TASHKENT -- Muzaffar looks proudly at his two-year-old son, Abduazim, scampering around the kitchen. "Tomorrow will be his first day at kindergarten. I want to make sure he gets the best education."
That's an opportunity Muzaffar missed growing up in the Uzbek city of Samarkand in the 1990s. Without the education he hopes his son will enjoy, Muzaffar took the well-trodden path to Moscow's construction sites as a teenager, before moving to South Korea to work in a glass factory.









