B1 · Intermediate
14 min
culturegeopoliticscorruptioncentral asia
The Red Princess: Power, Glamour, and Corruption in Uzbekistan
La Princesa Roja: Poder, Glamour y Corrupción en Uzbekistán
A Swiss court this week dismissed a corruption case against Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the late Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov. Fletcher and Octavio explore the extraordinary double life of a woman who was simultaneously a pop star, fashion designer, diplomat, and accused of stealing billions from her own country.
Un tribunal suizo archivó esta semana el caso de corrupción contra Gulnara Karímova, hija del difunto dictador uzbeko Islam Karímov. Fletcher y Octavio exploran la extraordinaria doble vida de una mujer que fue al mismo tiempo cantante pop, diseñadora de moda, diplomática y acusada de robar miles de millones de dólares a su propio país.
8 essential B1-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| dictador | dictator | El dictador controlaba todos los aspectos de la vida política del país. |
| prescripción | statute of limitations | El caso fue cerrado por prescripción porque los delitos ocurrieron hace más de diez años. |
| rápidamente | quickly, rapidly | La situación cambió rápidamente después de la muerte del presidente. |
| poderosa | powerful (feminine) | Era la persona más poderosa del país después de su padre. |
| independencia | independence | Uzbekistán declaró su independencia en 1991, al final de la era soviética. |
| instrumento | instrument, tool | La cultura puede ser un instrumento de poder en manos de un gobierno autoritario. |
| fácilmente | easily | Ese dinero no puede volver fácilmente al país de origen. |
| régimen | regime | El régimen controlaba los medios de comunicación y la oposición política. |
Honestly, this one reads like someone tried to write a novel and their editor told them to tone it down.
A pop star.
A fashion designer.
A UN ambassador.
A woman accused of laundering more than a billion dollars through Swiss banks.
And this week, a Swiss court just...
let her walk.
Sí, Fletcher, hablamos de Gulnara Karímova.
Yes, Fletcher, we're talking about Gulnara Karimova.
Su padre fue Islam Karímov, el presidente de Uzbekistán durante veinticinco años.
Her father was Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan for twenty-five years.
Era un dictador muy duro, muy autoritario.
He was a very tough, very authoritarian dictator.
Gulnara era su hija mayor y, durante mucho tiempo, la persona más poderosa del país después de él.
Gulnara was his eldest daughter and, for a long time, the most powerful person in the country after him.
And before we get into the legal case, I want to make sure people understand who we're actually talking about, because the biography alone is staggering.
Claro.
Of course.
Gulnara estudió en Harvard.
Gulnara studied at Harvard.
Después fue embajadora de Uzbekistán en España y también en la ONU.
She later served as Uzbekistan's ambassador to Spain and also to the UN.
Pero al mismo tiempo, tenía una carrera de música pop.
But at the same time, she had a pop music career.
Usaba el nombre artístico 'GooGoosha'.
She used the stage name 'GooGoosha'.
Cantaba en inglés, en ruso y en uzbeko.
She sang in English, Russian, and Uzbek.
She was a UN ambassador who released music videos.
That sentence is real.
I checked it three times.
Sí, era real.
Yes, it was real.
Y también tenía una marca de ropa y joyería.
And she also had a clothing and jewelry brand.
Se llamaba 'Guli'.
It was called 'Guli'.
Vendía sus productos en tiendas muy elegantes en Europa.
She sold her products in very upscale stores in Europe.
Era famosa en los círculos de la moda en París y en Ginebra.
She was well known in fashion circles in Paris and Geneva.
Now here's what I want to dig into, because this isn't just a story about one eccentric woman.
This is a story about how authoritarian power works, and how it uses culture as a tool.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
El padre de Gulnara, Islam Karímov, gobernó Uzbekistán desde 1989, primero en la época soviética y después de la independencia.
Gulnara's father, Islam Karimov, ruled Uzbekistan from 1989, first in the Soviet era and then after independence.
Era un hombre muy, muy controlador.
He was a very, very controlling man.
Perseguía a la oposición política y también a los grupos religiosos.
He persecuted the political opposition and also religious groups.
The Andijan massacre, 2005.
Government forces opened fire on protesters.
The official death toll was in the dozens;
independent estimates ran into the hundreds.
Karimov called the protesters religious extremists.
The West condemned it and then, fairly quickly, went back to doing business with him.
Sí.
Yes.
Y Uzbekistán era importante para Estados Unidos porque está cerca de Afganistán.
And Uzbekistan was important to the United States because it's close to Afghanistan.
