Christopher Schwartz, NewEurAsia.Net

2. The Unreality of Journalism
Kazakhstan = Rupert Murdoch-ism
Kyrgyzstan = Factionalism + “NGO addiction”
Tajikistan = Weakened governance → “freedom”
Turkmenistan = Absolute state control
Uzbekistan = Divide and conquer

3. Reporters Sans Frontières
2010 Press Freedom Index:
Tajikistan: 115th (due to fractured governance)
Kyrgyzstan: 159th (down from 110th in 2007)
Kazakhstan: 162nd (despite its OSCE chairmanship)
Uzbekistan: 163rd (no surprise)
Turkmenistan: 176th (betw. Iran and North Korea)

4. These are societies that were for generations
succored on media that was pedagogical,
ideological, and often in denial, where too much
classical music on the radio meant there was a
crisis – Tchaikovsky's “Swan Lake” signified the
death of a leader; on 19 August, 1991, the death of
the Soviet Union.
Content may change, as well as values – gone is the
shared destiny of fifteen nations merged into homo
sovieticus, replaced now with the Altyn Asyr
(Golden Age) or the glittering future embodied in
the city of Astana – but media forms persist, morph,
mutate, adapt.

5. What do we do?
•
Megaphone for reginal voices
- all ages, ethnic backgrounds and political and
religious persuasions
•
Blogs and podcasts as a journalistic medium
- news, culture, analysis
•
Languages: English, Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz
- formerly Uzbek and Tajik / soon: Turkmen

6. Central Asian views
Pluralism as an antidote to media imbalances:
- Contending state-controlled narratives
- De-exotifying Central Asia to outside world
Creating a space for interaction at a regional and
global level between regionals and non-regionals.
Broadening what it means to be “Central Asian” (do
Westerners committed to the region also count?)

7. Highlights
• Pioneering local language blogging 2006-08 + bringing
together Westerners and Central Asians
• Original coverage of several major news events
• Blocked in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan
• Over 50 in-country training sessions, seminars and
conferences since 2007
• Our bloggers have been interviewed by CNN, BBC, Al-
Jazeera, RFE/RL and our work has been cited by Freedom
House and Reporters Sans Frontières
• In 2011, published CyberChaikhana: Digital Conversations
from Central Asia, a crowdsourced contemporary history

8. • We have worked with: We currently work with:
• We also liaise with

9. Our bloggers:

trained journalists

human rights activists

most of all, normal people like you
Political conditions require many of our
bloggers to operate under pseudonyms
We believe that an independent and
pluralistic media is critically important for
Central Asia's development

10. No digital panacea
• The Internet is vital to promote Central Asia's vast
number of perspectives
• Yet, it's also a fragile and dangerous place
- Decays over time (Twitter)
- Easy to censor
- Monitoring potential
• Low Internet penetration throughout the region

11. “Regular” Internet penetration (as of 2010):
Kyrgyzstan = 39.8%
Kazakhstan = 34.3%
Uzbekistan = 26.8%
Tajikistan = 9.3%
Turkmenistan = 1.6% (of ~5 million)
Internet access is largely concentrated in major and secondary
urban centers – which also happen to be infrastructural hubs.
Passports reportedly needed at Ashgabat Internet cafes.

12. Mobile Internet penetration (as of 2010):
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan were reportedly nearing
full mobile penetration by December 2010, and
Turkmenistan achieved 3G before Kyrgyzstan.
Business Monitor International (Spring 2011):
“Mobile broadband services … will make a strong
contribution to the growth of internet services in
Central Asia.”
Yet, telecoms deeply politicized/personalized, e.g.,
Russian provider MTS abruptly kicked out of
Turkmenistan. Widespread censorship and
“snooping”, e.g., Kazakh policing of WordPress.

13. “Cyber-revolution” and “counter-revolution”
The mysterious explosion in Abadan outside of
Ashgabat in July 2011 was met by an intense online
social network response to gather and disseminate
accurate information.
The Turkmen government eventually seems to have
responded with a call to exiled opposition to return
home for “elections”. Meanwhile, a massive hack
attack was launched against the Chronicles of
Turkmenistan, with a threatening e-mail and URLs
of sensitive content from the Chronicles sent to
neweurasia as a warning.

14. “Message in a Bottle”
• Hivos and neweurasia's goal: making the
Stanosphere “real”
- to commemorate
- to preserve
- to promote
• A book can physically go where PDF files
and cached HTMLs may not (yet)

15. The Un-Travel Log
• “A story weaved from blog posts and forum
discussions, which might at first appear unrelated
or inchoate, but are in fact part of a single,
multifaceted and digital conversation”
• Bloggers and readers themselves wrote the book:
- Selection of content
- Reviewing rough drafts
- Prowling for content beyond neweurasia
= Central Asian history by Central Asians

16. • 10 chapters
• 5 country-specific + 5 cross-regional
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan
Education, Media, Women, Religion
and National Identity
= an “un-travel log”

17. The Authentic Story
• Country-specific chapters
- KZ: May I go Back in Time? (Modernity)
- KG: Wait for the Wheel (Revolution)
- TJ: Central Asian Sisyphus (Poverty)
- TM: The Length of a Man's Shadow (Ideology)
- UZ: The Long Loud Silence (Authoritarianism)

18. • Cross-regional chapters
- Education: Got Spellcheck, Will Work for Food
(Ambition vs. Infrastructure)
- Media: When the Pen Runs Dry (Censorship)
- Women: No Daughters of Traditon (Not
Modernity vs. Tradition?)
- Religion: The Conversation of the Gods
(Conflict and Continuity)
- National Identity: The Way We Weren't
(Historical Memory and Nation-building)

19. CyberChaikhana
Digital
05/09/09 Conversations from Central Asia

20. CyberChaikhana team
• Christopher Schwartz, Editor
• Ben Paarmann, Project Manager/Ed. Direction
• Oliver Dams, Production Manager
• Andrey Tolstoy, Russian Translator
• Rolf Bremer, Illustrator
Produced with a generous grant from Hivos

21. neweurasia team (2011)
• Christopher Schwartz, Managing Editor (ENG)
United States of America, Belgium
• Yelena Jetpyspayeva, Managing Editor (RUS)
Kazakhstan, Switzerland
• Oliver Dams, Technical Director
Germany, Switzerland
• Askhat Yerkimbay, KZ blogger + coordinator
Kazakhstan
• Mirsulzhan Namazaliev, KG blogger
Kyrgyzstan
• Tolkun Umaraliev, KG coordinator
Kyrgyzstan
• Camilla Asyrankulova, Editorial Assistant
Kyrgyzstan, Sweden

22. neweurasia team (2012)
• Christopher Schwartz, Editor-in-Chief
United States of America, Belgium
• Oliver Dams, Project Manager
Germany, Switzerland
• Yelena Jetpyspayeva, Social Media Officer
Kazakhstan, Russian Federation
• Askhat Yerkimbay, Kazakhstan Managing Editor
Kazakhstan, United States of America
• Mirsulzhan Namazaliev, Kyrgyzstan Managing Editor
Kyrgyzstan
• Annasoltan Turkmen, Turkmenistan Managing Editor
[Undisclosed]
• Tolkun Umaraliev, Audiovisual/Multimedia Editor
Kyrgyzstan
• Camilla Asyrankulova, Editorial Assistant
Kyrgyzstan