A landlocked region with bitter differences is coming together to survive economically. When television producer Abduaziz Madyarov traveled between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with a British TV crew in November, he and his colleagues had to spend hours waiting in queues at border posts. That tortuous experience epitomized the tense relationship the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have had with one another since independence 26 years ago. But it’s an experience that could be on its way out. For a quarter of a century, water, land and ethnic conflicts have poisoned ties between the five ’stans. Now, even as the U.K. pulls away from the European Union, and other countries in the bloc mull their future in it, Central Asian nations are opening up to one another, taking steps to establish what in a few years could amount to their version of a Schengen zone. | 