KZBlog is going down (2)
After some thought, I have decided not to renew KZBLog’s lease. As you may have noticed, I don’t do a lot of posting here anymore. I don’t have time to blog regularly. Thus I am taking the site down–it does generate some ad revenue but not as much as it costs to keep it up. […]
Culture
- Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
2011-12-05 - Apples, Sure. But THC is from Kazakhstan too?
2011-10-05 - Naked Man Pot
2011-09-23
- Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
Resources
- Oh, CNN
2012-07-21 - What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
2012-07-19 - Books for Kazakh Students
2011-11-06
- Oh, CNN
Politics
- Image
2011-07-28 - Sub Rosa Endorsement
2011-07-26 - The Naked Truth
2011-06-12
- Image
News
- KZBlog is going down
2013-09-10 - Oh, CNN
2012-07-21 - Repentence
2012-07-15
- KZBlog is going down
Fun
- What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
2012-07-19 - Yurts Are High Fashion and Slum Fashion Too
2011-12-05 - House Hunters Bishkek
2011-12-02
- What Do You Know About Kazakhstan?
Tourism
- Asian Games Torch
2011-01-12 - Wikitravel
2010-08-07 - ALZHIR, the Soviets and Democracy
2010-07-30
- Asian Games Torch
Life in KZ
- Photo Gallery: Almaty Subway
2011-12-07 - Healthcare and the Private Sector
2011-11-30 - Naked Man Pot
2011-09-23
- Photo Gallery: Almaty Subway
Redbubble
Kazakh Garage Rock (5)
Stumbled on a couple of videos on Youtube by a Kazakh garage band in Karaganda called Highway. The Youtube page hasn’t seen much activity in the past 6 months, nor has their Facebook page or blog but hopefully, they are still active and making music.
To be honest, DIY and garage rock doesn’t get a lot of attention here in Kazakhstan. So it’s always exciting to hear about less mainstream projects. And this band is pretty good. If anyone has any info on them, or they want to do an interview, I’d be happy to put up more here. Or more about other small projects going on that most of Kazakhstan doesn’t know about yet.
Photographs (Comments Off on Photographs)
I’ve been playing around with WordPress quite a bit and I’ve decided to set up a separate subdomain for my photographs on KZBlog. Redbubble is a good place to buy and sell art–the quality of products I’ve bought there is really good, better than I could do myself. But the display of photos is not perfect. So I’m using a nice WordPress theme to display pretty photographs on right here on KZBlog.
And a nice holiday picture to promote the site:
One of our neighbors in our apartment block put up an announcement on every door asking people to decorate one of the fir trees in the yard. I hadn’t expected much of a response but like the story of “Stone Soup” a lot of people pitched in. This ornament was handmade and is supposed to be dented.
CBS Stole the Best Headline: Kazakhstan’s President-For-Life Asks for More Life (5)
For the third time this year, President Nazarbayev has called for scientists in Kazakhstan to study how to reverse aging, leading many to speculate that he is musing over his own mortality. Of course, it isn’t completely fair to call Nazarbayev President-for-Life. In fact, he has the right to run for President as many times as he wishes, but there will still be regular elections.
While he cited economic reasons in his speech to students at Nazarbayev University, where he introduced the new Center for Life Sciences, he also joked that, ” people of my age are really hoping all of this will happen as soon as possible.” And earlier this year when a member of Parliament, who is a citizen of Kazakhstan but of Korean heritage, suggested that he should remain in office until at least 2020, the President told him, “Maybe, then, you’ll offer me an elixir of youth and energy – maybe you have such potions in Korea … I’m willing to go on until 2020, just find me an elixir.”
So there is some suggestion that the President is hoping to put off his own end for a little bit, at least.
CBS also notes that a research team at Harvard may have already discovered how to stop or even reverse symptoms of aging like loss of hair, infertility and mental degeneration. So Kazakhstan may already be late to the game.
OSCE Summit (2)
Apparently I have achieved a certain status as a Kazakhstan/Central Asia blogger status where people expect me to comment on events. I even get mentioned in the same sentence as Registan.net, something I had only dreamed of.
So here is my take on the OSCE summit. First though let me point out that it is worth looking at Upyernoz‘s post for links to some good articles about the summit and the measures Kazakhstan took. And for the primary sources, check out the the OSCE Summit site, which is full of transcripts and videos and so on.
