Central Asian public transport between decline narratives and authoritarian modernisation

Abstract

After the demise of the Soviet Union, economic decline, political upheaval and lack of funds led to a significant decrease in public transport provision in Central Asia. Entire systems were closed down, many more significantly curtailed. Marshrutka minibuses became the predominant feature of public transport in the region – with decline and informality as the dominant analytical lenses. However, recent developments cast doubt on this paradigm. Significant investments have been made into metro systems in Tashkent and Almaty, or into Dushanbe’s trolleybuses. Samarkand has seen the opening of a tramway system – a unique case in the entire former Soviet Union. How to make sense out of these seemingly counterintuitive developments? Based on media reports and rolling stock database analyses, the paper attempts to scrutinise current developments in the sphere of public transport in Central Asia, to complicate the post-independence decline paradigm of public transport provision, and to embed it within translocal knowledge flow circuits.