English Advantage has an interesting post up about an article that appeared recently in Businesswomen.kz. There’s a discussion on whether or not Kazakhstan should adopt the “student-as-consumer” model of education that is gaining popularity in the West, but not among professors and teaching staff! It leads to the question of whether Kazakhstan should adopt everything and anything from the West or pick and choose.

Among reforms that are in place or being implemented now, obviously the move to the 12-year system was quite logical (Students in Kazakhstan currently study for 11 years in basic school, whereas in the US and Europe they study for 12 years) to make it easier for foreign universities to accept Kazakhstan students. Realigning higher education degrees to the bachelors-masters-doctorate division also allows for more international acceptance of students, scholars and professionals. Kazakhstan, like Russia, has additional degrees like specialist (5-year undergraduate study) and there is a difference between a doctorate and an aspirant or candidate of science that I have never been able to grasp.

Moving to the credit system is also not a bad idea for the same reason, namely international acceptance, although it was implemented in some places by just copying the West. For example, in the US professors have set office hours where students can come if they have a problem or a question. In the UK, students meet individually with professors to work on a project for the class. In Kazakhstan some universities seem to have forced students to basically spend the whole day at school, meeting with professors. As opposed to voluntarily letting those students come if they need extra help. Nonetheless, hopefully once the habit of consulting with professors and working independently is instilled, maybe universities will no longer feel the need to make them mandatory.

So, gentle readers, how do you feel about adopting Western models in Kazakhstan? Any reforms you see as useless? Any reforms you would like to see happen?

As Kazakhstan Neweurasia points out in an article on humor in Kazakhstan, one popular and rather clever area of humor is finding pseudo-Kazakh roots in foreign words. I suppose one reason I love these jokes so much is that it acts as a welcome antidote to bad history that relies on linguistic coincidences.

One joke I love goes something like this:
“Did you know that the Garden of Eden was in Kazakhstan?”
“No. How do you know?”
“Well, how do you say ‘man’ in Kazakh?”
“Adam”
“Right, and how do you say ‘apple’ in Kazakh?”
“Alma”
“Right, and how do you say ‘don’t take’?”
“Alma”
“So, the first man was named Adam and the first words spoken were ‘Alma alma’!”

Neweurasia has some other good ones:

For example, two brothers Parakbai and Orakbai discovered Paraguay and Uruguay. Argyns (a large Kazakh clan of tribes) gave the name to Argentina. And the equator was named so because in the middle of ocean two warriors (eki batyrs) met in a deadly combat.

The most elegant joke, however, lies apart of geography. Jesters claim that karaoke, a Japanese invention, is based on two purely Kazakh words, which perfectly describe its principle: kara and oku, meaning “watch” and “read” respectively.

Another old one—ignore the word recently and pray that the links still work! What slowed me down posting this one was finding sources for a lot of my claims here but I think by now they are old news and don’t need referencing, right?

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Esther Dyson of theNational Endowment for Democracy
recently was in Kazakhstan and published an account of her trip on Release 1.com.

There are many interesting observations here from an intelligent and experienced observer, who is not immersed in the region:

For example, they visit the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute (chaired by Madeline Albright and Senator John McCain respectively. Both are branches of the NED, set up to promote democracy in the region. About the type of training in political activism these institutes provide—criticized by many political leaders and observers of the region as ‘illegitimate interfering with politics’ or ’secretly supporting opposition,’ Ms. Dyson says:

To be candid, this notion had left me a little uneasy until now. How can you non-partisanly train people in partisanship? But after meeting the players - Josh Bergin of the IRI and Mary Cummins and Sameera Ali of the NDI - and hearing them describe their work, I felt a lot better about the whole thing. They are indeed mostly going around teaching people how to run a mail-merge program, how to craft a clear message, how to measure public opinion, and so forth. There are certainly ways you could mis-apply the learning, but in this world where 1490 of 1500 newspapers are government-owned or aligned, teaching people the nuts and bolts of bottom-up communications seems pretty one-sidedly good.

