· October, 2013

Stories about Central Asia & Caucasus from October, 2013

Young People Revel In Halloween Fun in Kyrgyzstan

  31 October 2013

While debates over the appropriateness of participating in Halloween fun rage in Tajikistan, young people in the neighboring Kyrgyzstan revel in Halloween festivities. The country's most popular blogging platform has published [ru] a map of all venues organizing Halloween festivities in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan's capital. Dozens of people dressed up in zombie...

Kazakhstanis Divided on Whether Home Is Really Best

  31 October 2013

A debate about why some Kazakhstanis stay in their country while others choose to emigrate has unfolded online. It started after Daniyar posted his “What Is Keeping You in Kazakhstan?” [ru] on yvizion.kz. The blogger identified seven main reasons why he preferred to stay in the country: #1. Великая история… #2....

Kazakhstan's Soviet Mosaics: “Ghosts of an Epoch Gone By”

  23 October 2013

In a post titled “The Walls Are Crying”, a blogger reflects [ru] on Kazakhstan's slowly disappearing Soviet artistic mosaics that once adorned housing blocks and industrial facilities across the country: Many of these works of art died along with the buildings which they adorned. Some are being destroyed. But many mosaics...

Tajik Official Plagiarizes Story Extolling President

  23 October 2013

Social media users in Tajikistan have caught an education official-cum-ardent supporter of the incumbent president plagiarizing. In his recent article “Why I Am Voting for [President] Emomali Rahmon” [ru] Ilkhomjon Khamidov extolled the country's veteran president who is seeking to secure a re-election in the November 6 vote. After the article...

Tajiks Note that “Moscow Has Changed”

  22 October 2013

As Russians try to make sense of ethnic riots rocking Moscow, these developments are also carefully watched in Tajikistan where more than half of the population depends on money that their relatives working in Russia send home. Halil Qayumzod who lived in Moscow in the 1990s suggests [tj] that over...

Tajik Children in Russia “Should Go to School”

  1 October 2013

A Russian lawmaker and member of the ruling party recently suggested [ru] that the children of labor migrants should be barred from Russian schools and kindergartens. LJ user prosto_vova explains [ru] why this is a bad idea. His list of reasons for not barring migrants’ children from Russian schools includes the...

“Without Papers You Are Nobody” in Kyrgyzstan

  1 October 2013

Hundreds of people living in Kyrgyzstan do not have the country's identity documents. This makes these people ‘invisible’ to the authorities, as Diana Rahmanova writes [ru]: In essence, you can say, “Here I am. I exist. I live. Here. Here is my body, my face. Look at me. I am not...

About our Central Asia & Caucasus coverage

Nurbek Bekmurzaev
Nurbek Bekmurzaev is the Central Asia editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.

Arzu Geybullayeva
Arzu Geybullayeva is the South Caucasus editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.