Laying flowers on his family plot is a rare moment of solitude for Sergei Aleksandrov. On most days, he spends his time winding through Kafkaesque layers of bureaucracy, after the factory he manages was effectively shut down by city authorities in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, in 2018.
Sergei is the general manager of Altromark, an Uzbekistan-based manufacturer of wheelchairs, established in the 1990s as the country emerged from the Soviet Union. Aleksandrov was inspired to set up the company by the difficulties faced by his son Nikita, who died aged 12, in 1994. Birth complications had left Nikita struggling with significant mobility issues and regular seizures, prompting Aleksandrov and colleagues to found Altromark, with the help of foreign investment.
Today, having survived the corrupt tenure of Uzbekistan’s first president, Islam Karimov, Altromark is up against a new challenge: the rapid and often opaque redevelopment of Uzbekistan.
