📰 The Great Diaspora: How Uzbekistan Became the Haven for Portuguese Exiles

With the recent massive baby boom that hit Portugal, hundreds of new citizens have been wandering the virtual streets of our country, focused on leveling up their accounts and strengthening the nation. However, what the vast majority of these new players don't know is that there is a large community of Portuguese veterans operating thousands of kilometers away, in the heart of Central Asia.

Currently, 60 to 70% of Uzbekistan's population is made up of Portuguese players, leading the country with total independence. But how did this happen? I went to investigate the roots of this diaspora and interviewed the minds behind this exodus.

🏛️ The Roots of the Schism: A Matter of Transparency

To understand the creation of "Portuguese Uzbekistan," we need to go back about 7 months. Portugal's internal politics were boiling with debates about the country's direction. At the time, gonsalu (Uzbekistan's current Vice-President) ran for the presidency of Portugal with a clear and disruptive manifesto.

In his candidacy article, gonsalu promised radical change:

"More transparency: referendums for most topics. Opening the congress channel (...) Reviewing alliances with Spain and Venezuela (...) I feel that today, anyone who is not part of the government is left in the dark."

Despite the efforts, the vision of an "open door" government did not materialize in Portugal. As gonsalu himself explained during our interview, this was the main catalyst for their departure:

"It was mainly because when we were in Portugal, we didn't like how it was governed: a lot of lack of transparency. People are playing this and like to have an idea of what's going on, and in Portugal, nothing was known."

🌍 The Exodus and the Choice of Uzbekistan

Without a dramatic breaking point, but rather through gradual burnout, the dissidents began to organize. At the time, the dissident Portuguese community was fragmented across various parts of the world.

• A group was managing DR Congo (which functioned as an official Portuguese proxy).

• Other groups were exiled in Timor and Saudi Arabia.

That's when the factions decided to unite under the same flag. But why Uzbekistan? According to Vice-President gonsalu:

"We talked to them so we could all join together, and we decided as a group on Uzbekistan, because it was far from Portugal to avoid diplomatic stress and because it was more or less available for a takeover."

Thus a sovereign nation was born, completely detached from the Portuguese Government, with its own politics, Discord (communicating mostly in English), and economy.

👑 The Unlikely President

If the founding story is curious, its leader's rise seems straight out of a movie script. I spoke with NiniUZB, the current President of Uzbekistan, a leader with a unique trajectory: he never played in Portugal.

NiniUZB started his journey in DR Congo (Portugal's former proxy). Being a very low-level player at the time, he found himself surrounded by heavy-weight veterans who today make up Uzbekistan's elite, such as Gonsalu, Adamastor, and Lifelinker (all level 40+).

"They invested in me. Since I was the lowest level in DR Congo and there were only about 10-15 of us, most of the chat was just me asking questions about the game. It’s easier to talk in a chat with 10+ high-level players than in a chat with 400 people." — NiniUZB, President of Uzbekistan

When the veterans decided to migrate to Uzbekistan, NiniUZB followed them, assuming the supreme leadership of an independent nation, shaped by the knowledge of his Portuguese mentors.

🛡️ A Message for the New Generation (Babyboomers)

Despite the distance and total political independence from Lisbon, Uzbekistan's leaders still look fondly upon the growth of their motherland.

When asked what advice he would give to the hundreds of new players who just arrived in Portugal, President NiniUZB left a strict warning about the patience required by WarEra:

"Hold on until level 20+ in eco and until then, learn how to play and follow the government's orders. You will have time to help Portugal, but until then you need to resist the urge to switch to attack and delay your account just to deal a little bit of damage. WarEra only gets serious from level 25 onwards; from there on it's very addictive, but until then you just have to hold on."

Uzbekistan stands on the map today not as an enemy or a mere province, but as a living testament to a group of Portuguese players who, faced with dissatisfaction, decided to cross the globe and build their own vision of a nation.

To our exiled brothers in Uzbekistan: good luck. And to the new citizens in Portugal: listen to the veterans, build your factories, and be patient. The game, as they say, has only just begun.