What Central Asia teaches us about happiness

This week’s episode begins with Uzbekistan’s historic World Cup appearance, the first by any Central Asian country. The opening match against Colombia did not deliver the result Uzbek fans wanted, but it did produce the country’s first ever World Cup goal and a striking display of regional support. From fan zones in Bishkek to messages of solidarity from neighbouring countries, Uzbekistan’s campaign has become more than a football story. It has also offered a glimpse of how sport can shape identity, pride and regional feeling across Central Asia. The episode then turns to Kazakhstan, where the newly created Adilet party has merged with Amanat, the long-dominant pro-presidential party formerly known as Nur Otan. What initially looked like a potential shake-up of Kazakhstan’s managed political system now looks more like a rebranding exercise. The discussion looks at what the merger says about political engineering, elite management and the coming elections to Kazakhstan’s new single-chamber Kurultai. For this week’s interview, the focus shifts to a very different subject: happiness. Professor Shoirakhon Nurdinova of the Tashkent University of Applied Sciences discusses her book Happiness and Life Satisfaction in Central Asia, the first major comparative study of subjective well-being across the region. The book asks how people in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan evaluate their own lives, and whether standard international measures of happiness capture what really matters in Central Asia. Nurdinova argues that income and GDP alone do not explain life satisfaction. Family trust, freedom of choice, informal support networks, health, employment patterns and local institutions such as the mahalla can matter just as much, and sometimes more. The conversation also explores why Western models of happiness may fail to capture Central Asian realities, and what policymakers should learn from looking beyond growth figures. **Links** Shoirakhon Nurdinova, Happiness and Life Satisfaction in Central Asia — https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-95-3082-3 Get full access to Havli - A Central Asia Substack at havli.substack.com/subscribe