Nikita Makarenko

Nikita Anatolyevich Makarenko was born on 8 January 1988 in Tashkent. He studied journalism at the National University of Uzbekistan and graduated in 2010.

He started in radio and television; from 2008 he worked at the Ilkhom Theatre as a musician and later as a music producer. In 2010–2013 he was a member of the band Tears of the Sun, ran the Ilkhom Rock Fest, and in 2012 organized the Central Asian Independent Film Festival (CAFIF). In 2016 he co-wrote the play «Airport» for Ilkhom.

From 2017 to May 2020 he was a columnist and correspondent for Gazeta.uz. Since March 2020 he has been the author, director and host of the programme «New Report» on UzReport TV. That year he also co-founded the band ELECTROOKO with Ashot Danielyan; its first album came out in October 2020.

On his Telegram channel «Makarenko Effect» he writes about the urban environment, ecology, cultural heritage, tourism and society. Media have quoted his comments on the reconstruction of Tashkent streets and buildings, notably Shota Rustaveli street and the Anhor cafe, and he has written about the transparency of the city administration's press service.

In 2017 he was a CEC ArtsLink fellow in the US, lecturing at Oberlin College and Columbia University; in 2018 he spoke at TEDx. In 2021 he took part in the Francis Fukuyama programme at Stanford. According to Wikipedia, in 2018 he was the first journalist to legally visit the closed town of Aralsk-7, and he has received departmental badges.