Is this from the country being fairly rich and having money to invest, or is this part of China's massive infrastructure project?
Also as mentioned by another commenter: Uzbekistan is more wealthy than other countries of the region; it's a major exported of things like gas, cotton, silk.
Absolutely not. Uzbekistan was the Central Asian version of North Korea.
The poverty was universal, and extreme.
And yes, a change from a braindead Kim Il Sung wannabe who boiled people alive to a plain idiot plutocrat could be considered a "change" to be welcomed.
Kazakhstan is by far the wealthiest Central Asian nation.