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Ship Graveyard, Moynaq
Red Sky (2025), Lyra Browning Lyra Browning is a second-year student of Russian and History at The University of Cambridge. Alongside her studies, Lyra is a keen artist and has drawn inspiration from recent travels in Central Asia. Lyra plans to deepen this engagement during her upcoming Year Abroad in Bishkek, where she will be…
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The Only Eagle Huntress
Byambasuren Enkhee was born and raised in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. She received her bachelor’s degree in English and Environmental Studies at the University of Washington and worked as a community engagement professional in Seattle, Washington, before switching fields to gain an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on identity, language,…
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Desert Castles and Canals: Evolving Discourses on the Hydraulic Heritage of the Amu Darya
Robert Willard is a PhD student at the University of Vienna, in the department of Near Eastern Studies. His current research focuses on the use of heritage as a framework for practicing and maintaining water governance in Western Uzbekistan. Robert has 10 years of experience in ecological advocacy and fieldwork in Uzbekistan, in partnership with…
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Writing The History of the Kazakh SSR in Wartime Almaty.
In 1952, the Kazakh historian Yermukhan Bekmakhanov was sentenced to twenty-five years in a labour camp for his work on Kenesary Kasymov, the leader of a nineteenth-century Kazakh uprising against Russian rule.[i] The work that led to his arrest was published in The History of the Kazakh SSR, a text written during the Second World…
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Introduction
Views of Central Asia have historically been caught between an orientalised image from imperial powers and the visions that Central Asian societies hold of themselves. For this, the third volume of the Student Central Asia Forum, we invited proposals that consider the multitude of Central Asian horizons. We are delighted to present five submissions, encompassing…
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Monumental Art in Almaty
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How Investment into Kazakhstan‘s Education System has Impacted the National Economy
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Evaluating Central Asia’s ‘Golden Age of Arbitration’: Prospects for a New Legal Age of Commercial Dispute Resolution
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The Kazakh Intelligentsia’s Role in Shaping National Identity
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Turksib: Awakening Central Asia
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Cross-Border Connections: Nuclear Agency in late Soviet Kazakhstan
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Growing Activity of Russia and the EU in Kazakhstan Could Lead to Economic Conflict by 2030
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Decolonisation and Adaption for the Future: Language Politics in Kazakhstan
Image via Wikimedia Commons Driving down any street in Astana, Kazakhstan’s new, hyper-futuristic capital city, you may be surprised to note the total absence of any Russian-language signage. In fact, insofar as whoever is in charge of Kazakh road marking is concerned, English takes precedence over Russian, with Latin script transliterations of placenames sitting under…
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Trading Places: The Rise of China in Kazakhstan
Image: Richard Hagues via Flickr The power dynamic in Central Asia is shifting due to Kazakhstan’s changing economic and cultural relations with both Russia and China. Historically, Kazakhstan has maintained close ties with Russia, underlined by substantial trade and cultural affinity. However, due to the war in Ukraine, Kazakhstan is moving away from long-standing Russian…
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Turkic Winds of Change: How Kazakhstan and Türkiye are Forging a New Strategic Partnership
Photograph: Ninara via Flikr In September this year, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan travelled to Astana, the gleaming capital of the Kazakh steppe which has come to embody the ambition of the country’s leaders for the future. To many, a Turkish minister in a Central Asian city may seem to represent a relatively minor act…
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Why can you buy German bread in Kazakhstan?
A story of mass movements throughout Central Asia, by Nikolai Klassen. Not only is Russia a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma: fragments of the puzzle are also replicated and recapitulated throughout Central Asia, with the five ‘stans’ all bearing idiosyncrasies that point to a past as rich and unpredictable as the present.…
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Review of Overcoming a Taboo: Normalizing Sexuality Education in Kazakhstan
Recent reports show the rates of child abandonment as a consequence of unwanted teenage pregnancies are alarmingly high in Kazakhstan. This problem along with other sexual health problems could be the result of a number of factors, including the lack of effective sexuality education programs in the school curriculum that would shape young people’s sexual…
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Europe and Kazakhstan
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Hair-Clips and Hierarchy
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Torn between Two Worlds — how Social Media is Impacting Kazakhstan’s Development
