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Joanna Lillis, "Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
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Welcome to the New Books Network.
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Hello, I'm Nicholas Gordon, host of the Asian Review of Books podcast, done in partnership with the New Books Network. In this podcast we interview fiction and nonfiction authors working in, around and about the Asia Pacific region. In September 2016, Islam Karimot, the first president of a post Soviet Uzbekistan, died at age 78. His death ends an oppressive dictatorship that had governed the Central Asian country for decades which led to corruption, environmental damage and political repression. Karimov was replaced with Shavkat Mezoryoyev who instituted a tentative program of reforms. These years are the subject of Joanna Lilis book Silk Barrage through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan, just out from Bloomsbury.
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Lilis tells the stories of both the
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Karimov and Miseryoev regimes based off of many conversations with activists, journalists and other opposition leaders in the country. Joanna is a Kazakhstan based journalist and author writing about Central Asia who has lived and worked in the region since 2001. In Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, her reporting featured in outlets including the Economist, the Guardian, Independence, the Eurasia Net website and Foreign Policy and political magazines. Prior to moving to Central Asia, she lived in Russia and worked for BBC Monitoring, the BBC World Service's global media tracking Service. He is also the author of Dark Shadows Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan.
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So, Joanna, thank you so much for coming on the show today to talk about your book. You know, Silk Mirage is all about Uzbekistan. And you know, before we talk about like the time period you're covering, you
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know, like what's your history with this country?
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I mean, what kind of brought you there as a, as a reporter in the first place and kind of what were the sorts of major events that you, that you reported on, that you
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saw when you were kind of covering
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this, this, this country.
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Thank you for the invitation. It's an absolute pleasure to be on the podcast. So I moved to Uzbekistan in 2001, so a long time ago now. And I came to Central Asia, to Uzbekistan, like many people, certainly at that time, many journalists via Moscow. I'd been living in Moscow. I studied Russian at university in the UK and I moved to Moscow in the 1990et exciting time, you know, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Very chaotic and very exciting times. And I lived in Moscow for a while and I, I started to work at a department of the BBC called BBC Monitoring, which monitors and translates and analyzes news from the foreign media. And after a few years in Moscow, I wanted to move on and so I moved to Uzbekistan and I worked at BBC Monitoring. So that's what actually took me to Uzbekistan in 20. And I lived there and I worked there until early 2005. So I was there for about four years. And it was very, I mean, for me it was a big eye opener, I have to say, moving to Uzbekistan from Moscow because, you know, you expect certain similarities when you move between different, you know, former Soviet countries, especially at that time. It was only 10 years after the Soviet Union had collapsed. And while there are always similarities between post Soviet countries and even that, even, that even holds true today, you know, I, I found myself, I found that it was quite a culture shock, in actual fact, moving to Uzbekistan from Moscow because the real reason for that was that, you know, Moscow was very kind of rambunctious politically. It was very chaotic and it was far from democratic, but it was very rambunctious. It had a very lively political scene and it had a very lively media that would cover that political. And then when I arrived in Uzbekistan, it was a real shock to realize quite, quite how repressive the environment was at that time. And you know, Uzbekistan, and this is what I talk about in my book Silk Mirage. Uzbekistan was at that time and for many, many years one of the world's harshest dictatorships. And, you know, that's partly what I've written my book Silk Mirage about. I've written the book about, you know, what Uzbekistan was like, that dictatorship under its first president, whose name was Islam Karimov, and about what happened after he died in 2016 and his successor, Shavkat Mizoyev came to power. Now, I guess we'll get into all of that during this podcast, but that is what my book is about. It's a portrait of modern day Uzbekistan under these two presidents, you know, not
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to say like, you know, calling a country one of the world's most repressive dictatorships. You know, that, that, that's a pretty tough contest. But I mean, there are lots of dictatorships around the world. But, but what made Uzbekistan kind of particularly aggressive, you know, even by the standards of other authoritarian countries?
