Some of the other responses here are missing one thing so I thought I'd bring it up: The written language.
Like Turkey Uzbekistan was hit by a forced move from the Arabic writing script to a Latin alphabet. This was done by people that wanted to align Turkey and others more closely with the West and essentially perform a forced cultural switch. One of the methods used to perform these forced cultural moves westwards is to change the written word used by a population.
When the USSR mandated Cyrrilic as the official alphabet and written format of the USSR the population underwent another forced change of their written language.
When the USSR was destroyed by the coup they changed to the Latin alphabet again. And it is still undergoing changes, some were brought in in 2019 and further changes to come in 2021. Uzbekistan has had more changes to its officially-used written language alphabet than any country in a short space of time. 5 times in just 100 years, one generation has learned to write in a different way to their parents and the next generation has learned a completely new way to write.
Why is this important? You can very quickly change the mass-culture, beliefs, global alignment and attitudes within a populous via the system of written language used. Look at the world today and how different culture groups are formed. They form around the written language of the people -- Latin alphabet dominates the western world. Cyrillic dominates the Russo-sphere of influence. Arabic script dominates the arabic world and its sphere of influence, and various symbol-based derivatives of Chinese script dominate the sino races.
As far as I am aware this has not occurred for other former soviet states, and certainly not so frequently. It's not the entire picture but should not be discounted.
wow, the uzbeks really dont miss the soviets
tbf they also live in a dictatorship rn and might be scared that if they say yes they might get targeted
also tbf the aral sea is pretty fucked up
Also said dictatorship, while shit, kept much of the Soviet system intact.
when the communist party turns into the liberal democratic party... idk sis
Yeah, like I said, not great, but at least some of the institutional infrastructure remains, like in Belarus.
Some of the other responses here are missing one thing so I thought I'd bring it up: The written language.
Like Turkey Uzbekistan was hit by a forced move from the Arabic writing script to a Latin alphabet. This was done by people that wanted to align Turkey and others more closely with the West and essentially perform a forced cultural switch. One of the methods used to perform these forced cultural moves westwards is to change the written word used by a population.
When the USSR mandated Cyrrilic as the official alphabet and written format of the USSR the population underwent another forced change of their written language.
When the USSR was destroyed by the coup they changed to the Latin alphabet again. And it is still undergoing changes, some were brought in in 2019 and further changes to come in 2021. Uzbekistan has had more changes to its officially-used written language alphabet than any country in a short space of time. 5 times in just 100 years, one generation has learned to write in a different way to their parents and the next generation has learned a completely new way to write.
Why is this important? You can very quickly change the mass-culture, beliefs, global alignment and attitudes within a populous via the system of written language used. Look at the world today and how different culture groups are formed. They form around the written language of the people -- Latin alphabet dominates the western world. Cyrillic dominates the Russo-sphere of influence. Arabic script dominates the arabic world and its sphere of influence, and various symbol-based derivatives of Chinese script dominate the sino races.
As far as I am aware this has not occurred for other former soviet states, and certainly not so frequently. It's not the entire picture but should not be discounted.
Eh, self determination is important I suppose
I know it's a cliché to say they can't answer truthfully but the autocratic leader of post-soviet uzbekistan was known for boiling opponents alive