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Tajikistan: Dushanbe Sticking with Cotton, Despite another Horrid Harvest
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY DAVID TRILLING
The cotton harvest in Tajikistan has fallen short of targets by nearly 40 percent. Despite the steep decline of the cotton sector in recent years, authorities in Dushanbe appear determined to stick with the troubled cash crop, even though the country is experiencing food shortages. |
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Georgia: A Tiny Village Emerges as a Potential Flashpoint
BY MOLLY CORSO
The tenuous security situation in the Georgian village of Perevi has exposed a conundrum for both Georgia and European Union. Both want Moscow to fully withdraw its forces from the town, but they have been forced to tacitly acknowledge that an abrupt Russian departure could result in a renewal of fighting between Georgians and Ossetians. |
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Kazakhstan: Cotton Harvest Fails to Provide Rich Pickings
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY JOANNA LILLIS
This year’s cotton harvest in Central Asia has been accompanied by the usual controversies over child labor, water shortages, and low returns for backbreaking work. Cotton pickers from Uzbekistan continue to be attracted by higher rates of pay in Kazakhstan, raising concern that a labor shortage in Uzbekistan results in more children being sent to the cotton fields. |
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Georgian Opposition Demands Fresh Elections or Else
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY MOLLY CORSO; PHOTOS BY TEMO BARDZIMASHVILI
In the first massive street protests since the August war, Georgian opposition parties on November 7 demanded new presidential and parliamentary elections in 2009. A newly formed coalition of five parties presented a list of demands -- and deadlines -- to the authorities and threatened large-scale protests to force President Mikheil Saakashvili’s resignation if the government does not comply. |
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Kyrgyzstan: Festival Celebrates the Kyrgyz Horse, Marks Revival
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY DAVID TRILLING WITH REPORTING BY ALINA DALBAEVA
After decades of cross-breeding with stronger and larger Russian and European horses, the distinctive Kyrgyz breed, which is smaller and more agile than other equine types, appeared headed toward extinction. But the Kyrgyz horse has made a comeback in recent years, thanks in part to the efforts of Jacqueline Ripart, founder of Kyrgyz Ate (Kyrgyz Horse), a French-Kyrgyz non-profit dedicated to saving the animal. |
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Georgia: Abkhazia’s Monkey Business Returns to Health
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEX BY ELIZABETH OWEN; PHOTOS BY SOPHIA MIZANTE
Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia as an independent state may have fired speculation about military bases and trade ties, but one interesting question has been generally overlooked so far: what it means for Sukhumi’s monkeys. |
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Turkey: Highly Anticipated Trial of Ultra-Nationalist Group Starts with a Stop
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY JONATHAN LEWIS
One of the most highly anticipated trials in recent memory in Turkey got underway on October 20, but the proceedings quickly ground to a halt, as the presiding judge grappled with the issue of overcrowding in the courtroom. In all, 86 defendants are standing trial -- all accused of taking part in a shadowy conspiracy that sought to overthrow the country’s moderate Islamist government. The outcome is widely seen as a test of political strength, pitting Turkey’s democratically elected Islamist leaders against stridently secular military and nationalist interest groups, commonly referred to as The Deep State. |
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Georgia: With Shooting Over, the Spin War Rages
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY
TEXT BY ELIZABETH OWEN; PHOTOS BY SOPHIA MIZANTE
It is early morning at the new Russian peacekeeping post at Karaleti, a few kilometers north of Gori, and one senior Russian officer is feeling philosophical. "The war is over," he tells a group of foreign journalists with a wry grin. "Now, it’s time for the information war to begin." |
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In Georgia, Political Views Are Often Best Said in Song
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY GIORGI LOMSADZE; PHOTOS BY MOLLY CORSO
Georgian politics has never been short on drama. But with less than a month to go before the country’s parliamentary elections, politicians are hoping that that the glitterati of Georgia’s music world can help them attract votes. |
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Central Asia: Regional Art Trends Are On Display in New York
A EURASIANET PHOTOESSAY
With the worst winter weather in several generations having already forced strict rationing of electricity in Tajikistan, officials are now worrying that unless there is an immediate warming trend, they may have to declare a state of emergency in the Central Asian nation. Perhaps the hardest hit section of the country during the cold crisis has been the mountainous Badakhshan Region, an autonomous area in eastern Tajikistan that borders Afghanistan. |
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New President Sarkisian Promises an "Armenia of Dreams"
A EURASIANET PHOTOESSAY
With the worst winter weather in several generations having already forced strict rationing of electricity in Tajikistan, officials are now worrying that unless there is an immediate warming trend, they may have to declare a state of emergency in the Central Asian nation. Perhaps the hardest hit section of the country during the cold crisis has been the mountainous Badakhshan Region, an autonomous area in eastern Tajikistan that borders Afghanistan. |
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Even in Warmer Times, Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Region is the Definition of Remote
A EURASIANET PHOTOESSAY BY DAVID TRILLING
With the worst winter weather in several generations having already forced strict rationing of electricity in Tajikistan, officials are now worrying that unless there is an immediate warming trend, they may have to declare a state of emergency in the Central Asian nation. Perhaps the hardest hit section of the country during the cold crisis has been the mountainous Badakhshan Region, an autonomous area in eastern Tajikistan that borders Afghanistan.
