Welcome to Yavlenka (2009)

A fellow Peace Corps volunteer from Kazakhstan, who was in the same group (Kaz-19) as me, recently reposted a video he made back in 2009 as our time in Kazakhstan was drawing to a close.

I’m reposting it because (1) the video is a glimpse into a very typical village in Kazakhstan and brings back so many memories of the small towns and villages scattered around the vast expanse of the steppe, and (2) I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my time in Peace Corps, which I like to summarize as “the best and worst time in my entire life”.

I think Tim sums it up best when he makes the aside, “People always thought I was crazy or they thought I was a spy for taking so many videos and pictures of the most mundane in Yavlenka. To me, though, the mundane was anything but.” Somehow, the simplicity of our lives and surroundings in Kazakhstan made our experience there anything but mundane. And it’s that simplicity I often find myself longing for.

I had a conversation recently with a colleague who is an RPCV from Armenia. He was saying that so many of his Armenian friends and colleagues dreamed of living in America so they could have a better life. But then he raised the question of whose life is really richer? We are both working as unpaid interns at CSIS and struggle to make ends meet financially. Even on our meager income, we still earn more than the majority of people we knew in our respective Peace Corps countries. Yes, we have amazing opportunities afforded to us simply by the fact that we live in the United States. But at the same time that simplicity is missing. Life here is busy; so much so that we barely have time to spend with the people we love.

I’m quoting roughly here, but my RPCV Armenia friend said to me, “Here, I get home from my 9 to 5 unpaid internship and then have to go right back out to my restaurant job so I can afford to live in DC. In Armenia, when I was done teaching for the day, I would spend the afternoons and evenings picking grapes with my neighbors or having a meal with my host family.”

Maybe I’m viewing my time in Kazakhstan through rose-colored lenses by longing for the “simpler” life there, but what is undeniable is that there is something about life there that I long for, something that I can’t replicate here.

Terrorism and Kazakhstan

Антитеррор – Нас не запугать! / Anti-terror – We will not be intimidated!

I’m not entirely sure what the intended message of this public service announcement from Kazakhstan actually is. Yes, the title seems to indicate that regardless of the unprecedented spate of terror attacks in Kazakhstan throughout 2011 the people of Kazakhstan will not be held hostage by fear. But what I find most interesting about the video is the profile of the suspected “terrorist”. Middle-aged, Kazakh male… is this the profile of Kazakh “terrorists”? I’m not entirely convinced.

Spring has Sprung

A friend of mine is doing his Fulbright in Kazakhstan this year, and he has just written a post about the onset of spring in Almaty. Indeed, when I opened my iGoogle homepage, where I have the weather for Washington, London and Almaty posted, the average temperatures for Almaty this week were just as warm as DC (low 20s Celsius/high 60s Fahrenheit)!
His post brings back fond memories of emerging from the deep freeze of a Kazakhstan winter: no longer having to wear (multiple pairs) of tights and socks under my jeans, no longer having to spend ten minutes getting bundled up, and no longer having to walk at a snail’s pace for fear of wiping out on a slick patch of ice.
In the north of Kazakhstan, where I spent two years working as a Peace Corps volunteer, spring was not so idyllic. Spring meant warmth, yes. But it also meant the melt of a couple feet of snow, turning the entire city into a slushy, muddy mess. As a result, I favored summer much more, with its dry heat, warm winds gusting across the steppe, and the chance to swim in the river followed by some ice cold beer and good shashlik.

One Steppe at a Time

As I have mentioned before, Kazakhstan and England have in common a love for conversations about the weather. It is a constant and reliable source of either misery or joy, wearisomeness or surprise. “The weather” in Almaty is at once and always both predictable and unpredictable, depending on whatever it is doing that day.

But whatever it has been in the past, andwhatever frigid temperatures I’ve reported to you, spring has finally come to Almaty, and it is astonishing how quickly it washes away the winter and all memories of the cold. And not only is it warmer, but for whatever reason, the dense smog that sat on the city has lifted, revealing the mountains just out our backdoor. The city is absolutely stunning right now, as my photographs attest.

The arrival of spring has predictably lifted everyone’s moods. A sense of cheer an bonhomie is palpable throughout the city –…

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Almaty’s Subway

The Coolist, the upscale lifestyle website with a heavy design focus, recently put out a list of the world’s ten coolest subway systems. I am completely enamored by subway systems (and their navigational maps, in particular) and this piece was an homage to the progressive designs and iconic legacies that subways establish.

On the list is my own hometown of Washington DC, whose Metrorail subterranean stations The Coolist praises as “the most iconic and visually progressive subway system in the United States.” This is in spite of the myriad of problems Metrorail constantly faces, including daily escalator outages, months-long closures of entryways, single-tracking and the occasional cracked rail or other mishap. But the DC metro is not the focus of my post today.

