The Innovative Mr. Vassilenko
For all the grumbling done on this and other sites regarding the government of Kazakhstan’s undemocratic tendencies, the truth, as anyone who has traveled to Central Asia knows, is that the nation is miles ahead of the other former-Soviet republics in the region in many other respects: trade, finance, infrastructure, women’s rights, etc.
Here is another field in which Kazakhstan appears to have taken the lead: public relations. Following “Borat: Cultural Learning for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” the Nazarbaev government has gone on the offensive to counter what it sees as gross caricatures of the Kazakh people and Kazakhstani nation. After a first clumsy attempt to intimidate Sasha Baren Cohen, the comedian behind “Borat”, the Kazakhstani Government, and particularly the Kazakhstani Embassy to the United States and Canada, seems to have wizened up to a more positive approach.
A case and point: pro-Kazakhstan clips are now available on YouTube. Take a look at “Kazakhstan: Reaching for the Future”, “Kazakhstan: A Leader in Central Asia”, and “Kazakhstan Unveiled”. While one may question the absolute accuracy of some of these videos, the truth is that putting them on YouTube is a stroke of genius. And who is rvassilenko, the poster of all these clips? He is none other than Roman Vassilenko, Press Secretary of the Kazakhstani Embassy. Mr. Vassilenko has recently been very active in a number of publications, and seems to be taking the lead in capitalizing on the potential benefits of the “Borat” film, even speaking with NPR’s “All Things Considered”.
One of the YouTube clips has more than 10,000 viewings. And while it may seem obvious to those of us in the electronic blogosphere, utilizing YouTube as a PR device is without a doubt the one of cleverest things a Central Asian embassy has done in a long time.
on January 20th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Arthur,
great stuff, we always thought about posting something on Mr. Vassilenko (I called him the Cyber-Ambassador of Kazakhstan once). There’s a discussion of the latest video over at The Registan.
And you’re right, the grumbling has been a bit predominant here lately (let’s hope that this can change).
on January 21st, 2007 at 8:27 pm
The grumbling is important to offset the ceaseless rhetoric coming from Astana and the essentially state or Nazarbaev controlled media. As long as the criticism is well researched and reasonable, I think it helps push Kazakhstan towards the democratic ideals it claims to aspire towards.
However, I thought Neweurasia needed some kind of link to YouTube, now that the mainstream media has declared it the greatest thing since sliced bread.
on January 23rd, 2007 at 5:42 am
if I can toot Mr. Vassilenko’s horn further, I wrote to him several years ago asking to subscribe to the Embassy e-newsletter in awful Russian, primitively transcribed to Latin letters. He wrote back a cheery little message! Ever since then I have had affection in my heart for him.