A nation with strong economic growth and a majority Muslim population free of religious extremism. One that borders two major powers as well as nations with potentially radical religious movements. One with oil, and great possibility for much more, in a world economy handcuffed over black gold.
This island of stability is Kazakhstan. At least […]
In March the two main mobile phone operators in Kazakhstan (K-Cell and K-Mobile) began permitting SMS between networks. Previously one could only SMS to mobiles on the same network and to mobiles abroad where agreements existed.
This is a small example of the evolution of the Kazakh economy and its competition practises. Some food for […]
Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea fleet is being extended, both through international assistance and domestic construction of new patrol vessels. But from which of the five littoral states does Kazakhstan need protection?
The last notably serious military incident in the Caspian dates back to the 24th of July 2001, when an Iranian gunboat ordered BP research […]
Yesterday’s orchestrated launch of the government’s new funding for science development is a good example of the intelligent approach Nazarbayev’s team has to governing.
Kazakhstan is to increase spending on science development by 25 times until 2012, reaching 350 billion tenge. Nursultan Nazarbayev announced this spending boost while reading a lecture at the Gumilyov Eurasian National University.
Universities will play a new role of scientific complexes, engaged not only in training, but also in fundamental and applied research in […]
Learn how a marshrutka gets you around, about Kazakh food and its Central Asian – USSR influence…
I run a podcast called Kazakhstan Stories:
“Life in Kazakhstan - from first hand accounts to the sounds of life (via minidisc) we will discover the joys, ingenuity and challenges from everyday life in this part of Central Asia.”
Access […]
Westerners like me have difficulties in differentiating the terms nationality and citizenship in most parts of the former USSR, including Kazakhstan.
Here, citizenship is the nation of which you possess a passport and nationality is the ethnic group one defines oneself from. For example, on the passport of someone of Ukrainian origin living in Kazakhstan, […]
Everybody speaks Russian and most Kazakhs also speak some level of Kazakh. In this the most russified country in Central Asia the lingua franca is Russian.
The South in more ethnic Kazakh and the Kazakh language is used more than in the North. In the North, which was majority Russian in the time of the […]
What follows is one part of a cross-blog initiative, which takes the role of Islam in Central Asia and the Caucasus as its central theme:
“We are Sunni Muslims and must follow this path”.
President Nazarbayev, 1999
Kazakhstan’s post-independence period is still too short to draw robust conclusions about the interplay between religion, politics and society. Nevertheless, […]
A book should be written on Nursultan Nazarbayev’s 16 plus years as the top man in Kazakhstan. Western news highlights the corruption and lack of full democracy but there are tangible reasons he is in power and is overwhelmingly popular. He is not a dictator, has more like a Macavellian approach.
Issue #1: Ethnic peace
Due […]
