KZBlog

The day job keeps me a little busy to be posting. But a couple of notes:

Apparently some people in Almaty pelted TSUM and Ramstor, the big shopping centers , with rocks. There is worry that there will be riots.

The Almaty police have detained hundreds of people. They claim that they are looking for illegal immigrants and workers. The rumor is that they are cleaning the streets of poor people that could be hired for rallies by the opposition. The counter -rumor is that they are using the threat of punishment to get them to rally for the President.

Kahar, the youth movement, was out on Arbat, the pedestrian street in front of TSUM with alarm clocks, stopping passerbyers saying, “It’s time to wake up.” They were pushing people to vote. Nothing like this could ever happen in Astana.

Nazabayev wear is available (in yellow and blue): T-shirts, caps, scarfs, bags, golf shirts. These tend to get handed out at meetings and rallies and I have been thwarted in all attempts to get anything off the street!

The Youth Congress has been putting out little stickers that say, “I’m 18, I Vote”

An advisor to the President has said that he will personally protest if the elections are unfair

The city is full of posters for Nazarbayev. Construction sites are big points for this:
“BI GROUP is FOR NAZARBAYEV” hanging off a superstructure, for example.

I’m going to hit the streets today and see if anything interesting is going on. Or maybe I’ll stay quietly at home and avoid any danger.