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Kazakhstan: Almaty Jewellery Wars Hot Up

15 Jun

Chopard face off with Alsara in central Almaty

The battle of high-end jewellery designers – Aliya Nazarbayeva and Gulnara Karimova – is hotting up as Chopard, the Swiss company working with Gulnara, placed a billboard directly opposite one advertising Aliya’s Alsara brand on the junction of Abylay Khan and Kurmangazy streets in the centre of Almaty.

As reported on Kazaxia in April, the youngest daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev launched her exclusive jewellery collection through the auspices of Italian company Damiani. This made her the second Central Asian president’s daughter to enter the world of jewellery design, following in the footsteps of Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov’s eldest daughter, who launched her Guli collection in collaboration with Chopard in 2009.

Aliya’s posters feature her glamorous visage beaming down from the billboard at the teeming masses of motorists sitting in Almaty’s notorious traffic jams. One could not accuse Ms Nazarbayeva of modesty, as another billboard stands at the entrance to the Luxor fitness centre. She is rumoured to own the luxurious facility which is said to have been inspired by a visit to the fabled city in Egypt.

Still no word on Aliya shadowing Gulnara – also known by her stage name of Googoosha – into the world of music. Maybe she’s leaving that to her opera-singing elder sister Dariga, who has often performed on Kazakhstan’s stages and further afield, including Moscow.

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Kazakhstan: Heading for the Hills

2 Jun

Yum yum ... horses grazing at Ush Konyr

It’s that time of the year in Kazakhstan when people in years gone by would have made off for the high pastures with their horses, cows and sheep in the annual migration to the rich upland grazing land known as the zhaylau. The summer months would be spent fattening up the animals – and the humans – on the riches in the mountains in preparation for the long, cold winter.

Wild flowers in Ush Konyr

Soviet-era collectivisation put paid to this nomadic existence and few people in modern-day Kazakhstan still follow the wandering traditions, but come the weekend and many city-dwellers still feel the call of the wild and take off to the mountains in their 4x4s for a spot of communing with nature and to get their supper by picking wild mushrooms.

Mushroom mania

Last weekend Kazaxia joined the exodus and visited Ush Konyr, which is easily reached from Almaty – head for President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s home village of Shamalgan and then follow the track that winds steeply up to the 3,000 metre pastures. In no time at all you’re in the rolling grasslands where President Nazarbayev spent his early years. He had such fond memories of this carefree existence that he penned a song about it. See it performed here by Kazakh band MuzArt.

More wild flowers in Ush Konyr

The smog and noise of Almaty feel light years away as you breathe in the clean air and concentrate on foraging for edible mushrooms and admiring the rich covering of wild flowers. You’ll see packs of horses grazing as you hike around and the occasional paraglider taking flight, but not a great deal else will intrude to spoil your peace and quiet.

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Edgy Almaty Art

21 May

Almaty-based artist Justin Mulrooney, who is originally from Ireland, has launched a new website containing two collections of his provocative artwork.

Riverbank

He works in the medium of photograms – photographic images made without using a camera. The image is made by putting an object between a source of light  and paper that is sensitive to light.

O'Connell

Images from the  first collection – Vertebrae – caused a stir among Almaty’s art cognoscenti when exhibited at the Tengri Umai gallery in 2009. The other collection –Maps -is based on his travels around the world.

Athens

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Kazakhstan: Strange Days

18 May

17 May 2011 will go down in the annals of Kazakh history for the dubious distinction of being the day the country had its first suicide bomber and for an unprecedented hailstorm in the commercial hub Almaty.

25-year-old Rakhimzhan Makatov killed himself and injured two others in a blast that targeted the HQ of the KNB, Kazakhstan’s successor to the KGB, in the western city of Aktobe. Officials linked the suicide bombing to organised crime and claimed that Makatov killed himself in order to avoid responsibility for crimes he was alleged to have committed.

