It’s the academic dénouement in Belgium, and to unwind a little, I went down to Paris this week. Even though the ville de lumière is only two hours away by train and four by bus, …

Press release from the OSCE Central Asian Youth Network (CAYN):
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Centre in Astana, Kazakhstan is pleased to invite undergraduate students currently enrolled in universities in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, …

NewEurasia’s readers are no strangers to the aesthetic art form of Soviet and post-Soviet socialist realism, but are they familiar with its analogue in the Western financial industry? Of course, “capitalist realism”, like socialist realism, …

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.