To mark this last-ever edition of our EurasiaChat podcast, we decided to take a glance at the health of the media scene across Central Asia.The report card does not make for encouraging reading.Peter Leonard, Eurasianet’s Centra...

Dastur, a newly released horror movie in Kazakhstan, has been smashing box office records.And so, in this latest edition of our Eura...

Kyrgyzstan opened this New Year with a slightly new-look flag. The changes were not, in truth, that great. The colors and the sun-like figure at the center of the standard remained more or less the same.But President Sadyr Ja...

On the occasion of the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Dubai, the latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast focused on how Central Asia is meeting the challenge.Turkmenistan made headlines with the announcement ...

In this week’s edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, we turned our attention to the problem of gender-based violence.This topic has been in the news of late in Kazakhstan following the

An explosion at a coal mine in central Kazakhstan last month claimed the lives of 46 workers in what has been described as the d...

Central Asia is grappling with another looming water crisis. In this episode of the EurasiaChat podcast, hosts Peter Leonard and Alisher Khamidov delved into the concerning drop in the Caspian Sea's water level, which has dire implications for ...

Russia is refocusing its attention on Central Asia.As Alisher Khamidov and Peter Leonard discussed in the latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, last week saw a notable visit to Kyrgyzstan by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was...

 In the latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, resident co-presenter Alisher Khamidov opened with some questions about a visit that Peter Leonard, Eurasianet’s Central Asia editor, recently paid to Tajikistan.The standard narra...

In this latest edition of the EurasiaChat podcast, EurasiaNet Central Asia editor Peter Leonard and co-presenter Alisher Khamidov first turned their attention to more bad news about media freedoms in Kyrgyzstan.As they had threatened tha...

The latest edition of our EurasiaChat podcast kicked off with some thoughts from Eurasianet Central Asia editor, Peter Leonard, on his experience of doing the notoriously grueling Silk Road Mountain Race. This annual bike race can l...

In this week’s EurasiaChat podcast, co-presenters Peter Leonard and Alisher Khamidov turned their attention to the question of the recent visit of a Tal...

The West’s campaign of trade sanctions against Russia has put Kyrgyzstan in a bind.Last week, the U.S. Treasury announced it had slapped sanctions on four companies in the country for enabling the circumvention of export ba...

That Uzbekistan’s presidential election would be won by the incumbent, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, was a given.So in this ed...

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, its cultural exports have been viewed with suspicion all over the world, including in traditionally receptive Central Asia.The latest Russian artist to learn that to his cost is Grigory Leps, a popular ...

Alisher Khamidov opens this edition of our EurasiaChat podcast by dwelling on how military conscript recruiters in Tajikistan resort to extreme lengths to hit their quotas.The mass recruitment drives take place in the spring and the fal...

In this edition of EurasiaChat, Alisher Khamidov shares some insights on his recent stay in the U.S. city of Philadelphia, which he describes as being like a “new Almaty or new Tashkent” for all the Central Asian migrants that have settled ther...

In our podcast this week, Alisher Khamidov, Peter Leonard and Aigerim Toleukhanova provide an update on how Central Asian countries may be abetting Russian...

In our podcast this week, Alisher Khamidov and Peter Leonard discuss a Kyrgyzstan man held as a slave laborer in Kazakhstan for 32 years. His plight is party the fault of convoluted working regulations in Kazakhstan, where thousands toil withou...

In our podcast this week, Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss how reports of a small group of separatists in northern Kazakhstan have...

In our podcast this week Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov revisit the “relokanty” – Russians who fled the war – who are now receiv...

This week on our podcast, Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss local cynicism about the American commitment to Central Asia following U.S. Secretary of State

This week on our podcast, Aigul Adzhieva, a documentary filmmaker investigating Kyrgyzstan's epidemic of gender-based and domestic violence, discusses how the scourge is fueled by social fragmentation, the growing wealth gap, and a lack of kind...

In our podcast this week, hosts Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss how Central Asians see the Turkish earthquake: a tragedy in a friendly country, first, but also a frightening portent. Shoddy construction, dodgy insp...

In our podcast this week, hosts Aigerim Toleukhanova and Alisher Khamidov discuss attacks on Central Asian journalists, the changing impact of Russian propaganda, and Kazakhstan’s new