In a modus operandi more associated with religious extremists rather than the mafia, early suspicions were that the bomber was acting out of religious convictions, but this announcement by a prosecutor’s office spokesperson served to quash any whiff of links to Islamic radicals. Religious extremism is felt by many to be on the rise in western Kazakhstan.

In the south of the country, there was a massive hailstorm in Almaty which caused damage to trees and parked cars. The intense storm lasted for about 20 minutes and the hailstones were described variously by eye-witnesses as being the size of olives, egg yolks or cherry tomatoes.

The sudden storm was preceded by two days of high temperatures with the mercury touching 32 degrees Celsius on 16 May – temperatures more usually found at the height of summer. The storm caused extensive damage with trees were brought down on some central Almaty streets leaving a number of cars trashed.

Strange days, indeed, in Kazakhstan.

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Rip-Off Kazakhstan

11 May

This is the first in an occasional series of Rip-Off Kazakhstan (ROK) awards made by Kazaxia to businesses in the country offering poor value-for-money.

Congratulations to Rakhat Fitness in Almaty – the first business in Kazakhstan to receive a ROK award.

With summer just around the corner, this fitness centre has decided to introduce a 50% price hike – previously a monthly 12-visit pass cost 17,000 tenge ($117), now it’s 25,000 tenge ($172) or around $15 per swim.

That might not seem too bad, but for that you are allowed 75 minutes a session to change, shower and swim, and that’s if you’re lucky and there’s room in the pool.

The 50-metre pool is currently under repair and is closed until 22 May so wannabe swimmers will have to fight it out with the water polo teams for a small slice of the 25-metre pool.

The owners can’t be short of a bob or two – the fitness complex was formerly owned by Rakhat Aliyev,  the former husband of Dariga Nazarbayeva, eldest daughter of  President Nursultan  Nazarbayev.  It is rumoured that many of his assets were transferred to his ex-wife, although who  owns the fitness centre is unclear.

Aliyev, who is now living in exile in in Vienna, Austria, was sentenced in absentia  to a 20-year prison term after being found guilty of running a crime ring, abduction, theft and extortion in 2008. In the same year he was sentenced to another 2o years by a  secret military court for

attempting to forcibly seize power, illegally receiving and divulging state secrets, running an organized crime group, theft and illegal possession of firearms, theft of state property and abuse of power

Aliyev was famed in Kazakhstan as a ruthless money-grabber and is seems his legacy lives on with the current owners of Rakhat Fitness continuing to coin it in.

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Futsal Finals Come to Almaty

26 Apr

Baluan Sholak Sports Palace Almaty - venue for UEFA Futsal Cup finals 2011

Almaty will put itself on the map of international sporting events this weekend as it hosts the  UEFA Futsal Cup finals. It’s the first time ever that Kazakhstan has been chosen to host the finals of a UEFA tournament.

Local favourites Kairat Almaty will face off with Sporting Clube de Portugal on April29. Later that day SL Benfica, also from Portugal, will take on Italy’s  ASD Città di Montesilvano C/5. The winners of these two games will battle it out in the final on May 1.

Futsal is basically five-a-side football played in an indoor arena. The match consists of two halves of 20 minutes and unlimited substitutions are allowed at any time from a pool of 12 players.

Kairat are a force to be reckoned with in Futsal – it has made the semi-finals of this annual  tournament three times since 2006. Kazakh midfielder Dinmukhambet Suleimenov is confident that Kairat, which has eight Brazillians on its books, can use its home advantage and be crowned UEFA Futsal champions for 2011

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Lord Venal’s Election Day Snaps

20 Apr

Students eager to vote despite bad weather

Babies for Nazarbayev!

Pie seller at polling station ponders how to cast her vote

Lord Venal exhausted after a hard days observing

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Aliya Nazarbayeva – The Next GooGoosha?

19 Apr

News reaches Kazaxia that Aliya Nazarbayeva, the youngest daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has teamed up with Italian jewellers Damiani to produce Alsara, an exclusive collection of 30 diamond-studded pieces.

