…reads one of the slogans of the Socialist Resistance sprayed on houses in Taraz. Evidently, the young Socialist movement is still alive in places such as Taraz.

On top of these graffitis, several (well, three) of Taraz’s Socialist Resistance Movement members held a march to the presidential Nur-Otan party building a few days ago, holding up banners reading “NUR-OTAR - for the eternal Khan” (a thinly-disguised shot at President Nazarbayev).

Ferghana.ru has a backgrounder on the protest:

The latest SocRes public action left the usually tranquil Taraz in turmoil only recently, on July 16. Three young men calling themselves “monarchists from the Nur-Otar party” [a distorted name of the president’s Nur-Otan party; “otar” stands for a herd - Ferghana.Ru] marched with placards to the local Nur-Otan office. The protesters wore sheep masks and T-shirts bearing legends “Nur-Otan for the eternal Khan” and “Khan - the father, anarchy - the mother”. Several journalists accompanies the young provocateurs. The “sheep” were brutally herded out of Nur-Otan office.

There aren’t too many of these young activists in the country apparently. And the authorities are, well, irritated.

“Initially, these guys are from the youth wing of the Communist Party,” akimat or city administration official explained off the record. “They number only 13 in all of the country. The bastards should be hunted down and eliminated, if you ask me.”

Unsurprisingly, they got kicked out of the party office fairly quickly. Usually, Kazakhstan’s SocRes is keeping a low profile and is making use of digital communication to coordinate its actions:

Taraz activists of Socialist Resistance remain cautiously out of the spotlight. Try as he might, this correspondent never managed to contact or meet even one of them. Modern technologies offered by Internet came in handy. “Sure, we aspire for a revolution but a revolution in mass consciousness, in their evaluation of socioeconomic situation in the country,” Kurmanov replied via e-mail.

The last time the Socialist Resistance Movement appeared in English language news was during last year’s housing riots in Almaty.

On a slightly related note, a really interesting academic backgrounder on political graffiti in a post-socialist society (Bulgaria) is here (PPT).