Uzbekistan's “parade of stars”

From the FIFA president to Jennifer Lopez and Andrea Bocelli, the list of international personalities honoured in Tashkent is growing. Uzbekistan is also seeking to exercise a form of soft power at the international level, invariably associating the Mirziyoyev family members with these “personalities”.

Tashkent (AsiaNews) - Uzbekistan is making every effort to improve its image on the international stage, and in recent times has been inviting celebrities from abroad with increasing frequency, offering generous compensation and grand parades in which the children and grandchildren of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev are showcased.

The increasingly repeated slogan is ‘Uzbekistan opens up to the world’, as the president himself, who has been in office for almost a decade, has repeatedly said, which is demonstrated by the arrival of many Western stars in the capital Tashkent.

In early September, the arrival of the president of the World Football Federation, Gianni Infantino, was widely celebrated, considering that the Uzbek national team will participate for the first time in the World Cup in the USA-Canada-Mexico, led by Italian world champion Fabio Cannavaro. Mirziyoyev awarded Infantino the state order Dustlik, “of Friendship”.

In August, singer and actress Jennifer Lopez thrilled the crowds in Tashkent, her arrival being presented by the Uzbek press as “a major cultural event”. The guest was presented with a traditional Uzbek dress, along with a plate decorated with her portrait.

The celebrity season was inaugurated in 2024 by May Musk, mother of SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who gave a speech at the Central Asian Expo. In May, the famous British photographer Peter Sanders arrived, travelling throughout the country to capture a series of places and projects dedicated to the Islamic heritage of the Uzbeks.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov, who regularly visits Central Asia, praised Uzbekistan for the great modernisation taking place in the country. The legendary supermodel Naomi Campbell attended the conference on “Creative Economy – 2024”, also praising the progress of Uzbek society.

This year, Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli performed on 1 September at Uzbekistan's Independence Day, singing in Samarkand's Registan Square, surrounded by President Mirziyoyev's daughters.

Last year, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov's visit to Uzbekistan, accompanied by two of Mirziyoyev's sons-in-law, caused quite a stir, raising several questions about the family relationship between the two presidents, given the odious character of the Caucasian republic's leader. The practice of inviting high-profile guests to Uzbekistan was commonplace for Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the first president, Islam Karimov, known by the pseudonym Guguša, who brought French actor Gérard Depardieu, English singer Sting and Italian singer Eros Ramazzotti to Tashkent. Karimova is now in prison for organising a criminal association with various offences to her name, but the practice of “guests of honour” has been passed on to the relatives of the current president.

The Bukhara Biennial of Contemporary Art and Applied Arts, held in early September this year, was presented primarily as a personal initiative of the head of the presidential administration and daughter of the president, Saida Mirziyoyeva, rather than as a celebration of the rich cultural heritage of this important Uzbek historical city. Activist Nadežda Ataeva, head of the France-based association ‘Human Rights in Central Asia’, notes that the president's relatives use their presence at official events as ‘a tool for self-promotion and to strengthen the family's influence on society’.

Uzbekistan is also seeking to exercise a form of soft power at the international level, imitating some Arab states such as Qatar, which spent billions of dollars to host the 2022 World Cup, or Saudi Arabia, which supports football and Formula 1 and organises large concerts by the world's most famous pop stars.

However, Tashkent does not have resources as significant as Riyadh and Doha, and there is no shortage of controversy over the waste of state budget money on large-scale events, when the most densely populated country in Central Asia, which is set to reach 40 million inhabitants within a few years, certainly does not live in conditions of secure well-being.