Shavkat Mirzijoyev advocates economic and social reforms in former closed Uzbekistan. At the same time, the 65-year-old has built luxury palaces for taxpayers' money – and pushed through a forthcoming referendum to strengthen his iron grip on power.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin gives Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirzijoyev the Aleksandr Nevsky Order, a Russian Order of State rooted in the Czar era, in Samarkand in 2022.
Dmitri Azarov/AP/TT
Russia's President Vladimir Putin gives Uzbekistan's President Shavkat Mirzijoyev the Aleksandr Nevsky Order, a Russian Order of State rooted in the Czar era, in Samarkand in 2022.

On 30 April, …