Field Reports
FEELING LOW, GETTING HIGH—UZBEKISTAN’S GROWING DRUG PROBLEM
By C. Iskander in Uzbekistan (9/27/2000 issue of the CACI Analyst)
More and more Uzbek families are being torn apart by heroin use. "I pray to God and I know he will help!" says one haggard looking young woman, who seems to have aged years since we last met. Wiping away tears she tells me about the last two months since her husband started taking heroin.
TEACHING ENGLISH IN POST-SOVIET UZBEKISTAN
By Jennifer Balfour, Long-term Educator in former Soviet Central Asia (10/25/2000 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In an uncharacteristic outburst, our head of department flounced out of a classroom where she had been teaching, brushing roughly, even more uncharacteristically past me without so much as a nod. I followed close on her heels and entered the room where 100 students were sitting open-mouthed. On the board the letters AD were written, with their meaning in even bolder capitals: "AFTER DEATH!" scrawled underneath.
NDI DELEGATION WORRIED ABOUT KYRGYZ ELECTIONS
By Anna Kirey, student of journalism, American University-Kyrgyzstan (10/25/2000 issue of the CACI Analyst)
For the Kyrgyzstani people, the upcoming Presidential elections are a subject of worry. So far the special linguistic commission that tests the presidential candidates’ command of the Kyrgyz language has already failed six candidates. Another worry is that Topchubek Turgunaliev, the well-known opposition figure, was sentenced to a 16-year imprisonment for "inspiring the crime" of assassination of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, an event that never occurred.
MERITOCRACY CHARADES IN TASHKENT
By C. Iskandar (10/25/2000 issue of the CACI Analyst)
In post-Soviet Uzbekistan, nepotism, cronyism and corruption are reaching endemic proportions. Not that the region is new to the concept. For centuries despotic Khans ruled the various desert oases.
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Staff Publications
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, Greater Central Asia as A Component of U.S. Global Strategy, October 2024.
Analysis Laura Linderman, "Rising Stakes in Tbilisi as Elections Approach," Civil Georgia, September 7, 2024.
Analysis Mamuka Tsereteli, "U.S. Black Sea Strategy: The Georgian Connection", CEPA, February 9, 2024.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell, ed., Türkiye's Return to Central Asia and the Caucasus, July 2024.
Book Svante E. Cornell, ed., "The Changing Geopolitics of Central Asia and the Caucasus" AFPC Press/Armin LEar, 2023.
Silk Road Paper Svante E. Cornell and S. Frederick Starr, Stepping up to the “Agency Challenge”: Central Asian Diplomacy in a Time of Troubles, July 2023.
Silk Road Paper S. Frederick Starr, U.S. Policy in Central Asia through Central Asian Eyes, May 2023.