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Kazakhstan: Not Like the Other “Stans”?

11 Feb

Following the worldwide media frenzy that resulted from President Nazarbayev’s impromptu remark about changing Kazakhstan’s name to Kazak Yeli/Qazaq Eli, kazaxia has decided to investigate claims that Kazakhstan is essentially different to the other “stans”  and should drop the “stan”  (Editor’s note: What’s wrong with Kazaxia as a new name for the country? ).

Just how different is Kazakhstan to its Central Asian neighbours? Let’s look at some key areas:

Politics – in the political sphere Kazakhstan shares some common ground with Uzbekistan in that it has only had one president since becoming independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. However, it is different to Turkmenistan, which is on its second incumbent, Tajikistan, which is also on number two and Kyrgyzstan, now on number four.

Leader popularity – there is a clear difference here as Kazakhstan is  only one of two “stans” where the president scored more than 95% of the popular vote in the last presidential election. President Nazarbayev was re-elected with a whopping 95.55% of the vote in 2011. Turkmenistan’s President Berdymukhamedov topped that with 97% in 2012 In contrast,  Uzbekistan’s President Karimov got 90.76% in 2007,,  Tajikistan’s President Rahmon received only 86.9% of the vote in 2013 and Kyrgyzstan’s President Atambayev trails in last place with a mere 63.2% in 2011.

Dealing with unsanctioned public protest – kazaxia has spotted some differences in dealing with participants in unsanctioned public protests between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In the most recent cases, four bloggers have been arrested in Kazakhstan – at the time of writing three have been imprisoned, a fourth, Dina Baidildayeva, is on trial on February 12 and could face some time inside. So that makes 75%. In Uzbekistan eight protesters were arrested for holding an illegal rally outside the Ukranian embassy – three were given 15-day jail terms. So that makes 37.5%.

President Nazarbayev, speaking at a meeting with cultural figures, where he was asked about changing the country’s name, in Atyrau on February 6, cited  Mongolia (which, of course,  has no “stan” ) as an example of a country that “foreigners show interest” in. Mongolia is unusual in Central Asian countries in that is an island of freedom in a sea of not-free countries, according to this infographic from Freedom House. 

So, we can conclude that Kazakhstan sure is different form its neighbours, but whether matters will be helped by a name change is up for debate.

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Dariga Nazarbayeva – Queen of the Freaks

13 Dec

Whoops – President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter, Dariga, put her foot in it in a spectacular fashion on 11 December when she described disabled children as “freaks”.

Nazarbayeva suggested that teenage pregnancies could be discouraged by arranging school visits to orphanages for children with disabilities – in her strange world these “freaks”, as she refers to the unfortunate inhabitants of the orphanages, are linked to ” an unreasoned, premature sex life”.

Dariga – Queen of the Freaks?

Maybe compulsory viewing in schools of Kazakhstan’s Queen of the Freaks in action would be enough to put people off ever having kids. Dariga would be well-advised to watch Tod Browning’s 1932 classic “Freaks” to see what fate could await her if she continues to make disparaging comments about others.

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The Golden Pug Awards 2013

6 Dec

Yes, it’s that time of year again; the awards season is upon us and Kazaxia has teamed up with our main sponsor, Almaty’s Golden Pug Bar ‘n’ Grill, and Kazakhstan’s kyurdak producers to bring you the 2013 Golden Pug Awards, which this year are awarded in five categories.

The Hugh New Prize

This year’s Hugh New Prize, in memory of the famous British journo, goes to all those Central Asia watchers who came up with the groundbreaking revelations about political analyst Usman Khakhnazarov (first reported in 2003). Yes, it is indeed a pseudonym that has been used by different authors over the years and not a real person.

The Golden Pug Original Research Award

Gerri Peev of the UK’s Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday takes this year’s Original Research Award for her “borrowing” (without attribution) of quotes from The Guardian relating to Tony Blair. We expect nothing less of the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday and the consistently low standards of its online content providers.

The Golden Pug Lifetime Achievement (Central Asia) Award

This year’s Golden Pug Lifetime Achievement (Central Asia) Award goes to Joshua Foust, who has strode the world of Central Asian analysis like a colossus for many years. Now he is bowing out from the journalistic limelight to focus on new pastures. Who among us can forget his memorable ramble through the culinary backwaters of Kyrgyzstan in his piece on the Fajitas of Osh?