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Copper Controversy Haunts Armenian Town
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY MARIANNA GRIGORYAN
An increase in birth defects in the northern Armenian town of Alaverdi has prompted a debate about the operations of one of the town’s largest employers, the Armenian Copper Program.
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Armenia: In Capital’s Construction Boom, What Goes Up May Come Down
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY GAYANE ABRAHAMYAN; PHOTOS BY ANAHIT HAYRAPETYAN
In the last five years, central Yerevan has been transformed into a vast construction site, with cranes seemingly outnumbering trees. Officially, the scores of multi-storied buildings are part of large-scale urban planning projects. Experts, however, assert that many of the new edifices violate urban planning and earthquake safety requirements.
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Georgia: President Offers to Hold Early Election to Defuse Crisis, Opposition Leaders Missing
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY MOLLY CORSO; PHOTOS BY SOPHIA MIZANTE
A day after the imposition of a state of emergency in Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili proposed an early presidential election as a way to resolve the country’s political crisis. The offer, however, does not address the closure of two pro-opposition television stations. In addition, officials have not addressed the reported disappearance of two opposition leaders accused of collaboration with Russian intelligence services.
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Georgia: Government Declares State of Emergency, Pulls Plug on TV Broadcaster
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY MOLLY CORSO; PHOTOS BY ALEXANDER KLIMCHUK, SOPHIA MIZANTE AND MOLLY CORSO
The Georgian government forcibly broke up protests in Tbilisi on November 7 after five days of anti-government demonstrations. While there are no known casualties, over 200 people have sought medical treatment after Special Forces fired tear gas and used water cannons on crowds in downtown Tbilisi and at an impromptu alternative protest site. Amid government appeals for calm, officials also moved to take a pro-opposition television station off the air.
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Georgia: Protestors Pledge Continuous Demonstrations
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY MOLLY CORSO; PHOTOS BY MOLLY CORSO AND SOPHIA MIZANTE
In perhaps the largest demonstrations since the Rose Revolution, thousands of protestors from throughout the country gathered outside the Georgian parliament on November 2 to demand early legislative elections and a Georgia "without a president." While the government has refused to compromise on the election issue, the opposition has vowed to continue the protest until its goals are met.
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Armenia’s Ter-Petrosian Sets Stage for Tense Presidential Vote
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY EMIL DANIELYAN. PHOTOS BY KAREN MINASYAN
After nearly a decade of self-imposed political retirement, Armenia’s former President Levon Ter-Petrosian is seeking a return to power. His decision, anticipated for months, renders the outcome of an upcoming presidential election unpredictable.
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Sumgayit Journal: With More Jobs, More Smog
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY: TEXT BY BY KHADIJA ISMAYILOVA. PHOTOS BY RENA EFFENDI
Amidst a hydrocarbon-fueled economic boom, the factories in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgayit, a former capital of the Soviet Union’s chemical industry, are back at work again, with questionable environmental results.
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Kyrgyzstan: Lyuli Minority Group Survives on the Margins of Society
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY DANIEL SERSHEN
Yangi Makhalla, a dusty, low-slung neighborhood on the edge of the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh, has a bad reputation. Most nonresidents are reluctant to set foot inside the settlement, home to most of Kyrgyzstan’s population of Lyuli, an outcast Central Asian minority group.
