In Central Asia, Russia retains the keys to the great strategic game

Special envoy to Tashkent

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They are easily noticed, these Russian tourists strolling in Samarkand, jewel of the former "silk road", with its imperial tombs and its monumental madrasas (Koranic schools), decorated with sumptuous earthenware.

If local tourism professionals deplore the too slow return of Europeans since the Covid pandemic, the Russians, on the other hand, flock in large numbers to this high place of world heritage, as well as to the other historic sites of Uzbekistan (Bukhara , Khiva…).

Russian tourists were more than 550,000 in 2022, three times more than the previous year to visit this Central Asian country.

A relatively easy destination - direct flights have even just been opened between Samarkand and Saint-Petersburg -, unlike European countries, access to which is now complicated for them, if not impossible,

More broadly, Moscow, in lack of partners, particularly applies...

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