Kyrgyzstan: Reality Fashion Show Spotlights Homegrown Talent
Editors' Picks: No 090712_01.jpgOn a recent morning in Bishkek’s 12th “microdistrict,” a neighborhood of Soviet-era housing blocks a little past their prime, a small beauty salon was overflowing with...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan: Rights Activists Condemn Ban on Gay Muslim Documentary
Copyright show: No Democratization activists in Kyrgyzstan are worrying about a roll-back of basic freedoms after a Bishkek court prohibited a film festival from screening a Dutch documentary about...
View ArticleKyrgyzstan: Uzbek Theater Struggles amid Changing Times
Copyright show: No When Osh’s Uzbek Music and Drama Theater opened its 94th season last month, the actors looked nervously into the audience. They had not celebrated an opening night for three years,...
View ArticleMongolia: Preservation Challenges Confront Trove of Buddhist Texts
Copyright show: No Scholars believe it to be the world’s largest treasury of ancient Buddhist texts. The sheer immensity of the collection held in the National Library of Mongolia has prevented a...
View ArticleAzerbaijan: Writer Buckling Under Strain of Literary Controversy
Copyright show: No The furor that erupted over his unconventional take on Azerbaijan in the early 1990s is taking a toll on writer Akram Aylisli.read more
View ArticleCentral Asian Children Keep Ramadan Caroling Alive
Copyright show: Hide copyrights Ramadan fasting in Tashkent was nearly over on the evening of July 10 when Lola Yunusova heard a loud knock on her front door. Opening it, she was met by three children...
View ArticleFrom Yurts To Kimchi, Protecting The World's 'Intangible' Cultures
Copyright show: Hide copyrights Seventy-year-old Kakesh Jumabai-Kyzy has spent her entire life working with felt. The mother of eight lives in the mountainous Kyrgyz area of At-Bashy, where many...
View ArticleTajikistan: Intellectuals Finding Little Room for Reasoned Discourse
Copyright show: No Last July, authorities in Tajikistan confiscated the only manuscript of a little-known novelist’s latest book. In what can only be described as an Orwellian sequence, after the...
View ArticleRussian Cultural Boycott Over Crimea Grows
Copyright show: Hide copyrights As the European Union continues to mull possible sanctions on Russia, artists across Europe are actively rallying in defense of Ukraine following the deployment of...
View ArticleTajikistan’s Small Russian Community Marks Easter
Editors' Picks: No 042214_01.jpgShortly after midnight, Bishop Pitirim of Tajikistan marks the start of Easter by leading several hundred faithful outside, each carrying a burning candle, to circle...
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