By Karolis Margis ’26
When I tell students at CC about the time I spent in Kyrgyzstan, all sorts of reactions occur. A recurring theme among these reactions is confusion. My favorite one was “I hear Kurdistan is a dangerous place.” I found that many students have trouble pronouncing the country’s name, let alone pointing to it on the map. Unfortunately, the same story goes for the other 4 countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. The knowledge about this region is not hidden – anyone who’s interested can binge-read thousands of wikipedia articles about it. However, this topic is rarely found among the interests of our students. Now let’s take a look at why this is the case.
First of all, one may point out that it’s a region so far away from the US, that it’s hardly material to the lives of American students. However, one of the most significant themes of US foreign policy of the last several decades was the American presence in Afghanistan, a country just north of Turkmenistan. Moreover, Central Asia is in between China and Russia – two countries that concern the US foreign policy the most. Those two countries have close economic and political ties with several Central Asian countries. Hence, a deeper look into the situation of the region might help us understand our geopolitical rivals better.
Secondly, one could note that Central Asia has a relatively low population, just over 70 million people. After all, there are several Asian countries with populations higher than this region. However, a low population size has hardly prevented countries from grabbing the attention of headlines across the globe. Be it the Panama papers, war in Gaza or the Beirut explosion of 2020, small countries can have a massive impact on global economy and politics. Therefore, Central Asia should not be disregarded as insignificant based on artificial measures like population size.
Thirdly, some may argue that regions with less global cultural impact are destined to have fewer people interested in them. It is true that Central Asian authors seldom make their way to American bookstores. However, this does not mean that their culture is any less fascinating than that of western countries. The ancient Uzbek cities of Samarkand and Tashkent are astounding monuments to the history of the Silk Road. They have thousands of stories to tell, myriads of mysteries for you to uncover. Newer cities like Bishkek (capital of Kyrgyzstan) or Almaty (the largest city of Kazakhstan) are open museums of the rich history of the Soviet Union. The culture scene of the region has much to offer for anyone who dares to take a peek.
Overall, historically Central Asia was far from the center of attention not only on our campus, but also in our newsletter. The good news is: the author of this article has decided to shed some light on this topic in the upcoming issues of The Lotus. I am looking forward to this. And hopefully so are our dear readers.