For Nauryz, the Muslim/Turkish New Year celebration, we went up to Lake Burabai, a lake resort north of the city and I finally got to see the legendary Okzhetpes, the place where arrows cannot reach. The story is from the time of Ablai Khan, who had his headquarters on the shore of Burabai.

At the time, the Kazakhs were at war with the Oyrats–a more Mongolian tribe related to the Dzhungars and they took the daughter of an Oyrat khan captive. As was the custom at the time, it was decided that she should marry one of the Kazakh warriors, which was a standard thing to do with captured females. She was very beautiful and so many of the warriors wanted to marry her. But she didn’t want to be married, so she set the condition that she would stand on top of a rock high above the lake, holding a scarf and whoever could shoot the scarf out of her hand would be her husband. They agreed but no one could do it, as the princess had well expected. From that time the stone was called Okzhetpes or the place where arrows cannot reach. After it seemed that they would force her to marry one of the Kazakhs anyway, the woman jumped into the lake and transformed into the stone, Zhumbaktas or mystery stone.

The scene: a government agency which gives grants for innovation projects.

A man, middle-aged, dressed in a bright yellow velvet suit, enters the reception area for the head of the agency. The secretary asks him who he is.
He answers, “An individual person.(физическое лицо)”
“OK then, how shall I announce you?”
“Not in any way.”

The head of the agency at this point steps out of his office, making introductions unnecessary.
He invites him into his office and asks what he wants.
“I have a brother-in-law in Leningrad (Note that this scene is taking place in the present day). He has written a letter.”

The head looks over the letter. The author claims to be the greatest scientist in the world in the area of laser technology, who sells his research to the US and other Western European countries because they are behind him. But he has no patents because he does it all for the love of the GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, HIS MOTHERLAND, THE HIGHLY LOVED AND HONORED REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN.
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I finally saw the Borat movie–a pirate edition was handed to me in a smoky cafe, in plain white paper, the discs enscribed “We <3 Kazakhstan” like it was the samizdat in Soviet times. So no money from the Kazakhstan economy went to Mr. Cohen from me, unlike some other non-patriots who pushed Borat to number one on the Amazon.co.uk website for sales in Kazakhstan!

Although I still believe the main point of the film is to shame Americans with their own inherent ignorance and racism, and to revel in toilet humor, there were some major insults to the Kazakh nation:

• Several scenes showed Borat on the bed with his shoes and suit on. No citizen of Kazakhstan would dream of leaving his dirty shoes on inside, let alone putting that filth on the bed. It would be much more typical to take off your dirty outside clothes too before touching the bed.
• Not once did Borat drink tea. Not one time. He never even said, “Boy, I have a headache because I didn’t have tea this morning.” Real Kazakhs love their tea!
• When he went to visit various people, he never brought any presents. A good Kazakh will always bring at least some flowers and chocolate, especially when invited for dinner. The implication that Kazakhs are bad guests is truly an insult to the nation.
• Finally, the implication that Kazakhstan TV doesn’t get all the trashiest of American TV is totally false. Why, I’ve seen Baywatch Hawaii on regular broadcast TV! Surely all Kazakhs know exactly who Pamela Anderson is.

While a lot of attention has been paid to the ongoing process of administrative reforms in Kazakhstan in the area of increasing Parliamentary powers, not much has been heard about the plans to reform the civil service. There have been research projects and discussion in the areas of linking government salaries to performance, reducing corruption in the civil service, and boosting the role of the private sector as well as NGOs to limit the role of the government. However a major new plan has been announced that will completely reform the government, and introduce a new precedent for government organization in the world. Starting next year, the government will be run like a corporation.

On the 6th of March, Aslan Musin, Deputy Vice-Minister and Minister of the Economy and Budget Planning led a meeting with the Senate to explain the new proposal.
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Happy International Women’s Day! The President of Kazakhstan had a celebratory meeting yesterday with prominent women of the republic to congratulate them on the holiday. One of the funnier moments for those watching on Khabar at any rate, was that the head of the NurOtan party (a man) was also sitting there. A table full of women, with only two men: The President, the host of the meeting, and this other guy. I’ll leave you to make the obvious joke.

E-government in Britain has apparently hit a new high–you can write e-petitions to the Prime Minister, making requests for all sorts of things, anything you want apparently (without any guarantee that he will answer, of course). Chris Merriman has some of the better ones up here, but the one I thought was of particular note was: Borat is the true leader of Kazakhstan and the Prime Minister needs to recognize this. Kids today, I tell ya!

So you, the future leaders of Kazakhstan reading this blog–do you really want your inbox to be filled up with requests to recognize Benny Hill as the leader of the UK and Mr. Bean as the foreign minister? Or perhaps petitions that food in the stolovayas isn’t as good as it used to be? And so on? I didn’t think so. I’m telling you: you don’t need the internet.

On the 28th of February, the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev, gave his annual Address to the People of Kazakhstan, the speech where he gives the government its tasks and strategies for the year. You can go to Akorda.kz for the full text of the speech.

Overall the speech focused on improving social protection and on reforming the economic sphere. Acknowledging the nation’s economic success of late, the President set forth tasks of building on that prosperity, using it to create a social safety net and to realize further economic growth. Finally he touched on democratic reforms and set forth measures that he had endorsed earlier when the Democratic Task Force proposed them: to give Parliament the power to appoint members of the Constitutional Council (which decides on the constitutionality of laws and draft laws), the Central Election Commission and the Accounting Committee (which audits government organizations). Currently, these powers belong to the President. He noted that democracy means strong rule of law–presumably to stave off criticisms that democracy equals anarchy and to signal that the government will not weaken itself. He also stated that no one doubts Kazakhstan will remain a Presidential republic (and I must agree, there is no doubt on this point). Overall the speech focused on what needs to be done, without focusing directly on existing problems, and while the tone was optimistic, it was more of a practical speech that set forth an agenda, rather than an ideological rally.
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