Neweurasia follows up on an attack at the end of January on B.N. Pegasus, a Turkish construction company. According to Neweurasia, Tahsin Akkash the CEO of the company and a well-known Turkish architect, is being detained in Almaty, apparently without charges being laid against him. According to a forum posting, Tahsin was taken into custody, but is currently hiding in amnesty in the Turkish Embassy in Almaty. It claims that the whole thing is engineered by Marya Nazarbayeva, presumably the wife of the brother of the President. Elsewhere claims have been made that the B.N. in B.N. Pegasus refers to President Nazarbayev’s brother. The post further claims that both the Jan attacks and this arrest are engineered by Mrs. Nazarbayeva and that she has armed guards waiting at the embassy gates.

A few things are a bit weird here. I’m not clear on how he was taken into custody but ended up at the Embassy. Also surely the Turkish government has the right to clear armed guards from its gates. There isn’t a clear motive listed anywhere. And finally, if the initials indicate an alliance with the Nazarbayev family then why is the CEO under attack? But there is a large campaign going on in Turkey with many websites reporting on this and there is promise of a book exposing mafia involvement in Kazakhstan business.

I have no idea what is factual and what is not. It seems to me the heart of the matter is all the comments from Turks saying that Kazakhstan is corrupt, that Turks are mistreated and all the Kazakhs commenting that Turks are dirty and corrupt and mistreat Kazakhs. Whoever is involved, wherever it is happening, there does seem to be serious tension between Turkish and Kazakhstany people which explodes periodically. It seems to me that some serious study needs to be done into why this is happening.

Ferghana.ru reports that there are 16 431 domains that end in .kz, but of those only around 1 000 are actually functioning. Many of the idle .kz domains were bought in the hopes of selling them. According to the article, these domains bought on speculation often use pretty words or popular brand names-in the hopes that pleasant domains will sell fast or that nike will buy nike.kz now that it has opened stores here.

It’s sort of a fun to try to guess which domains might be bought but not used given these parameters.
For example Nike.kz doesn’t appear to exist in any way. Asem.kz is used by Asem, the stationary/office supplies/computer store (asem means “beautiful” in Kazakh. which was why I tried it). Mercedes.kz is in use.

As for prestigious names which might be in-demand Nazarbayev.kz is up for grabs and so is President.kz.

Finally after all that searching (plus a lot of brand names I’m not listing here), I found a site up for sale: Cool.kz From there you can see a bunch of other sites up for sale:, including Welcome.kz, Euro.kz, Tvshop.kz.

But, dear reader, I ask you: What does cre and ucb mean?

Happy Nauryz! On the 22nd of March will be the vernal equinox, the Persian-Muslim New Year, the Kazakhstan national holiday Nauryz! One of my favorite holidays here because it’s one of the few where they do more than just make a big concert of alternating pop hits and old Kazakh songs. The same songs every holiday! They actually make kumys and display hunting hawks and national crafts and play national sports occasionally. We’re going to Almaty and hopefully I’ll have a chance to talk to some people or do some interviews on Kazakh culture.

Of course you have to love Astana. I asked my colleagues what they plan to do over the long weekend to celebrate. “Sleep” was the universal reply!