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I think, I think what made Uzbekistan particularly harsh, and I definitely stand by my qualification that it was at that time one of the world's harshest and toughest dictatorships. You know, I think there were all kinds of things. I mean, I think, you know, I could start with the political environment, which was incredibly closed. You know, it really was this kind of one man show, at least on the surface. I mean, I say a one man show, but I think that's not quite accurate. We often talk about dictatorships as a one man show. But there were always people behind them. And in this case, in the case of Islam Karimov and the dictatorship of Uzbekistan at that time, behind him was his security service. And the man who was in charge of it. The security service was known ubiquitously by its Russian acronym, the SMB. And the man in charge of it was Rustam Inayatov. And it was really the role of the security service that made Uzbekistan such a harsh dictatorship. I mean, people would shudder when you mentioned the kind of. If you mentioned the sort of SMB, people would kind of shudder and they wouldn't want to talk about it. People were extremely afraid, not to mention terrified, to even touch on the topic of politics. This was a shock to me after moving from Moscow where everybody talked about politics, even though it was repressive as well. And I think what really, really, really stood out to me when I was living there and the thing that was the most shocking of all of it was the torture and the revelations that would emerge about torture that was taking place, even though, you know, there was all this repression, somehow these revelations would still emerge. And there was a particular case that really shocked and horrified me. And I wrote about it in my book, I write about it in the book and I detail this case and other cases too. And this was the case of two young men. They were what we were calling at the time religious prisoners, which is perhaps, you know, it's a concept that maybe doesn't exist in every country. But what this meant was that under Karimov, there was a massive, massive repression against Islam. I mean, Islam, obviously Uzbekistan is a majority Muslim country and Islam was practiced, but it had to be practiced very much within the strictures of what the state would permit. And anybody who practiced outside those strictures or was strictures or was suspected to practice outside those strictures was subject to arrest and could end up with very long prisons sentences. And that could mean just some, somebody might have a beard and that would be considered too pious and they might find themselves in prison for 20 years. So anyway, there was a particular prison, more Gulag really than than prison called Jaslik. And this is a prison camp that's out in the deserts of a part of Uzbekistan called Karakal, Pakistan. And it was a notorious prison camp that held these religious prisoners and also political prisoners as well. And when I was there in 2000, when I was in Uzbekistan, living in Uzbekistan and working in the media, there was a case where two young men, religious prisoners, had been tortured to death in Jaslyn. Now, they hadn't just been tortured to Death. But the cause of their death appeared to be immersion in boiling water, or at least, yeah, immersion in boiling water. That appeared to be the cause. Now, the authorities always denied this. The families went to the press and also showed photographs of the bodies to, you know, via international human rights organizations. And that's how this. This conclusion was reached. And we saw these documents in the office where I worked in the BBC, we saw these documents. In fact, we helped to translate some of these documents. And this really stuck with me that this was a very brutal regime that would do that kind of thing to its own citizens. And I think one of the things that really struck me, of course, was this was a very emblematic case, a very tragic and egregious case, emblematic of the regime. And it came to be cited in all media reporting on Uzbekistan. Karimov came to be known as the dictator who bawled his opponents to death, which wasn't quite accurate, of course. But I think the point for me was also the fact that this was just the tip of the iceberg. You know, I mean, this case had made headlines because it was so shocking. But, you know, there were many more such cases taking place all the time. And I talk a lot about this. I talk about. I paint a picture of that prison camp called Jaslik. In the book, I talk about how the security service functioned under Islam Karimov and how that prison camp functioned. I interview people who survived that prison camp, and I also even interviewed one who was subjected to the boiling water technique. In fact, before he went to that camp, by an intellectual interrogator, he had a kettle of hot water poured down his neck, lost consciousness. And that was during an interrogation before he was charged. His name is Aksam Tukunov, and he ended up in justice himself and is nowadays out of prison and fighting for the rights of former prisoners. So I talk a lot about this in the book. And I also talk about how Mesiov closed down that notorious prison camp as part of his reforms, and also about, you know, what he's done to tackle torture and whether, you know, whether this has been, let's say, whether this has been successful. So there's a lot about this kind of. This kind of. There's a big picture in Silk Maharaj of why Uzbekistan was one of the world's worst dictatorships, harshest dictatorships for the first 25 years of its existence, is an independent country.
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You know, maybe we should. We should talk about, you know, Karimov and where he came from. I mean, you know, who was he? How did he come to power and. Yeah. So, like, what, what. What's his story kind of up. Up through to his, his death and. Or when he, when he, when his, when his rule ends in 2016?
