Tag Archives: society

New action movie targets dictator in ‘Turgistan’

DEC. 13 2019 (The Bulletin) — Netflix released a new action film about the overthrow of a dictator from a fictional country called Turgistan, a fantasy land that appears to be based on Turkmenistan.

In the movie ‘6 Underground’, a US tech billionaire launches a privately-funded mission to overthrow Rovach Alimov, president of Turgistan. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty said that as well as the name, scenes and language used by people in the film make it appear set in Turkmenistan. Central Asia has already featured a handful of times in spoof television programmes and films.

The 2006 film featuring fictional Kazakh reporter Borat caused Kazakhstan’s government years of grief and in 2013 the made-up state of Tazbekistan was the focus of a BBC comedy called ‘Ambassadors’.

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— This story was first published in issue 432 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 27 2019

Kyrgyz feminist exhibition organiser quits after death threats

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BISHKEK/Dec. 3 (The Bulletin) –Mira Dzhangaracheva, the director of Kyrgyzstan’s National Museum of Fine Arts, said that she had resigned her position after receiving deaths threats links to a feminist exhibition.

The exhibition, called Feminale, which has been shown in the museum since Nov. 28, has shocked most ordinary Kyrgyz. Dedicated to the 17 Kyrgyz migrant women workers who died in a fire in 2016 at the Moscow printing house they were working in, the exhibition’s organisers said that their mission was to promote women’s rights in Kyrgyzstan’s staunchly macho and conservative society.

Exhibits included a boxing punch bag shaped like the torso of a woman, a Danish performance artist wandering around a room naked and various references to nudity.

But while the show has earned praise from Bishkek’s younger, liberal-minded millennials, it has also generated criticism. Delegations of Kyrgyz elders have visited government offices to demand that the show is closed. Employees of the museum and artists, including Ms Dzhangaracheva, said that they have received death threats.

The government stepped in and removed some of the more provocative exhibits, the ones it said showed “nude women in a temple of art”.

Now, Ms Dzhangaracheva , the National Fine Art Museum director, has said that it is safer for her to quit rather than try to see off the conservatives who she said have stymied artistic expression in Kyrgyzstan.

“Over the past five days there have been so many threats to me personally and my employees and to the organisers of this Feminale that I worry about our people,” she told the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website in an interview.

Women, gay and minorities’ rights in Kyrgyzstan have been worsening according to activists.
Human Rights Watch said of the government’s decision to block part of the Feminale exhibition: “Rather than limiting public access to thought-provoking art, the Kyrgyz government should protect its creators against threats of violence and support freedom of expression, including about women’s rights.”
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— This story was first published in issue 431 of the weekly Bulletin on Dec. 9 2019

Astana beats Man U 2-1

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NOV. 28 (The Bulletin) — Stunning the football world, Astana FC beat Manchester United 2-1 in their UEFA Europa League match in Nur-Sultan, recording arguably their top ever win. The match was a dead tie as Manchester United has already qualified for the next round but the roar from the crowd of around 30,000 when Astana won from 1-0 down showed how much the win meant to fans.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Uzbekistan wants cement manufacturers to pollute less

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NOV. 27 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s government is considering introducing a law that would force cement producers to measure and monitor their air pollution. The move is an indication that governments in the region may start to take more seriously the issue of worsening air quality. Other the past few years, Central Asia’s cities have become choked with car exhaust fumes and factory smog. Feeding demand from a booming construction industry, Uzbekistan’s cement sector is one of its fastest-growing industries.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Turkmenistan hosts first foreign opera for 19 years

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NOV. 26 (The Bulletin) — To a packed audience in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan staged its first foreign opera for nearly 19 years. Foreign operas were banned by former Turkmen leader Sapurmurat Niyazov in 2001 in order to protect Turkmen culture. This ban has only just been lifted by current Turkmen leader Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov who has been president since 2007.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Turkmen police told to lose weight

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NOV. 25 (The Bulletin) — Police officers in Turkmenistan have taken up jogging and are rushing to join the gym to lose weight before a Dec. 25 deadline, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

The US-funded news website said that several policemen in Turkmenistan had said that the new interior minister Mammedkhan Chakyev “doesn’t like fat cops” and that they will lose their job if they do not weigh less than 100kg.

Overweight police, with paunches hanging over their belts, are a relatively common sight in Central Asia. Other countries have also previously ordered police to lose weight.

Police across Central Asia have a reputation for being corrupt and incompetent.

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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

Kazakh city mayor sacked after rape of schoolgirl

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NOV. 22 (The Bulletin) — Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev sacked the mayor of Taraz, a town of 350,000 people in the south of the country, after a 12-year-old girl was raped in the latrine of her school. The rape sparked outrage in Taraz at the lack of care and oversight at the school. Reuters reported that 30% of schools in Kazakhstan still use outdoor latrines.
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— This story was first published in issue 430 of the weekly Bulletin.

DIARY: A Tajik monogorod

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NURAFSHON/Tajikistan/Nov. 11 – According to the two elderly men standing outside the gates of the abandoned factory, this used to be a thriving town of 5,000 people. Now it is desolate, a memorial to the Soviet Union’s hubris.

Dilapidated ‘monogorods’, with their abandoned factories, were once a feature of the former Soviet Union. Over the past few years, though, they have become harder to find.

Through its planned economy the Soviet Union built thousands of towns and cities around single factories or mines. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 so did its industry and so did the ‘monogorods’. A reminder of a failed past, many of these ‘monogorods’ have now been spruced up. In Tajikistan, though, on the poor fringe of the former Soviet Union this isn’t the case.

In Nurafshon, a stray dog ambled across the deserted main street and a woman pushed a pram along the cracked pavement. In one shaded corner of the empty square, a group of old men huddled over a chess set.

The midday sun beat down on this treeless mountain plateau near Tajikistan’s border with Uzbekistan. It sparkled, mischievously, off the sign of the long-closed cafe, preserved, almost perfectly, by the dry air.
“All the young men have left,” one of the elderly men said. “They need to find work and there hasn’t been any here since 1992 when the factory closed.”

This factory in Nurafshon used to produce strip lighting, and on an industrial scale. Why this factory here, though, in this remote corner of Moscow’s former hegemony?

The question was greeted with a shrug.

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— This story was first published in issue 428 of the weekly Bulletin.

Mirziyoyev orders closure of “torture” prison

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Aug. 5 (The Bulletin) — Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev ordered the closure of a notorious prison in an isolated part of the Karakalpakstan region which had become synonymous with torture under his predecessor, Islam Karimov. The jail, which was freezing in winter and boiling in summer, had earned the nickname ‘The House of Horror’. Pres. Mirziyoyev has been trying to improve Uzbekistan’s reputation since he took over from Karimov in 2016.
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— This story was first published in issue 418 of the weekly Bulletin

Azerbaijan’s five year F1 Grand Prix deal

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FEB. 5 (The Conway Bulletin) — Azerbaijan signed a deal with Liberty Media, the owners of the Formula 1 franchise, to hold an F1 Grand Prix in Baku for the next five years. The Baku F1 race has become an important part of Azerbaijan’s national branding since it first hosted it, as the European Grand Prix, in 2016. >>See Comment on page 2
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>This story was first published in issue 399 of The Conway Bulletin on Feb. 8 2019
Copyright The Conway Bulletin 2019