Thanks to Tom Toomey for pointing out that recently the New York Post published Cindy Adams’ latest column where she does Kazakhstan. Disclaimer for those who don’t know Cindy Adams: she’s a gossip journalist and scandalizing is her job and her style. Don’t be too offended. She has to say bad things about everything she writes about; that’s why people read her. And incidentally the article has many good things to say about the nation.

The article is funny in bits. I thought she got some things very wrong though, even allowing for her style.
She wrote: “FASHION: For a man, black tie is a T- shirt worn outside the pants. But the local ladies are nifty.”

You do occasionally see business men out on the town in appallingly informal clothes. I recently spotted a big man on the town in an old sports suit and no T-shirt underneath. The zipper was pulled way down so all the chest hair showed. But it is much more common to see dark suits and colorful ties. Kazakhstani dress extremely formally by US standards, even when going out to a cafe. Sunday I see people walking in the park with their kids wearing khakis and an Oxford shirt. Especially in Astana.

She says: “Kazakhstan is the world’s ninth largest country, and the 375th ending in the suffix stan.”
OK, it does get old hearing about -stan. There are plenty of countries that end in -land (Iceland, England, Poland) and a fair number that end in -ia (Albania, Romania, Latvia). Why does -stan bother people?

The highlight of the article, I thought, was this bit on her first taste of beshbarmak. Or her first non-taste.

ANIMALS: This is the beginning of the horse family, 55 million years ago. They began on the archeological site Krasnyi Yar in northern Kazakhstan. I don’t know how to break the news . . . but in the mountain region of Borovoe, they served it to me for lunch. With noodles. I had a salad.

Perhaps some think that Borat can get away with mocking Kazakhstan because it is not a particularly powerful country and because it is pretty remote from the US and the UK, where Sascha Baron Cohen does most of his filming. But when Mr. Cohen was spotted by a world champion in boxing from Kazakhstan, things got a little up close and personal.

Wladimir Klitschko, 220 pounds and 6 foot 6 inches tall (3 inches taller than Mr. Cohen), was born in Kazakhstan although he now lives in the Ukraine. When he spotted Borat and his wife, Isla Fischer, dining in the same LA restaurant, Mr. Klitschko decided to have a little fun. According to The Daily Star, Klitschko said:

“As he walked past me I turned to face him and said, ‘Hey, I think you are an arsehole for what you said about Kazakhstan’.
“Unbelievably, he started to defend himself – but before he could continue I stood up and was towering over him.
“I said, ‘I have broken people’s necks for less than what you have done’.
“He looked frightened – like he had picked a fight with the wrong man. And then I owned up and told him I really think his Borat character is amazing.
“He looked pretty relieved!”

Something a dear friend send me that’s going around the Russian Internets 20 phrases in Russian That Will be of Use to English Football Fans during the Champion League Finals in Moscow. It appears to have originated with Prosports a popular Russian sports journal, but I can’t find it linked there. It’s very funny and obviously a joke, but also actually useful for learning some slang. It is however quite useless if you don’t already speak Russian.

I liked this one about swearing:

CHYORT POBERI! [CHORT pa-bee-REE] - expression of disappointment.
Synonims [sic]: Blin gorely! [BLEEN ga-REHlyl, Mat’ moya zhenshchina [MAT ma-YAH ZHENshchee- nal, Vot zhopa, obidno, da? [vot ZHO-pa, a-BEED-na, DAH?].

and

MATRYOSHKA [mat-RYOSH-ka] and USHANKA [ooh- SHAHN-ka] - most popular Moscow souvenirs. As soon as your suitcase is filled up with wooden dolls and big ‘hairy’, hats, you will need a phrase: ’spasibo, mne bolshe nichego ne nuzhno v vashei strane’ [spa-SEEba, mne BOL-sheh neeche- GOH ne NOOZH-na v VAH-shei strah-NEH].

The last phrase translates as: Thank you. I don’t need anything else from your country now.

And of course,
“If your suitcases have been lost, if your hotel room has a view over a rubbish heap and in all of Moscow you can’t find an English speaking person, say bardak and you immediately will feel better.”

It’s true. It does make you feel better.

I often claim that Kazakhstan is not quirky enough. The government propaganda to sell the country’s image focus on economic statistics and populations of wolves, and not the interesting and eclectic factoids that would attract tourists and grab the interest of Americans. Holidays are celebrated in very official style with a big concert, the akim or the President giving a speech, and people waving flags. None of the spontaneous celebrations you might see in the West.