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Well, yeah, I mean, he. He had a. He had, in a way, a sort of. He was a. His career trajectory was some, in some ways, typical of a Soviet of his time. I mean, let's go back to when he was born. I mean, he was born in 1938, so he was born into the middle of the Soviet Union. It was run by Stalin at the time. So, you know, there was Stalin's terror. It was the 1930s. Obviously, he was a child. We don't know actually that much about his early life. We know he was born in Samarkand, and you can visit the. The family house. I'm not sure if that's exactly where he was born, but you can visit the family house nowadays, or at least you can go into the courtyard and look at some photos. And it's right in the center of Samarkand near the old, ancient monuments, just near the Bibihanim Mosque. But there's some mystery surrounding his childhood because there are always rumors that he grew up, at least for part of his childhood, in a children's home. But he didn't talk about his childhood, and official biographies always kept quite quiet about it. So it's been kind of glossed over. I was not able to substantiate that rumor. And indeed, people in that neighborhood told me they remember the Karimovs living there. But he certainly had a very tough childhood, whether or not he spent part of it in a children's home. It was the 1940s when he was growing up. It was very tough times. And then, of course, World War I. So it was a time of poverty, difficulty, and a really difficult childhood. He went, you know, then, of course, he made something of himself through education, as many poor young Soviets did. And he ended up basically as an aparachik, you know, a sort of Communist Soviet apparatchik. He was. He became senior in an organization called Gosplan, which was in charge of central planning for the Soviet command economy. It was, in fact, the basis of the Soviet command economy to set targets, quotas, plans for the rest of the economy. And, you know, it's quite interesting because he himself, you know, had some economic education and considered himself an economist. But in fact, he presided when he was president of independent Uzbekistan. He presided over a real basket case economy. It was incredibly inefficient and, you know, so it's interesting from that point of view. Also, you know, it's worth pointing out that this gospel where he worked was the butt of many, many Soviet jokes at the time because it couldn't ensure that supply met demand. There was always shortages in the Soviet Union. And Karimov ended up joining the government of Uzbekistan. Each of the 15 Soviet republics had their own autonomous government, their own, you know, they had their own prime ministers and. Or chairman of the cabinet and their own ministers. And Karimov worked his way into the. Into the government of Uzbekistan. And then after a stint running an Uzbek region towards the late 80s, he was propelled into the position of the first secretary, which was the top job in Uzbekistan. That was in 1989. And, you know, it was a time called perestroika in the Soviet Union, a time of reform under the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who was trying to reform the country and liberalize it somewhat, but he actually ended up presiding over its collapse. But in 1989, he was choosing some new leaders to try and kind of bring a new broom sweeping through. And in Uzbekistan, he settled on Islam. Karimov. Now, I spoke to people about why that was. I don't think Karimov was really particularly a bright star of his time. It may be that he was simply a compromise candidate or that he was considered a safe pair of hands or something like that. But in any case, when the Soviet Union collapsed two years later, Karimov was just in a prime position to become the president of an independent country, because he was already in the job of the leader. And that's how he became president. Basically, it was an accident of history. No more and no less, really. And then he obviously was determined to cling on to power. And he called a presidential election. And I think it was quite obvious from that year, 1991 that that election was held just months after the Soviet union collapsed in December 1991. And it was the first and the last election under Karimov in which he ever faced an opposition challenger, a real one, a man named Mohamed Soli, challenged Karimov for the presidency. He was rather popular. He was a poet, a sort of nationalist opposition leader. But of course, he was subjected to all kinds of harassment. And Karimov won the election amid widespread claims of rigging. And then he went on to monopolize power over the next 25 years by crushing opposition and rigging elections and staying in power through the. For the next 25 years, he remained the president of independent Uzbekistan.
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So I do want to talk about this kind of shift in power to. Oh no, I'm going to mispronounce his name again. Merzi Yoyev. So I do want to talk about that transition, but before I do that, I think we got to talk about Karimov's daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who I think was even infamous at the time. I mean, I remember growing up and even I me reading headlines about Gulnara. Could you talk a bit about her and kind of what her story tells us about kind of Uzbekistan's economy and maybe some of the corruption and nepotism that was going on in the country?
