How Bollywood Outlasted Soviet Russia in Uzbekistan
The Central Asian country shook off Moscow’s grip — but it never stopped loving one of its biggest imports.
“Awara hoon, awaara hoon,” a singer crooned into the microphone. No, this wasn’t a cover of the original 1954 song by an Indian. It was in fact, HAVAS Guruhi, an Uzbek band, behind a viral rendition that garnered over 8 million views.
HAVAS Guruhi doesn’t know Hindi. But as their lead singer, Khakhramon Ermatov, told The Juggernaut, you don’t need to know a language to understand the emotions behind a song.
Although the Soviet Union’s love of Indian cinema is well-documented, and Uzbekistan was part of the U.S.S.R. for decades, what is striking is how much of the country’s obsession with Bollywood remains — especially as Uzbekistan tries to distance itself from Russia. In December 2024, Tashkent even unveiled a statue of Raj Kapoor to cheers. Shohrux Usmonov, an Uzbekistan-based writer, told The Juggernaut that his mother named him after — you guessed it — Shah Rukh Khan. “We grew up watching their movies,” Usmonov said.