction estimate is more than $4 billion. The master plan of Kambarata HPP-1 includes a rock-fill dam, a hydroelectric power plant building with four hydraulic units, construction and operational spillways and transport tunnels, a residential village [for personnel], a reservoir and water treatment facilities.”

He confirmed that the project will have no negative impact on the region’s environment and ecology, and to further construction of the Kambarata HPP-1, the Cabinet of Ministers has pledged  $500 million for the period 2024-2030.

He concluded by emphasizing that the Kambarata HPP-1 project has been assigned the status of “national project” and called on international financial institutions, investors and companies to take part in its implementation.

 

 

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Times of Central Asia

11 Jun 2024

Ashgabat- Former President Niyazov's Holy Ruhnama Monument; image: TCA

Central Asia, Turkmenistan Justice, Home, Justice, Turkmenistan, Turkmenistan Features, Features

Reporter in Turkmenistan Freed After Four Years in Jail

Authorities in Turkmenistan have released a freelance reporter who was jailed for several years on a fraud conviction that media groups alleged was retaliation for his journalism.

Nurgeldi Halykov, who has worked for the Turkmen.news website, was arrested in Ashgabat on July 13, 2020 and freed on Saturday, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday. Halykov was detained the day after the Netherlands-based website published a photo that it received from him in which a World Health Organization delegation is seen at a local hotel during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the committee.

Turkmenistan strictly controls the media, making it hard to get information about what is going on in the Central Asian country. The government there did not report a single case of COVID-19, though there are widespread doubts about the government’s transparency regarding the impact of a virus that has killed millions of people worldwide.

The photo of the WHO representatives was taken by an Ashgabat resident who saw them sitting by the pool of the Ashgabat Yildiz Hotel, Turkmen.news said.

The resident posted the photo on Instagram and Halykov, “who had previously studied with this girl in the same school, saw it. He thought it necessary to send the photo to the editorial office of Turkmen.news,” the website reported.

“The girl was identified from CCTV cameras. She and six of her friends, relaxing by the hotel pool, were called to the police. The police looked through all her photographs, including personal ones, restored previously deleted photographs, and reread all her correspondence with other people. Then they began to study contacts in the address book and her friends on Instagram,” the news outlet said.

Halykov was detained and sentenced in September 2020 after being convicted of failing to repay a loan, according to Turkmen.news. It said a former close friend made the complaint about a $5,000 debt that Halykov allegedly owed.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was glad that Halykov had been released and it urged the Turkmen authorities “to improve the country’s international reputation by liberalizing the media environment so that independent reporters do not have to work clandestinely or under fear of arrest.”

Turkmenistan’s state news agency did not mention Halykov’s release in its report on Monday. The main news was the visit to Ashgabat of South Korean President, Yun Suk Yeol, and his talks on trade and other issues with Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov. Other prominent articles talked about the start of the grain harvest and the Turkmen president’s recent participation in a mass bicycle excursion in Ashgabat.

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Times of Central Asia

11 Jun 2024

Lhotse; image: Mark Horrell

Central Asia, Home, Life & Culture, Kyrgyzstan Life & Culture, Kyrgyzstan, Kyrgyzstan Features

Elite Kyrgyz Climber Gets Warm Homecoming After Himalayan Ascents

A 52-year-old climber from Kyrgyzstan has returned home after scaling two of the worlds’ highest peaks in a 10-day span in May. He said he climbed both Himalayan mountains without supplemental oxygen.

Eduard Kubatov, head of Kyrgyzstan’s mountaineering federation, was welcomed with flowers at Manas International Airport in Bishkek on Thursday after climbing the Lhotse and Makalu mountains, which are both more than 8,000 meters above sea level. Kubatov, who ascended Mount Everest three years ago, previously said he wanted to climb K2 in Pakistan this month in his bid to summit the 14 mountains internationally recognized as “eight-thousanders.”

Kubatov and climbing sherpa Dawa Chhiring got to the top of Makalu on May 30, 10 days after Kubatov summited Lhotse, said 14 Peaks Expedition, a trekking company based in Nepal that assisted him.

The Kyrgyz climber said on Instagram that both ascents were “non-oxygen,” meaning he took on the greater challenge of ascending without bottled oxygen, and that he accomplished “the first major mountaineering double in the history of Kyrgyz mountaineering.”

