‘Our Father’s Dacha’ How An Uzbek Activist Sniffed Out The President’s ‘Secret’
By RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service
February 23, 2021
Aleksei Garshin, a 50-year-old activist based in Tashkent, says it was late 2018 when his fellow hunting enthusiasts told him about a secretive resort allegedly built for Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev in a forested highland.
He says he had heard that because of the resort which locals refer to as the Uzbek president’s “dacha,” though its scale and cost far exceed that of a simple country home authorities had sealed off the area where the compound was built, known as Shovvozsoy.
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Uzbek state companies have built a secret luxury mountain resort for use by President Shavkat Mirziyoev, including a new reservoir that locals say has disrupted their water supply and displaced families, a new RFE/RL investigation has found.
The investigation by RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service published on February 23 is based on interviews with officials, local residents, and builders who helped construct the complex located on what is now a protected biosphere reserve near a UNESCO-protected area of the Western Tien-Shan mountain range.
Construction of the compound, which features helicopter landing pads and what multiple sources described as a luxurious mansion built for Mirziyoev, began in 2017 and was largely completed by the end of 2018.
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This is Eileen Wray-McCann for Circle of Blue. And this is What’s Up with Water, your “need-to-know news” of the world’s water, made possible by support from people like you.
In the United States, the Army Corps of Engineers has signed a contract with the state of Georgia, resolving a water supply issue that has long been simmering. The contract allows two suburban Atlanta counties and three cities to pull drinking water from Lake Lanier, a reservoir in northern Georgia. The Army Corps operates the reservoir, and the Associated Press says the agreement marks the first time that Gwinnett and Forsyth counties have had confirmation of their rights to Lake Lanier. Water and natural resources managers in the area praised the agreement, saying it resolves concerns over long-term water supply and solidifies the area’s right to Lake Lanier drinking water. The lake is part of a watershed that spans three river systems and is shared by Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.
Year 2020 in Review: Uzbekistan Grapples With Pandemic, Disasters, Russian Pressure
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 18 Issue: 16
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev oversees site of dam burst in Sirdaryo Region, May 2020 (Source: president.uz)
The fourth year of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev rule proved his most difficult yet, not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also due to a series of natural and man-made disasters throughout 2020 that tested the Uzbekistani government’s strength to its limits. Poor-quality engineering and construction works in a number of the government-funded projects as well as the annual onset of crippling energy shortages in winter all challenged President Mirziyoyev’s rhetoric of building a “New Uzbekistan” and “laying the foundations for the Renaissance.”