Along the New Silk Road

Central Asia was once the hub of world trade. Now we hear little about it, while it is teeming with intriguing stories. Ruben Terlou and Jelle Brandt Corstius go in search of this in this six-part series.

In Uzbekistan, young brides learn to obey their mother-in-law. In Tajikistan, boys are kidnapped on a large scale by the army. What's it like being young there?

The countries in Central Asia are trying to develop their own identity after almost a hundred years of occupation by Russia. Can that legacy be erased? Young Kyrgyz people consciously choose again for the nomadic existence, which they had been forced to give up under the domination of the Soviet Union. Jelle Brandt Corstius sleeps with them in a traditional yurt. Ruben Terlou speaks Kazakhs who were in the notorious re-education camps in China. Most people think of those camps as Uyghurs, but other Muslim minorities are also sent there to turn them into a kind of Chinese model citizens.