Yet, as it happens, the activities of NDI and IRI have been in suspension in Kazakhstan since last spring, courtesy of the Kazakh government. This issue was raised in DC during Nazarbayev’s visit, we hear, but there has been little news since. This report Governo-Kazakh, does little to clarify things.

She also gives a description of the Polyton Club, run by Masanov who recently passed away. In this particular session, a number of bloggers and website admins were there and the question rose about how much access people have to these Internet sources;

This community is active and engaged among themselves, but they don’t reach much of the broader public. A typical home/small business Internet account at 512k - but hardly affordable by a typical home - costs $300/month, so Internet users number about half a million of Kazakhstan’s 15 million people (3 percent). Censorship is active, but it’s not like in China …In Kazakhstan, sites are simply blocked. There’s certainly a correlation between political edginess and blocking, but it’s not precise or predictable.

The government is promoting programs for computer literacy and for access everywhere—including 400 new Internet cafes (reportedly the PM gave the order that they not be ugly little holes in wall with crap computers, but actually be nicely decorated with excellent technical facilities) and the Ministry of Information, Tourism and Sport, has already announced, in no uncertain terms, its readiness to deal with criminal or slanderous websites. And a new law is already Don't be naive. This isn't just about money; it's about control. They don't want us to have access.

She also got a chance to talk to opposition politician, Galymzhan Zhakiyanov and the Eurasia Foundation as well as Green Salvation and it's worth reading her experiences and impressions.

Most interesting was her visit to the Shanirak region of Almaty, where there were recently riots between police and residents—some of whom apparently had their legal registrations but the officials claimed they were out of date. Another large population were oralmen, repatriated Kazakhs from other countries, and not given enough material support to establish proper homes. And some people were both oralmen and possessors of suddenly outdated documents. The whole area is supposed to developed for commercial uses and people were kicked off the land, without compensation. It turned out to be quite ugly with a young officer killed, and raising embarrassing questions about social development in Kazakhstan and how responsive the akims are to the people of their cities.

She writes:

As we stood out in the sunshine, we could see destroyed houses, amidst standing houses that also looked fairly decrepit. There were outhouses, and one shack with a plastic bucket atop, which passed for a shower. Various people came up and joined the conversation: they could all remember the time in July when city authorities, along with security police and bulldozers, showed up to raze the buildings. The villagers protested, standing in front of their homes. The most voluble of the women told us how she had doused herself and her children with gasoline, and threatened to strike a match. The forces stood down, but not without wrecking part of her house. More alterations ensued, and some rocks were thrown. The police claimed that the settlers had stockpiled rocks as weapons; the settlers said they were just construction materials lying around. At the end of the day, one of the policemen had been burned to death in a gasoline fire. The police attributed it to the settlers; the settlers attributed it to a provocateur.

Hopefully Ms. Dyson will continue to write similar pieces so we can get more of her perspective and her adventures.

As work is piling up on me a bit, I thought I would post some things I wrote a while back. This one is dated only by it’s reference to an article on Neweurasia which is now ancient, but I think the topic—the foreign fiancee or spouse—is still relevant and interesting.

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I highly recommend Aiman’s post on Kazakhstan Neweurasia (in Russian) about the myth of the foreign fiancee (English translation here, and I am working off the English translation because I am lazy!), about her experience of having her foreign fiancee come, and local attitudes about foreigners. As a quibala amerikandan (son in law from America, yes?) I thought it would be fun to respond.

As Aiman points out, incomes in Europe (and the US) are higher, and tend to be calculated with a living wage in mind as opposed to here where incomes are much lower, often much less than what is needed to live on, and here prices of some big ticket items such as apartments, cars, and services are on a level with the West. My savings from working in the US are enough to let us enjoy some luxuries and not to worry if wages are late by a month. I must say no one expected me to rent them a helicopter (read the post, it’s funny!) for the wedding, but that is probably because her family knew me for a year before we got engaged. They saw first-hand that I was not a millionaire (However, acquaintances have asked me to buy them DVD players, digital cameras, apartments for free!).

