Today, no more than 5,000 people live in the town. Lack of work is the main problem. The coal mines are abandoned. The local population hopes to preserve the town and villages. Not by the reanimation of industry, but with tourism.

Nestled between the Pamir and Alay Mountains ranges, the landlocked country of Tajikistan has garnered little attention in the Western press since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Pro-Kremlin websites pump out anti-Turkish conspiracy theories, some fixated on trashing the Turkish Intelligence Service MIT, Moscow is obviously seething with Ankara in helping its ally in Azerbaijan.

The Uzbek government, historically very wary of the spread of radicalism from Afghanistan, offered conflicting reports last week about incidents involving an alleged collision between an Uzbek MiG-29 and a fleeing Afghan military plane.

In an extensive interview with CNN Türk, he emphasised that statements by Kremlin officials that they want to help rebuild Armenia's devastated army - crushed during Baku's 2020 retaking of long-occupied Azerbaijani lands, "were devoid of logic".

In recent days, several incidents set off alarm bells in Tashkent over the sudden deterioration in the situation and a reluctance to let Afghani military absconders into Uzbekistan.

Georgia’s main political vectors in the South Caucasus are cooperation for peace and stability as well as maintaining good neighbourly relations with Armenia and Azerbaijan

Parliament endorsed the new government that emerged from the overwhelming July election victory of the pro-EU Party of Action and Solidarity, including President Maia Sandu’s appointment of Natalia Gavrilita as PM.

There has been no progress in re-uniting Georgia with either of its separatist regions, South Ossetia or Abkhazia.