Aigerim Akylbekova is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service.
Increasingly oppressive conditions inside Russian prisons are driving desperate inmates to enlist in the military to fight in Ukraine. Speaking to RFE/RL from behind bars in Russia, a Kyrgyz inmate said that many convicts enlist because they cannot endure such harsh prison conditions.
Jockeys from Kyrgyzstan have come to dominate horse racing in Poland. Kyrgyz jockeys have won prestigious races such the Polish Derby -- but say that sometimes local fans do not applaud them for their victories.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been a vocal critic of migrants coming to the European Union, but his government's own official figures show there are 120,000 migrant workers in Hungary. An RFE/RL investigation has uncovered how vulnerable some of these workers can be.
The remote town of Andarak, located in southern Kyrgyzstan near the Tajik border, has seen a disturbing increase in the number of suicides among young, married women. In just one year at least 11 women have attempted suicide, resulting in six deaths.
Kyrgyz women talk about the little-known circumstances of polygamy in their country. Polygamy is prohibited in Kyrgyzstan, but this does not stop thousands of men from marrying two or more women at the same time. Unrecognized marriages in Kyrgyzstan can leave women with virtually no legal power.
"We're seen as foreigners here, and in Kyrgyzstan they see us as Russians," says Abdikhamit Saparov after 30 years of life in Yekaterinburg. Kyrgyzstan has just marked three decades since declaring independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. His three daughters have all grown up in the city
Dozens of Kyrgyz medics came from Russia to Kyrgyzstan this summer to help battle the coronavirus. Now they can't go back home because of the lockdown.
More than a dozen girls from a remote village in Kyrgyzstan are shattering gender stereotypes by taking to the ice as their nation's first all-female hockey team.
Though it's not easy to live in Kyrgyzstan as a surrogate mother, many women decide the hardships of carrying someone else's baby are worth the big financial payoff.