From my point of view, if the goal of the summit was to put Astana on the map and increase the reputation of Nazarbayev, then it was more or less a success. Nothing bad happened. Diplomats took it seriously. There were no embarrassing questions from the press or serious gaffes by the President or Saudebayev (although whether it was necessary for Saudebayev to congratulate President Nazarbayev on his election in 1991 in his opening address, the first words out of the Chairperson-in-Office’s mouth, is a valid question I believe). The opposition didn’t steal the limelight nor did the West overly criticize Kazakhstan’s human rights record. Bad timing on the Wikileaks leaks, but that’s for another post. The only slight to the reputation of the capital of our country was that Obama didn’t come, but Hilary Clinton is pretty high-level. And Obama is a bit busy at the moment.
On the other hand, outside of Kazakhstan, the consensus seems to be that nothing really good happened either. The Nagano-Karabakh dispute is no closer to being resolved. Challenging words were spoken about the Georgia-Russia war of 2008 (although nothing overly aggressive and certainly nothing new), little was said about Kyrgyzstan, and no Action Plan was signed. The Astana Declaration, much hailed in the domestic news apparently because it has the word Astana in it, is a pretty vague document and contains no surprises. Apparently the world leaders are all for peace, security and prosperity and worried about Afghanistan and the Middle East. And they think the OSCE is doing a good job but could be doing a better job. Now to be fair, most declarations of international organizations look like that.
I have read analyses (none of which I can find now of course) that indicate that part of the problem was that the agenda for the summit was not agreed upon until July. So there wasn’t enough time to really prepare for the meeting. It does seem that Kazakhstan spent a great deal of its time and energy as Chairman of the OSCE using political capital to get the summit approved in Astana, as opposed to ensuring that the summit would be a success or paying attention to other things. Now Kazakhstan has done a lot and drawn international attention to critical issues like Nagano-Karabakh. It also has made some nice gestures like allowing Afghan students to come study in Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev suggested at a press conference that this program might continue in the future. But one wonders how much more might have been accomplished if Kazakhstan had spent time concentrating on Kyrgyzstan or Armenia and Azerbaijan instead of trying to increase the prestige of the capital city. And one wonders if there will be blame spread around for the fact that the second day of the summit was the first day of a cold snap, and a small blizzard here.
One also wonders what other countries really think about the way the city was shut down (Seoul was not shut down for the recent G20 conference and New York is never shut down for UN meetings) in the name of security.
Overall, I would give the summit a solid C+/B-. Everything went fine. But so much more could have been done.
Good News and Bad News in the Asian Games (Comments Off on Good News and Bad News in the Asian Games)
Those of us living in Kazakhstan may be forgiven for being a bit confused. So much noise has been being made about the Winter Games which start in January here in Astana and Almaty, that I didn’t realize there was a summer component to the games. Which inexplicably are happening now in China.
Kazakhstan has had some good news and some bad news coming out of Guangzhou. As expected Kazakhstan is doing quite well in weightlifting with Olympic champions Ilya Ilyin, Svetlana Podobedova, and Maiya Maneza all winning golds. Kazakhstan has medals across the board including a gold in shooting and in track and field. You can find the full list of all 26 medals won by Kazakhstan so far at the official Asian Games 2010 site.
However there is a slight mar to Kazakhstan’s performance as this week three field hockey players were expelled for violating qualification rules. Anastassiya Chsherbakova, Alessya Pyotukh, and Yuliya Mikheichik all had played for Belarus in World Cup qualifications in April of this year, making them ineligible to represent Kazakhstan. Further, all Kazakhstan’s matches so far will be recorded as losses. So no field hockey glory for Kazakhstan this year, just a reminder to the Ministry of Sport to check the rule book more carefully next time they buy foreign athletes.
Road Closings During OSCE Summit (3)
There’s been a lot of rumors and different sources of information about what will happen us to here in Astana during the OSCE Summit. They stuck this map of which roads will be closed to public traffic and when in my door the other day and I thought I’d share it with you.
Click on the map for full size
Basically, the beginning of the Karaganda Highway, the road to the Left Bank, past Highville, the entire Left Bank, Turan/Sara-Arka, the road to the airport, Kurgalizhinskoe Highway, and the greater Kenesary area will be closed to unofficial traffic on the 1st of Dec from 7am-10am, from 5pm-8pm, and from 9pm-midnight. On the 2nd of Dec, they’ll be closed from 7:30am-10am, 1pm-3pm and 5pm-9pm. This being Kazakhstan, those times will likely be extended and it’s probably not the best time to be arguing with police.
The bazaars will be closed as will all nightclubs and bars. Public transport will be severely limited. Apparently, cars not registered in Astana (i.e. number plates Z) will not be allowed to drive in the city. And of course, we all have those two days off anyway. Schools I gather will be closed from the 29th of November to the 5th of December.
