Interviews | Society | Central Asia

Telling Turan’s Tales With Agnieszka Pikulicka

For a region little covered in the global press, every thoughtful effort to tell local stories is a bright light in the dark. 

There aren’t many media outlets that consistently and comprehensively cover Central Asia, let alone in English. Watching well-established English-language outlets struggle with funding cuts and noticing a dearth of in-depth, high-quality content about Central Asia – especially long-form reporting, investigations, and stories focused on culture and history – longtime journalist Agnieszka Pikulicka decided to launch Turan Tales, a podcast and Substack newsletter focused on the region. Turan Tales borrows its name from an ancient Iranian term with historical, geographic, and mythological connotations. 

Over the last year, Turan Tales has covered subjects as varied as elite political infighting in Uzbekistan, the prospects of nuclear power in the region, carpets, queer spaces in Kazakhstan, Tengrism, Russia’s wartime exiles and much, much more. 

In the following interview with The Diplomat’s Catherine Putzm Pikulicka surveys the English-language Central Asian media landscape, lays out the challenges faced by regional media, and explains why she started up Turan Tales in the first place.

How would you characterize the present media landscape in Central Asia – in Russian, national languages, and English?

The media landscape in Central Asia is becoming increasingly bleak. On the one hand, well-established English-language newsrooms such as Eurasianet and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have faced significant funding cuts, which have severely affected their ability to cover the region. Major global media outlets have never shown much sustained interest in Central Asia and have rarely been willing to maintain dedicated, locally based reporters. Coverage of the region is often produced from Moscow, China, or even further out, which significantly impacts the depth and quality of journalism.

At the same time, the media industry is undergoing a broader transformation marked by layoffs and the growing influence of AI, making on-the-ground reporting from Central Asia an even lower priority for many newsrooms.

Local media, meanwhile, have long depended on funding or the goodwill of local businessmen, often with government ties. This has made it difficult to sustain high-quality reporting in local languages or even in Russian. Kazakhstan’s Vlast is a strong example of a locally based investigative outlet, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Leading investigative platforms from Kyrgyzstan, such as Kloop and Temirov Live, have faced criminal charges and been forced to leave the country. Uzbekistan is still waiting for its own version of Kloop, not to mention Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which rank among the most restrictive countries in the world and have some of the worst press freedom records.

Central Asia has long been a difficult environment for journalism and human rights, but not bad enough to attract funding or global attention. There is always a greater and more immediate crisis elsewhere, and that’s where the funds go. As a result, the future of journalism in the region, particularly in the English language, may lie in smaller, independent projects that produce high-quality reporting on a smaller scale and operate without reliance on large donors – such as Peter Leonard’s Havli newsletter or Turan Tales.

What challenges do journalists, and media organizations, face in Central Asia? How much do these challenges differ between local-based media and media further abroad?

Underfunding has always been the main challenge. Local media have typically relied either on government-linked funding or support from oligarchs, which may ensure operational stability but rarely guarantee editorial freedom. Otherwise they struggle to survive. Many independent journalists have turned to YouTube and other online platforms, where they can express themselves more freely. However, this path is more hard to sustain, and, as far as I am aware, YouTube monetization in the region is currently available only in Kazakhstan.

Funding constraints are, of course, a global issue in the media industry and not unique to Central Asia. The key difference is that in many other regions, audiences still have relatively easy access to unbiased, fact-based news. In Central Asia, this has long been a challenge. As local services of outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty face financial and legal pressures, the availability of high-quality, independent content continues to shrink.

Some surveys have shown shifting........

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