In the late 1970s, Central Asia could seem to some like just another stagnating Soviet backwater. News of the day praised economic achievements that weren't real — just as local communist ...

Since the collapse of the USSR, Kazakhstan’s largest city (population 2.2 million and growing) has evolved from a drab, run-of-the-mill Soviet metropolis into the urban star of Central Asia.

said that the movie “was always running on television on every channel” in the 1990s during the new year holidays. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian countries like ...