Climbing the world’s highest mountains without supplementary oxygen can be about 40% harder and so few climbers go without it that they are “like an endangered species,” Kubatov said on Facebook.

“It is extremely honorable and highly valued in the world mountaineering system!” said Kubatov, adding that he believes stronger Kyrgyz climbers will eclipse his accomplishments in the future.

In 1978, Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler became the first people to climb without supplemental oxygen to the summit of Everest, the world’s highest mountain at 8,849 meters above sea level. Messner was also the first person to climb all 14 so-called “eight-thousanders.”

Veteran climber Tim Mosedale has said there will always be a debate about using supplemental oxygen to climb the highest mountains.

“Whether or not it is viewed as being ethical, it is undoubtedly sensible,” he wrote. “After all, a client who becomes debilitated puts the lives of other climbers, and the Climbing Sherpas, at risk.”

Kubatov returned to Bishkek with other Kyrgyz climbers who also climbed in Nepal. Ilim Karypbekov became the fourth Kyrgyz citizen to summit Everest, and Kadyr Saidilkan, who climbed Everest last year, added Lhotse to his list of accomplishments on this year’s trip.

Kyrgyzstan has a strong mountaineering tradition, and several peaks in the Central Asian country are in the 7,000-meter range.

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Times of Central Asia

11 Jun 2024

Pyragy monument; image TCA, Aleksandr Potolitsyn

Home, Turkmenistan Life & Culture, Life & Culture, Turkmenistan, Features, Turkmenistan Lead Story

Story of a Statue: Turkmenistan Shapes National Identity

The giant bronze statue of a robed man holding a book stands on the southern outskirts of Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat, and is visible from many parts of the city. Including the granite base, it is more than 80 meters high. The sculptor says the rising sun illuminates the structure at dawn, giving it a hallowed aura.

Diplomats and other dignitaries recently assembled for the inauguration of the statue of Magtymguly Pyragy, a revered poet and philosopher who serves today as a state-sponsored symbol of national and cultural identity. Some carried bouquets of flowers as they walked up the steps toward the looming monolith. Later, there were fireworks, a multi-colored light show and a drone display in the sky that formed the image of a quill pen.

Led by President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, the ceremony on May 17 marked the 300th anniversary of the official birthday of Pyragy, who is little known outside Central Asia but is vital to a campaign of national cohesion in a country whose brand of personalized state control often seems opaque and eccentric to observers.

Pyragy was born in the 18th century in what is today Iran, and is associated with Sufi spiritualism. He wrote about love, family and morality, and also laced his poetry with yearning for Turkmen solidarity at a time of conflict and fragmentation. Today, his image adorns postage stamps and banknotes in Turkmenistan. A theater carries his name. A symphony. A street. A university. People put his verse to songs at festivals. His lines form aphorisms in Turkmen, a Turkic language spoken in parts of Central Asia.

Turkmenistan is of interest to foreign powers for its deep energy reserves, but this year its diplomats made an intense push in world capitals to get people interested in something else about the country: Magtymguly Pyragy. They promoted events about the poet in cities including Washington, Paris, Beijing and Seoul. The message was, as the state news agency put it, that Pyragy´s work is “an invaluable asset of all mankind.”

Indeed, the park where the giant Pyragy statue stands in Ashgabat also contains much, much smaller statues of writers from other parts of the world, including William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Rabindranath Tagore. One commentator has even compared Pyragy to German philosopher Immanuel Kant, saying they were born around the same time and had similar ideas.

Russian granite was transported in nearly 100 railway cars to Ashgabat for construction of the new Pyragy statue, according to contractor Alexander Petrov. The statue is among the more grandiose monuments in a capital studded with them.

Sculptor Saragt Babayev noted that the statue shows Pyragy in a turban, in contrast to an older image of the poet that shows him wearing a peaked Astrakhan hat, which was made of sheep fur and had no religious significance. That image dates to the time when Turkmenistan was part of the Soviet Union and Moscow was cracking down on expressions of Islamic piety.

“During the time when the poet lived and worked, the turban was a part of the clothing of imams, theologians and, in general, highly educated people such as Magtymguly Pyragy,” Babayev said, according to media outlet Turkmenportal. The sculptor said that “today’s historians have agreed and accepted the new image of the poet in which he appears with a turban.”