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Yes, indeed. I mean, we should definitely, when we're talking about the Karimov era, we have to talk about the Karimov family and really the person, the really outstanding person, I mean the person who stands out rather than a person who is outstanding, the person who stands out in the Karimov family is Gunnara Karimova, who became infamous for her, well, for her rapacious asset grabbing through the, like rampage through the Uzbek economy to kind of grab assets. And she, she was, you know, when I lived in Uzbekistan in the early 2000s, she was absolutely notorious. I mean, any mention of her name would bring either eye rolling or worse. You know, I mean, she was in fact, in a WikiLeaks cable once described as the most hated person in Uzbekistan. And in my experience, that was actually correct because people saw her, some people may not have liked her father, the president Islam Karimov, but they saw him as a politician doing a job, let's put it that way, somebody who'd also worked to get to that job. Whereas Karimova, Gulnara Karimova, who was always known as just Gulnara, was perceived to have got where she had got to by nepotism and cronyism and also corruption. So it wasn't only about her economic interests, although that's certainly a big part of it, because it tells us, and we'll get to that, it tells us about the kind of corruption that was so rife in Uzbekistan under Karimov, but it was also her personality. She was very flamboyant and she held positions as a foreign diplomat basically, and which allowed her to swan around in Geneva and so on. You Know, in much of her time. Spend much of her time doing that. And she also. She also held position in the Foreign Ministry as deputy Foreign minister, although it wasn't clear what kind of qualifications she had for that. And she also had these careers as a pop diva. She sang under the name Gugusha, which was her father's nickname for her, apparently. And she was also a fashion designer. So she was. She was kind of omnipresent in Uzbekistan at that time. But what she was really notorious for was her economic assets. And she would have fingers in so many pies, I mean, crucially, and this would be her downfall, telecoms. She managed to monopolize the telecoms market, which is pretty lucrative at a time when mobile phones were kind of coming in, becoming popular. And Uzbekistan is the most populous country in Central Asia with a young population eager for new technology. So that. So that was very lucrative. But she also had fingers in all kinds of pies, from gas and gold to, well, I don't know, even beauty salons and nightclubs in Tashkent. I mean, everybody knew which ones were her nightclubs in Tashkent when I lived there. So, you know, she was absolutely notorious. And she. She lived the high life for a long time. But she was also a very controversial character. Ordinary people strongly disliked her, as we've mentioned. But she also made powerful enemies, not least Rustamin Ayatov, who I've already mentioned, the very powerful head of the security services. And at one point, she went too far, and she had a spectacular downfall, which ended up with her basically behind bars. She really kind of started with revelations in an international media investigation about bribery, bribe taking to secure telecoms licenses in Uzbekistan by international telecoms companies. And, you know, that brought ignominy on Uzbekistan, basically. I mean, her father, everyone in Uzbekistan pretty much knew what. What she was doing in broad terms. But I think the fact that it hit international media made it an embarrassment. And then she had a public spat with Rustaminator of the security service head, and she started having public spats also with her sister, sister Lola Karimova Terjaeva, her name is another socialite, and with her mother as well, Tatiana Karimova. So there was a family rift, but she didn't help herself by going on Twitter and making all kinds of allegations, including accusing her mother and sister of engaging in kind of witchcraft and so on. So a rather extravagant family rift that played out on Twitter, and it ended up with her being placed unofficially, without any due process, under house arrest and kind of having her. So, you know, Internet obviously cut off. Now that was still under Karimov. When Mizyov came to power, she ended up tried and on various corruption charges and she was officially placed in prison. It was very secretive, very secretive, closed trials. So it's been impossible to judge the, you know, the credibility of the allegations. But the fact is that she is still in prison now. She was allowed to serve her sentence under house arrest initially, but she allegedly breached the terms of her house arrest and is now in prison and will be there for a few years yet. And, you know, it'll be interesting to see how the Meizioyev regime decides to deal with her when the time comes for her release, you know, in a couple of years, I believe. So that was her story. But I think it was very emblematic of the kind of cronyism and corruption that was so rampant in Uzbekistan at the time and the nepotism. And it's something that actually used to really enrage people. I mean, you would find many people would be almost indifferent to the political repression as long as it wasn't affecting them. But if you mentioned the name of Gulnara, then people could get very enraged. And I think it's got important lessons for Ms. Yoev and his regime today because Mizoev's family nowadays makes a lot of headlines in Uzbekistan. And you know, there were also sometimes allegations of cronyism and corruption and, you know, and also questions raised about their economic assets. I mean, the most prominent member of Mizyoff's family is his daughter, Saida Mizyoeva. Now, she's a sober minded kind of politician, you might say, and she's certainly not any kind of Gulnara Karimover. She these days occupies the position of the head of her father's administration. In other words, like she's his chief of staff. And she also appears to be responsible for kind of branding Uzbekistan and, you know, making sure polishing its reputation on the international stage. But, you know, sometimes people do find her, her presence maybe grating. She kind of, she has a habit of latching onto anything that's being talked about in the media. And recently, for example, there was a big scandal over the smog in Tashkent, the environmental pollution and, you know, she's going on raids and kind of putting herself out there. And inevitably she's being talked about as a future successor to her father, future president. Now, it's worth mentioning that Gurnara Karimova was tipped in that way at one time as well. But she ended up with a very different fate. But also finally, just on the families of the presidents. It's worth mentioning too that, you know, Mizyev's sons in law have attracted attention because of their rapid, shall we say, economic success, apparent economic success under Ms. Yojev and other family members too, who seem to be doing very well in business under Mizyo. And there are kind of mutterings that, you know, there's a new kind of cronyism linked to the Mezioyev family that's now taking shape in Uzbekistan. So I think it's worth looking at the lessons of the past, the Karimov regime, you know, it would be worth them looking at it to draw some conclusions.
