KAZAKHSTAN

I have worked and travelled in Kazakhstan since 2016, taking on various projects relating to culture, journalism, business and media. 

These projects include:

  • Covering Kazakhstan’s current affairs as senior editor of The Times of Central Asia. In this role I attended the C5+1 Forum in Almaty in 2024, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Astana later that year. From Astana I gave an interview in Russian with the pan-Eurasian TV channel Mir24 about Kazakhstan’s role in the SCO. 
  • Translating the historical novel A Hundred Years on the Steppe by the Kazakh writer Bayangali Alimzhanov into English — as well as his children’s books Kind Askar, and some of his poems. In 2025 I spoke about our collaborations on a television programme about Bayangali Alimzhanov’s life — part of Khabar TV’s Omir Ornegi (‘Life’s Path’) series.
  • Spending three years (2016-2018) as the Kazakhstan (and all of Central Asia) market analyst at the alcohol industry research firm IWSR. During this time I visited Kazakhstan several times to meet with alcohol companies, and write reports on wine & spirits trends.
  • Exhibiting one of my photographs of an apple seller in Almaty at a photography exhibition ‘Daily Lives in Central Asia’, organised in 2020 by the European Union’s SEnECA project. The exhibition was held at the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium.

— See summaries of my projects with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

There is a collection of my best photographs from journeys in Kazakhstan — and other countries — on my photography store, Life in Central Asia.

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Jonathan Campion is a writer, journalist, editor and linguist, working in the Eurasia region. Read about his work here, and contact him here.