A quick anecdote that demonstrated to me why there are not more Internet users in Kazakhstan, why companies are not increasing connection speeds, why so few people have websites or blogs. I got a call from a company I work for under contract that they were being audited by the tax authorities and they needed my diplomas and some other documents to show (Apparently they need to prove I am qualified, thus justifying their hiring a foreigner, thus justifying why they pay to a foreign bank account, thus showing why they have some weird tax calculations in their books). I was just about to leave to go to a site for this very employer, but they insisted it was urgent. It would be okay to be late to work since I had to come into the head office to give them my documents.

I go in and hand over the documents to the project manager. I’m about to ask her when I can take them back when she starts copying them.
I say, “Oh, you just need copies?”
“Yes,” she says, “I’ll copy them quickly and you can go.”
“But I could have scanned and emailed them to you from the other office.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “We need hard copies.”
“You could have printed my scans,” I point out.
“Really? I didn’t know that.”

As long as people don’t appreciate the power of the Internet, there will not be much development because it won’t be seen as a serious tool that can make life more efficient. It will be seen only as a distraction or a toy or something imposed on people by the government and IT people.

Oxford University has just published research demonstrating that apples really did originate in Kazakhstan, by tracing genes in apples. The Story of the Apple, by Dr Barrie Juniper describes his research. He also notes that sadly due to Soviet policies and a focus on the oil economy, the apple forests of Kazakhstan are all but dead.

This is no news to residents. My own wife remembers her grandmother’s apples, which were as big as a baby’s head, grown outside Almaty. Now that area is all villas for the rich and powerful. When I go to the store to buy apples, I find plenty of Russian and Chinese apples and even apples from Kyrgyzstan, but rarely any local apples. Hopefully this book and research will encourage businessmen or the government to revive the Kazakh apple. After all, being the home of the world’s best apples would be a pretty effective form of brand-imaging.

Lucky21842, an American living in Kazakhstan runs a video blog which I’ve mentioned before in these pages. His newest entry is called “Kazakh Rules!” It very cleverly and amusingly outlines some common superstitions in Kazakhstan. It’s really funny and, in my experience, accurate. However, I would point out that rarely will a crazy Kazakh grandma shrilly shout at you, “No!”, if you break these ‘rules’.

Subscribe to Lucky21842’s channel on YouTube at his profile page

Do they do that in European sports events?

Anyway, in case you didn’t know, today at 16:00 GMT or 21:00 Kazakhstan time, England and Kazakhstan will meet in the World Cup qualifiers. If your local station isn’t covering it, or someone else in the house is watching the French Open, Eurosport looks like it will have nice play-by-play coverage online.

We will remember that the last time Kazakhstan and England met, in October of last year, Kazakhstan lost 5-1. Here’s hoping the homefield advantage will play out. It does look like even though the match is taking place in Almaty, the England fans will be in better shape to cheer their team on. According to a Neweurasia post, locals are relegated to the east side of the stadium where there is no roof and the afternoon sun gets in people’s eyes. (more…)

Thanks to Neweurasia’s videoblog.

I wrote earlier about essay mills in Kazakhstan, where people write papers for students. While it is widely believed that former Soviet countries are more prone to cheating and corruption than Western nations, I found this interesting video tour of a US essay mill website from the Chronicle of Higher Education. So it’s not just here that people pay for papers. In fact perhaps we should praise Kazakhstan for its innovation. The report ends with the words: “In a pre-Internet era you couldn’t run a company like this..the Internet makes this possible.” Yet here in Astana, these companies don’t seem to have much web presence. Everything is done over the phone or in person.

Another experience I have had in moving is the phenomenon of the Kazakhstan welcome wagon. Of which there is none. Over the past few weeks while we have been coming to the new apartment and fixing things up, moving things in, waiting for deliveries and so on, we have come into contact with our new neighbors. Though we have greeted them every time we see them, no one has yet greeted us in return. In fact, the norm appears to go something like this:

We make a loud noise in the staircase, hauling up a box full of books or a couch or something.
Neighbor opens door and stares open-mouthed.
I say, “Hello.”
Neighbor turns to stare at me for a few seconds and then slams door shut.
As soon as we pass by their door, door opens again and neighbor stares up at us through the stairwell.

I don’t expect people to become bosom buddies immediately, but a “hello” would be nice. Or at least some acknowledgement of our existence beyond entertainment. Is this normal for Kazakhstan or do we just have weird neighbors?

So we recently moved apartments and I have been left Internetless. Whereas before we had KazakhTelecom, the state-owned telephone company, as our telephone company and Internet provider, we now have Kaztranscom. It appears that in Astana certain construction companies make contracts with certain Internet and cable TV companies and the residents have no choice. We cannot get KazakhTelecom services in this building. So there is some competition, but it’s sort of fake competition in that we can’t actually choose.

As Chris Merriman has pointed out, on his blog and in person, at some length, Kaztranscom has a number of issues. First of all, all of their Internet packages have limited traffic and you pay a huge premium if you go over the limits. Their so-called “unlimited” package has a speed of 128kbs, or two times the speed of dial-up. Plus, they say they will not set up our modem for wireless Internet because “people have complained about problems with wireless.” Apparently rather than address those problems, they have chosen to simply refuse to provide wireless. No big deal, I’m sure I can figure out how to set the modem for wireless. Nevertheless it’s a bit annoying.

Compounding that is the fact that Kaztranscom only works with a limited list of modems so we have had to buy another modem. I’m no IT geek but I don’t understand why only 20 modems work with this service. I’ve never heard of certain modems working (or not working) with certain ISPs before. Finally, the process is annoying in that we have to give them our modem, which they will set up at their offices. Then they come to our house and set up the modem with the computer. Surely they could do everything at once at our house. I don’t particularly like the idea that they will fiddle with my modem while I can’t look over the shoulder and see what they are doing. Ah well, I’m sure it will work out all right in the end. But for the moment, until I buy a new modem and get it set up, I am only on dial-up which makes posting to the blog expensive!

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…)

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.”