Fascinating episode of Turan Tales podcast by @aga-pik.bsky.social on the Soviet influence on #CentralAsian music and the evolution of estrada 👏🏼🕺🏼🇺🇿 bit.ly/48xpJJV

This week, Turan Tales podcast revisits Soviet Central Asian estrada with the amazing Leora Eisenberg - a historian and a PhD student at Harvard turantales.substack.com/p/episode-15...

Central Asian ‘first daughters’ - heirs, icons, or leaders? Listen to the new TURAN TALK with Galiya Ibragimova turantales.substack.com/p/episode-14...

The Caspian Sea is shrinking, its shores littered with seal carcasses. For scientist Assel Baimukanova, each one tells the story of an ecosystem on the brink. Read or listen to Turan Tales' new long read from Aktau turantales.substack.com/p/the-girl-w...

Listen to the new episode of Turan Tales, where Selbi Durdiyeva and I look at Central Asia’s postcolonial legacy and how Russia’s centuries-long influence has shaped ways of thinking, institutions, and everyday life in the region turantales.substack.com/p/episode-13...

Over the past few weeks, Poland has been immersed in a violent anti-migrant hysteria. Read my story for @aljazeera.com on how it started and what it's all about www.aljazeera.com/features/202...

In the new episode of Turan Tales, @joannalillis.bsky.social and I delve into the mixed legacy of Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan's first president, who ruled the country for almost 30 years. turantales.substack.com/p/episode-12...

Tune in to Turan Tales, where I talked to @aga-pik.bsky.social about the long shadow Nazarbayev casts over #Kazakhstan even six years after he stepped down as president after 30 years in power substack.com/@turantales/no…

In the latest episode of Turan Tales, Shahida Tulaganova talks about her upcoming film "Spirit Untamed" on Bahrom Hamroev - a human rights defender who spent years supporting Central Asian migrants in Russia. He was jailed in 2022 for alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir links substack.com/home/post/p-...

Caspian Sea level decline is a rapidly developing crisis for biodiversity and people, with global implications. This satellite image timeline 2001-24 is encapsulated by the media headlines. A recent publication from our international team gives the full story 🌍🧪🦑 www.nature.com/articles/s43...

‘The Caspian Sea is shrinking. It is visible with the naked eye’. Read my latest story for @aljazeeraenglish.bsky.social www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/...

Whatever happened to Central Asia's "island of democracy"? In the new episode of Turan Tales podcast I speak with Rinat Tuhvatshin, the co-founder of Kloop, Kyrgyzstan's leading investigative media turantales.substack.com/p/episode-8-...

“Meerim remembers the price her husband paid for luring her to his house. It was 1964 and her freedom was worth 80 roubles – equivalent to a Sputnik bicycle or, with luck, a pair of black-market jeans.” Read or listen to my new long read on Turan Tales. open.substack.com/pub/turantal...