Los americanos usaban una base militar allí.
The Americans used a military base there.
Entonces la política era complicada.
So the politics were complicated.
I covered that base, actually.
Karshi-Khanabad.
K2.
There was always this uncomfortable quality to the relationship, this sense that everyone knew what Karimov was, and the math was done anyway.
Y dentro de ese sistema, Gulnara tenía un papel muy especial.
And within that system, Gulnara had a very special role.
Muchos analistas decían que ella controlaba grandes partes de la economía uzbeka.
Many analysts said she controlled large parts of the Uzbek economy.
Las empresas de telecomunicaciones, los medios de comunicación, muchos sectores importantes.
Telecommunications companies, the media, many important sectors.
And the allegation, which multiple Western prosecutors took extremely seriously, was that the big European and American telecom companies paid her hundreds of millions of dollars to get access to the Uzbek market.
Not in envelopes under the table.
Through foundations, through shell companies, through the infrastructure of legitimate finance.
Sí.
Yes.
Empresas como TeliaSonera, que es una empresa sueca y finlandesa muy grande.
Companies like TeliaSonera, which is a very large Swedish-Finnish company.
También Vimpelcom, que es rusa.
Also Vimpelcom, which is Russian.
Pagaron mucho dinero.
They paid a lot of money.
Los fiscales de Suiza, Estados Unidos y Países Bajos investigaron todo esto durante años.
Prosecutors in Switzerland, the United States, and the Netherlands investigated all of this for years.
The Swiss froze about 800 million dollars in assets linked to her.
That's not a rumor.
That's a legal action.
And now the criminal case itself has been dismissed.
What's the reason being given?
El tribunal federal suizo dice que el caso es muy viejo y muy complicado para continuar.
The Swiss Federal Criminal Court says the case is too old and too complicated to continue.
Los delitos ocurrieron hace más de diez años.
The crimes occurred more than ten years ago.
En el sistema legal suizo, hay límites de tiempo para procesar ciertos crímenes.
In the Swiss legal system, there are time limits for prosecuting certain crimes.
Es lo que los juristas llaman la prescripción.
This is what legal scholars call the statute of limitations.
Statute of limitations.
Which exists for legitimate reasons in most legal systems.
But when you're talking about corruption on this scale, routed through the most sophisticated financial architecture money can buy, the clock tends to run in favor of the person who built the maze.
Es verdad.
That's true.
Y hay otra cosa importante.
And there's another important thing.
Gulnara no estaba libre cuando el tribunal tomó esta decisión.
Gulnara was not free when the court made this decision.
Estaba en una cárcel en Uzbekistán, su propio país.
She was in a prison in Uzbekistan, her own country.
Su situación allí es muy complicada.
Her situation there is very complicated.
Right, because the relationship between Gulnara and the Uzbek government collapsed dramatically after her father died in 2016.
She'd actually been under house arrest since 2014.
The new president, Mirziyoyev, kept her locked up.
So she's in prison at home while a Swiss court is deciding whether to prosecute her abroad.
Y esto muestra algo muy interesante sobre el poder en los sistemas autoritarios.
And this shows something very interesting about power in authoritarian systems.
En esos sistemas, la familia del líder tiene mucho poder, pero ese poder depende totalmente del líder.
In those systems, the leader's family has a lot of power, but that power depends entirely on the leader.
Cuando el líder muere o pierde el control, la familia pierde todo muy rápidamente.
When the leader dies or loses control, the family loses everything very quickly.
I want to go back to the culture angle here, because I think we're in danger of treating this purely as a corruption story.
The pop music, the fashion label, the diplomatic career.
What was that actually about?
Bueno, hay dos maneras de verlo.
Well, there are two ways to look at it.
Una es que Gulnara usaba la cultura para construir su imagen, para parecer moderna y sofisticada en el mundo occidental.
One is that Gulnara used culture to build her image, to appear modern and sophisticated in the Western world.
Con esa imagen, era más fácil hacer negocios en Europa.
With that image, it was easier to do business in Europe.
Soft power as cover.
The fashion shows in Paris made her look like a creative entrepreneur, not the daughter of a man who was boiling political prisoners alive.
That's not a metaphor, by the way.
Sí, esas historias existían.
Yes, those stories existed.
Pero la segunda manera de ver su carrera cultural es más interesante para mí.
But the second way of looking at her cultural career is more interesting to me.
Creo que Gulnara también quería algo para ella misma, algo fuera de la política de su padre.
