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The Researcher's Fieldwork in Central Eurasia

Verena La Mela, Kazakhstan, 2019,
Between 2016 and 2019 I studied trade and infrastructure in the SinoKazakh borderlands. As a social anthropologist my method to approach
roads anthropologically was to participate in traffic as a driver.
Female drivers are an unusual sight in rural Kazakhstan. Often I was
confronted with the prejudices of male drivers, corrupt traffic police,
sexual harassment and frequent road accidents or its relics as is shown
on the picture. Death is a constant companion on Central Asian roads.

Talant Sultanov Kyrgyzstan, 2018, A dish bringing a high-speed wireless Internet link to village of Suusamyr, which lies above 200m in a valley of the same name in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan, on 13 October 2018. The village is home to community network Suusamyr Net, and now that the main link has been established, the network will soon be providing residents with connections by fibre to the home.

Talant Sultanov Kyrgyzstan, 2018, Rayana Imankulova (4), pictured on 13 September 2018, lives with her parents Akylbek Imankulov (46) and Gulzat Raimbekova (43) in the rangelands of Tokoilu in the Suusamyr Valley, which lies above 2000m in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. She loves to watch cartoons on her parents smartphone. Before a Suusamyr Net community network repeater tower was erected right next to her familys small corrugated iron home, they had to buy expensive and unreliable mobile data packages that were quickly exhausted. But now the family has free WiFi in exchange for looking after the tower equipment, and Rayana can watch her favorite cartoons non-stop she particularly loves the Russian series Masha and the Bear. The one where the rabbits ate all the carrots and potatoes and Masha had to spank them is the best, she says. However, the new WiFi connection recently stopped working for three days due to an electrical fault and Rayana could not watch her cartoons. There was no WiFi so I threw pillows around! she says, pouting. [Photo: Nyani Quarmyne / Text: Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt]

Abel Polese, Carpets – Turkmenistan – Mary oblast’ 2011

A team of researchers (including myself) was invited to a celebration in
a small village. They were offered food, drinks and a spectacle. To our
surprise, the inhabitants of the village were not allowed into the area,
separated by “carpet-fences”. Carpets also covered the entire ground
of the celebration site. This little girl was too curious to see what was
happening inside the carpet village and managed to sneak in.

Moira O’Shea, Kyrgyzstan, 2018, This photo was taken during the World Nomadic Games in CholponAta, Kyrgyzstan, 2018. Attending every match of Kok-boru, I became
friendly with some of the fans who also watched every match, like this
group, some of whom had come from Jalal-Abad together. Sitting
with them was an education in the skills and characteristics one needs
to become a good Kok-boru player, as well as an opportunity to hear
stories about their own adventures, and sometimes misadventures,
when playing the game.

Moira O’Shea, Kyrgyzstan, 2018, Research on the history and contemporary form of Kok-boru has led
to conversations about the origin of the game, about which country’s
rules to use in international games, and the mutual understanding
between a rider and his horse. One idea that has stood out, however,
is the idea that Kok-boru is something that is in the blood and which
is not explicitly taught but rather demonstrated. To me, this picture,
taken after Kyrgyzstan won the final match during the World Nomadic
Games in 2018, illustrates the sharing of knowledge of the game from one generation to the next. Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan.

Moira O’Shea, Kyrgyzstan, 2018, Kelechek, the name of the team in blue, means ‘the future’ in Kyrgyz.
Winning the Mayor’s Cup during this game certainly meant big
things for the team as they were able to compete in the Victory Day
celebrations and have a chance to move from the semi-professional to
professional league. While Kok-boru is a game with an ancient history,
it is simultaneously being popularized and formalized in Kyrgyzstan
with the creation of two leagues, and much attention being payed to
international standards for the game. Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 2019.

Matthew Brown, Kyrgyzstan, 2016
This photo was taken in June of 2016 in the Suusamyr Valley of
Kyrgyzstan through a bus window. I was in Bishkek for a summer
language program and knew next to nothing about Central Eurasia.
This is one of many such scenes I viewed from our school bus as
it took us around the country, and I wanted nothing more than to
transcend that glass and learn more.

Liliya Karimova Tatarstan, Russia, 2018, I took this photo at a mosque one Saturday afternoon in July 2018 in
Tatarstan, Russia. I came to the newly-built mosque in a small town
outside of Kazan to meet with a Muslim Tatar woman I wanted to
interview. While waiting for the woman in the balcony—the women’s
prayer section of the mosque—I peeped from behind the vertical
blinds that blocked the view from the balcony onto the main floor, the
men’s section. My female ethnographic gaze fell on a man who settled
on the floor with a copy of the Qur’an. While the man could not see
me, I could see and photograph him.

