As I’ve mentioned before, I get a fair number of emails from people asking me what it’s like to live here. People get job offers here or are coming to adopt a child and they want to know what to expect. Some of them have very low expectations or have concerns that would be more appropriate if they were moving to Zambia or Myanmar: Do the shops carry enough food or are there shortages? Do the police harass foreigners?

I always reassure people that there are no deprivations in Astana or Almaty (or I would imagine, Aktau or Atyrau). You can get your soy sauce and your peanut butter and your Pampers and your flat screen TVs and your five-star European restaurants. The police do not harass foreigners or ask for ID from people on the street most of the time. It’s pretty civilized here overall.

But there is one area that really gets on my nerves. Last night, I came home to find a notice on my doorway:

Astana Teplotransit is shutting off the hot water supply as of the 30th of August because of the large number of people who owe money. The total debt for apartment services comes to 3 million tenge. Please pay your bills immediately to avoid an interruption of your hot water.

I checked; this note was plastered on every entrance to my building. There are 12 entrances and 9 stories per entrance and 3 apartments per story. That means they are shutting off service to 324 apartments because some fraction haven’t paid. To me that is extremely cruel, particularly without warning.

Of course, as you may have guessed, when I went up to my apartment to take a quick shower, the hot water had already been turned off! So much for waiting for the 30th. What is worse, (more…)

In what was likely not an isolated incident, commentators for Russian TV channel Sport, broadcasting over the Internet made some personal comments about Aliya Yussupova, the Kazakh rhythmic gymnast who has a world class record. Apparently these guys thought they were speaking off the record when they said:

“Look at this Yussupova. What has she got, except her round mug?”

“I’d ban shortish girls from rhythmic gymnastics. Half-meter legs and watermelon-shaped head — nothing to look at.”

Now I know that when men watch gymnastics, they’re just checking out the hot girls. But one of the commentators was female. And obviously these comments are highly unprofessional and insulting. I gather from NewEurasia, who brought this report to my attention, that this was hardly the worst of what they said about competitors.

The biggest news of the past months has broken: Barack Obama, the US Democratic Party Presidential candidate, has pickedJoe Biden as his vice-president. As many pundits have been pointing out for months, one of Obama’s weak points is his lack of foreign policy credentials. Biden, a Democrat from the state of Delaware, is a long-serving Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meaning he has excellent foreign policy experience.

He made headlines for us Kazakhstanaphiles when he wrote a stern letter to President Nazarbayev in early 2007, threatening to work against Kazakhstan’s attempt to get the chairmanship of the OSCE if the nation did not do more to promote democracy. (more…)

While Kazakhstan has taken some more medals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics since I last blogged, the boxing team upon which many hopes were pinned isn’t performing according to expectations. Of course neither is the US boxing team which went home with one lousy bronze so maybe it’s just a bad moon over China.

The biggest disappointment for Kazakhstan was Bakhtiyar Artayev’s loss of the middleweight (75kg) quarterfinal bout to James Degale from the UK 8-3. Artayev was an aggressive opponent in the ring, throwing a lot of punches and some of them very strong, but Degale put up a better defense and picked his moments to attack. (more…)

Ilya Ilin has won Kazakhstan its first gold medal - in weightlifting, 94kg group! It’s not only the first gold medal of the 2008 Olympic Games, but Kazakhstan’s first gold in weightlifting, a sport that where Kazakh women have been bringing in medals and the men have been left with nothing, at least here in Beijing.

It was a tense match from the start and the last half of the competition didn’t provide a relief to the tension as the even at the end, the gold was still up for grabs.

Going into the “clean and jerk” competition, the Azerbaijaini Nizami Pashayev was in the lead with 181kg “snatched”. Both Ilin and the Iranian lifter, Asghar Ebrahimi, lifted 180kgs but after Ilin’s second lift he was rubbing his left arm and opted not to take a third try. (more…)

Back to the 2008 Olympic Games and in the couple of days I skipped, Kazakhstan picked up 2 silver and 1 bronze medals. In total Kazakhstan now has: 2 silver in weightlifting and 1 bronze; 2 bronze in wrestling and 1 silver in judo.