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Georgia: Disco Music Used as Vehicle for Peace
A EURASIANET PHOTO STORY: TEXT BY PAUL RIMPLE, PHOTOS BY ALEXANDER KLIMCHUK
An October 13 disco concert by a band headed by a former member of the 1970s pop sensation Boney M has become the latest strategy in Tbilisi’s efforts to woo breakaway South Ossetia back into its fold.
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Afghanistan: New National Army Strives to Professionalize
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY SUMIT DAYAL
Six years after the formation of the Afghan National Army, it remains difficult to assess its fighting capabilities. American military advisers believe it may take up to a decade before Afghan units are capable of carrying out independent operations.
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Pan-Armenian Games Seek Ethnic Unity Amidst Divisions
A EURASIANET PHOTO STORY BY ONNIK KRIKORIAN
In theory, it was all about unity. But the tensions on display at the IV Pan-Armenian Games, a mini-Olympics style event that attracted some 2,500 competitors from Armenian communities worldwide, indicated that divisions can run as deep as consensus in Armenia’s far-flung Diaspora.
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Bridge Connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan Set to Open
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY DAVID TRILLING
A major new piece in Central Asia’s expanding transportation grid -- a bridge across the Pyanj River connecting Tajikistan and Afghanistan -- is set to open in a few days. The United States, which supplied most of the funding and know-how for the project, hopes the bridge will promote regional stabilization.
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Chinese Growth Plans Stoke Fears of Central Asian Ecological Catastrophe
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY JACK CARINO
Located a two-hour drive from the Kazakh border, the area around the Chinese city of Yining hardly seems beset by water difficulties. The land, well watered by the Ili River and its tributaries, remains lush and green despite the brutal summer heat. Seasoned local farmers are unable to recall a time when their irrigation channels dried up.
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Kazakhstan: Man-Made Environmental Hazards Threaten Lake Balkhash
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY JACK CARINO
Late on a Friday evening, workers at the municipal stadium in the Kazakh city of Balkhash were busy rolling out broad strips of artificial turf. Real grass can’t grow due to pollution from the local metal plant, explained the venue’s administrator. In honor of the city’s 70th anniversary, she said with a grim smile, the factory itself was paying to install a substitute.
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Urumqi: China’s Economic Hub in Central Asia
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY JACK CARINO
Arriving at the Bian Jiang Hotel in the western Chinese city of Urumqi, foreigners tend to be quickly surrounded by a bevy of salesmen and moneychangers. But the men hawking cell phone cards and clamoring to convert currency are not speaking Mandarin, or even Uighur, the language of the Turkic ethnic group indigenous to the area. The first language they try is Russian, increasingly the medium of commerce in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.
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Kazakhstan’s Capital Holds a Lavish Anniversary Celebration
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY
TEXT BY JOANNA LILLIS; PHOTOS BY DEAN COX
Ten years after Kazakhstan’s capital shifted north, Astana held a lavish celebration to mark the occasion. Amid the festivities, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the man responsible for shifting Kazakhstan’s capital, marked his 67th birthday.
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Tajikistan: Glimpsing the Power Source
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY CLIVE NIGEL
One and one-half hours from Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, smooth roads wind through the fertile Vakhsh River valley, past bountiful fruit orchards and families harvesting golden summer wheat. Just past the utilitarian structures of Nurek town, the road abruptly stops at a checkpoint where local police vigilantly watch out for foreigners, perceived spies, and anyone else who might be a source of a little "donation." Security is indeed tight around the world’s tallest dam.
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In Georgia, Preserving the Past Is Cause for Controversy
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY MOLLY CORSO
At first glance, Tbilisi’s picturesque tumbledown mansions might seem small cause for controversy. But a government plan to preserve Georgia’s architectural heritage, as embodied in these buildings, could prove a key test of how far ordinary Georgians are willing to go with the country’s gung-ho reform initiatives.
