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Abstract

The paper examines a relatively understudied aspect of Soviet–American contacts during the Cold War on the distant periphery of the USSR, namely in [then] Middle Asia, focusing specifically on Tselinograd—the future capital of modern Kazakhstan—and Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. These cities were chosen by the United States Information Agency (USIA) as locations for the traveling exhibition "Agriculture USA" (or AGUSA), which started in Kyiv in March 1978. Tselinograd was the second (July – September 1978) and Dushanbe was the third (September – November 1978) destination of the traveling exhibit.

Despite its seemingly neutral title, intended to attract audiences in agricultural regions, the exhibition was viewed with considerable suspicion by the Soviet authorities. Demonstrating the technological superiority of American farming and the impressing diversity of food products in US supermarkets was seen as an effective tool for psychological influence on the Soviet public, especially since the USSR had been forced to purchase grain from the West since the early 1960s. The American organizers did indeed note a high level of tension in the atmosphere of AGUSA largely “due to the particular sensitivity of the exhibit theme”.

The author used analytical documents (research memoranda) from the USIA (from April 1978 until August 1982 – USICA, the United States International Communication Agency), memoirs of American guides, and Soviet visitors to the exhibition as sources. The events in Tselinograd and Dushanbe are also relatively well documented in photographs, thanks to the work of Nurmukhamat Imamov (a correspondent for the Tselinogradskaya Pravda newspaper) and the American guide Lawrence Sherwin who took pictures in both cities. Their photographs reveal the real life of the Soviet Central Asian cities, and the mutual perceptions of Soviet citizens and American guides across the Iron Curtain.

The “Agriculture USA” exhibition is of particular interest because it marked the end of détente, when relations between the USA and the USSR were clearly heading for a cooling. After Tselinograd and Dushanbe, the exhibition traveled to Chisinau, Moscow, and Rostov-on-Don. The tour concluded in June 1979 and in September, the USICA presented an analytical report on the exhibition's results. In December of that same year, 1979, Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, after which the Jimmy Carter administration imposed sanctions against the USSR, including a grain embargo.

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Migrant remittances have proven markedly resilient through global crises. At the same time, international financial institutions routinely invoke the notion of ‘remittance dependency’ to warn of structural distortions in states reliant on these flows. While celebrating remittance-driven increases in GDP, they simultaneously diagnose the risks of economic specialisation around labour export and advocate institutional reforms to harness and discipline remittance markets. Despite sustained reliance on migrant transfers, however, the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have been slower than other migrant-sending states to adopt the policy prescriptions of the so-called ‘remittances-to-development’ agenda. As remittances account for a growing share of GDP relative to other sectors, this presents a puzzle: when remittances are central to economic survival, why do states not pursue stronger mechanisms to manage and institutionalise them? Moreover, does ‘remittance dependency’ reside at the level of the state alone, or should it be located within a broader set of transnational relations linking migrant households, financial infrastructures and state-bound actors?

This paper addresses this puzzle through two lines of inquiry. Firstly, it traces the emergence of remittance dependency as a policy construct among international, national and local actors, with particular attention to Central Asia. Secondly, it interrogates the normative assumptions underpinning the remittances-to-development paradigm, identifying contradictions that render a coherent regime of remittance-led development politically and institutionally illegible. Drawing on expert interviews conducted in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and analysis of policy documents and ‘grey’ literature, the chapter advances a situated political economy account of remittance dependency. It argues that migrant remittances in Central Asia are embedded in multiscalar power relations that connect international financial institutions, moral economies of obligation and quasi-formal networks, thereby exposing the limits of state-centred accounts of dependency.

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This paper examines the evolution of the Soviet publishing world during the relaxation of Soviet censorship brought about by Perestroika. It focuses on the so-called "returned literature" ("vozvrashchennaia literatura"), or the texts that were previously censored from the Soviet official press that became available during Perestroika. By focusing on the magazine Druzhba Narodov, the paper argues that the restructuring of the Soviet literary canon began with a focus on Russian-language literature, which gradually expanded to include the “Executed Renaissance” — writers from non-Russian Soviet republics who were repressed during the Stalinist era. Starting as an enterprise in the literary history, this process required editors to consciously work with readers’ horizon of expectations, explaining the impact of Soviet policies on the composition of Soviet literary canon. Consequently, readers and editors of the “returned literature” began criticizing Soviet models of cultural production based on state monopoly over printed media and demanding more cultural autonomy for non-Russian republics of the USSR. However, while the editors of Moscow-based periodicals sought to revisit the outcomes of Stalinist nationality policies, they still operated within the existing regime of power relations by publishing repressed writers — most notably Ukrainians — in Russian translations. In the final years of Gorbachev’s rule, however, this editorial work enabled local political activists to reach Union-wide audiences.

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Since the death of Islam Karimov in 2016, Uzbekistan has embarked on a series of pro-market reforms under

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, accompanied by rapid urban redevelopment, privatization initiatives, and efforts

to attract foreign investment. These reforms are frequently presented by the state as part of the construction of a

“New Uzbekistan,” yet they unfold within institutional structures inherited from the Soviet period and under

conditions of continued authoritarian governance. This paper examines how market-oriented reforms reshape

urban landscapes in the capital of Uzbekistan and how these processes intersect with path-dependent governance

practices.

The paper analyses how neoliberal policies are selectively implemented through presidential decrees, institutional

enforcement, and everyday practices. Empirically, it focuses on urban restructuring in Tashkent, where large-scale

redevelopment projects and real estate expansion have led to widespread demolitions, evictions, and new forms

of commodification of urban space. The state extracts value from land and infrastructure through: demolition,

redevelopment, and investment projects. While these transformations are framed as modernization, they often

reproduce hybrid arrangements in which market logics coexist with coercive governance, informal mediation,

and patronage networks.

By tracing the trajectory from policy formulation to lived experience, the paper highlights the tensions between

formal reform narratives and the realities of everyday governance.

It contributes to debates on (post)industrial transformation in the post-Soviet region by showing how neoliberal

reforms are layered onto socialist-era institutions, producing distinctive hybrid regimes of urban development.

The Uzbek case demonstrates how post-industrial restructuring in post-Soviet contexts must be analysed through

the interaction of inherited socialist structures, authoritarian governance, and global economic pressures.