Blog Archives

Remains of the Soviet Union's Nuclear Bombing Fields

1/28/2023

A mushroom cloud formed during a nuclear bombing blast in the Semipalatinsk Testing Site in northern Kazakhstan.

Inside an underground command center that controlled when the bombs went off. Looters have stripped the command center of any metals, including rebar, that they can resell. Almost nothing but the shell is left.

This is an elevator shaft that goes down to an underground laboratory. Looters dug away all the earth and stripped the shaft of any metals that it could resell.

An underground silo that has been filled with water and stripped of its nuclear components.

For more information see my story in Foreign Policy magazine.

'The Fire Could Be Ignited At Any Point': Kazakhstan's 'Bloody January' Through The Eyes Of Those Who Covered It

1/28/2023

Interview on World News Reddit Talk with Akaash Maharaj and Alex Dor

"The Circumstances that Led to the Protests have not Gone Away"

1/10/2023

Azattyk Radio—Radio Free Liberty/Radio Europe's Service in Kazakhstan—interviews Journalist Cheryl Reed about her Investigation into the Kazakhstan Protest Coverage

January 10, 2023, 08:13
By Elnur Alimova

Protesters in Almaty on January 5, 2022 — the day Kazakhstan declared a nationwide state of emergency after peaceful anti-price rallies escalated into clashes and protesters stormed government buildings

“Once you start shooting at people, they will retaliate,” said US journalist Cheryl L. Reed, who reports on the January events in Kazakhstan. Azattyk asked the journalist's opinion about why peaceful rallies turned into riots, why the Kazakh authorities abandoned the international investigation of Bloody January, and whether society's views have changed.

Cheryl L. Reed is an American journalist and recipient of the Goldsmiths Award for investigative journalism. Cheryl spent four months traveling around the regions of Kazakhstan where the riots took place, and spoke with journalists covering these events, including correspondents from RFE/RL. Her articles about Kazakhstan were published by Diplomat.

The remaining article in English.

Fulbright in Central Asia

From March, 2022 to January of 2023, I was a Fulbright Scholar with the U.S. State Department in post-Soviet Central Asia. My previous Fulbright was in Ukraine. For the past six years, I have reported on journalists from post-Soviet countries who have experienced retaliation for reporting the truth.