Uzbekistan’s autocratic president to be buried

Karimov remained the Uzbek president for 26 years.

Many mourners held flowers, mostly red roses, which they laid on the road as the funeral train, which set out at 6 a.m. local time, drove by on its way to the airport.

Karimov was pronounced dead late yesterday after he suffered a stroke last weekend and fell into a coma, following days of speculation that authorities were delaying making his death public.

Born on January 30, 1938, Karimov was raised in an orphanage in Samarkand, before studying mechanical engineering and economics and rising up the ranks of the Communist Party to become head of Soviet Uzbekistan in 1989.

Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev is expected to fly in for the funeral, along with a coterie of leaders from former Soviet republics including Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and the prime ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Kazakhstan.

Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyaev, who has been touted by outsiders as a possible successor, has been designated mourner-in-chief at Karimov’s funeral.

In the wake of global criticism over the alleged massacre, which Karimov’s regime rebuffed, Tashkent shut down a USA military base used to supply operations in neighbouring Afghanistan since 2001.

There will be no change of the regime in Uzbekistan after the death of their president, and whoever is next to lead the country will follow the same path, according to an Uzbek opposition blogger. Please see our terms of service for more information.

Uzbekistan has never held elections deemed free and fair by the global monitors, and Karimov won his fifth terms in office last March with 90 per cent of the vote.

He ruled for 27 years, and is accused by human rights groups of severely repressing dissent. The transition from the Soviet era to something different in the life of the most populous country of Central Asia is physically finished.