Kazakhstan

Beyond political and military alliances and strategies, Kazakhstan aims to be an important cultural and professional training hub for the whole of Central Asia, working in this sector with great support from Russia.

Public schools at all levels, from kindergartens to universities, are growing in the countries of the region. And in several cases it is the state itself that is stimulating investors with the aim of modernising the education and training system.

Among the films entered in the race for Best Foreign Language Film, a story told by director Kučinčirekov recounts the traumas linked to the ancient custom of entrusting the upbringing of the first or last child to grandparents. It brings to the screen a comparison between the Kazakhstan of the past and that of modern times.

Istanbul presses for the strengthening of the ‘Turkic world’, rejecting ‘Eurocentric’ descriptions of the region. But Tajik historian Kamoluddin Abdulloev objects: ‘Iran would have just as many arguments to assert its historical influence. In a land where the phases of Mongol domination and the spread of Islam have led to divisions and recompositions between Shiites and Sunnis.

From Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, new regulations are lengthening the time it takes to obtain citizenship, with tough tests of knowledge of the local language to discourage Russian relokanty. In Turklmenistan, citizenship is almost impossible to obtain without Turkmen kinship, but ‘ius soli’ is still in force for children of foreign parents.

The former capital of Kazakhstan is garnering new acclaim in international tourist publications. The metropolis at the foot of the southern mountains has become the city of businessmen and artists, without the bureaucratic heaviness of the palaces of power.

Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkemnistan are also awaiting the outcome of the confrontation between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris with interest, considering the disruptive effects of world events on the region's prospects. Also hanging in the balance is the future of the ‘5+1’ contact format through which the White House has tried to gain footholds in the former Soviet area in recent years.

The referendum in which 71% of voters in Kazakhstan approved the construction of a new nuclear power plant is seen as a great opportunity for the Russian company Rosatom, one of the giants of the Russian economy that is resisting the weakening war phase and is currently building 20 reactors abroad.

From education to foreign policy, the cooperation activities of the Organisation of Turkic States are growing. In the former Soviet countries of Central Asia, Erdogan is increasingly popular. While the project - already begun in Kazakhstan under Nazarbayev - to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin one, closer to Turkish phonetics, remains in force.

The tightening of the Astana government's fiscal policy to cover the budget deficit has led to an explosion of black transactions. Entrepreneurs believe that the fiscal limits need to be revised, which has not happened for over four years, and what could have been adjusted in 2020, today seems decidedly lacking in credibility.

In view of the growing difficulties in Russia, it is becoming increasingly important to find effective alternatives, considering that money from working abroad constitutes a very important slice of the GDP of Central Asian countries, ranging from 10% in Uzbekistan to 40% in Tajikistan. An issue that is intertwined with the question of Afghans in Germany.

The region's main river flows through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and finally empties into the languishing Aral Sea. Its flow is steadily decreasing due to climate change but also due to intensive exploitation for agricultural purposes, aggravated by competition between individual countries. But according to experts, with bottom-up initiatives it would still be possible to snatch it from its decline.