The long-announced construction of Asman – the city of the future – has started

Last week, on the shores of the picturesque Issyk-Kul Lake in Kyrgyzstan, located in Central Asia, the construction commencement ceremony of the new city of Asman, with a capacity of several hundred thousand inhabitants, was held – reported the Kyrgyz portal 24.kg.

According to the website, the opening ceremony was attended by “the most important people in the country”, but it was not specified who exactly. However, it is known that the idea of ​​building a city for “half a million, or maybe even a million” inhabitants (Kyrgyzstan has a population of just over 7 million people) was announced at the beginning of this decade. The official presentation of the “city of the future” concept took place in July 2021; The authors then announced a modern, environmentally friendly agglomeration with an area of ​​approximately 4,000 m2. ha, designed to resemble from a bird's eye view the traditional Kyrgyz musical instrument ruch.

From the beginning, the authorities promoted Asman as an “eco-city” with smart infrastructure, low-emission transport and technology centers, promising hundreds of thousands of jobs and an inflow of foreign investments. However, from the beginning, there were doubts among experts regarding the costs, the impact on the ecosystem of Lake Issyk-Kul (located in the Tienshan Mountains, at an altitude of over 1,600 m above sea level, the world's second largest mountain lake and a unique refuge for many bird species) and the stability and transparency of financing in the reality of Kyrgyzstan's shaky economy.

Another, but not the last, breakthrough moment occurred on June 30, 2023, when the cornerstone for the construction of the city was laid in the presence of President Sadyr Zhaparov. The authorities intended this to be an act that was to transform the vision into real action and give the project political priority. Government announcements emphasized that the construction was to be financed by foreign partners and completed in stages over the next several or a dozen or so years.

However, the reality was slightly different than the government intended. Agreements and contracts were signed and then terminated or renegotiated. In May 2024, it was announced that construction of the city would start “in the coming days”. At that time, as the government informed, companies from France, China and Korea showed interest in investments. Unnamed investors from Seoul were to contribute the first billion of dollars out of the twenty that the Bishkek government estimates the cost of building the city.

For several months, the construction of the city was mentioned very rarely in the mass media, because there were reservations about the transparency of the contracts already signed. In October 2025, the Kyrgyz portal Akchabar reported on a memorandum signed in Beijing by the National Investment Agency of Kyrgyzstan with one of the Chinese construction companies – the authorities presented it as a step forward towards obtaining technology and investment financing.

According to information provided by the Kyrgyz media, the construction, which officially started last week, will be carried out in stages and the implementation of the project will be entrusted to private companies. The head of the National Investment Agency, Ravshan Sabirov, was to inform that the land for construction had been allocated to two enterprises – one 100 ha, the other 80 ha. Photographs from the ceremony published in the Kyrgyz media show two names – one of a Chinese company (but with a different name than the one presented in October) and one of a Kyrgyz company. (PAP)

wtz/ kar/