Author
Galina Sorokina
Founder, Artifact, Almaty
Galina on LinkedInSince 2011 the Artifact team has built and promoted more than a hundred sites for companies in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Belarus and filmed at plants and mines, for ERG and KazMinerals among others. Since 2024 the agency has been introducing foreign manufacturers to distributors and partners in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring countries.
The Journal and the market briefings are written by the Artifact team and signed by Galina. Every figure is traced to its source before it is published; where the origin cannot be found, the text says so.
Articles
- 35%of people in Kazakhstan understand English; Kazakh and Russian, more than 80%. 2021 census, self-assessedTrade shows13 October 2026 · 6 min read
How to spend less on a trade show in Kazakhstan and get more out of your stand?
You have booked a stand at an Almaty trade show. The catalogue is translated into English, and three managers are down for the trip: all of them speak fluent English and know the product by heart. Two questions come next: what the trip will cost, and in which language a distributor will walk up to your stand. Most likely in Kazakh or Russian. Each of those languages is understood by more than 80% of people in Kazakhstan, English by 35%. You can save on flights, hotels and daily allowances for the delegation, and what makes the stand pay off is the language it speaks with the hall. A local team at the stand handles both, and then one person from your company may be enough.
Read next - 64%of B2B trade show visitors in North America decide which stands to visit before the show opens. CEIR, 3,719 surveyedTrade shows28 September 2026 · 7 min read
Want potential partners and distributors to walk up to your stand at a trade show in Central Asia?
Before a trade show, a distributor opens the exhibitor list and decides whom to visit and whom to book a meeting with. At a large specialised show in Almaty that list runs to hundreds of companies, and judging by German trade fairs, a visitor has about thirteen business conversations a day. That is why we start building your presence three months out: by the show he already knows your name, has your terms and comes to the stand to discuss them.
Read next - 2channels at once: distributors find and check you in search, and we call and write to them in your name. Our methodDistributors19 September 2026 · 10 min read
How we find your distributors in Central Asia
Your future distributor is already in business. The company carries somebody else's product in your category, has a warehouse, sales reps and customers who pay it. It has never heard of you, and you do not yet know which company it is. We look for it from two sides at once: we build a site and social accounts in Russian where it will find and check you, and we call and write ourselves to the companies that already carry your category.
Read next - 9 in 10buyers come to a purchase with a ready list of suppliers and buy from it. Bain and Google, 1,208 surveyed in the USADistributors14 September 2026 · 8 min read
How does a new brand enter the CIS market?
You write to distributors in Almaty and Tashkent. The email is short, the catalogue is attached, the product is good and known at home. The replies come in two kinds, going by our own correspondence with distributors in the region: "send the price list and terms" and "what promotion budget are you giving us". After the second question the conversation usually ends.
Read next - $30,000one trade-show trip to Almaty: a 30-40 m² stand, three days in one hall. Our estimateTrade shows10 September 2026 · 15 min read
Where the $30,000 of an Almaty trade show trip goes, and what roughly the same money buys in digital marketing
In September 2025 KazBuild and Aquatherm Almaty ran for three days at the Atakent exhibition centre. In their results the organisers wrote 8,886 visitors, counted without repeat entries, and 639 companies from 30 countries, 313 of them foreign at KazBuild alone. I divided one by the other and got fourteen people per stand. You cannot count it that way, I know, one visitor walks past dozens of stands in a day. The proportion still tells you a lot: more than three hundred foreign brands, some in person and some through a local representative, shared the attention of fewer than nine thousand people for three days.
Read next - 50msall it takes to judge a homepage, before a word is read. Lindgaard, 2006Websites5 September 2026 · 4 min read
You already have a site. Do you need a new one for the CIS or Central Asia?
Translating a working site that your home market runs on is easier than building a second one. But a website carries an idea of what a company worth dealing with looks like. In another market that idea is different, and translation does not change it.
Read next - 10channels a B2B buyer touches before a deal, double the count in 2016, McKinseyTrade shows5 September 2026 · 5 min read
First time at a trade show in a new region, and they already expect you
A trade fair puts the right people in one hall, which is a fair reason to go. But a distributor at your stand has a few minutes for a brand they have never heard of. If nothing preceded that meeting, the stand has to introduce you, prove you are competent and move toward a deal in the same conversation. That is too much for three minutes.
Read next - $47BUzbekistan's imports in 2025, up 18.5% in a year. National Statistics Committee of UzbekistanMarket data5 September 2026 · 3 min read
Uzbekistan: $47 billion of imports in 2025, 18.5% more than the year before. How to test demand for your product without leaving your country
Before entering a new region a manufacturer answers one question: will they buy what I make here. The usual way to answer it is with money. A stand, flights, a trip to a distributor, a year of an account manager's time. The answer arrives last, once the budget is gone. You can test demand earlier, before the first trip.
Read next - €37,158average direct cost of one trade show, Europe. UFI and Oxford Economics, 2026Trade shows4 September 2026 · 4 min read
€37,158 for an average trade show in Europe. How often did yours pay off?
A European manufacturer spends an average of €37,158 in direct costs on a single exhibition. In the same period, 67% of B2B buyers told Gartner they would prefer to buy without talking to a sales rep at all. Both figures are from 2026 research. Together they explain why a stand full of visitors can still produce a quiet quarter.
Read next
Market briefings
- KazakhstanKazakhstan: the wide door into Central Asia, with a queue already at it
- UzbekistanUzbekistan: a growing market in the region, outside the customs union
- KyrgyzstanKyrgyzstan: imports are 81% of trade, and a third of them come from Russia and Kazakhstan
- TajikistanTajikistan: imports are 78% of trade, but brands enter through the neighbours
- AzerbaijanAzerbaijan: imports are growing, but the EAC certificate does not apply here
- ArmeniaArmenia: why $13 billion of imports is not the size of the market
- TurkmenistanTurkmenistan: the state does the buying here, and we do not work this market
Next step
Thinking about the region?
Three ways to start: the monthly format, distributor search for a fee and a percentage, or our team at your trade-show stand.