A Father’s Will (Kyrgyz: Атанын керээзи; Russian: Завещание отца) is a 2016 Kyrgyz drama. It was Kyrgyzstan’s 2016 submission to the Oscars for consideration for its Best Foreign Language Film category. (Kyrgyzstan has submitted to the Oscars nine times, but has not yet made the shortlist—maybe this is their year!) The film was directed and […]

Abdulaziz Karim (or, in Cyrillic, Абдулазиз Карим), also known as Asr, is an Uzbek pop singer and composer currently residing in Turkey. Karim, 42 years old, was extremely popular in Uzbekistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s and one of the early developers of the Uzbek, and Uzbek-language, pop scene. He got a Nikhol […]

Sevara Nazarxon (or Севара Назархан) is an extremely popular contemporary Uzbek singer and composer. She sings both pop and Uzbek folk music, in Uzbek, Russian, and English, and her usual style combines both pop and folk. She is one of the most, if not definitely the most, successful and popular singers in the history of […]

Nazgul Toktakunova (Назгуль Токтакунова) is a Kyrgyz pop singer. Some of her music—she sings in both Kyrgyz and Russian—is influenced by rap and hip-hop stylings, though most of her music is more generally pop-y. Toktakunova was born in 1987 in Bishkek. She always wanted to become a singer—and in 2015 she said she thought that […]

Gulzhigit Kalykov (Гулжигит Калыков) is a Kyrgyz pop singer and an occasional actor. Kalykov hails from Bishkek. He began singing while in school, taking a few standard music classes but actually focusing more on soccer. Yet when all the other students in his music class gradually dropped out, his teacher noticed his potential and helped […]

Anzhelika Bekbolieva (Анжелика Бекболиева), who goes by the name Anzhelika alone in her singing career, is a Kyrgyz pop singer (not to be confused with the Russian/Soviet singer Anzhelika). Anzhelika was born in Bishkek in 1989. She started singing young: her first performance took place when she was around age eight, at a variety theater. […]

Non Stop is a very popular contemporary Kyrgyz pop/rock group. Its members are the two soloists Maksat Sadyrbekov (Максат Садырбеков) and Cholpon Talipbekova (Чолпон Талипбекова). The name of the group came from that of their first song—there is also a Russian group called Non Stop (with a vastly different image and musical style), but the […]

Gulzada Ryskulova (Гулзада Рыскулова; her stage name is gulzada, in Roman letters and often lowercase) is a well-known contemporary Kyrgyz singer. She writes her own music and lyrics. Much of her music is “inspired by Kyrgyz traditions and pride in [her] nation,” she told Sputnik Kyrgyzstan. She further said that while her genre is usually […]