>>71759417
Former Soviet Union, sorry.

>>71759417
People like it better when they are led by people that share their own ethnicity and culture.

Grow cotton. Send scum for work and petty crime. Drain the Aral. Reproduce like rabbits.
Kazakhstan is best because 1/3 of people there are Russians. Other countries expelled or opressed their Russian minority of intellectuals, managers and engineers in the 90'es, predictably turning to utter shit. South Africa soft-style, though there were some violent purges of Russians in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan during some civil-intertribal wars there in the early 90'es. Now when Russia is resurgent nobody dares to touch a Russian (Uzbekistan shows some North Korea-like teeth once a year or so).
Turkmenistan was South-West Korea with gas and golden statues of their glorious leader in full size. The glorious leader had written a book on traditional muslim living (he was a communist president of Turkmenistan and state atheist for many years before), renamed months of year (one of them named for his holy book, the other for his mother, for example), opressed Russians and sold gas. Then he died, and things got somewhat better for everybody. Still sells gas through Russia. The fact is Turkmenistan will be destroyed if it tries to sell the gas through Iran or Azerbaijan or smth, plus Russians are still the technical elite and without them gas will not flow.

Turkmenistan is an uninhabitable desert first traversed by imperial trans-Caspian railway in late XIX century and terraformed during Stalin reign after building artificial rivers diverting the flow from Amudarya. The project was flawed as its one of the hottest deserts and irrigation requires a lot of water. Much of it is wasted due to engineering mistakes, and became much worse after USSR when every local chief decided to make his own private canal of utterly inferior and wasteful "technology" even ancient Iranians would smirk at. Especially Iranians who long adopted the technology from Central Asia aboriginals 3500 years ago and perfected it. Sadly the Turkmen wasted Iranian tech, and then made Cockroaches to top.

Uzbekistan is ruled by Islam Karimov. An Uzbeki dictator nobody ever sees or controls. Army protects him and denies access to his private residences for miles to civies.
Uzbekistan is most staunchly independent and anti-Russian yet protected by failed states or Russian protectorates on all sides, so keeps silent most of the time.
Is very overpopulated, sometimes spills abroad. Uzbek is synonymous with swarthy useless foreign worker and petty thief (think beaners). Uzbechit' ("to Uzbek") is a new Russian verb "to work like slave on dirty jobs".
Is great for cotton. So great that dictator grows barely anything else except for food. Already fragile soil is overexploited and turns to shit with each passing year. Population forced to labour on the fields once a year during the harvest season.
Irrigation network is even worse than in Turkmenistan. One of the main vampires sucking Aral dry just to waste the water, adding only more fertilizers and pesticides into the salty desert. Extreme west is autonomous Karakalpakstan republic (think Little Kazakhstan) very buttmad because of it (fishing business turned to shit in late USSR, then the sea fucking drained into a salt desert), is a perpetual thorn.
Doesn't like Tajikistan (well, anybody). Many Uzbeks live in north Afghanistan, Uzbek-Tajiki alliance controlled the north and fought against Pushtun Taliban.
Temur Khan (Tamerlane) was an Uzbek (well, Karluk - Uzbeks and Uyghurs are bros)

On the south-east you can see some very weird borders of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. That is the Kokand valley, multi-ethnic, very fertile, populated and dangerous. Soviets drew weird borders on purpose to divide and conquer. Think Alsace-Lorraine meets Yugoslav war. Was an area of tribal wars in 90'es.
Kokand Khanate (Kyrgyz in origin and ruling elite) controlled the east and Khiva Khanate (Uzbek) the west, both were eaten by Russia during the Great Game for Central and South Asia between Russia and Britain.

Kyrgyzstan is to Kazakhstan what Belarus is to Russia. The eldest bro, yet the smallest. Kyrgyzstan experienced several coloured revolutions (two in a row, iirc), but unlike Ukraine came to its senses after Russia moved in. There were no Kazakhs, its a nation made up of Kyrgyz.
Now Kyrgyz are a bit butthurt and jelly, yet proud of their neighbours (again think Belarus and Russia).
Issyk Kul lake in the mountains to the east was a prime tourist attraction in the USSR. Now it... is. I believe some nostalgic oldmen and rare Chinks visit it now.
Also heavy into textile like Uzbekistan, although not as quite. Many cheap decent cloths that are sold on small Russian markets are from Kirgizia or Uzbekistan.

Tajikistan is to Iran what Moldova is to Romania. Tadzhichit' ("to Tajik") is synonymous with uzbechit' ("to Uzbek"), although a bit less offensive and more humorous (one Armenian comic actor here made an image of very idiotic and incompetent, yet kind migrant worker from there).
Tajiks used to be great Iranic power of eastern modern Iran, all of Afganistan and considerable chunks of Central Asia and India (the Samanids - they called their currency in honour of them), but now they are dirty illegal workers in Russia.
Like Uzbekistan is extremely corrupt even by the region standards. Each and every profitable business is either property of ruling Rakhmonov family or feeds them and their ilk by many bribes. Hence no work, hence locals go Tajiking to Russia or China.
Half the country tried to secede in a brutal civil war in the 90'es. Tried to be independent yet was immediately ganked upon by China to gib clay, dares not be too far from Russia again.
It (aral sea) can be revived using new data from out earlier flawed terraforming and new modern tech. Northern Aral (in Kazakhstan) is already under revival with Russian help, it grows back slowly and locals already engage in profitable fishing business. A process of renewing and modernizing the canals with some better water management added.
Yet like 80% of the water is sucked by uncooperative Uzbeki and Turkmeni, so no new terraforming until America is dead or far away enough to not start shit when we return there

I went to Turkmenistan last year, I had a lot of fun visiting it. Its a really weird place though.

>>71761767
Issyk Kul is still a major tourist place for Kyrgyz and Kazah people. Some russians are there too.

some years ago they removed visa for eu and now they get more and more european tourists

the last revolution happened because they kicked the us military base out. But the us couldnt install their govermant, the new goverment is also pro russia

>>71761462
>>71761597
>>71761687
>>71761767
>>71761812

What revived islam in these parts after the fall of the Soviet Union? I know that it was introduced during the Ottoman empire but it seems like the Soviet Union's control over those territories for so long would of destroyed the idea.

>>71762816
i dont know about the others but in Kyrgyzstan (at least at the important northern part) islam is pretty much dead for kyrgiz. It's mostly a curtural thing. But they also have many old cultural things from the nomad/mongol time. In Kyrgyzstan Islam was never really strong.

But Saudi Arabia also funds many huge mosques other there which are pretty much empty

>>71763230
Ya that makes sense when there's only a mosque in the middle of no where. I looked at some pictures. It's a completely mountainous region with nothing around except a mosque here and there. Weird.

I guess the Saudis are in high hopes to where they can at least hold some influence in the country. That or they are desperate.