Kyurdak Republican Association of Producers (Krap) Award

Pyotor Leopard, who journeyed through Central Asia on a penny farthing this summer – fuelled only by kyurdak, that classic of Kazakh cuisine (fried offal served up with onion and peppers), has been awarded a Kyurdak Gold Card by the Kyurdak Republican Association of Producers, that entitles him to walk into any greasy spoon in Kazakhstan and eat his favourite dish to his heart’s content.

The Golden Pug “Spotlight” Award

There was really only one person in the running for this award, which is given to an individual or team that has done the most to put Central Asia in the spotlight. It is, of course, Gérard Depardieu.

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The Blair Rich Project

16 Nov

The jury is still out over the impact that Tony Blair Associates has had on Kazakhstan over the last two years. The former UK prime minister’s consultancy has been advising Astana on a variety of issues since October 2011 in a project dubbed by some observers as “The Blair Rich Project”.

While many Kazakhstan-watchers have pointed to a worsening of the human rights situation and a widespread crackdown in the country since the December 2011 Zhanaozen riots, when 15 protestors were killed, Tony’s crew has witnessed a somewhat different scene.

Using the rose-tinted spectacles supplied by Astana, Tony Blair Associates (TBA) rejected notions of a crackdown, telling the Guardian: “We simply do not agree that the situation in this regard has deteriorated.”

It seems they hadn’t spotted an opposition leader getting jailed for apparently organising the trouble in Zhanaozen, other dissenting political voices being neutered, the silencing of critical media outlets and a further scaling back of the right to free assembly.

The tw0-year contract has just finished and is supposedly up for renewal, but Lord Venal is sceptical it will be prolonged.

“Astana paid $26 million for the services of TBA and, quite frankly, were expecting a bit more Blair for their bucks,” he told Kazaxia.

Tony has only paid flying visits to Kazakhstan, deputising the work to others in his team as he globetrots around sorting out the planet’s problems.

“For that sort of money, Kazakhstan could have bought a million twitter shares (priced initially at $26 a pop), a bar of Kazakhstan chocolate for every person in the country, or around 20% of the Welsh wizard, Gareth Bale,” Lord Venal added.

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Another Busy Week for Kazakhstan’s Lawmakers?

4 Oct

Kazakhstan’s parliament has been sitting this last week and it has been grappling with one of the key issues that is preying on voter’s minds – same-sex relationships.

Never mind that many in this energy rich country are without running water and reliable energy supplies, or that some of the disaffected  have been turning to militant Islam in recent years. Lawmakers in the multi-party parliament, which consists of Nur Otan, the pro-presidential party, Ak Zhol, the pro-business and pro-presidential party, and the Communist pro-presidential party, have been getting hot under the collar over same-sex relationships.

As the debate was raging in parliament (or, more likely, deputy Bakhytbek Smagul took his colleagues on a rambling trip through his ill-informed thoughts on homosexuality), the head of the first department of the General Prosecutor’s Office, Almas Mukhamejanov, called for harsh penalties for another key issue in the country – human cloning.

Currently human cloning does not carry a custodial sentence in Kazakhstan, but Mukhamejanov suggested punishing human cloning by imprisonment for a term of 5 years, and up to 12 years if the crime was committed by an organized criminal group.

Kazaxia asked Lord Venal about these developments and he suggested that they might be linked to Tony Blair, who became a Catholic in 2007. His consultancy, Tony Blair Associates, is getting paid a packet (some sources claim $13 million a year) to advise Kazakhstan’s government.

Do the Blairites have a sinister anti-gay cloning message that they are trying to push onto the unsuspecting Kazakh public in the guise of consulting on governance?

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Alga Shaky Kangaroos!

1 Oct

Kazakhstan’s Shakhter Karagandy, better known to some UK supporters as the Shaky Kangaroos, is set to make its home debut in the Europa League this Thursday with the visit of Israel’s Maccabi Haifa to the Astana Arena, where Shakhter are playing its home legs. It is the first time a team from Kazakhstan has reached the group stages of Europe’s second tier contest.

Kazaxia is predicting a close run thing with both clubs losing their openers in Group L, with Shakhter losing 2-1 to Greece’s PAOK and Maccabi going down 1-0 at home to Holland’s AZ Alkmaar.

According to Lord Venal, the result will hinge on whether or not Shakhter will be allowed to sacrifice a sheep before the match. It was prevented from doing this before its second leg tie with Scotland’s Glasgow Celtic and subsequently lost 3-0 and failed to qualify for the Champions League.

The match has sparked a lot of interest in Kazakhstan with some fans even prepared to travel overnight by bus from the business hub of Almaty to the capital Astana.

For 20,000 tenge ($130) the bus will take the fans from Almaty’s Central Stadium to the Astana Arena with guaranteed match tickets, before making the 12-hour or so journey back down south. Kazaxia hopes that the trip will be worth it for these die hard fans.

