The Gucci revolution
You’ve got to hand it to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the “democratically” elected president of Kazakhstan. The revolution he feared would come to his country, as in so many other former Soviet republics recently, has come and gone. Nazarbayev didn’t need guns for the battle. He won it by letting a Gucci clothing store open in what was once the land of Genghis Khan.
Read the rest of this very good IHT editorial here.
on December 10th, 2005 at 7:07 pm
The Gucci revolution in Kazakhstan has to do with the herritage that was left by Soviet Union to the country, even if it is not believable. While walking down the streets in Almaty I compare the buildings’ construction standard with that in Bishkek and see it clearly that they are three times, or maybe more, bigger than in Bishkek. There some kind of feeling of grandeur in the city of Almaty.
on January 10th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
“There some kind of feeling of grandeur in the city of Almaty.”
Yes. A sense of grandeur or… a complex?
“Almaty” badly digested the impoverishment right after the Soviet crash and now that things take off again it tries to compensates that with a fixation on having the biggest, the flashiest, the most expensive etc. etc. I just spent 1.5 months in Kazakhstan and it really stroke me: “see we have this just like in Europe and that just like in the US…” It’s a bit like the attitude of a provincial who became rich but is frustrated because he is not taken seriously by the urban high society.
“Life in this part of Kazakhstan provides the illusion of prosperity.”
Actually, you don’t have to go walk that far from the Gucci and Lancôme boutiques in Almaty to find that “other Almaty” – one that few expats and correspondents know. One that technically starts south of Gogol köshesi and the Zeliyonii Bazar and then spreads to the southern suburbs.
It is there that you’ll find the masses of impoverished rural migrants who try to eke out a living a petty traders, day labourers etc. A group whose life changed little compared to 1997 when I first came to Kazkahstan.
The real faultline in this country is no longer between Kazakhs and Russians but between those who benefited form the Nazarbayev reign (that group include a number of ethnic Russians) and those who have not (or did but see further amibitions blocked).
on June 7th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Hello dear Ataman Rakin! I would like to question your argument, tell me please, where you don’t see suburbs, and where you don’t see the rural migrants? Let’s look at the richest countries by gdp per capita, that is UAE, if you don’t know. We can see somebody rolling in a rolls royce phantom and couple of metres later we see a poor Pakistani worker cleaning the streets, who gets paid as little as able to survive. At least those living in suburbs are homeoners, well most of them, and therefore are benefitting from the growth of the house prices, allowing to withdraw their positive equity. And how do you like the fact that Kazakhstan is a developing economy? I’m pretty sure that if was not spending money on the infrastructure and propper buildings, i do not think that foreing investors would see any hope in this country. In fact it is not the government that is building those buildings, it is ther private sector businesses that provide contemporary living for those who can afford it, many of those buildings you saw i guess? Well that suggests that many of the people got richer or better off. Those who benefited from Nazarbayev you say? Well guess what, we all benefitted from him being there, if he was a selfish man that you international critics argue he is, then he would not have bothered to implement dynamic policies such as innovation initiatives not just to large companies, but to medium to small size enterprises. If he was a selfish dictator, then you would have seen second Uzbekistan, well thanks god he is what he is, a wonderfull president. Before you even start to simplify Kazakh politics down to the microscopic scale, look at the bigger picture. What did you expect from us? Not build anything at all, and dress bad? Would you be happy then , and leave us alone? Or would you expect an economy which has experienced a 300% stagflation when the USSR broke up, to start building sky scrapers, and at the same time deal with the problem of unequal distribution of wealth? Look at the USA for instance that you praise so much, i hope you do realise that top 5% of their population currently account for more than 50% of the total national income, why don’t you blame them for being unfair to the poor? We are developing, you have higher expectations? Fine, i can bet you that our own expectations of our country are many times higher than yours. Why don’t you leave us alone, and let us deal with our things, in our country, and you deal with yours. I’m pretty sure that where you come from, there are some serious problems of unemployment, and a much higher diversity between the rich and the poor, once you are able to tackle those, come back and talk to me. Ohhh yes, by the way, it is not the fixation that we try to compensate the empoverishment with, it is reality, if it was the fixation, then the building whould have been empty, wouldn’t they?
Good luck my friend, i hope that you will never ever say anything unjustified like this!
on June 7th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Oh, yeah by the way. We are not as narrow minded as you think we are. Just because we dress well it doesn’t mean we are filthy rich, spoiled, etc, etc. If you dress in Raebok and Abbibus, that’s your own problem.