09.09.2021

Akhal-Teke

While clumsy on COVID-19, Turkmenistan is being more sure-footed, or consistent at least, on the Afghanistan front. Plus, unsustainable agriculture. Our weekly briefing.

Schoolchildren in Turkmenistan don’t know if they’re coming or going these days.

With the alarm persisting over the unacknowledged COVID-19 outbreak, authorities reportedly put out the word for many schools to remain closed until at least October.

But when September 1, which traditionally marks the start of the academic year, came around, children from grades one through six did indeed attend class, Vienna-based Chronicles of Turkmenistan reported. Five new secondary schools were inaugurated on that day, according to local media, although it is not clear if teaching began… >> подробнее

04.09.2021

Joseph S. Hulings III

While encouraging educational exchanges and agricultural innovation, Washington's first ambassador to Turkmenistan found government suspicion overwhelming.

This essay is part of a series by American diplomats sharing their impressions of the dramatic early years of Central Asia's independence from the Soviet Union. These memoirs were written at the invitation of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. We publish these with special thanks to Nargis Kassenova, director of Davis's Program on Central Asia.

Over the seven years we served on three assignments to Moscow, the family and I travelled extensively throughout the Soviet Union and the successor republics. One of our more fascinating excursions… >> подробнее

04.09.2021

Ivar Dale

The victims of state-sponsored disappearances include the families who wake up every day uncertain, missing a loved one whose fate is not known.

In the British drama series «The Missing,» which aired on the BBC some years ago, a family of three is traveling from the UK to northern France on holiday. They stop in a small town where the father takes his son to an outdoor bar to watch a football match. In a split second, the boy disappears. Eight years later, Oliver is still gone and the family destroyed, while the tormented father, obsessed, continues his search.

Soon after watching the first season, I was in a clammy Geneva conference room attending a session of a UN body with a very cumbersome name. The Working Group for Enforced… >> подробнее