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Turkic Body Talk

13 Sep

Here’s an interesting image from last month’s meeting of the Turkic Council in Azerbaijan. Look who’s holding centre stage – yes, it’s none other than Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Paying rapt attention to the elder statesman of Turkic politics are Kyrgyzstan’s President Almazbek Atambayev, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and his bespectacled friend. Turkey’s President Abdullah Gül looks on bemused as the others chat away, presumably, in Russian. Kazaxia’s favourite is the uncomfortable looking guy on the far left – Turkmenistan’s Vice-President Sapardurdi Toylıyev, who appears to be to nervous to catch anyone’s eye less he get into trouble back in Ashgabat.

Turkic Council not effective due to conflicting interests

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Kazakhstan: Reality vs. Image

18 Jul

Quick now, when’s the last time you read or heard anything about Kazakhstan in the Huffington Post?

I thought so. It was the July 1 story about a Russian rocket crashing in Kazakhstan after its launch (“Russian Rocket Crashes in Kazakhstan After Launch”).

No? Then surely it was the June 30 feature on British PM David Cameron’s trip to Atyrau and Astana to drum up some business for the UK and not discuss human rights too much less it offend his hosts (“David Cameron in Kazakhstan for Trade and Human Rights Talks”).

Not that either? Then it must have been the story about Borat (remember him?) from April 23, 2012 (“Borat Still Boosting Kazakhstan Tourism”).

No matter. The point is that Kazakhstan, a country the size of Western Europe with vast reserves of oil that rose from the ashes of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 and has been ruled forever by Nursultan Nazarbayev, is rarely featured in the Huffington Post unless it’s a negative story or some free positive PR for the authorities in Astana (“Kazakhstan:Image vs. Reality”).

(with thanks to Al Eisele, Editor-at-Large, The Hill)

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Are Central Asian Leaders Merely Mortal, After All?

23 May

Alarming evidence has appeared over recent months that some Central Asian leaders may, in fact, be merely mortal, despite claims to the contrary, as the leaders of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan both hit the headlines recently with health scares.

When President Berdymuhkamedov took a tumble from his mount in a horse race in which he won an $11 million prize, he also took a fall from the notion that he was, if not immortal, at least a demi-god.

Rumours of Uzbekistan’s President Karimov suffering a heart attack in March set alarm bells ringing that the long-serving president was, after all, prone to the same fate as we mere mortals. Karimov’s health has long been a subject of debate – a few years ago he was apparently at death’s door with leukemia.

In neighbouring Kazakhstan, President Navarbayev only has to hop on to a plane for rumours to start flying that he is going abroad for major surgery, calling into question his status as a potential demi-god.

In the cases of Karimov and Nazarbayev, both are in their 70s so it’s not really surprising that their respective states of health should be of concern . A doctor, contacted by Kazaxia, confirmed that most likely both, as indeed all the leaders, will one day die if it turns out that  they are not immortal.

As for the others, Kyrgyzstan’s President Atambayev allegedly enjoys getting thoroughly mortal on occasion, which rules him out and Tajikistan’s Rahmon is quite possibly immortal, although he will probably achieve his vicarious immortality through the fruit of his loins as has happened in North Korea, Azerbaijan, and Syria, although, of course, his successor should be wary of how things have panned out for President al-Assad.

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Kazakhstan: It’s a Clan Thing

20 May

Kazakhstan is positioning itself as wannabe modern democratic state, but in reality life in the country is still underpinned by the zhuz or clan system. This system dates back to the 16th or 17th century and ethnic Kazakhs belong to one of of three clan groupings – the Uly (Senior) Zhuz, the Orta (Middle) Zhuz and the Kishi (Junior) Zhuz.

The clans are further sub-divided into a number of tribes and this provides a network for members of the same tribe to help each other get ahead in life The clans also play an important role in politics, with a number of cabinet ministers hailing from the same clan grouping as President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Uly Zhuz.

The Uly Zhuz traditionally inhabited the areas around Almaty in the south-east of Kazakhstan, while the Orta Zhuz is located in the north and centre of the country. The Kishi Zhuz inhabits the oil-rich west of Kazakhstan.

Check out this informative graphic for an overview of the clan and tribal system in Kazakhstan. For more on the influence of clans in the political arena, Kazaxia recommends these academic works by Edward Schatz – Modern Clan Politics: The Power of “Blood” in Kazakhstan and Beyond and Sally Cummings  Kazakhstan: Power and the Elite.

 

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