Kyrgyzstan's Rising Animation Studios Reverse Country’s Brain Drain

Atop the Dordoi Plaza Business Center, in the center of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, project manager Abai Zhalilov is steering one of Kyrgyzstan’s most-ambitious animation projects from within a bullpen of animators, scriptwriters, modelers and light artists. Together, with his team lead, who sits next to him within the open-desk floor plan, Zhalilov oversees Saratan Animation Studio’s most lucrative project, the 3-D animated Lalafun, a collection of YouTube channels of nursery rhymes and singalongs for young kids that garners millions of views per video. As Zhalilov, 28, scooches his chair in closer to his colleague’s desk to monitor sound quality, animation story boards and production schedules, he looks around the room at his team’s 20 animators—the studio’s life line. It will be because of them that Lalafun becomes “a project that could potentially garner billions of views,” he says.

In its six-year existence, Zhalilov’s employer, Saratan, has outgrown its boutique-style structure and evolved into the country’s largest animation studio. With projects scattered between YouTube and Facebook, Saratan boasts channels such as Meet My Story, Detective Void, LookBee and TheMind, amassing more than 10 million subscribers and followers since its inception in 2017.

Nargiza Kutmanova, the studio’s lead scriptwriter and editor, attributes the studio’s success to the quality of the message her team imbues in every production. Lalafun, for example, teaches kids the values of politeness, good hygiene and the importance of family, while TheMind serves allegorical stories that speak on universal truths and humanity. “Our animations are not just about entertainment but also about imparting essential life skills and moral values, and promoting the rich culture of Kyrgyzstan to a global audience,” Kutmanova explains, emphasizing the studio’s commitment to wholesome education.

But that commitment to education can often feel like it’s stymied by the exit of young talent from Kyrgyzstan. With a population of nearly 7 million, the country has experienced an outflow of up to 700,000 workers to other lands, with more than 50 percent of those in the age range of 20 and 29 years. Needless to say, this has exacerbated a brain-drain crisis within the country, especially among highly skilled specialists, like the animators and graphic designers Saratan relies on.

Malik Osmonov, who founded Saratan with a belief in the power of storytelling beyond mere entertainment, openly talks about the impact the exodus of professional workers has had on Saratan. For Osmonov, 28, just like for other animation studio executives in the country, finding and hiring skilled animators and artists present a significant challenge for small-scale outfits in Kyrgyzstan. “We teach and grow animators but can’t keep [them] for a long time because bigger studios like Game Development [in the US] hire them for much better salaries,” Osmonov says of the situation.

One of Osmonov’s earliest new hires, Zhalilov, began his career with Saratan in 2018 as an animator after newly graduating with a degree in chemistry from Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Having climbed the ranks to project manager, he has seen animators come and go. At one point, Saratan had over 100 animators, making it the largest animation studio in the country, but that number has since dwindled to just over 50. The high turnover reflects another tendency of animators who crave opportunities that challenge their creativity with more advanced animation. “This is the human factor, and the work is creative,” Zhalilov says, adding, “These situations are not going anywhere, and it has to be accepted. We try to solve it.”

But studios like Saratan are seizing the momentum of their success on YouTube to meet the problem face on by embracing software and tools that build on those skills employees seek. When studios in Kyrgyzstan first began to open in the 2010s, few could afford the software that Saratan now operates with, such as Autodesk Maya, Cinema 4D, Render, Ocatane Render and Blender and RTX 4090ti—software that enriches the creative process for the company’s designers.

To keep up with the latest software means studios must be on the constant lookout for technology that will carry their studios into the future. Jalil Mukambet, an entrepreneur and cofounder of Tentek Animation, another studio based in Bishkek, prioritizes research in the latest tech advancements in animation for his own company to maintain an edge in game and web-series development. “We are looking at every technological innovation in the creative industry so that we can stay updated today,” he says.

But new hires in Kyrgyzstan crave more from studios than just software and programs. They’re scouting for employers who will reinvest in them and their careers. They’re looking to be challenged. Saratan, for its part, invites foreign industry experts to their studios at least twice a year for courses that address innovations in animation, such as 3-D modeling. This type of investment in their animators “will give them [animators] a strong foundation and confidence in the future,” Zhalilov says.

Youkids Studio, where Saratan’s owner, Osmonov, got his start in 2016, is one of Kyrgyzstan’s oldest animation studios. Its founder, Almaz Temirbaev, points to compensation as a deciding factor for his animators. Founded in 2015, the studio’s main channel of the same name has attracted more than 2 million subscribers on YouTube, and since its beginning, it has reinvested nearly all its profits back to its employees. The studio now pays its designers, who have opted to work remotely, around 60,000 Kyrgyz som (US$685.90) a month. In Kyrgystan, “it’s good money, especially for those who don’t live in Bishkek, in the smaller cities,” says Temirbaev.

Those numbers may not compare to the salaries of animators working for foreign studios, but employees of Kyrgyz studios are not chained to work around the clock, and they can now balance work with life outside the studio. The working conditions Youkids and Saratan provide attract older animators looking for downtime away from the office. “Working, working, working,” Temirbaev describes of younger artists employed elsewhere, “[and then] they come back to me. They know what I’m doing is offering them honesty. I’m giving them complete freedom … and offering them good money.”

And those types of investments from Saratan, Youkids and Tentek are now paying off. Prior to 2015, only one or two small animation studios existed in the country, and the biggest hurdle they dealt with had to do with finding animators experienced enough to carry forward more than just the studios. “The animation industry in Kyrgyzstan was still in its infancy [in 2017],” Osmonov says, “however, we persevered and nurtured the talent we had, investing in their growth and development.”

Osmonov’s perseverance and that of other studio heads allow the animation industry in Kyrgyzstan to reverse the extreme brain drain the country is experiencing. Up until 2021, three quarters of the designers who started with Kyrgyz-owned studios left to bigger foreign studios. Now, that number has dropped because of the commitment local Kyrgyz studios are demonstrating on a daily basis. “They like working for us. Friendly team, good pay. There is constant progress.” Zhalilov says.

Back in the bullpen, Zhalilov has just finished wrapping up another day of collaboration and consultation with his team lead and animators at Saratan’s studio. Before leaving, he focuses on the future, and when he speaks about his team, his optimism about what lies ahead for them shines. “Our videos have become deep with meaning. This is all a credit to the team, and we still have room to grow,” he says, even to one day stream on global platforms like Netflix and Disney+.