I think Gulnara also wanted something for herself, something outside her father's politics.
El arte, la moda, la música, eran cosas que ella controlaba, que eran suyas.
Art, fashion, music, these were things she controlled, that were hers.
That is actually a more complicated reading than I expected.
You're saying there might be something genuine in there, alongside the cynical calculation.
Claro.
Of course.
Y Uzbekistán tiene una cultura extraordinaria, Fletcher.
And Uzbekistan has an extraordinary culture, Fletcher.
Samarcanda, Bujará, la Ruta de la Seda.
Samarkand, Bukhara, the Silk Road.
Es una de las civilizaciones más antiguas de Asia Central.
It is one of the oldest civilizations in Central Asia.
Gulnara no inventó el interés por la cultura uzbeka, solo lo usó de una manera muy particular.
Gulnara didn't invent interest in Uzbek culture, she just used it in a very particular way.
Let's stay there for a moment.
Because listeners who don't know much about Uzbekistan might be picturing a kind of blank space on the map.
Samarkand is one of the great cities of human history.
Sí, absolutamente.
Yes, absolutely.
Samarcanda era una ciudad enormemente importante en el comercio entre China y Europa.
Samarkand was an enormously important city in trade between China and Europe.
Los mercaderes viajaban por allí con seda, especias, cerámica.
Merchants traveled through there with silk, spices, ceramics.
La arquitectura es increíble, los edificios son de color azul, turquesa, como el cielo.
The architecture is incredible, the buildings are blue, turquoise, like the sky.
Es un lugar muy hermoso.
It is a very beautiful place.
Tamerlane built his capital there in the 14th century.
It was one of the most sophisticated cities on earth.
And then the Soviets arrived and decided that Central Asian cultures were best managed by suppressing them and replacing them with a kind of generic Soviet identity.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
Y después de la independencia en 1991, Karímov usó la cultura y la historia uzbeka para construir un nuevo nationalismo.
And after independence in 1991, Karimov used Uzbek culture and history to build a new nationalism.
Habló mucho de Tamerlán como héroe nacional.
He talked a lot about Tamerlane as a national hero.
Pero al mismo tiempo, controlaba muy estrictamente qué versión de la cultura era oficial y cuál no.
But at the same time, he controlled very strictly which version of the culture was official and which was not.
This is a pattern I've watched in authoritarian states across four decades.
The regime picks a version of national history, usually one that centers a strong leader, usually one that skips over the complicated bits, and then packages it as cultural pride.
Sí.
Yes.
Y Gulnara era parte de ese proyecto cultural, aunque ella también tenía sus propios proyectos personales.
And Gulnara was part of that cultural project, even though she also had her own personal projects.
Era una figura muy contradictoria.
She was a very contradictory figure.
Habló de los derechos de las mujeres en conferencias internacionales, pero su padre tenía un régimen que violaba esos derechos constantemente.
She spoke about women's rights at international conferences, but her father had a regime that constantly violated those rights.
The contradiction is almost too neat, isn't it.
I've interviewed a lot of people who operated inside systems like that, and the self-deception involved is profound.
You can genuinely believe you're a modernizing force while benefiting from every dollar the system extracts.
Totalmente.
Totally.
Y esto también explica por qué el caso suizo es tan importante.
And this also explains why the Swiss case is so important.
Suiza tiene una reputación histórica de proteger el dinero de personas ricas y poderosas.
Switzerland has a historic reputation for protecting the money of wealthy and powerful people.
Esa reputación cambió un poco después de los escándalos de los años noventa, pero no completamente.
That reputation changed somewhat after the scandals of the nineties, but not completely.
The Swiss froze the money, which is significant.
But freezing money and actually prosecuting someone for stealing it are very different things.
And now the prosecution ends with a statute of limitations ruling, while 800 million dollars presumably stays frozen.
Y ese dinero no puede volver fácilmente a Uzbekistán.
And that money cannot easily return to Uzbekistan.
Los acuerdos entre países para devolver dinero robado son muy complicados.
Agreements between countries to return stolen money are very complicated.
En otros casos similares, el proceso tardó más de veinte años.
In other similar cases, the process took more than twenty years.
While the country that was looted waits.
That's the part that always gets me.
The ordinary people in Tashkent, in Samarkand, who had nothing to do with any of this, and whose telecommunications infrastructure was used as the mechanism for the theft.
Y Uzbekistán hoy es diferente del país de Karímov.
And Uzbekistan today is different from Karimov's country.
El presidente actual, Mirziyóyev, es también autoritario, pero abrió el país un poco más al turismo y a los negocios internacionales.