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So we've talked about kind of Shavkat misery and I guess same question as I asked about his predecessor, you know, where does he come from? And you know, when he comes into power, what sorts of changes does he bring about kind of in the country's politics, its economics, you know, like, how much does he represent a shift from the previous administration?
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Yes, I mean, the sort of shift between the Karimov regime and the Mizyev regime is at the heart of Silk Mirage. That's really what the book is about. As well as being an overall broad portrait of Monday Uzbekistan, it focuses in on this question of what has changed since Mirzyuv inherited this dictatorship. What has he done to change it and what hasn't changed? And that's at the crux of the book. Book, excuse me. And the fact is that the reason this is an important question, what's changed and what hasn't under Mizgoyev is that he himself painted himself as a reformer when he came to power and he embraced a reform agenda. So that's what we should be judging him by. So to start off, I mean, where did he come from? Well, Mizyoev came, like Karimov came from pretty humble beginnings. He was born in a district called Zomin. It's in a region called Jizak, which is on the border with Tajikistan. It's a rural district. And he was born into a medical family. His father was a doctor in the tuberculosis clinic there. He was born in 1957. So, you know, times were maybe not that easy either, but certainly not the kind of tough times of the 1930s and 1940s like Karimov in his childhood. But Mizuv's mother died young, so he had a pretty tough childhood as well. But he went on to study in Tashkent and he became an academic. In fact, now he became the rector of an institute called the Irrigation Institute, which sounds kind of a bit low level. But it's worth remembering that this was a very prestigious institute in Uzbekistan because Uzbekistan is a cotton. A main cotton growing region for the ussr. And so the irrigation institute is absolutely vital. So it's a prestigious organization. And in fact, Mizuv, he was firmly part of the communist kind of establishment, if you like, in the Soviet times. He was actually a member of the Communist Party. Not everybody was far from everybody was. But, you know, academics, prominent ones would be. But he didn't actually join any kind of, you know, he didn't become an apparatchik until after independence when Karimov invited him into administration, into his administration. And Mizyo became regional governor. And he occupied that position in various regions in his home region of Jizak in Samarkand, initially, I think in a district of Tashkent as well. And so he became this regional governor. That's a pretty powerful position. It's certainly one with a lot of responsibility. He had a reputation as pretty much a hardliner. Regional governors who were in charge of delivering cotton to the center and a sort of quota system even in independent Uzbekistan. And this was very much a controversial issue, actually, because it meant that forced labor, child labor, would be used to pick the crop so that the regions could all deliver the amount that they'd been told they had to deliver. And Mirzhio had a reputation as pretty much a hard liner in making sure that happened. And so he actually then went on to become Karimov's prime minister. And he held that position for 14 years until Karimov's death. Now, he was pretty low key when he was prime minister. In fact, I have a source that said that he issued orders that he should never be shown on TV because he didn't want to upstage his boss. So he was quite low key. But obviously he was one of the most powerful people in Uzbekistan at the time. And after Karimov died, there were some questions about who would take over. Now, there were two candidates who were mostly mentioned. Mizyo was one of them. And the other was also a member of the government, finance minister and first deputy prime minister. But he was kind of. He had a reputation as being more of a liberal, but he was sidelined and Mizyo took over. And he then kind of sieged into the presidency, kind of. There was a bit of a sleight of hand, bypassing the constitution. And then he held an election, the usual kind of rubber stump election. The public voted him in and that's it. He became the president. That's how he came to power. Now, I think the interesting part of this is, and in fact, I open my book with this because it's so interesting. When he came to power, nobody expected anything to change. He was the consummate regime insider. He'd been Karimov's prime minister for 14 years. He