Stories about Central Asia & Caucasus from July, 2007
Kyrgyzstan: Islamic banking
CXW says that Islamic banking might gain a foothold in Kyrgyzstan, thanks to involvement of the private sector and the Islamic Development Bank.
Central Asia: Evil ranking
BordersCA, a blog on borders in Central Asia, is reporting that Turkmenistan is slowly loosing its “Evil-Number-One” status to Uzbekistan. A sign of this are the small, yet continuous changes put in place by the new Turkmen president Berdymukhammedov, such as the removal of the arduous and omnipresent highway passport...
Armenia: Vardavar at Garni
Vardavar is fun for almost everyone, as you can get away with throwing water at complete strangers. Christian Garbis and Onnik Krikorian (more photos here and here) went to witness this ancient Zoroastrian ceremony in a village near the Armenian capital.
Kyrgyzstan: Missing in action
Major Jill Metzger disappeared from the US military base in Kyrgyzstan last year. CXW is catching up with the latest developments on the mysterious case and finds that the American officials are not investing enough effort into a full investigation.
Georgia: Controversial murder
Melissa is appalled that the murder of a famous politician is being brought into connection with the repatriation of the Meshkhetian Turks. The murder victim, Guram Sharadze, had always spoken against inviting the ethnic minority to return to Georgia.
Central Asia: Clash of opinion
Josh Foust engages in an extremely interesting discussion with an Uzbek journalist (working for a Russian news agency) about Western promotion of democracy in Central Asia.
Uzbekistan: Cotton boycott
As the Uzbek cotton sector is often brought in connection with gross human rights violations, Craig Murray finds the first major retailer's boycott of Uzbekistan's cotton products commendable.
Russia: Sochi and Abkhazia
TOL's Steady State offers an Abkhaz perspective on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Russia: Sochi, Lobsters, Georgia
Mark MacKinnon posts a few quick notes on Sochi-2014, Putin's meeting with Bush, and Russia's relations with Georgia.
Uzbekistan: Special prison
Jamiyat writes that the Uzbek government has built a new prison especially designed for “delinquent” civil servants. They are not thrown into the dire facilities where normal inmates serve their sentence as the latter “might show no tolerance towards newcomers, who in fact, might have put them in these premises”.
Kyrgyzstan: Passport ordeal
Tamara needs to get a new Kyrgyz passport in oder to enter the United States – and she chose not to pay a bribe to speed things up. This might have been wrong, as she already finds herself wading knee-deep through the Passport Office chicanery.
Armenia: Presidential candidate
On the 2008 Presidential Election Monitor, Onnik Krikorian says that US-born Raffi Hovannisian might have good chances in next year's polls as he is one of the most popular and cleanest politicians in the country. The problem is, however, that Hovannisian only received his Armenian citizenship in 2001 and might...
Afghanistan: Breadmaking
Bread is the main staple of poor Afghans and Õnne Pärl has a closer look at the inner workings of a bakery in Kabul.
Uzbekistan: Improbable headlines
Suffering from the heat in Tashkent, Rowan Wagner thinks of “headlines you will never see in Uzbekistan”.
Armenia: Defective church?
Lori is appalled hearing the Pope say that non-Catholic Christian communities are not true churches. Actually, she says, Christianity was introduced in Armenia before it became accepted in the Roman Empire.
Afghanistan: Interview with Baktash Siawash, blogger and journalist
What follows is an interview about censorship, media and blogs in Afghanistan with blogger and journalist Baktash Siawash. Baktash writes for several magazines including WashingtonPrism. Q: Please introduce yourself and your blog. A: My Name is Baktash Siawash and I live in Afghanistan; my blog's name is “Writings of Siawash”...
Armenia: Playing nardi
Nardi- (or backgammon-) playing seniors are an omnipresent sight in Yerevan when it's warm outside. On his 39th birthday, Onnik Krikorian wonders whether he should soon join them.
Armenia: Film festival
On Life in Armenia, Raffi K. reports on the opening of the Golden Apricot International Film Festival, which takes place for the fourth time in the capital Yerevan this year.
Caucasus: The state of democracy
Social Science in the Caucasus has a closer look at the The Economist Intelligence Unit's 2007 Index of Democracy, in which Georgia and Armenia are classified as hybrid and Azerbaijan as an authoritarian regime.
Tajikistan: Aga Khan
Ismaili Mail keeps track of all the attention given by media worldwide on the occasion of the Ismaili spiritual leader Aga Khan's 50th Jubilee Year.
Turkmenistan: Heroin addiction
Bonnie Boyd says that Turkmenistan's HIV addiction rates are phenomenally high and that it would be sign of strength not weakness to collaborate with the outside world.
About our Central Asia & Caucasus coverage
