The Open Society Documentary Photography Project (http://www.soros.org/initiatives/photography) and Arts and Culture Program (http://www.soros.org/initiatives/arts) announce a grant and training opportunity for documentary photographers from Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and Pakistan.
The grant is …

Although we all know that Central Asian societies were for generations succoured on Soviet media that was pedagogical and ideological, we often forget what this fully means. Soviet media was often in outright denial, e.g., …

Everyone here at NewEurasia would like to wish our readers a Happy Naw-Rúz (or, if you prefer, Nouruz, Norouz, Norooz, Narooz, Newroz, Newruz, Nauruz, Nawroz, Noruz, Nohrooz, Novruz, Nauroz, Navroz)! We know it’s been a slow few months, but we’ve got really good news on the horizon. It’s looking to be a fertile spring indeed!

Turkmenistan has just held its “election” and the world can pretty much expect the winner. The real question is: why did the regime bother? neweurasia’s Schwartz speculates as to whether it may be due to power games with respect to an apparent troika within the Turkmen presidential cabinet.

Continuing my themes of Bishkek’s general coolness factor (here and here) and dredging up photos from my laptop’s hard drive, these photographs of graffiti were taken by Shirin Aitmatova nearly a year ago in March …

The rather crappy photos above are of Kumtor tractor trailer convoys in the Issyk-Kul region of Kyrgyzstan. The close-up shows one convoy parked outside of Barksayn (Барскаун, a.k.a., Barskoon, Barkaun, etc.), the second shows a …

Preliminary results from Kazakhstan’s parliamentary election give Nur Otan party 80.7% of the vote and ~7% each, clearing the threshold to enter parliament. In light of these results, neweurasia’s Schwartz wonders whether what we’re really looking at is a reincarnation of old strategies from Turkey’s Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

neweurasia’s English site is taking the Christmas-New Year’s week off. While we’re gone, we invite you to check out our Russian site (www.neweurasia.net/ru/) and our, ahem, seasonal “classical”, “Why Ded Moroz is infinitely more badass than Santa Claus”. ;-)

neweurasia’s Schwartz gives an overview on the situation currently developing in Kazakhstan’s Mangystau Province [updated again on 20/12/2011]. We also invite our Kazakh language readers to visit our official Kazakh blog run by Asqat Yerkimbay @ http://neweurasia.net/kazakhstan

We are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Best Blogger Award: Gulasal Kamolova (gulasal.wordpress.com) and Tashpulat Rahmatulaev (rtoshpulat.blogspot.com). Both are bloggers working in Uzbekistan.