Meet the Stans
Template:New unreviewed article
In this series, journalist Simon Reeve travels to Central Asia to “meet the Stans” - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan His journey provides viewers with a unique insight into these countries’culture and politics. As well as discovering a region teeming with Islamic militants, ruthless tyrants and radioactive wastelands, Reeve also finds a more absurd side to these obscure countries, including an American military base that sells Soviet knickknacks, a desert full of shipwrecks and a first-rate Beatles tribute band.[1]
Kazakhstan
Holidays in the Danger Zone: Meet the Stans begins in Kazakhstan, a country whose oil deposits are thought to rival those of Saudi Arabia. In Kazakhstan, Reeve discovers a poorly secured former biological weapons factories with a hundred types of plague stored there. He also finds a shrinking sea that is now home to camel farmers, and the region's best Beatles tribute band.
Kyrgyzstan
Part two of the series features Kyrgyzstan, the only country in the world with both an American and a Russian military base. While there, Reeve meets a member of a banned radical Islamic group, and he visits one of the world's most highly radioactive sites.
Uzbekistan
In Uzbekistan, the most repressive of the "Stans", Reeve finds himself followed by the secret police as he travels across the country. He also meets the country's most famous pop star, visits a bodyguard training school, breaks the law by playing snooker, and meets women at a marriage bureau for Uzbeks wanting western husbands.
Tajikistan
The final episode features Tajikistan. Sharing an 800-mile border with Afghanistan, which provides 90% of Europe's heroin, Tajikistan is one of the world's biggest drug trafficking routes. Reeve joins a drugs raid, visits a warehouse with £100 million worth of heroin, and gets drunk with the conscripts who patrol the Afghan border.
(The fifth “Stan” Turkmenistan, refused Reeve and his BBC crew a visit to their country)