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Turkish Fishing Villages Blame Pipeline for Dwindling Catches
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY (PART 3)
TEXT BY YIGAL SCHLEIFER; PHOTOS BY RENA EFFENDI
At the end of the 1,760-kilometer-long Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, in the shadow of Turkey’s gleaming Ceyhan oil terminal, stands the hardscrabble fishing village of Golovasi. As in other nearby hamlets, the village’s fetid canal and dilapidated cement houses provide a stark contrast to the promise embodied in its high-tech neighbor -- and a strong illustration of misplaced local expectations that a pipeline means prosperity.
Water Wars Divide Disputed Territory of South Ossetia
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY
TEXT BY MOLLY CORSO; PHOTOS BY ALEXANDER KLIMCHUK
Tensions over the breakaway territory of South Ossetia flared in early June as both Georgian and Ossetian-controlled villages in the disputed region were left without water. Adding to the problem is the existence of two rival de facto governments in the territory, both linked by the same Soviet-era water grid.
Kyrgyzstan: German Teacher Embarks on Funding Run for Schools
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY
TEXT BY HAMID TOURSUNOF; PHOTOS BY ERIC GOURLAN
Martin Fluch is a mountaineer and a jogging enthusiast, as well as an educator and an idealist. All these interests and traits are now being combined in a noble cause – raising awareness about the terrible state of Kyrgyzstan’s educational infrastructure.
Krtsanisi: Preparing Troops for Deployment to Iraq
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY
PHOTOS BY JOSHUA KUCERA; TEXT BY SOPHIA MIZANTE
In Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the US training of the Georgian military is seen as a serious menace. The Russian-backed secessionist governments in those territories try to score propaganda points by portraying training programs as a precursor to a US-backed Georgian invasion of their respective territories.
Turkmenistan: Making a Bid for Cradle-of-Civilization Status
PART 5 OF TURKMENISTAN IN TRANSITION SERIES
Even in mid-spring, a stark landscape greets visitors to the Gonur-depe historical site in eastern Turkmenistan. Standing amid sand and rock at the edge of the Karakum desert, it is hard to imagine that a rich civilization once thrived here, built around a lush oasis fed by the Murgab River.
Turkmenistan: Where Authorities Emphasize the Cult in Culture
PART 4 OF TURKMENISTAN IN TRANSITION SERIES
The weekday crowd at Turkmenistan’s main amusement park, called The World of Turkmen Fairy Tales, was surprisingly large. Deep within an artificial mountain, children crowded to squeeze into the first of seven rooms, eager to see their favorite Turkmen legends enacted by animatronic figurines. Outside, where the connections to local fables were tenuous, there were long lines for the roller coaster and bumper cars.
Life Along the Pipeline: BTC’s Impact on Azerbaijan
A EurasiaNet Photo Story
Photos by Rena Effendi. Text by Rovshan Ismayilov
Part 1 of 3
As part of its ongoing coverage of energy issues in the South Caucasus, EurasiaNet is providing an illustrated overview of how the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline has affected the lives of residents in its three host countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Here, photographer Rena Effendi and writer Rovshan Ismayilov document the changes in Azerbaijan.
Georgia’s Rustavi: Heading from Bust to Boom?
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY MOLLY CORSO
It was the post-Soviet comeback that was never expected to happen. With the recent reopening of its steel works, the Georgian city of Rustavi, long a derelict memorial to Soviet industrial might, is slowly returning to life, officials say. But despite the optimism, some residents, media and non-governmental organizations argue that vexing problems linger on.
Jewish Community Helps Georgia and Israel Draw Closer
A EURASIANET PHOTO STORY
Text by Marina von Koenig and Nino Taktakishvili. Photos by Sophia Mizante
Russian trade and transportation blockades may have weakened Georgia’s economic growth, but the country has managed to secure significant foreign investments. Last year’s economic expansion of 10 percent, according to government figures, is due not least to the emergence of new economic partners, among them Israel.
Azerbaijan Grapples with Growing Drug Addiction
A EURASIANET PHOTO STORY
PHOTOS BY RENA EFFENDI. TEXT BY ROVSHAN ISMAYILOV
Drug addiction is growing rapidly in Azerbaijan, experts and physicians say, and although the government has made important strides to fight the trend, lingering trouble areas could hamper a correction of the trend.
The Challenge of De-Mining Karabakh
A EURASIANET PHOTO ESSAY BY SOPHIA MIZANTE; |
