Post-Soviet Orient. How to get to know Central Asia? | iRADIO

The special guest of this episode is Central Asia expert Slavomír Horák, who currently lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He is said to have become interested in politics and culture there by chance and laziness. Returning from a trip to Iran in 1997, he bought a discounted Lonely Planet guide to Central Asia in Istanbul. He got into it in such a way that he decided that it was there that he would marry for the next year.

Listen to the 15th episode of the Na Východ podcast!

And laziness? According to Horák, this manifested itself in the same year, as soon as he started studying Turkology at university.

“When I saw that all my colleagues were throwing themselves into different aspects of Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, literature, language, and I don’t know what, I thought, ‘Ah, this is not quite my area.’ At the same time, Central Asia offered itself as an intersection between the Russian-speaking world, which I was always relatively close to and always enjoyed as much as you, and the Turkic world,” he explains in the podcast to Josef Pazderek and Ondřej Soukup.

The two of them associate Central Asia mainly with economic emigration to Russia, presidents and presidents with oriental manners and pilaf, a mixture of rice, meat and vegetables. “There are about 200 species of plov,” Horák immediately breaks their idea of ​​the gastronomic uniformity of Central Asia.

It also explains the roots of a political culture in which presidents cast themselves as rulers of the people, fathers, protectors of the nation, and similar figures, which they then enact in their titles. Based on them, they cultivate a cult of personality and liquidate their political opponents.

“I am the proud owner of a large book about Uzbek President Islam Karim, which weighs about six kilos and is entirely on chalk paper,” he boasts on the Soukup podcast. “This was the man accused of killing his opponents by throwing them into boiling water.”

It alludes to the restriction of freedoms and violations of human rights, which are unfortunately still an everyday reality in many of these countries.

Central Asian North Korea?

“Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan are sometimes described as the North Korea of ​​Central Asia,” Pazderka recalls. However, according to Horák, the situation is changing – it is said to be a little better in Uzbekistan, but it is getting worse in Kyrgyzstan.

However, economic migration from Central Asia to Russia remains unchanged, even though the country’s migration laws are getting stricter and anti-migrant sentiments are getting stronger. Especially after the terrorist attacks on the Crocus entertainment center on the outskirts of Moscow in March 2024. After them, citizens of Tajikistan were detained, who said that they carried out them with the prospect of high rewards.

“In this context, someone reminded that Central Asia, a bit like the North Caucasus, is a supermarket where extremists very easily focus their attention and always find people willing to commit these terrible things precisely because they are poor and uneducated.” says Pazderka.

What role does Islam play in the daily lives of people in Central Asia? And which country would Slavomír Horák, an expert on this region, recommend you go to if you like mountains, handicrafts, oriental culture or horse meat? You will find out in the fifteenth episode of the Na Východ podcast!

Josef Pazderka, Ondřej Soukup

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