had a reputation as a hardliner, and he'd never given any indication that he was any kind of a reformer. So I kind of opened my book, Silk Mirage, sitting at Karimov's grave, which I managed to visit soon after his death. And there were mourners there and kind of mulling about the question of whither Uzbekistan? But the answer seemed kind of obvious. Nothing would change. And yet suddenly, and within a year, you know, Mirzyrov was changing everything. He suddenly announced all kinds of liberalization. He liberalized the media. He told journalists to report on problems instead of covering them up, or instead of acting as a propaganda tool. He ordered forced laborers out of the cotton fields that had been used to pick the crop for, you know, decades, if not centuries. And he was doing all kinds of things like that. Also, he was reforming the economy. Now, I mentioned earlier, Uzbekistan had pretty much what, well, what I usually call a basket case economy. You know, it never properly, after independence, embraced market reforms. So it was underpinned by a lot of command economy style systems. You know, that made it, you know, that made it, well, illogical and hampered growth and also benefited the few at the extent of the many. You know, there was a lot of cronies. Well, I mean, critics would say there definitely still is a lot of cronyism, but Mirzyev has definitely liberalized the economy, made the investment environment better, and allowed, you know, and allowed small businesses, for example, to thrive more easily. And I interview business people in Silk Mirage. In fact, I interview, you know, a bit of a contrast. I interviewed Uzbek, Uzbekistan's most successful supermarket magnet. His name is Zahar Hashimov. And he, he did business under Karimov, so he was able to make the comparison. And I, I also interviewed Dora Atajanova. She's a young. Sorry. I also interviewed Dildora Atishanova, who's a young tech startup entrepreneur. And she talked about, also about how she'd never have been able to do this kind of business on under Karimov. And so, you know, we talk a lot about this business environment and there have been many positive changes. But Silk Mirage is also about the things that haven't changed as well as the things that have changed. And, you know, throughout the writing of the book, you know, I encountered and in fact, throughout, I've been, you know, reporting on Uzbekistan well, for many years, and I've been involved with Uzbekistan for 25 years more. But certainly I was able to report quite extensively on what became known in some quarters as the Uzbek spring under Mizyouyev, because it became possible for foreign journalists to visit Uzbekistan again, officially, legally. And so I was able to report quite extensively on this Uzbek spring. And I reported on in sick mirrors. I hope I convey the excitement of these changes and the way they've benefited ordinary people, but also the limitations of these changes. The red lines. I mean, I write a lot about the red lines of the reform agenda. You know, for journalists, there are still many red lines that you can't cross without suffering repercussions, which might range from harassment to imprisonment. And also, you know, there are red lines for human rights defenders. And I talk about these a lot. I mentioned earlier Alexandra Sunov, a former political prisoner who's fighting for the rights of former political prisoners and trying to right miscarriages of justice. Many political prisoners have been released under Mirzyoev, but they haven't been able to get their convictions overturned. They remain guilty in the of the state. They've just served out their sentences or been released on bail or whatever. So I talk a lot about this kind of question, about historical reckoning and how Mizuv has been changing things, but seems to struggle to take that further step to try to expose the crimes of the past and come to terms with the past. Now, that's very difficult for him because he was very, very complicit in the former regime. Obviously, he's part of it. He was the prime minister for many, many years. But I think why this matters is because I think Uzbek's suffered such trauma as a nation under the Karimov dictatorship. And unless there's some discussion about that, some kind of truth and reconciliation process, some kind of possibility of the nation discussing how that happened, why that happened and what happened. And I think it would be very difficult for, you know, Uzbekistan to kind of move on into this bright future that Mirzyor is kind of painting for, you know, the Uzbeks.
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A
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F
Experian.
