Uzbekistan - Islam Karimov
Islam Karimov
President
(pronounced "iz-LAHM ka-REE-moff")
"A firm hand is needed in today's explosive situation, and the people of Uzbekistan will not accept Western-style democracy because of their history and national character."
The Republic of Uzbekistan is by far the most populous of the predominantly Muslim Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. This landlocked nation shares borders with the other former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, as well as with Afghanistan. It has a land area of 447,400 sq km (172,741 sq mi).
The rapidly growing population was estimated at 25.5 million in 2002. A Soviet-era census listed about 80% of the population as ethnic Uzbeks, 5% Russian (most of whom live in the capital of Tashkent), and the rest mainly other Central Asian peoples. By various estimates, between one-third and one-half of Uzbekistan's 1.65 million Russians have left. Despite decades of Soviet anti-religious propaganda, centers of Islamic study and religiosity continued to operate. Most Uzbeks belong to the Sunni branch of Islam. The population is predominantly rural (60%) and agrarian.
Nearly 75% of the arable land is dedicated to cotton, a legacy of Soviet central planning. Irrigating the arid land for cotton has led to the draining of the Aral Sea, formerly the fourth-largest inland body of water in the world, of 65% of its volume.
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