· July, 2007

Stories about Uzbekistan from July, 2007

Central Asia: Expert interview

  31 July 2007

James of neweurasia interviews Central Asia specialist Dr. Eric McGlinchey – the topics of the long conversation include radical Islam, Russian influence, the regime in Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan's development.

Uzbekistan: Social capital

  26 July 2007

Rowan Wagner sheds some light on the Uzbek “gap” – a (usually) gender-based group of people that meets up regularly to share experience, practical tips, and gossip.

Uzbekistan: HRW shut?

  23 July 2007

UzNGO says that by refusing to give accreditation to the next country director, the Uzbek authorities have effectively shut down Human Rights Watch.

Uzbekistan: Lyab-i-Hauz

  23 July 2007

Joshua Kucera finds that relaxing at Bukhara's central pond, the Lyab-i-Hauz, is a great introduction to Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan: Cyrillic confusion

  20 July 2007

Tolkun Umaraliev posts a funny picture showing the amount of confusion created by writing Russian words with Latin script in Uzbekistan.

Central Asia: Evil ranking

  16 July 2007

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...

Central Asia: Clash of opinion

  14 July 2007

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

  14 July 2007

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.

Uzbekistan: Special prison

12 July 2007

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”.

Uzbekistan: Academic Exiles

  9 July 2007

On Registan.net, Kayumars Turkistan ponders the implications of Uzbekistan's isolation for the academic exchange with the country and finds that international researchers rather locate in the countries bordering Uzbekistan. Readers from Tashkent reply in the comments, however, that not all is really as bad as it seems.

Uzbekistan: A Story of Two Old Men

  9 July 2007

Beyond the River presents an excerpt from an unpublished novella by the acclaimed Uzbek author Hamid Ismailov called A Story of Two Old Men (Part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4).

Uzbekistan: Law and order

  6 July 2007

Rowan Wagner reports that, strangely, Tashkent's taxi drivers have suddenly become law-abiding traffic participants. Is the police finally doing its job?

Uzbekistan: Youth celebrations

  5 July 2007

Afisha posts a report along with pictures about recent youth celebrations outside Tashkent, Uzbekistan's capital. About 130 of the most active young folks from all corners of the country invaded a sanatorium usually inhabited by elderly people [RU].