Around 4pm yesterday it began to snow. And it hasn’t stopped yet. Temperatures were around -5 in the morning and obviously colder at night meaning roads are icy. This is I believe a heavier storm than we got even in winter. It does take away some of my desire to celebrate Astana’s birthday in June. But hopefully by then the snow will have melted!

This is what my trip to work looked like this morning.



As usual the city fathers called out a dozen plows to cover the same area.



Poor street cleaners!



The sudden winter scene was not without its beauty



Particularly where the wind created dunes. Which was everywhere as the wind has been very heavy





Some people were more energetic than others cleaning off their cars.

According to various foreign news services, Richard Hoagland has been nominated by President Bush to replace John Ordway as Ambassador to Kazakhstan. Hoagland is currently serving in the U.S. Embassy to Turkmenistan and was Ambassador to Tajikistan.

Hoagland was nominated as Ambassador to Armenia last year but his nomination was withdrawn in relation to questions of the US acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide. The then-Ambassador to Armenia was withdrawn when he gave a speech regarding the genocide and Hoagland’s nomination was stalled and then withdrawn while the Senate debated whether to publically acknowledge the genocide or not.

Ordway has been Ambassador since 2004.

Askar Mamin, akim of Astana, will become the head of Kazakhstan Temir Zholi, after the present head was detained by police for corruption. Zhaksybek Kulekeyev is suspected of taking a bribe in the amount of US$100 000 and rumor has it that he was caught by undercover police in a sting operation.

The new akim of Astana will likely be Imangali Tasmagambetov, currently akim of Almaty and widely popular. He was also considered an enemy by Rakhat Aliyev. Some have claimed that Tasmagambetov is the most likely person to become President after Nazarbayev due to his popularity and ability.

The Minister of Agriculture, Akhmetzhan Yessimov, will likely be appointed akim of Almaty. It is still not clear who would become Minister of Agriculture.

This just in: Nazarbayev will run the first leg of the torch relay. Hopefully that won’t mean that they shut down the route to people who want to watch, which they sometimes do when cool people are involved in things.

EDIT: The official route and who is carrying the torch is up. The President doesn’t appear to be on the list. And to answer the question in the comments, I think that occasionally Presidents or high government officials might be there to greet the torch at the airport–as I believe the akim was at Almaty airport last night–but they don’t usually carry it.

EDIT THE SECOND: Nazarbayev did carry the torch. As did the Chinese Ambassador and Rosa Rizimbayeva. Cool.

Afganisu-tan is really impressive: 38 comic pages covering the history of Afghanistan and its neighbors as a manga-style comic, created by a Danish artist. Kazakhstan is not featured as a character but America is:
Birthday; July 4.
She’s the richest girl her neighborhood.
She is a superhero fanatic.
Her fighting skills are top-class.
She has a tendency to think her version of justice is right for everyone.

Thanks to Registan for finding this.