Newsletter
A letter from the HD editors
Once a week, we send the best stories, events, and cultural discoveries from Central Asia.
Was Central Asia a Soviet Colony? Sergei Abashin Analyzes the Most Convincing Arguments For and AgainstThe debate over whether the USSR was an imperial project is constantly present in the public space of Central Asia. In the spring of 2025, this narrative gained renewed relevance against the backdrop of news about Rosatom's construction of nuclear power plants in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan—a segment of the public saw this as a repetition of the typical plot about the economic dependence of the periphery on the metropolis. Anthropologist and historian Sergey Abashin explains how relations of subordination were built between the Center and the republics of Central Asia, and whether they can be considered colonial.Sergey Abashin#Origins#Heritage & Identity