Yulia and Ilya Kuleshov were among the first Russian citizens to move to Kyrgyzstan last spring, just after the invasion of Ukraine. The couple had been publicly active back in St Petersburg – Yulia ran a foundation that helped victims of sexual violence, while Ilya was involved in urban improvement projects – but they no longer wanted to live and work in Russia.
“We didn’t know anything about Central Asia, but we really wanted to visit the region. We were told that Kyrgyzstan is an ‘island of democracy’, so we decided: we need to go there,” Yulia recalled. They also knew that the influx of Russians to other countries such as Georgia had become a source of tension.
Officially, Kyrgyzstan has taken a neutral stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine – as the president, Sadyr Japarov, said two weeks after the invasion. Following the Kremlin’s announcement last autumn of a partial mobilisation, Japarov also said that Russians in Kyrgyzstan should not fear extradition to their homeland.