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C
You know, I'm going to try and combine these two questions, which may not work, but, you know, like, how do kind of international relations kind of play a role here? I mean, Uzbekistan's next to Russia, obviously, one of the great powers. The US had an interest in Uzbekistan during the, during the war on terror, you know, back in the day. So Uzbekistan kind of has, has relationships with kind of all these other powers. You know, how does that play a role in the country's kind of political and economic progress and then kind of adding onto that? I mean, where you see Uzbekistan going from here, you know, it people. Central Asia seems to once again be talked about in the realm of great power competition, as it always is. You know, there's comp. There's conversations about resources and overland trade routes and all this stuff. You know, like, how do you see kind of Uzbekistan, the Uzbekistan story kind of going forward from here?
- [37:56]
D
Yes, Uzbekistan is in an, you know, interesting global position, really. I mean, Central Asia generally, Uzbekistan is in an interesting global position, really. And Central Asia generally is in an interesting, you know, has an interesting geographical location and also geostrategic location. And we're seeing right now, we're certainly seeing a lot of interest in Central Asia in Uzbekistan. We're seeing lots of great power rivalry over the region. And we're seeing, you know, Russia obviously considers it its traditional sphere of influence, although that rankles with many Central Asia. China plays a great big role, especially economically in the region. It's another neighbor. So Central Asia sandwiched between these two giant neighbors that somewhat overshadow it in a way. And also we're seeing a lot of American interest in Uzbekistan, Central Asia generally, and in terms of critical minerals and energy and all kinds of things. And we're also seeing interest from any other players from Turkey to the Gulf states to, you know, India, South Asia, India and Pakistan. So we're definitely seeing, you know, a lot of activity right now. I have to say that I don't talk a great deal about geopolitics in Silk Mirage. And there is. There is actually a reason for that. And the reason is that, you know, so. So much of the time in the international media, Central Asia is presented as kind of an object of this great power rivalry and as a. As a region without agency. And, you know, and it's only, it's, you know, as journalists, I think we all find it frustrating, those of us who are based in Central Asia that I, you know, very often media outlets only want to read about Central Asia as it relates to Russia and China. So that's why I focus on the internal story. But it doesn't mean, of course, that this geopolitical story is without interest because it's enormously interesting and especially right now. And I think Uzbekistan, particularly when it comes to this question of Central Asia and the rest of the world and Central Asia itself, Uzbekistan has played a really interesting role in bringing Central Asia together over the last, well, decade, actually, since Mizyov came to power. And this is one of the positives that has emerged from his rule. One of the things that's really changed for the better. Karimov was a notoriously prickly character, generally speaking, but when it came to foreign policy, he could not get on with any of his neighbors. And he had variously, poor relations with all of them, really. I mean, some were more less hostile than others, but he had terrible relations with Kyrgyzstan, with Tajikistan, at times with Turkmenistan. And so, you know, Mizhou came to power. He immediately tried to set that aside. And this has resulted in two things. One is the signing of border agreements over the last few years between the countries that had been unable to agree their borders for, you know, decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. And this has put an end to conflicts on the border, borders that could turn deadly sometimes. And the other is the fact that Uzbekistan was always a spoiler in relations between the Central Asian states because it was hostile to its neighbors. And it's in the middle. It's right in the middle of, geographically speaking, in the middle of Central Asia. And it borders all the other countries and also Afghanistan to the south. So Uzbekistan becoming cooperative has suddenly opened up a new era of all the Central Asian states cooperating together amongst themselves. And that can only be to the benefit of the region and its people. So I think we've got to highlight that as a big positive for the region and as for where all this is going? Well, I think regional cooperation allows the Central Asian states to punch more at their weight, if not above their weight, on the international stage. It gives them more leverage. But I think the thing we've got to watch, Russia tends to look on jealously if there are these kind of cooperation initiatives that don't involve it in what it considers its sphere of influence. I mean, in the 90s, we saw efforts to in the 90s we saw efforts to create a Central Asian union, but it fell apart when Russia actually asked to join. I mean, Russia's not in Central Asia. So I think we need to watch how these efforts play out and what role Russia's going to play. So it's going to be interesting times, for sure. Sure.
- [42:25]
C
So maybe just one more question before we wrap up this conversation. You know, you've talked to many people throughout your book. You know, opposition politicians, journalists, activists, many others. You know, what are one or two stories that have kind of stuck with you even after you finished writing the book?
