Activism is a large part of American culture; it is the people’s way of showing the government that they don’t agree with something they’re doing, or people want to bring attention to…
Author: salijk
Where Did All the Water Go?: The Aral Sea
We are in Qazaqstan for ten weeks, and we spent ten days of those ten weeks driving around Uzbekistan! On this blog there are many posts about our time in Uzbekistan from…
“Testimonies about Tea” Review: Spilling the Tea
What is your relationship to tea? Do you have specific memories associated with it? Why do you drink tea? Or don’t drink tea? The Hayward Gallery commissioned Anuar Duisenbinov (*note), a Qazaq…
Uzbekistan’s Destination Image: A Blank Slate
Roughly a week and a half ago, we returned from a 10-day trip to Uzbekistan, so I’ve had a little bit of time to reflect on the trip. Overall, the trip was…
Maybe Esther: Exploring the Maybes of Memory and the Past
Who knows exactly what their grandparents did? What about great-grandparents? Great-uncles? Maybe you have some old family stories or memories pasted down until they reached you but were void of many details…
Remembering the Horrors: ALZhIR Gulag Camp
The Soviet Union was known for many things, communism, Stalin, the color red, but one of the scariest things as a person living in the Soviet Union at the time would have…
Nazarbayev University: A Transplanted Institution
12 students. 1 professor. 15 hours on a train. On the eve of April 12th, 2023, we set out on a 15-hour train ride to Astana, the capital of Qazaqstan. In Astana,…
The Keeper of Antiquities: A Cathedral of Words
Can you imagine what it must have been like to live in the Soviet Union during the time of Stalin’s Terror? Yury Dombrovsky, author of The Keeper of Antiquities, did not have…
