Fans Launch Uzbek Princess’ Anthology

The daughter of Uzbekistan's Islam Karimov is surely blessing her fans today. Russian outlets report that Gulnara Karimova junkies are working overtime to polish her intricate image and help the rest of us keep up: They have released an e-book disk entitled “Guliko” on the livejournal-based guliclub.

The "promotional disc" includes photographs of Gulnara (presumably among A-class international celebrities, her favored adopted environment), her biography, a collection of her poems and songs, as well as pictures of her Guli jewelry collection, marketed by Switzerland’s Chopard.

Life in the spotlight is tough, however. Karimova’s attempts to maintain the image of western socialite while employing her celebrity friends -- usually western pop and opera singers -- to lend credibility to her father’s dictatorial regime have often backfired.

For example, when the British media learned that pop icon Sting received £2 million to play a gig in Uzbekistan, he called Googoosha’s dad a dictator “hermetically sealed in his own medieval, tyrannical mindset.” Embarrassing! 

And earlier this year, as Karimova attended a Cannes HIV fundraiser, activists used the opportunity to highlight her father’s jailing of a prominent HIV activist back at home. Ouch!

Will this latest publicity stunt polish Googoosha's image or are we in store for yet another juicy scandal?