- [42:41]
D
Yeah, I mean, really all the people I interviewed, and there must be around 50, you know, kind of in depth interviews in the book and they all stick with me. But there are a couple that really, you know, that really, that really have stock with me that it's worth highlighting, I think. And I think it would be good to highlight, you know, one that's more related to the Krymov era and one that's more related to the Mizoyev era. The one that sticks with me about the Karimov era is a former political prisoner called Israel John Khaldorov. Now, I met him, he was, he's from, from a town called Andizan in the Fagana Valley, which was the scene of violent turmoil in 2005. And there's a whole chapter on that in Silk Maharaj that people can read about. He's a human rights activist and he ended up jailed on trumped up charges after that violence. Now, I met him after his release in about 2018, and I interviewed him in his shop just on the Andy Jean Bazaar where he runs a kind of folk medicine shop. And, you know, I talked to him about his imprisonment, why he was imprisoned, and also about how he felt about being released. And he talked about his imprisonment, of course, and he explained to me one of the things that stuck with me. He explained to me the system whereby every time you were due for release under Karimov, if you were a political prisoner, you would often be slapped with just new charges or claims that you violated prison regulations. And you could have another five, seven years added onto your sentence all of a sudden. And that struck me as a particularly tragic way of dealing with prisoners. And it was very, very common. People would sometimes go. He went to. He was supposed to go to prison for around eight years and ended up serving, I don't know, you know, 12 or 15. I don't remember the exact figures, but this was very common, common. And that stuck with me. But what struck with me particularly was at the end of the interview, I said to him, are you not bitter? And he immediately responded that he was bitter about the way people live in poverty and about how things were hard for them. He was very happy after his release, but it was difficult for the people. And I was amazed at this man and his. Not only his resilience, but also his empathy. He'd spent so much of his life wasting away, being tortured in Karimos prisons. But immediately when I asked if he was bitter, he spoke about other people, people and also from the Mizuyev era. There's a political prisoner called Daulat Tajimuratov. Now, political prisoners are supposed to be a thing of the past in Mizuv, Uzbekistan. But human rights activists campaigners call Dalit Tajimuratov a political prisoner. He was jailed in 2022 for 16 years following violent turmoil in Karak, Pakistan, that took place. Now, it's a complicated backstory, and people can read about that turmoil in Silk Mirage. And I was the only foreign journalist on the ground at the time. And this is the fullest account in English. But, you know, this man is serving such a long sentence because he has refused to admit his guilt. He says he's a scapegoat. And, you know, I was present at the time, after the terminal, I was present during some of his trials, and I was very struck by his principledness and his dignity in the face of, you know, this. This in the face of these kind of trials and tribulations that he's faced. And now we're hearing constant reports from his family and his lawyer about mistreatment in custody. And so I think that's a very alarming case, and I think it doesn't reflect well on what Mizya, of course, the new Uzbekistan. So people can read more about these. These people and many other brave, courageous people who feature in Silk Mirage.
- [46:38]
C
So I think with that, that's a great place to end our conversation with Joanna Lillis, author of Silk Mirage through the Looking Glass. Joanna, I actually have two final questions for you, which are, where can people find your work? Not just this book, but all of your work. And what's next for you? What do you think the next project might be?
- [46:57]
D
Thank you. Yes, I mean my work, I'm based in Kazakhstan nowadays. I have been for the last 20 years. My work is published in Places Eurasianet, the Eurasianet website, which specializes on Central Asia and the Caucuses. I also publish in the Economist and people can also find my work in various other places that been published in the past by just googling my name. But also they can look on my substack Silk Mirage substack for more up to date, you know, features and so on. As for what's next, well, Central Asia is a fascinating region and there's always more to talk about, more to write about about. So we'll see what comes next as we move forward.
- [47:42]
C
You can follow me, Nicholas Gordon on Twitter Ick R I Gordon. That's N I C K R I G O R D O N. You can go to asareviewbooks.com find other reviews, essays, interviews and excerpts. Follow them on Twitter @BookReviews Asia. That's reviews plural. And you can find many more author reviews at the New books network and newbooks network.com we're on our favorite podcast apps, Apple Podcasts Spotify. Rate us, recommend us, share us with your friends friends to support us interviewing those writing in around and about Asia. Next week, join us for interview with Mahesh Rao, author of Half Light. But before then, Joanna, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
- [48:17]
D
Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.