The Soviet authorities promoted their own version of Pyragy’s legacy, portraying him and other Turkic literary figures who lived before the Russian Revolution  as “proto-Socialist visionaries,” Michael Erdman, a curator at the British Library, wrote in 2021. Pyragy died in 1807, more than a century before the Bolshevik takeover.

However the poet’s legacy is shaped, some of his work holds up in today´s uncertain times.

“Do not take for granted the state of the world,” Pyragy wrote.

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Times of Central Asia

11 Jun 2024

photo: ECG

Central Asia, Life & Culture

VI ECG Film Festival Goes Beyond the Moving Image

The VI ECG Film Festival staged in London from 24-28 May, in partnership with the eighth UK Romford Film Festival at Premier Cinemas Romford, attracted over 100 entries from 22 countries.

The Eurasian Creative Guild (ECG) is the sole platform promoting Eurasian cinema in the UK and this year’s festival featured work by directors from Poland, the UK, Kyrgyzstan, Spain, Russia, Iran, Uzbekistan, China, Armenia, and Kuwait.

The non-profit organization was founded by Marat Ahmedjanov in London in 2015 to unite and promote Eurasian cultural and artistic practices to English-speakers, and as befits its mission, the festival went far beyond the ‘moving image’ to showcase work by visual artists, authors, poets, and musicians.

In film, the competition attracted over 100 competition entries from 22 countries and with support from  SIFFA film festival organiser Lubov Balagova-Kandur, included screenings of several Russian films such as the comedy ‘Aul’s Challenge;’ the war drama ‘Maria. Save Moscow;’ a documentary on the poet ‘3723 Voznesensky’, and a Jordanian love story ‘Cherkes’.

Central Asian films took several awards, including Best Eurasian Short film: ‘Happy Independence Day’ by Camila Sagyntkan (Kazakhstan); Best Eurasian Documentary Film: Sailing Seven Seas by Tatania Borsh (Russia-Kyrgyzstan); Audience Choice Award: ‘Sharaf Rashidov- Inspirer for the Development of Mirzachul’ by  Shukhrat Khaitov (Uzbekistan); and the Honorary Achievement Certificate for Documentary Drama: ‘Behtarin’ by Mohsen Rahimi (Kuwait-Tajikistan).

Visual artists from Kyrgyzstan took centre stage in the exhibition ‘‘Nomadic Narratives’, which also highlighted work by Dungan artist Rahima Arli, created during her ECG Horizons Rugby residency near London.

ECG has a long and ongoing tradition of publishing works by Central Asian writers which would otherwise remain inaccessible to English readers, under Hertfordshire Press. Editor John Farndon took pleasure in presenting three new stories under the collective title ‘Akhriman, Lord of Darkness’ by highly renowned Tajik author Gulsifat Shahidi, as well as ‘Is It Necessary to Worship at Notre Dame?’ by Kazakh author Alikhan Zhaksylyk.

Lovers of literature also enjoyed the opportunity to view the Kazat Akmatov Memorial in Romford, which both honours the esteemed Kyrgyz writer and serves as a beacon of strength for all Central Asian artists living and visiting London.

The well-established Azerbaijani poet Sahib Mamedov read poems which he dedicated to the festival participants.

Music too, featured highly at the event. In addition to a concert, medals of appreciation from Marta Brassart, ECG Chair, were presented to the musical duo Sherkhon, alongside artist Rahima Arli and young film director Timur Akhmedjanov, and recitals given by the duo from Uzbekistan Sherxon and the director of the Kazakh Cultural Centre in London, Kamshat Kumysbai.

Now in its sixth season, the festival continues to gather momentum and this year, attracted audiences from Italy, Kazakhstan, Poland, USA, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Austria, and Uzbekistan, and welcomed as guests of honour, the Mayor of Romford, Gerry O’Sullivan with MPs from the London Borough of Havering, and representatives from the embassies of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia and Belarus.

As testimony to ECG’s unique promotion of Eurasian film, cinema audiences were joined by famous directors and producers Paul Brett, Kathy Tyson, Cammy Darweish and Meredith Brett.

Submissions for 2025 are now open for the VII ECG Film Festival via the online platform through Filmfreeway.

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