Jul 11 2007

A Day At The Races

Category: Eating Out,Friends,Kazakhstan,Personal,PicturesChrisM @ 9:26 pm

Whilst Alex was here, and during the week long celebrations for Astana being the capital city, and President Nazarbayev’s birthday, we all went to an afternoon of events over at a new race track they have built near Astana.

Kokpar Kyz Kuu Astana Kazakhstan 2007

During the day, we saw a horse race, some fine equine skills (see above) that involved gymnastics on horses, and a game of goat polo. In case you have not come across it before, this is a game where two opposing teams, who are on horses, wrestle a goat carcass from the ground, then try to place it in the opposing team’s goal. The other team obviously want to stop them from doing this, and so block the players’ horses, and try to steal the goat for themselves.
Luckily, the new grand stand had a roof, so we did not over heat or burn on the fine hot & sunny day. They even gave out free beshparmak!

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Jun 19 2007

Pres Answers The Public

Category: In The Media,KazakhstanChrisM @ 3:11 am

And it is KZBlog to the rescue again 🙂

They have posted a small summary (and some relevant links to other related posts) of President Nazarbayev’s online press conference, where he answered questions electronically submitted by citizens. See What Would You Like To Ask Him? for a little background on the process that occurred leading to this conference.

He answered some of the questions people were asking re. Aliev (Aliyev?), which is definitely an improvement over what may possibly have occurred years ago, with a blanket ban on such matters being aired in public. Whilst this country, if directly compared to ‘matured’ democracies in the West, still has a long way to go in some respects, there does seem to be an acceptance that some discussion is unavoidable, and that it is better to deal with/manage a situation, rather than simply stick your head in the sand.

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Jun 04 2007

What Would You Like To Ask Him?

Category: KazakhstanChrisM @ 5:33 pm

Thanks to KZBlog, I have had my attention drawn towards an initiative setup by President Nazarbayev’s government to allow ordinary citizens to submit questions to him. Check the linked post for the correct address to be used, and note that you can also choose to e-mail him questions, should you wish.
The questions are limited to non-personal, and will be voted on, presumably with the most popular ones being put to the President. If this were an e-election, some might query whether any government workers may accidentally vote for favoured questions more than once, or if people should use anonymising proxies to submit any particularly cutting questions, but as this isn’t quite that serious, I’m just hoping some interesting questions will be allowed through…

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