• Just last night, Mariya Grabovetskaya took the bronze in weightlifting, 75+ kilograms. If a bronze sounds weak, the gold-medal finisher, Jang Mi-ran of Korea broke the world record in the snatch event then lifted more to break it again. (more…)

I have been avoiding writing on the crisis in Georgia primarily because it doesn’t concern Kazakhstan particularly. That being said, Nazarbayev was one of the first Heads of State to make a statement urging for a peaceful and diplomatic resolution. And he made an interesting suggestion that other CIS nations should not be silent on this issue, claiming that any problem in the former Soviet Union should be dealt with by the CIS. One of the overall diplomatic issues infusing this crisis is Russia’s apparent policy that they still have a mandate to influence the CIS region and Georgia and the West’s rejection of the idea of satellite states and areas of influence.

I thought Nazarbayev presented an interesting and potentially viable compromise–that the CIS nations collectively should influence each other. That could lead to strengthening regional ties and diluting Russia’s (or any other one country’s) influence. For a region that often gets caught in a “Great Game” of influence between China, the US, and Russia as well as Iran and India to a limited extent, you would think that Central Asian nation and Caucus nations would want to counter this influence by uniting and working collectively. Of course the Shanghai Copperation Organization supposedly fills this role but many observers see the SCO as nothing more than a way for the larger powers of China and Russia to block Western influence and impose their collective will on smaller nations.

While there appear to be various historical, cultural, diplomatic and economic reasons why the CIS nations have not embraced unions except in limited alliances, I have always found it difficult to understand why many Central Asian nations do seem to support Russia’s policy of a mandate of interference in CIS nations.

Specifically, I would love to hear from readers in the comments, about why Kazakhstani appear to support Russia’s right to enter South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia. Is it force of habit to support Russia? Is it a hatred of Georgia? Is it fear that NATO can invade Kazakhstan if it gets its hands on Georgia? To kick off discussion, I’ll give you some devil’s advocate questions:

• How would you feel if an oblast of Kazakhstan tried to declare independence and Russia sent in troops to support them?
• How would you feel if the US or China or another nation brought troops in to support South Ossetia?
• How is this different from Chechnaya’s struggle for independence?

I am asking for trouble, I realize. But I am dying of curiosity.

• Darkhan Bayakhmetov lost his bronze medal match to Belarussian Mikhail Semenov in Greco-Roman wrestling today. He takes 5th place in the 66kg category.
• Asset Immanbayev also lost his match to Armenia’s Roman Amoyan in the 55kg category of Greco-Roman wrestling, failing to make it to the quarterfinals.
• Zulfiya Zabirova was in third place when she finished the women’s cycling time trials today. But in the end, her time was 1:37.75 behind the winner, Kristin Armstrong of the US. Zabirova finished 9th.
• On to the good news: Birzhan Zhakupov beat Pal Bedak of Hungary in a close match (7:6) in the light-flyweight category. If he beats Armenia’s Hovhannes Danielyan he goes on to the quarterfinals!
• In the superheavy weight (91kg) category, Ruslan Myrsatayev enters the quarterfinals and faces Zhilei Zhang from China. He won on a TKO 49 seconds into the first round. That is extremely impressive!

That’s all the news from Beijing and the Olympics for today. At least as it relates to Kazakhstan. I understand that Phelps chap is doing quite well.

I missed one boxer in my last update. Mirat Sarsembayev, Kazakhstan’s entry in the flyweight category (51kg) made it to the final 16 beating Polish Rafal Kaczor. He next faces Russian Georgy Balakshin.

And while Evgeni Ryzhkov took 4th place in preliminary heats of the 200 meter breaststroke, that wasn’t enough to move on. But Vladislav Poyalkov will go on to the semifinals. Hopefully he won’t face Phelps because then 1) he stands no chance of winning and 2) I’ll be completely confused over who to root for.

Also, even though Irina Nekrassova won the silver in weightlifting, her compatriot Maya Maneza did not start due to injury.

I must have misunderstood something when I wrote that Kazakh wrestler Tenizbayev still had a match to go to win the bronze

Nurbykhyt Tenizbayev won Kazakhstan’s second medal in the Beijing Olympics, taking a bronze in Greco-Roman Wrestling, 60 kg category, sharing it with Ruslan Tiumenbaev of Kyrgyzstan. I miswrote that the two would face each other in the bronze medal match. In fact Tenizbayev faced China’s Jiang Sheng, beating him 4-1, 1-2, 3-0.