Famous people from Uzbekistan

Famous people from Uzbekistan

Islam Karimov

Islom Abdug‘aniyevich Karimov is the first President of Uzbekistan, ruling since 1989. Karimov was placed in an orphanage in Samarkand at birth, grew up to study economics and engineering at school. He became an official in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, becoming the party's First Secretary in Uzbekistan in 1989. On March 24, 1990 he became President of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Karimov's election to the Uzbek Communist Party resulted after his predecessor Rafik Nishanov failed to quell inter-ethnic clashes and instability in the Fergana region. He declared Uzbekistan an independent nation on August 31, 1991 and subsequently won Uzbekistan's first presidential election on December 29, 1991, with 86% of the vote. The election was called unfair, with state-run propaganda and a falsified vote count, although the opposing candidate and leader of the Erk Party, Muhammad Salih, had a chance to participate. Karimov permitted the participation of the opposition organizations Birlik and the Islamic Renaissance Party until his efforts to consolidate power over Shukrullo Mirsaidov, a former Communist Party elite who had originally supported Karimov's rise to the Party presidency. The period of political thaw was brief; Karimov began to complicate the registration process of opposition parties during elections. As Birlik grew in strength as a "popular movement", it was denied the ability to register as a "political party" without the required 60,000 signatures. The Karimov government allowed Birlik one day to gather these signatures, 25,000 of which they rejected. Karimov effectively took authoritarian measures to block any meaningful opposition.

Alina Kabaeva

Olympic athlete
Alina Maratovna Kabaeva is a Russian Honored Master of Sports, retired rhythmic gymnast, and politician. Since 2007, she has been a State Duma deputy from the United Russia party. Kabaeva is Russia's second most successful rhythmic gymnast after Evgenia Kanaeva. She is also one of the most decorated gymnasts in the history of rhythmic gymnastics with two Olympic medals, 14 world championship medals and 25 European championship medals.

Babur

Monarch
Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur was a conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty in the Indian Subcontinent and became the first Mughal emperor. He was a direct descendant of Timur, from the Barlas clan, through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother. Culturally, he was greatly influenced by the Persian culture and this affected both his own actions and those of his successors, giving rise to a significant expansion of the Persianate ethos in the Indian subcontinent.