CAPS Unlock

🇹🇲 This week, we begin our podcast episode with Turkmenistan’s announcement that its e-visa system has finally gone live. The new system is supposed to move the application online and eliminate the separate letter of invitation. Yet crucial details remain unclear. We ask whether this represents a genuine opening or simply adds a digital layer to an unusually restrictive system.

📈 Our second topic is the recent surge in trade among the five Central Asian states, where Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are responsible for more than 80% of the total. The figures point to stronger regional ties, but not yet a common market, as exporters continue to face customs delays, certification rules, currency constraints and expensive logistics.

🎙️ And for this week’s interview, we spoke with Zhanibek Arynov, Assistant Professor at Nazarbayev University’s Graduate School of Public Policy, about whether a Central Asian identity exists beyond official diplomacy. His preliminary findings suggest that young Kazakhs do see Central Asia as a coherent region, while remaining Kazakh first and Central Asian second.

🎧 Listen to the full episode via the link in bio.

⚓️ This week in our podcast we discuss the deaths of 14 Kazakh servicemen during a naval exercise on the Caspian coast. Seventeen men were swept into the sea during an amphibious landing, with only three surviving. We look at the official explanations, the subsequent response from Kazakhstan’s authorities, and renewed questions about military safety, compulsory service and lessons from a similar tragedy in 2015.

🚂 The episode also examines Kyrgyzstan’s order for 10 freight locomotives from U.S. company Wabtec. The purchase will renew almost a third of the national operator’s fleet as Kyrgyzstan develops the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway. We trace the history of Wabtec’s LKZ factory and consider how American technology, Kazakh manufacturing, Chinese infrastructure and access to South Asian ports are coming together in the region’s emerging transport system.

🎙️ In our interview section, recorded during ASIAC Days in Almaty, Aleksei Chigadaev (Aleksei Chigadaev), a doctoral candidate in political science at Freie Universität Berlin, discusses Chinese e-commerce as a form of infrastructural power. We look at how Chinese companies can provide not only products, but also marketplaces, payment systems, warehouses, delivery networks and data infrastructure, and what this may mean for Kazakhstan’s dependence on commercial systems controlled elsewhere.

Listen to the episode via the link in bio 🎧

On September 23, Central Asian Policy Studies hosted a roundtable with a cross-party delegation of UK parliamentarians from the British Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (BGIPU), as part of the delegation’s fact-finding visit to Kazakhstan.

The delegation was led by Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi MP and included Lord Hussein, Dame Harriett Baldwin MP, Kirsteen Sullivan MP, Baroness Northover and Baroness Hodgson of Abinger.

The discussion brought together British parliamentarians and members of Kazakhstan’s independent expert community for a wide-ranging exchange on the country’s political, economic and social development. The conversation ranged from recent political developments and Kazakhstan’s foreign policy to economic reform, welfare, gender issues and rights.

We thank the members of the BGIPU delegation for a stimulating and genuinely inquisitive exchange, as well as Sally Axworthy MBE, His Majesty’s Ambassador to Kazakhstan, and Larissa Kanafina, Political and Governance Analyst at the British Embassy in Astana, for helping to make the meeting possible.

CAPS Unlock values exchanges of this kind as an important means of creating space for direct dialogue between policymakers, independent researchers and civil society actors from Kazakhstan and around the world.

💡 Interested in exploring key issues in Central Asia through concise policy analysis?

Explore The Argument, a new CAPS Unlock series of short policy essays. Each essay focuses on a single, debatable proposition, examining a specific problem, assumption or policy trend and making an evidence-based case for why it deserves closer attention. The series features contributions from CAPS Unlock researchers and external authors, written for policymakers, practitioners and informed readers.

🔗Explore the published essays on the CAPS Unlock website (find a direct link in bio)

💡Interested in exploring key issues in Central Asia through concise policy analysis?

