I must say, the weather’s been lovely and the city’s been teeming all day with people in costumes, on roller blades, and just in general having a good time. I’m glad that I’m here to …

The new statue of Chingiz Aitmatov is up in Bishkek’s center. I must say, he’s rather dapper in bronze, although with all due respect to Mr. Aitmatov, he appears unrealistically flat-tummied and muscular. No surprise, …

Manas has finally mounted his horse today, and Aitmatov, in golden splendor, has likewise assumed a rather swank position atop a dais.

With elections coming up and a dangerous strain of nationalism increasing in Kyrgyzstan, neweurasia’s Schwartz is getting some ugly Weimar vibes in Bishkek. “Just think a little bit about the meaning in the change of symbolism [in the city's square]: from Freedom to Warrior,” he writes.

The new Manas statue is entering the final stages of assembling. I snuck into the construction site around the pedestal to snag these photos.
To be frank, I feel that it’s a travesty what they’ve …

I’ve been thinking over Tajikistan’s recent prohibition on minors from going to mosques, churches and synagogues, reported last week by neweurasia‘s Avicenna, within the larger context of the country’s on-going “cultural revolution”.
Some of the revolution’s …

According to our teams in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the ban on WordPress appears to have been lifted after over a month. neweurasia’s Schwartz reports and coments. “By lifting this ban, the Kazakh authorities are therefore doing the right thing twice-over,” he writes. “It is my hope that this is setting a positive precedent, although of course time will tell.”

Farid Tukhbatullin, head of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR), of which the Chronicles of Turkmenistan (chrono-tm.org is the press service, has sent the following statement to journalists:
On 18 July in the morning the …

neweurasia has been contacted by an individual who claims to have accessed the Chronicles of Turkmenistan, the news site of the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, and published part of their subscription list.

neweurasia continues to explore the aftermath of the Abadan explosion and the ways Turkmen are resisting the official line. The “Alternative Turkmenistan News” is an e-mail newsletter claiming 1300 recipients among a wide cross-section of professional Turkmen society. It’s a perhaps surprising example of the continuing utility of the e-mail in our new era of rapid social media. neweurasia’s Schwartz reports. “The impression one gets is actually of a very active and fertile secret world of electronic samizdat-like communications,” he writes. “Call it ‘e-zidat” or ‘Turkmenizdat’.”