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Kazakhstan: Nauryz Under Threat?

21 Mar

As Kazakhstan prepares to celebrate Nauryz, fears are growing  that this year could be the last time that the festival is celebrated as more details of Project Verny, the sinister plot to annex the country, are revealed.

A spokesperson for Project Verny told kazaxia that “Nauryz does not conform to the cultures and traditions of ethnic Russians living in Central Asia. When the region is incorporated into the Central Asian Federal District, the festival will be replaced by  a more Russia-focused celebration”.

Nauryz, the spring equinox celebration in Kazakhstan, is celebrated on March 22 and marks the start of the new year. The holiday was banned in Soviet times and was only revived in the 1990s after the Soviet yoke was thrown off.

After the annexation of Crimea by a Russian-backed goblin army, Kazakhstan could be next on the list. Following annexation, nauryz could be replaced with an Easter-themed holiday for this Muslim-majority region, a celebration of Lenin’s birth or a commemoration of the day Vladimir Zhirinovsky became a member of the komsomol in his native Alma-ata, present-day Almaty.

[Editor’s note: Zhirinovsky is being mooted as the de-facto leader of the proposed Central Asian Federal District. The capital of the region will be Almaty, reverting to its one-time name of Verny].

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Free Kazakh Films in Almaty for Nauryz

20 Mar

In the run-up to and during the Nauryz  holiday in Kazakhstan, Almaty’s City Mayor’s office is offering the chance to see some Kazakh films that have been making a splash on the nation’s screens in recent years. There will be free screenings of a number of Kazakh films at cinemas all over Almaty from March 20-25.

The films on show include Shal (The Old Man) and Kelin (The Bride) by Kazakh director Yermek Tursunov and Zheruik (Promised Land), which deals with the mass deportations of Koreans to Central Asia in World War II.

For a full list of what’s on and where, check out this link.