Explore The Argument, a new CAPS Unlock series of short policy essays. Each essay focuses on a single, debatable proposition, examining a specific problem, assumption or policy trend and making an evidence-based case for why it deserves closer attention.

The series features contributions from CAPS Unlock researchers and external authors, written for policymakers, practitioners and informed readers.

🔗 Explore the published essays on the CAPS Unlock website (find a direct link in bio)

📌 On 7-8 September, CAPS Unlock hosted ASIAC Days in Almaty. The event was organised in collaboration with ASIAC - Association for Studies on Central and the Caucasus, MOST Holding, the Italian Cultural Center, ACIK, and Università Ca’​ Foscari Venezia, with Vlast.kz as the information partner and Neos SpA as the travel partner.

Over two days, researchers, policymakers, and experts from Central Asia and beyond came together to discuss identity, energy, water, governance, media, connectivity, memory, AI, and, importantly, who gets to produce knowledge about Central Asia.

The event created a space for institutions and experts from the region to contribute their perspectives to the global conversation and helped build a more comprehensive understanding of Central Asia’s current realities both from within and beyond the region.

Thank you to all the speakers and participants who made these discussions possible. We hope ASIAC Days will contribute to deeper, more meaningful, and genuine engagement between Central Asia and the wider world.

🌍 Civic engagement across Central Asian countries is shaped and pressured by political, economic and social factors. In our new podcast episode, we look at how these pressures are reflected across the region – from the SCO’s growing influence and China’s expanding role in Central Asia to Kazakhstan’s changing political system and the first election for its new Kurultai.

🇰🇬 We also explore how shrinking civic space affects young people in Kyrgyzstan. We spoke with Ainagul Amatbekova, lead researcher of State of Youth Civic Engagement in Kyrgyzstan’s Shrinking Civic Space, about the shift towards local initiatives, volunteering, mutual aid and online participation, as well as the barriers created by poverty, migration, gender and the urban–rural divide.

🎙️ Listen to the new episode for a closer look at the political and civic developments shaping Central Asia. Link in bio.

Join us to learn more about Uzbekistan’s changing political and social landscape through “Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan” by Joanna Lillis, Bloomsbury, in conversation with Dr Frank Maracchione, SOAS University of London.

The book offers a compelling portrait of Uzbekistan, a country shaped by its Silk Road heritage and now navigating tensions between reform and reaction, with important implications for the future of Central Asia.

📅 8 September | 17:00-18:30 | Almaty
🎟️ Tickets available via the link in bio. Detailed information will be provided to registered participants.
The event is held as part of ASIAC Days in Central Asia.

Join us to explore questions of identity, belonging and transnational communities through “Gone South Village: A Thai Family’s Pilgrimage to China”, a documentary by Bill Callahan (2026).

The film follows a Thai family travelling from Bangkok to “Gone South Village,” their late father’s hometown in rural Hainan, China. Through their journey, the family confronts what it means to be “Thai” in China and “Chinese” in Thailand, while exploring how communities across borders are shaped by shared experiences and family ties.

Moreover, you will have the chance to hear directly from the director, William A. Callahan, during a discussion following the screening, joined by Dr Giulia Sciorati, King’s College London.

📅 7 September | 18:45–20:00 | Almaty
🎟️ Tickets available via the link in bio. Detailed information will be provided to registered participants.
The event is held as part of ASIAC Days in Central Asia.

📚 Join the Meeting of Between the Lines — an English-language book club at 1000 Books.

📍 1000 Books, Almaty

🗓 Friday, September 4
🕓 4:00 PM

⚡️Back to the Caves: What Happens When the Power Goes Out? The 14 August blackout disrupted everyday life across Central Asia. Millions of people faced interruptions to transport, communications, water, work and other essential services, showing how much daily life depends on reliable electricity.

💡The discussion will connect these local experiences with the technical and institutional questions behind the blackout: how resilient is the region’s interconnected energy system, and what can be done to prevent a similar disruption?

🔗Register and check out preparatory reading via link in profile