Russia and Eurasia as a whole are going through “one of the most important historical moments since the end of the USSR,” Askat Dukenbayev says; but many are missing the most important aspects of this development because they are focused on Moscow alone rather than on the multiplicity of regions and republics within the borders of that country.
To overcome that problem, the scholar, originally from Kazakhstan but now living in the United States, has registered with the Ohio government a new organization, “The Bell Center for Russian and Eurasian Research,” in the hopes of changing the primary focus of research on that part of the world away from Moscow alone (region.expert/kolokol-center/).
In an interview he gave to Vadim Shtepa, the editor of the Tallinn-based Region.Expert portal, Dukenbayev says the new center will seek to devote its attention to “the problems of Russian federation and the cases of its continuing degradation as well as issues of regional development and post-imperial transformation.”
Dukenbayev says that he is confident of success in raising funds and sponsoring research on such issues because as a result of Putin’s war on Ukraine, there is a growing interest in what is happening in the Russian Federation beyond the ring road, an interest that is no longer confined to the non-Russian nations but also to predominantly ethnic Russian regions.
The independent scholar says he and his colleagues are “at the very beginning of the project’s development and that in the short term, we plan to focus on monitoring current political, social and economic processes in Russia” and plan to focus on crises and transformations being driven by both internal and external factors.
Dukenbayev concludes: “Our goal is to build a knowledge and competency base, as well as an expert-analytical platform, focused on regional development in Russia and Eurasia, bringing together researchers, analysts, and experts from various countries and disciplines.”
About Paul Goble
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at [email protected] .