I think Aiman was a bit unfair to her compatriots however. While Americans are richer than Kazakhs on the whole, Kazakhs live much more richly. Any Kazakh celebration will involve a ton of food. The best food they can afford. A wedding is ten times more important and will involve ten times more parties, with ten times more food, ten times better food. In some cases, I knew full well that these people were blowing their wages for months just to feed their guests, set a good dastarkhan, make the foreigner feel welcome! The rest of the month they will eat boiled meat with rice, but for us the finest beshbarmak, tables buckling under the weight of salads, presented in fine china, and a display of fresh fruit despite its being winter. If I were a Kazakh, I would not bemoan my low wages. I would be grateful for the hospitality of my family, and the skill the average housewife has in stretching a budget and cooking well with a few simple ingredients.

As for special treatment for foreigners, I am eternally grateful to my wife’s family who always buys me instant coffee when I go to visit and then gives me the rest of the jar when we leave. Even though I am quite used to drinking tea and prefer to drink tea with them so I don’t get any special treatment, they always buy me the coffee, give it away, and buy more when I come back (and coffee ain’t cheap in these parts).

I always am vaguely amused that people don’t understand that I knew what I was getting myself into when I came here (or in some cases, to paraphrase our former Secretary of Defense, I knew that I didn’t know and that was ok). I wonder if it is because Kazakhs tend to be picky eaters: a colleague of mine went to Korea and tried to ask for some bread at a restaurant, not a big staple in Korea. When they couldn’t find any, he refused to eat; another friend of mine from Almaty ate some salad here in Astana and said,
“It’s not the same as they do it in Almaty.”
“Is it good?” I asked.
“Yes, very good. But I won’t eat it!”

On the other side of the coin, one of the most common compliments I hear is that I am easy-going (prostoi), earnest, sincere, not complaining. And they usually add, “which we didn’t expect from an American.” So it is nice to have it acknowledged that I eat their food, I don’t expect special treatment, I don’t talk down to them. Really, not all Americans are snobby ethnocentric bastards, I swear.

There is a small category of people, usually older, who note the slightest criticism of anything in the territory of Kazakhstan and take it as a declaration of international war. What can you do when your wife’s older cousin who helped raise her and who fought in the Afghan war, gets mad and calls you a snobby American because you said the store was out of dish soap? Nothing.

What is annoying is the people who test you: Do you like Kazakhstan? You probably miss your food? How is the weather in Astana? Ah hah, you said the weather was cold! You think you’re better than us! But again these tend to be my seniors, so what can you do but smile and take it?

As for alcohol, I remember going out with a friend of a friend once and he insisted we drink vodka. He kept pouring me drink after drink, proposing toast after toast, insisting I drink it all down (Nu, davai vipim!). After the liter was empty and I was still standing, he said, “I made you drink a lot on purpose. I never saw a foreigner drink so much. I always thought Americans were weak, but now my eyes are open!” I would have explained something about Scottish blood and strong livers but the brain wasn’t working that fast. Many people say my wife is lucky because her husband will never come home drunk from parties with his buddies. While I’m not the world’s greatest drinker, I wouldn’t say never. I also wouldn’t say that people in Kazakhstan drink more than foreigners–everyone comes home a bit drunk from a party! I would say that Kazakhs and Russians usually drink for the primary purpose of getting drunk, to feel kef and thus tend to drink only hard liquor and when they do drink, they drink a lot, whereas in America it is common to have a beer or two and call it a night, or have a glass of wine for dinner and stop.

Many people also tell my wife she is lucky because I cook and clean and do the laundry. I go to the store to buy things. The typical Kazakh male would not dream of doing any kind of housework. Gendered labor division is much stronger here than in modern day America. It is not unheard of for a husband to wait hours for his wife to come home in order to eat dinner because he cannot or will not cook for himself. However, this has its own complications because it can be stressful for my wife to see me doing the dishes, thinking she is a bad housewife for making me do this women’s work. Furthermore, I expect her to do some traditionally male tasks, like decision-making or handling money and household finances. So in reality it can be quite difficult for a woman with an Eastern mentality to have a Western husband.