Billboards have appeared at major junctions around Almaty promoting the Alsara collection with Aliya modelling a pair of very expensive-looking dangle earrings. The brand is a combination of the names of Aliya and her mother Sara and is aimed at Kazakhstan’s high-rollers with prices ranging from 15,000 to 70,000 euros.

The collection has echoes of GULI, the jewellery brand of Gulnara Karimova, a fellow president’s daughter from neighbouring Uzbekistan. Gulnara, or GooGoosha to her adoring public, has also made herself a singing career – can we expect to hear Aliya bursting into song soon?

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Take Cover – The Liquidator’s Here

7 Apr

The Liquidator is Here!

“The Liquidator,” Akan Satayev’s new film, opens today in Kazakhstan on the back of a huge publicity drive. With a barrage of posters to rival in numbers those of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s recent re-election campaign, the hype surrounding this Kazakh blockbuster has been hard to avoid.

This film tells the story of a bodyguard seeking to avenge the suspicious death of his brother. The film stars Kazakh actors Berik Aitzhanov and Aziz Beshenaliev along with British hard-man Vinnie Jones, who features in the movie as a mute hired killer.

Click here to see a trailer for “The Liquidator”

Only Vinnie was felt to bring the requisite level of menace to the venture with his track record of playing violent, sometimes deranged characters. He made his debut in 1998 in Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and has since cornered the market in these menacing roles.

Satayev’s first film “Racketeer” was a box-office smash in Kazakhstan in 2007. It told the story of a boxer making his way in the violent underbelly of Almaty in the chaotic 1990s. His next feature “Strayed” was in the running for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film this year and dealt with the mystery surrounding a family stranded on the steppe.

His next production “Myn Bala” will go back to the past to explore the struggle between the Kazkahs and their biggest foes the Zhungars in the 18th century. In the meantime you’ll have to make do with “The Liquidator”, a tale of gory 21st century vengeance.

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Kazakhstan Election Guide

25 Mar

With just over a week to go until the presidential elections in Kazakhstan on April 3, there is little sign that the poll has caught the public’s imagination. With the main opposition party representatives either boycotting, refusing to take part or disallowed from the election, the electorate has been left a choice between four men of varying shades of grey.

Here’s Kazaxia’s guide to who’s taking part with a look at their campaign posters that are on display in the centre of Almaty. Hot favourite to win the poll is the incumbent Nursultan Nazarbayev – he’s joined in the vote by eco-warrior Mels Yeleusizov, diehard commie Zhambyl Akhmetbekov and the joker in the pack Gani Kasymov.

The Leader

The sitting president looks serious in his campaign poster that appears all over Almaty. In office since 1991, he doesn’t need any catchy slogans – his poster merely reads: “We’re voting for the Leader”. His posters are placed apart from those of his opponents as he maintains an aloof position above the rough and tumble of politics.

Mels gives commuters a hard stare

Trying to win the green vote is long-term environmental campaigner Mels Yeleusizov. Often to be found clearing up his compatriots’ litter and planting trees, Yeleusizov looks down sternly at motorists from his pedestal on a flyover in the centre of Almaty. Maybe he’s trying to prick the consciences of the jeep-driving masses as they sit in traffic on their way home.

Kazakh workers of the world unite!

The Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan, as opposed to the Communist Party of Kazakhstan which is not fielding a candidate, is presenting a gritty, working class image to the voters with blue-collar workers posing in their mines and factories.  Somewhat appropriately, their billboard is attached to the side of a building site.

The joker in the pack

The joker in the pack is Gani Kasymov, head of the pro-Nazarbayev Party of Patriots. Earlier in the campaign, he shied away from an interview with Radio Free Europe when he realised he would have to answer questions about what he stood for. His campaign poster reads cryptically “My way is the way of the people”. Is he being secretive or is it just that he doesn’t have any ideas?

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