Rashid Gabdulhakov, Uzbekistan, 2019,
An old man from the fairytale ‘1001 nights’ at Chorsu bazaar in the
centre of Namangan. He is captured here selling “misholda” – a local
marshmallow-like sweet substance served during the holy month of
Ramadan.

Snejana Atanova, Turkmenistan, 2018
Turkmen wedding, Ashgabat, May 2018. A Turkmen bride in traditional dress -koynek and kurte. This photo was taken during my fieldwork on “National identity in everyday life in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan”.

Talant Sultanov Kyrgyzstan, 2018, A sheep in a wheelbarrow beside the main street of the village of Suusamyr, which lies above 200m in a valley of the same name in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan, on 14 October 2018. The village is home to Suusamyr Net, a community network that has brought a high-speed Internet link to the community, and will soon be providing residents with fast connections by fibre to the home.

Kyrgyz Woman on the Riverside of the Kökömeren, 2015, Kateřina Zäch-Kozlová (PhD Student in Human Geography – University of Fribourg, Switzerland). The aim of my master’s thesis (2017) was to systematically examine the everyday habitat of the water culture and changing infrastructure in the Kyrgyz village. My role as an ethnologist was to decipher social Kyzyl-Oi’s organisation of water and complex networks of human relation using a water lens – whereby empirical research of water places of everyday life and water history, were of special importance. Kyzyl-Oi, Kyrgyzstan.

Technical knowledge and skills, Kyzyl-Oi, Kyrgyzstan, 2016
Kateřina Zäch-Kozlová (PhD Student in Human Geography – University of Fribourg, Switzerland). I looked at the water infrastructure and explained how the technical functionality of wells has changed overtime. In this perspective, I showed the difficulty between the local weather climate and wells’ technical conditions.

Water Supply in Kyzyl-Oi, Kyrgyzstan, 2016, Kateřina Zäch-Kozlová (PhD Student in Human Geography – University of Fribourg, Switzerland). I focused on daily use of public wells and everyday experiences with them in terms of their social and cultural water value. I explained from a cultural-historical perspective that the way people think about wells as material objects and what they connect to them shapes their subjective perception, as well their understanding of wells. In this perspective, wells embody individual thoughts, reminiscences and collective memories of local people. They are an important part of local Kyrgyz culture and water history.

Catherine Ploskonka, Smaïl Bayaliyev’s artist studio in Shymkent, Kazakhstan during PhD
fieldwork. Bayaliyev was one member of the Kyzyl Traktor Group,
the first avant-garde movement to emerge in Southern Kazakhstan
after perestroika. . Playing with the notions of self-Orientalisation
within post-Soviet Kazakhstan, Kyzyl Traktor (Red Tractor) Group
used Eastern mysticism, such as shamanistic practices and the iconic
image of a wild nomad turning tradition and ritual into performance
art. In this photo Bayaliyav spontaneously plays and dances along
the lines of the shamanistic performances the group was known for.
The intensity of these performances increased into the early 2000s;
as group dynamics changed, individual projects formed along mutlithematic lines such as nomadicism, ritual and identity.

In the Gara gum desert of Turkmenistan, a bride is given a neighbor's child to hold on her wedding day in the hopes that the bride too, will soon have children of her own. The mother's hand rests on a parcel of wedding gifts (podarka) and to the side, a young girl looks on excitedly. The bride is looking down and holding a white scarf (ak ýaglyk) between her lips in recognition of her modesty. She is covered from head to toe in layers of intricately embroidered silks and cotton (kürte), with her hair bound in scarves and adorned with metal jewelry which falls to her knees.

Christin Kelly Scott, Skillful sheering allowed this family to quickly harvest wool and helped the flock to stay cool during at high elevations in the summer. The family hosted the photographer while he conducted research related to food security, social life, labor migration and the environment in their remote village in the Alai Rayon.

Christin Kelly Scott-2

Everett Price, Uzbekistan, 2018, Two senior policy advisors at the U.S. Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) traveled to
Bukhara, Uzbekistan as an official delegation to investigate the state
of religious freedom in the country. This picture was taken by one of
the advisors during a meeting with the Bukhari Jewish community in a
local synagogue.

Farit Gabdulhakov, Uzbekistan, 2019, School children from the city of Namangan on an excursion to the
ancient city of Akhsikent. Destroyed by an earthquake in 1622,
Akhsikent was a city with well-developed metallurgy. Swords produced there were widely sold all over the region, including in the famous markets in Damascus. After the earthquake, Namangan was founded by a surviving resident of Akhsikent.

In the Gara Gum desert, Turkmenistan, a grandmother looks after her youngest grandson. In the background, her granddaughter helps spool the yarn, which will then be used to make plaited lengths (alaja) that protect against the evil eye. These alaja are most commonly plaited with four colors, the brown color often made from un-dyed camel hair.