But enough about me, tell me about you. I’d love to hear your stories or observations on the foreign fiancee or spouse.

Following the Russian Dnepr rocket which crashed taking off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan last year, A Russian Proton rocket crashed in Karaganda Thursday. No one was hurt as the rocket crashed in an uninhabited area about 30 miles southwest of Zhezkazgan and the rocket was unmanned, carrying only a Japanese satellite.

However the environmental damage to Karaganda will be investigated, as the rocket was carrying more than 220 tons of fuel, including highly toxic heptyl. Investigators found a crater 147 feet wide and fragments of debris weighing as much as 880 lbs. The RFE/RL article quotes the Prime Minister:

“At the moment the relevant units of the Emergency Ministry are examining the area [of the crash],” Prime Minister Karim Masimov told reporters in Astana. “Those who are guilty will be punished and the ecological damage to our country will be compensated for by those responsible. The situation is under government control.”

Proton rocket launches have been suspended until the cause of the crash can be determined.

During take-off, the rocket failed and then went off-course:

The rocket failed 139 seconds after its launch from the Russian-rented Baikonur facility in Kazakhstan, and its second and third stages veered from the planned trajectory at an altitude of 46 miles, said Alexander Vorobyov, a spokesman for the Russian space agency Roskosmos.

It is approximately 400km or 240 miles from Baikonur to Zhezkazgan.

There have been a total of 6 “serious situations” stemming from failed launches at Baikonur since 1996, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection indicated that environmental regulations would have to be tightened. Two of those incidents involved Proton rockets. Most recently, in July of last year, a Dnepr rocket also failed in take-off and spread fuel all over the countryside. That matter has been settled, but it led to contentious relations between Kazakhstan and Russia during the negotiating period.

The incident may also lead to fewer people leasing Russian space services to launch their satellites. And Baikonur is also a center of space tourism. Earlier this year a space tourist took off on a Russian rocket from Kazakhstan.

While he was unhurt and located miles from the crash the President was also visiting Karaganda oblast that day.

Earlier this week, President Nazarbayev appointed a new Minister of Energy and a new Minister of Labor and Social Protection, as well as a new deputy Prime Minister. What is odd is that the constitutional reforms advocated by the President required that Parliament approve new Ministers. However, last Tuesday when the announcements were made, the old Parliament had been dismissed and the new Parliament had yet to be sworn in. Now this happens in the US all the time; Bush recently made some appointments while Congress was on recess to avoid any opposition. What is odd about Nazarbayev’s move is that 1) the President himself supported this new authority for Parliament to appoint ministers, so why is he acting against it now? 2) The new Parliament is composed 100% of members of Nurotan, the head of which is the President, so why would there be any opposition to his appointments, especially considering that of late the President seems to consult with Nurotan about appointments; 3) The new Parliament was sworn in the next day. What was so urgent that it could not have waited a couple of days?

The only theory I can offer is that somewhere in the mix of team loyalties there would have been some opposition in Parliament to these appointments. Anyone more familiar with how these ties work is most invited to comment.

Another move making some news is the dismissal of Timur Kulibayev, the President’s son-in-law as deputy chairman of Samruk, the national holding company that oversees Kazmunaigas among other major state enterprises. No reason was given, but most people feel it was meant to counterbalance the annihilation of Rakhat Aliyev as a political force. Rumors abound that Kulibayev was biding his time, waiting for Aliyev to fall out of grace, so that he could step into the President’s chair. The President may either be trying to block another rival for power, by dismissing Kulibayev or he may be trying to quell rumors that Kulibayev is now in the ascendancy. Or it may be a feint, to ensure that Kulibayev’s future career is not tainted with rumors of preference and nepotism.

Some people have suggested that Kulibayev essentially engineered the conflict between the President and Aliyev, knowing well Aliyev’s short temper and ambitions to lead the nation. If this is the case, Kulibayev may be reaping the harvest of playing with the President but only time will tell if he falls further, or suddenly becomes Prime Minister!