And then sometimes I am proven very very wrong. Kostanai has unveiled the first statue of Charlie Chaplin in Kazakhstan. Before you scratch your head too much wondering why people in Kostanai are crazy over Chaplin, I should note that it was a present from the Kazakhstan-France Center. No, that doesn’t make much sense either. From the story on Kostanai.net, I gather that the Kazakhstan France Center is trying to spread sculptures of great people around the world [RU]. And why not Kazakhstan?

Neweurasia.net notes that the only movie theater in Kostanai was recently demolished. But the benches there are great for little hobos.

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.

And now for the lighter side of the news: The Olympic Torch will pass through Almaty on 2 April on its way out from Beijing to Istanbul. I wasn’t aware that the torch starts its trip in the host country (after being lit in Greece at Olympia of course) , in this case China, and then travels around the world and back.

The torch was lit on 24 March and is currently in Greece.

According to local news, the torch will be run through the main streets of Almaty before being put on a plane to Istanbul. You can check out the the relay schedule and get photos and video of the torch at each stop. The official Olympic relay page for Almaty: City of Apples has facts, photos and history of Kazakhstan and the city itself.

Already the city is decorated with billboards featuring Kazakhstan’s Olympic athletes (and if I could find the cord that attaches my cellphone to my computer I’d have some of them up here!) and a clock counting down the days to the torch relay in front of KBTU.

Kazakhstan expects to get 10 medals this year and the government will pay $250 000 to each gold medal winner.

Unfortunately I won’t be able to be in Almaty for the relay so I am counting on local bloggers to recount the event for us. Leave me links in the comments, please!

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?

A nice piece appeared in the Edinburgh News about a Kazakh lead singer in a Scottish band.

Gulzhan Ibrayeva who was the lead singer for the apparently popular Kazakh cover-band Kinky Durakee (Query to readers: Is this band famous? I’ve never heard of it). Now that Gulzhan has moved to Scotland with her husband Paul Finnie, the band has changed its name to Universal You and is hitting the top hot spots in Edinburgh.

The band started two years ago when Finnie came to Atsai as a contract administrator for British Gas and Ibrayeva was working as a translator. They got married and started Kinky Durakee. They have picked up a bass player and a guitarist and hope to become Edinburgh’s next local sensation.

Check out the Universal You website to hear their music or even buy the MP3s.

According to a sign outside of Congress Hall, the local concert hall, Ace of Base is playing Astana! The big bands usually go to Almaty. Most recently the Scorpions did Almaty. But big Russian bands like Chaif and Time Machine, not to mention pop stars like Zhanna Friske come to Almaty with some regularity. Astana’s scene is usually limited to local bands and well-known Kazakhstani artists, unless there is some sort of festival in which case they can get bigger names up here. Presumably ticket sales just aren’t good enough here in this city of 600,000, where many people are at work nights and weekends anyway. So while some people are posing the question of what did Astana did to draw an international act like Ace of Base, I wonder what Ace of Base did to have to settle for Astana.

Note: the concert poster on the right is for the Almaty show.

In a study by MediaCurves, Americans were asked to judge a women’s personality based on a picture. The trick was that all participants were given a picture of the same woman, but 50% of the time she was wearing a headscarf and 50% of the time she had her hair down and was wearing an open-collar shirt. Guess what?

There’s a nice nice summary on MonkeyCage:

1) The covered woman was perceived as more “traditional” and, in personality terms, less “warm.” She is also described as living a more insular life…The covered woman was perceived as wealthier…Slightly more considered the covered woman “beautiful” (27%) than did the uncovered woman (16%)…The vast majority of respondents thought the uncovered woman was “an American” (82%). The vast majority of subjects thought the covered woman was “a Middle-Eastern person” (78%) and also Muslim (87%)….While 89% said that they would like the uncovered woman as their next-door neighbor or in their neighborhood, only 62% said that about the covered woman. One-fifth (19%) actually said they wanted her to live “outside of the US.”

It amuses me because while a lot of this is predictable, and accurate for me as well–If I see a woman in a hijab I will tend to assume she is Muslim, religious, traditional, and therefore more insular–I also had the opportunity once to be in a mentoring position to some traditionally Muslim children and for several months after that, if I saw a headscarf, I became instantly nurtuing and protective. Even of total strangers on the street. Some sort of Pavlovian response, I suppose.