That’s the best information I have. My advice is to do your shopping on the 30th of November and stay at home for two days.
Ridiculousness (Comments Off on Ridiculousness)
Another ridiculous but amusing video about Kazakhstan being the center of the Masonic/Illuminati/Biblical conspiracy to take over the world as predicted in Revelations by uniting all religions and by building evil sun-worshipping pyramids and circular things. Damn those satanic triangles and circles.
If I wanted to start nitpicking this, I would note that there are lots and lots of triangles and circles in architecture and culture all over the world from all times. We can’t all be Masonic Satanist alien-colluding Zionists can we?
I would also note that my house in the US, like many houses in the US or the West even and much like the Pyramid of Peace (can I put scare quotes around scare quotes to show that I think the original scare quotes are stupid?) as described here, has a cavernous entrance in darkness. We call it the garage. Then as you rise to the second floor, you find rooms designed with lots of windows to let a lot of sun it. This is where my people gather usually. True mark of an Illuminati, liking the sun. Only normal people like to hang out in the dark and like tiny confining rooms. Cavernous=Satan. And when I look at the top of my house, there’s a peaked roof. Almost looks like a pyramid!
Finally, Astana means “capital” in Kazakh. Do you really think that 2000 years ago, the ancient Kazakh nomads were busy forming cabals with the Illuminati? Using a play on an Aramaic word (satan) and planning that in 2000 years they would make a capital in a country that didn’t even exist, named after satan, but with the letters a bit mixed up? Perhaps those who want to rename the capital Nursultan are working for the forces of good and light (wait light comes from the sun and is therefore evil, so working for the forces of good and not light) trying to undo the Illuminati curse on the city?
Finally, I would say to my dear Kazakhstany readers, watch this video and see how it makes you feel. Then before you ask a foreigner if it is true that X mass conspiracy is really true in the US and Obama is really in league with the Jews or whatever other secret socity, remember how this video makes you feel. This is how we Americans feel when you ask us about conspiracies in the US too.
Dear Roger Moore (Comments Off on Dear Roger Moore)
Can you drop by so I can get a picture with you while you are here in Kazakhstan?
Sincerely,
KZBlog
The Charges Pile Up (Comments Off on The Charges Pile Up)
Central Asia Online is reporting that Doskaliyev is facing two more charges: taking bribes and unduly getting a research institute transfered to his Ministry. I have also heard from people here that they are looking into charges that he got money out of . purchases of printers for the Ministry–charging the Ministry more than the cost. Or possibly that’s what is being referred to here as taking bribes.
In any case, it doesn’t look good for the former Minister of Health. For background on Dosqaliev’s case, check out my archives.
Halloween is Not a Kazakh Tradition (8)
Zakon.kz is reporting that a member of Parliament has written a letter to the Prime Minister asking for a ban on Halloween [RU].
Kurmangali Uali wrote to Karim Massimov, the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan and to the Head of the KNB asking the government to actions to ban Halloween, citing the lack of roots in Kazakhstan for a Satanic holiday:
Some excerpts from his letter:
there are some problems in the teen area…In the street youth dress like demons, which come from the darkness of night. We understand that this is the influence of foreign culture, which is unacceptable to us. And we have to take some preventative measures to ensure that this negativity does not develop here..
At one time, all the worst things, according to the Kazakh mentality, was denoted by the word “Satan.”(demon, devil). And now it turns out that these demons walk among us. You know that Halloween is now celebrated in Kazakhstan. In Almaty, 17 clubs held celebrations of Halloween. And in Astana, this event was celebrated in [shopping malls] Khan Shatyr and Keruen…
This phenomenon has no roots in Kazakhstan; it was just copied. And it can lead to some inexplicable and unpredictable consequences. Because it is celebrated abroad, where this holiday does have roots and is celebrated to this day, our people can understand some notions [related to Halloween] and the celebration of Satan by youth completely differently [than foreigners do]….
Dear Government, we must take some action at the state level or, perhaps, systemic measures in order to properly explain the irregularity of the phenomenon. And we must pay attention to this problem. This is no joke.
Similar proposals to ban Western holidays or even TV shows have been taken up many times in Russia and even in Uzbekistan. From what we have of his request, it is unclear whether he thinks the holiday is bad because he thinks on Halloween, we actually worship Satan or because he thinks the costumes are too scary or just because it is a foreign influence are unclear. What do you think, dear readers? Should Halloween be banned? What about other Western holidays?
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