The 2009 Census ended in Kazakhstan a few weeks ago. So far not a lot of news is out there on the results but the population did grow by 9% in the past 10 years to 16,304,840 people.

I had the privilege of taking the census here in Astana and I must say that the census taker was very professional. They asked a number of questions about social status, income and standard of living. For example, they wanted to know if the apartment had heating, water, hot water, a washing machine, telephone, or Internet. They also asked how long it took us to get to work, which is vital information for improving public transportation. They also asked about race, religion, and level of knowledge of English, Russian, and Kazakh.

However, I was not happy that they took my name and the name of my wife, along with our address. (more…)

I’m late to the party with this story, as I’m late with every story due to an unanticipated hiatus I was forced to take from blogging. But this is a great story nonetheless. New evidence suggests that horses were first domesticated and milked here in Kazakhstan, about 5, 500 years ago.

This follows on an earlier discovery of an ancient stone corral in northern Kazakhstan dated around 3700-3100BC, as well as horse leather products. However scientists concluded that horse domestication probably started in Russia or Ukraine.

Now they seem to have found horse teeth that show wear that only could have come from a bit, with one tooth dated to 3500 BC. In addition horse skeletons found in North Kazakhstan have slim legs that look more like domesticated horses than wild horses. Finally, they found clay pots that had remains of fat from horse milk and horse meat in them. While it isn’t surprising perhaps that people ate horses, research also suggests that milking came pretty soon after domestication. I believe that no other culture has been known to drink horse milk regularly so it would be fascinating to know why Kazakhs came up with the idea. This also might explain why kumys (fermented mare’s milk) remains such a strong part of Kazakh culture.

The Contradictory State of Kazakhstan on RFE/RL. Perhaps most surprisingly, the article seems to imply that a lot of court cases brought against journalists for slander or dishonoring the government end up in small fines:

When he walked into a Kazakh appellate court last month, independent “Taszharghan” newspaper journalist Almas Kusherbaev fully expected the court to reduce a substantial fine over an article he had written about rising food prices….Much to the journalist’s surprise, however, the appellate court not only failed to reduce the penalty but instead increased the sum tenfold to around $200,000 — effectively closing down “Taszharghan.”

“Usually the procedure is that when you go to a higher level [court], they should be reviewing the decision in terms of the law, in terms of rights and reason — that is, looking at the expertise that led to the decision,” Kusherbaev told RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service. “But here it appears the ruling was reviewed as an appeal from the plaintiff, who had originally demanded more money.”

After the government takeover of BTA Bank, chairman of the board and long time opposition figure, Mukhtar Abliyazov, and his deputy Zhaksylyk Zharimbetov, were both fired. As an investigation began into misdeeds by BTA Bank, both fled the country. The General Prosecutor claims that Abilyazov laundered money through the bank by giving “credit” to front companies [RU].

The CEO, Roman Solodchenko, followed suit, fleeing with his family to London:

Roman Solodchenko, the former chairman of the executive committee of Kazakhstan’s BTA bank said that his family recently had to leave for Britain, in order to protect themselves from government repression.

He said that by leaving Kazakhstan he wanted to protest against the government and its “destructive measures that practically killed the bank.”

Solodchenko added that there was no need to inject billions of dollars into the bank, because there “was no need to save [it] at all.”

Bizarrely, BTA Bank claimed the day after he left that they did not know where he was and had not heard that he was planning to leave the country. He made a press statement in London, but he didn’t phone anyone at the bank to let them know he had fled?

Now we learn that 20 associates of Abilyazov have been arrested, presumably in connection with the investigations of BTA Bank. The government claims to have found evidence People on the street are suspicious of the sudden discovery of fraud at the bank. They wonder why these claims were brought up only after the bank was taken over. If the government was ignorant of these crimes, how did they discover them so fast? Normally it takes months and months to untangle evidence of money-laundering schemes. Finally, the claim that Abilyazov’s escape and the number of bad loans on the bank’s books prove his guilt are undermined by the fact that in this crisis, many loans turned bad and that Abilyazov was fired before he left the country.

We will see what all this means for the poor people who have money in the bank. For now, the investigation and the turnover in top management doesn’t seem to have affected normal banking business.