“I serve my father”: 42 facts about Saida Mirziyoyeva

Saida, the elder daughter of Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has turned 42. She is described as one of the most influential figures in the country’s political hierarchy and a possible successor to her father.

We have gathered the most interesting facts about the “Uzbek princess”, from her rapid rise to her family habits and personal admissions. The details are here at Mezon.

No detours

Before entering high politics, Saida worked at the Agency of Information and Mass Communications, which is responsible for state information policy. It was set up in 2019 on the initiative of Mirziyoyev senior and dealt with information policy and relations with the media. The agency was headed by Komil Allamjonov, whom journalists nicknamed Saida’s “godfather”. Allamjonov is believed to have advised the president’s daughter, helped her overcome political barriers and remained her confidant right up until the attempt on his life in October 2024.

Saida presented herself as a defender of free speech. In a 2020 interview with Kun.uz she said that “freedom of speech and quality journalism are essential conditions of a democratic society”.

Alongside this, in March 2019, Saida launched her own public project, “Ko‘ngil ko‘zi” (“Eyes of the Heart”), to support blind and partially sighted children. Under the project, medical examinations were carried out and treatment was organised for three thousand children with impaired vision, pupils of specialised boarding schools across Uzbekistan. In 2021 Saida reported that 630 successful operations had been carried out under the project.

In 2022 she became head of communications and information policy at the Presidential Administration, and in 2023 she became an aide to her father.

In August 2026 it was written into law that the head of the Presidential Administration is also deputy chairman of Uzbekistan’s Security Council. Saida thus gained additional powers and the ability to work with the country’s security agencies.

What is more, Saida received lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution under the law on the status of the Presidential Administration.

Carnegie analyst Galiya Ibragimova called Saida the president’s most trusted adviser and linked her growing influence to Mirziyoyev’s increasing reliance on his own family.

The rise of the president’s daughter has become a subject of analysis in its own right in the international media. Journalists quote experts explaining why people in Uzbekistan increasingly speak of Saida as her father’s possible successor, although no preparations for a transfer of power have been officially announced.

Mirziyoyev will announce: “I have prepared a successor for you”, and the people will accept it all as a matter of course and, as usual, vote for the successor.

Alisher Taksanov, former Uzbek diplomat

Today you will hardly come across the colourful comparison of Saida Mirziyoyeva with Gulnara Karimova, the previous “Uzbek princess”, on Uzbek social media pages. How the political career of the country’s “first daughter” ended is well known: with a prison sentence.

Her father’s servant

In 2025 Saida Mirziyoyeva was given an award by the University of Oxford as a defender of women’s rights. She does indeed campaign actively for Uzbek women’s access to education and calls for tougher criminal penalties for domestic violence.

And in September 2026 she added another post to her portfolio: managing director of the Tashkent International Financial Centre. This is a special economic zone for attracting foreign investment that operates on the principles of English common law.

In January 2026 the Uzbek leader’s elder daughter gave her first long interview, to the journalist Kirill Altman for the Alter Ego project. Saida Mirziyoyeva spoke about the five priorities of her work: water, education, healthcare, business and the judicial and legal system. And the head of the Presidential Administration called international diplomacy and dialogue “one of the most interesting areas of work” for her.

According to Saida, she agrees her work decisions with her father and very much wants to see her dad happy. And that, as Altman’s interviewee puts it, is possible only if the country Mirziyoyev has led for 10 years “enjoys prosperity and well-being”.

Only the formal “you”

Saida is married to Oybek Tursunov. Her husband has repeatedly featured in journalistic investigations “as a businessman and financier pulling off dubious deals”. But neither Oybek himself, nor his wife, nor his high-ranking father-in-law responds to these revealing publications, and awkward questions from journalists asking them to explain, for example, the purchase of property in central Tashkent at a knock-down price go unanswered.

Saida and Oybek have three children: two sons, Miromon and Shavkat, and a daughter, Saodatkhon. The younger son was named after his grandfather.

He was born in September 2020. At that time a tragedy took place in Namangan. A 35-year-old woman set herself on fire in protest against her forced eviction from her home. She had fallen victim to fraudsters, and bailiffs enforcing a court ruling in favour of the rightful owner came to take her home away.

Saida wrote on her Telegram channel that she was lulling her baby to sleep not with fairy tales but with the news.

“It hurts me to see that the machinery of justice instantly becomes fast and powerful and works at full strength against women and journalists, while against men and officials it often stalls. You cannot deprive someone of their liberty for answering an insult and at the same time ‘punish’ eight years of abuse with reconciliation. You cannot treat a girl as a thing just because she is small and will put up with it, and decide for her whether she was hurt or not. It is unacceptable to persecute people for their own opinions without a trial,” the young mother lamented.

If we want justice, let the law work the same way in both directions. If we want to live in a happy country, we need to protect women from the priority given to men, and journalists from pressure. As for women: it is hard enough for us to be equal to men in everything when we have children in our arms, and each of us loses several years of her career when a child is born. And on top of that, this is sometimes held against us.

Saida Mirziyoyeva

The large Mirziyoyev family has a strict hierarchy: the younger sister, Shakhnoza, for example, addresses Saida, who is just a year older, with the formal “you”. And Saida described her mother, Ziroat, as someone who creates an atmosphere of warmth, love and emotional balance at home, unlike her imperious father.

“But since childhood I have seen myself as a leader and always strived for more, and my mother used to joke that our Saida was born with a ‘questioning look’,” the president’s elder daughter said.

Saida did not deny that intrigues are being spun in the president’s circle. But which court manages without conspiracies? Saida, too, called court intrigue an ordinary part of life.

Saida Mirziyoyeva does not hide her private life from her followers and actively posts family photos on Instagram: of herself with her husband, and of her laughing children.

Author’s note

Saida Mirziyoyeva shows that she combines several roles with ease: defender of women and journalists, philanthropist, influential official and devoted daughter of the president. But behind the public image of a progressive political figure, many questions remain, from how independent her decisions really are to family interests intertwined with those of the state. Perhaps this is the main paradox of the “Uzbek princess”: the higher she climbs the career ladder, the harder it becomes to separate her personal achievements from her father’s power.