On Not Overreacting to Atambayev’s Comments About Manas

by Joshua Foust

The Associated Press dutifully repeats Kyrgyz President-elect Almazbek Atambayev’s worry that his country will face retaliatory strikes from an imaginary U.S. war with Iran. The base is subject of frequently extravagant rumors among local residents and politicians, who maintain that fuel dumps by U.S. planes devastate crops and cause illnesses. U.S. military officials have always [...]

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Kyrgyzstan Votes

by Joshua Foust

As I’m writing this, the polls in Kyrgyzstan have closed down, and now the international community—which sent many hundreds of observers—will crunch on its reports and tell us if Kyrgyzstan’s presidential election was fair or not. David Trilling has probably the best overview of the election itself—a grab bag of good things and bad things, [...]

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The Challenges Facing Southwestern Kyrgyzstan

by Joshua Foust
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Over at The Atlantic, I have a dispatch from my recent trip to Osh. An excerpt: “These NGOs mean well,” Adilya told me. She lost her shop when a gang of Kyrgyz men smashed in her windows, stole all of her inventory and cash, and set her home on fire. “But they hire mostly Kyrgyz [...]

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The Murdered Journalists of Central Asia, Still (sigh)

by Joshua Foust
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BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — On Abrahmanova St, between Chuy Avenue and Frunze St in Bishkek, across from the Hyatt Regency and over to the left, there lies a statue of Gennady Pavlyuk. Gennady was a Kyrgyz journalist on assignment in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 2009 when his hands were bound and he was tossed off the 6th [...]

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In Osh, One Man Triumphs

by Joshua Foust
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OSH, Kyrgyzstan — In 2008, Muradyl was grievously injured in a car accident. “The drivers here are crazy,” he explains. He was left without the use of his legs, confined to a wheelchair. What could he do? The disabled in Kyrgyzstan have a raw deal. There are no real city services that are handicap accessible. [...]

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A Proper Uzbek Lunch

by Joshua Foust
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OSH, Kyrgyzstan — I met some Uzbek guys near the main city market here. When they saw my camera, they asked if either my fixer or I spoke Russian. Luckily, my fixer speaks Russian and Uzbek, so we struck up a conversation. In short order, we were in their car heading up to one of [...]

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Scenes of Osh, Kyrgyzstan

by Joshua Foust
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From the skyline to some farm animals, to cars and walks in the park, Osh is more than just ethnic cleansing and broken politics.

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In Osh, An Unresolved Future

by Joshua Foust
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OSH, Kyrgyzstan — The Atlantic published a dispatch about some of the changes Kyrgyzstan is experiencing: Away from the downtown core Bishkek, the city is much more Soviet, much more familiar to people who have traveled through this region during the 20 or so years since the Soviet Union collapsed. Gorbachev is still reviled for [...]

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The Non-Threat from Kyrgyzstan

by Joshua Foust
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OSH, Kyrgyzstan — The Washington Times just ran an embarrassing story, claiming Kyrgyzstan is on the verge of terrorism because of its election. The foiling of a terror plot by Islamic extremists in southern Kyrgyzstan over the weekend has underscored ethnic and regional tensions before presidential elections in Central Asia’s only parliamentary democracy. The National [...]

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How Not to Correct a Narrative

by Joshua Foust
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OSH, Kyrgyzstan — Two Beijing scholars wrote an op-ed in the New York Times arguing that Russia is concerned with China’s expansive economic activity in Central Asia. In describing a “series of high-level deals” between Chinese and Russian state-owned corporations, they argue: While cordial, an unspoken undertone to the meetings was Russian concern about growing [...]

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