The current president, Mirziyoyev, is also authoritarian, but he opened the country a little more to tourism and international business.
Samarcanda ahora recibe muchos turistas.
Samarkand now receives many tourists.
I have a friend who went three years ago.
Came back absolutely stunned.
Said it was one of the most visually overwhelming places she'd ever been.
The tilework, the mosaics, the scale of it.
Sí.
Yes.
Y la comida uzbeka también es extraordinaria.
And Uzbek food is also extraordinary.
El plov, que es el plato nacional, es arroz con carne y zanahoria, cocinado en una olla grande con mucha grasa.
Plov, which is the national dish, is rice with meat and carrots, cooked in a large pot with a lot of fat.
Hay personas que dicen que el mejor plov del mundo se hace en Uzbekistán.
There are people who say the best plov in the world is made in Uzbekistan.
Yo no digo nada, porque tengo mis propias opiniones sobre los mejores arroces del mundo.
I'm saying nothing, because I have my own opinions about the world's best rice dishes.
There it is.
We've been going forty minutes and we finally arrived at the part where Octavio defends the honor of Spanish rice.
I was wondering when we'd get here.
Mira, no es una defensa, es simplemente la verdad.
Look, it's not a defense, it's simply the truth.
Pero lo que me parece más importante aquí es esto: la historia de Gulnara Karímova no es solo una historia de corrupción.
But what I find most important here is this: the story of Gulnara Karimova is not just a story about corruption.
Es una historia sobre cómo la cultura puede ser usada, manipulada, convertida en un instrumento de poder.
It's a story about how culture can be used, manipulated, turned into an instrument of power.
And also how it can escape that instrumentalization, maybe.
The music videos are gone, the fashion label collapsed, the father is dead, the Swiss case is closed.
But Samarkand is still there.
Exactamente.
Exactly.
La cultura sobrevive a los regímenes.
Culture outlives regimes.
Siempre.
Always.
Oye, Fletcher, hay algo que quiero preguntarte.
Hey, Fletcher, there's something I want to ask you.
Antes dijiste que Gulnara 'perdió todo muy rápidamente'.
Earlier you said Gulnara 'lost everything very quickly'.
En español, usaste la palabra 'rápidamente'.
In Spanish, you used the word 'rápidamente'.
¿Sabes cómo formamos esos adverbios en español?
Do you know how we form those adverbs in Spanish?
I mean, I can see the pattern.
'Rápida' is the adjective, and then you stick '-mente' on the end.
Which makes me think it's related to the English '-ly'.
'Quickly', 'rapidly'.
Same idea.
Correcto.
Correct.
Y la regla es simple.
And the rule is simple.
Tomas el adjetivo en su forma femenina y añades '-mente'.
You take the adjective in its feminine form and add '-mente'.
Por ejemplo: 'rápida' se convierte en 'rápidamente'.
For example: 'rápida' becomes 'rápidamente'.
'Lenta' se convierte en 'lentamente'.
'Lenta' becomes 'lentamente'.
'Fácil' no tiene forma masculina o femenina diferente, entonces solo añades '-mente': 'fácilmente'.
'Fácil' has no different masculine or feminine form, so you just add '-mente': 'fácilmente'.
So the feminine form carries the adverb.
That's actually elegant.
English just slaps '-ly' on whatever the adjective is and calls it a day.
Spanish makes you think about gender first, even when you're making an adverb.
Sí.
Yes.
Y hay una cosa más.
And there's one more thing.
Si usas dos adverbios juntos en la misma frase, generalmente solo el último lleva '-mente'.
If you use two adverbs together in the same sentence, usually only the last one gets '-mente'.
Por ejemplo: 'habló rápida y claramente'.
For example: 'habló rápida y claramente'.
No decimos 'rápidamente y claramente'.
We don't say 'rápidamente y claramente'.
Suena muy pesado.
It sounds very heavy.
That is genuinely useful.
And it explains something that confused me in a piece I was reading last month, two adjectives in a row and only one '-mente' at the end.
I thought there was a typo.
Now I just feel bad for doubting the writer.
Por suerte para ti, el escritor no sabe que dudaste.
Luckily for you, the writer doesn't know you doubted.
Y por suerte para nosotros, Samarcanda sigue siendo hermosa, el plov sigue siendo delicioso, y los tribunales suizos siguen siendo...
And luckily for us, Samarkand is still beautiful, plov is still delicious, and Swiss courts are still...
complicados.
complicated.