Cara Kerven, In Murghab town, the largest settlement in the eponymously named
district in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, Tajikistan. Many
families lease their livestock to hired shepherds. Here, the wife of a shepherd pours yogurt (ayran) made from yak’s milk to take with us back into Murghab town

Cara Kerven, Hired camel shepherd in Moinkum, Jambyl Province, Kazakhstan.

Cara Kerven, In the Gara Gum desert of Turkmenistan, a newly married women
kneads bread for her husband’s family. After letting the dough rise,
she will take it outside to the clay oven (tamdyr) and secure the loaves
to the hot walls inside. The tedious process of cleaning the baked
loaves is shared between her and her husband’s brother’s wives (elti).
She wears the appropriate silk scarf (gýnaç) of a married women and, when in the presence of older men, secures a portion of the scarf in her mouth (ýaşmak).

Assel Choibekova-3

Abel Polese, Welcoming – Turkmenistan – Mary 2011

Foreign guests arrived to the national theater for an international event. They were offered an idyllic picture of the country, full of young
women and a taste of national food. This also informed some of my
work on nationalism echoing what Vonnegut said “we are what we
pretend to be”. We offer an image of the country in which we would
like to believe ourselves, hoping that our guests will buy it and then
convince us that we are really like that.

Assel Choibekova, Kyrzgystan, 2018

The World Nomad Games took place in Kyrgyzstan on the “shoe
side” of lake Issyk Kul. Surrounded by the jagged peaks of the Tian
Shan mountain range and the vast meadows of a sweeping mountain
Kyrchyn Gorge, Issyk Kul is the second largest alpine lake in the
world

Assel Choibekova-2

Abel Polese, Celebrations – Turkmenistan – Ashgabat 2011

I was invited to lay flowers on a monument to Mollanepes to celebrate the great minds of the Turkmen nation. Many local people were also
attending wearing national costumes. Details were looked after to perfection to give the few foreigners present a splendid image of Turkmenistan. These images then informed my work on informal
nationalism

Event Transcripts and Videos

Collections and Collectors: Central Asian Masterpieces in European Museums

Collections and Collectors: Central Asian Masterpieces in European Museums

China’s Genocide Against Uyghurs

China’s Genocide Against Uyghurs

Russian Migration to Central Asia and the South Caucasus

Russian Migration to Central Asia and the South Caucasus

Safety of Journalists in Central Asia: Challenges and Responses

Safety of Journalists in Central Asia: Challenges and Responses

Celebrating Mukhtar Auezov's Legacy

Celebrating Mukhtar Auezov’s Legacy

Violence on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Border: Causes and Consequences

Violence on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan Border: Causes and Consequences

Research Updates

Kazakhstan Constitutional Reform 2026: Autocratic Institutionalisation or Personalization of Dictatorship?

Kazakhstan Constitutional Reform 2026: Autocratic Institutionalisation or Personalization of Dictatorship?

Reclaiming Civic Space in Authoritarian Central Asia: Why and How Western Donors Must Rethink Their Engagement

Reclaiming Civic Space in Authoritarian Central Asia: Why and How Western Donors Must Rethink Their Engagement

Kazakhstan Constitutional Reform 2026: Autocratic Institutionalisation or Personalization of Dictatorship?

Kazakhstan Constitutional Reform 2026: Autocratic Institutionalisation or Personalization of Dictatorship?

Kazakhstan's Regional Ecological Summit: A Turning Point for Environmental Protection?

Kazakhstan’s Regional Ecological Summit: A Turning Point for Environmental Protection?

How Iran did not take the Taliban into the “Axis of Resistance”

How Iran did not take the Taliban into the “Axis of Resistance”

United We Stand. Central Asian Unity: The Way Forward

United We Stand. Central Asian Unity: The Way Forward

Books and Memos

Modern Central Asia: A Primary Source Reader

Go to the book page

The Nazarbayev Generation. Youth in Kazakhstan

Go to the book page

Visions of Development in Central Asia. Revitalizing the Culture Concept

Go to the book page

From our Partners

Tricky Summitry as Rising Powers Meet at Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand

Tricky Summitry as Rising Powers Meet at Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand

Vacancy at Eurasia Foundation: Program Officer, Civic Engagement

Vacancy at Eurasia Foundation: Program Officer, Civic Engagement

Central Eurasian Studies Society is Hiring a Society Administrator

Central Eurasian Studies Society is Hiring a Society Administrator

Central Asian Affairs Journal: Call for Special Issue Proposals, 2023

Central Asian Affairs Journal: Call for Special Issue Proposals, 2023

Could a New President in Turkmenistan Provide an Opportunity for the US to Promote Reform?

Could a New President in Turkmenistan Provide an Opportunity for the US to Promote Reform?

Washington Must Step Up Its Engagement in Central Asia

Washington Must Step Up Its Engagement in Central Asia

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