Instead, it’s Almaty’s subway. The Coolist offers the following description of the newly opened system:

After 23 years in construction, punctuated by a very long break, Kazakhstan’s Almaty Subway opened its doors on December 1st, 2011.  The world’s youngest subway is immediately amongst the world’s most beautiful, featuring a design character that is at once modern and classical.  Stained glass windows, geometric paint patterns, glossy floors and ornate chandeliers make this subway system a destination in its own right.

And it’s true; shiny and new, the Almaty subway system is quite a sight. Mimicking the traditional Soviet style, each station has a different design based on the person or place of interest it is named after. 

Nevertheless, despite its visual appeal, the system has its drawbacks. A good friend, currently living in Almaty, has posted several times about the Almaty subway. His assessment of the situation, based on conversations with locals, is that while it is good for Almaty’s image that it now has a subway system, it will not become useful until more lines are constructed and it reaches further.

With just seven working stations on one line (Alatau-Dramteatr Auezova-Baykonur-Abay-Almaty-Zhibek Zholy-Raiymbek Batyr), the subway hardly goes anywhere. Once it is expanded out to the Almaty-2 and Almaty-1 train stations the system may have more use. (What would be really useful, actually, is for it to extend out to the airport, which is currently accessible only by a couple of very slow bus routes or by taxi). Moreover, at 80 KZT (approximately $0.53 USD), it costs more to take the subway than the bus or tram.

From my own personal observations back in December, most people were riding the subway for the sheer novelty of it, as opposed to using it as a means of efficient transportation. Just over two months old, the system still has the novelty of a theme park attraction, says The Atlantic: “Transit employees sport clean, decorated uniforms and welcoming smiles, while riders are given yellow tokens and smart cards to take their public transit system for a spin.” But on the subway’s opening weekend, there weren’t enough tokens for the clamoring Almaty residents demanding a ride, according to friends I spoke to. 

Ultimately, this is still a post-Soviet country, and one cannot really expect everything to go smoothly right away. But will we have to wait another 23 years before more progress is made?

 

Unrest in Kazakhstan: Updates

Kazakhstan lifted the state of emergency in Zhanaozen on January 31. During the state of emergency all protests and strikes were banned, a curfew imposed and checks conducted on all transport leaving and entering the town. It also allowed officials to restrict or ban the use of television and radio broadcasting equipment. Lifting the state of emergency, however, does not mean that the situation in Kazakhstan has returned back to normal.

On January 28, hundreds of demonstrators defied a heavy police presence to stage a rare protest in Kazakhstan against Nazarbayev and the outcome of the parliamentary elections, gathering in Almaty’s Republic Square. Unlike the smaller opposition protest on January 17, this protest was not sanctioned by the authorities and shortly afterwards the Almaty district court handed the co-chairman of OSDP, Bolat Abilov, 18 days in jail, while the party’s general-secretary, Amirzhan Kosanov, and its Almaty head, Amirbek Togusov, were sentenced to 15 days.

Kazakhstan is still grappling, it seems, with how best to address the risks it continues to face. In a recent hearing of the U.S. Helsinki Commission on the stability of Kazakhstan, Sean Roberts put forth three trends (the rapid growth of Islam’s popularity, the rise in Kazakh ethnic nationalism, and unmet economic expectations) in Kazakhstan’s economy and society that the government is poorly prepared to respond to, which in turn increases the possibility that recent violence in Kazakhstan is the beginning of a longer period of instability.

Additionally, in the Worldwide Threats Assessment report the Director of National Intelligence noted the potential for continued instability in Central Asia: “Central Asian leaders are concerned about a Central Asian version of the Arab Spring, and have implemented measures to buttress their control and disrupt potential social mobilization, rather than implementing liberalizing reforms.”

Addressing concerns over long-term instability, Kazakh Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov has tried to reassure the West, insisting that Kazakhstan is an “aspiring democracy” that is “still learning how to balance the wishes of its citizens with its economic realities.” Moreover, in a clear attempt to buy off stability from its people the government is resolving the labor problems in Zhanaozen by “releasing a mini-gusher of new financing not only for the workers but for the local government, schools and roads.” Such efforts, however, are merely temporary fixes and do not address the deeper issues underlying the unrest.

According to Martha Brill Olcott, who suggests that Kazakhstan needs a political evolution, not revolution, “policies need to be changed and political institutions strengthened for the leader of the nation to successfully transfer power and secure his place in Kazakh history. Only time will tell if the rethought political, economic, and social policies will have their desired effect, but it is the Kazakh population itself that will make the ultimate judgment.” However, the regime seems to be slow on the uptake; Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake said that Kazakhstan’s promises to liberalize its political system and uphold human rights remain largely unmet.

At 71-years old and with no apparent plan for succession, Nazarbayev does not have infinite time to initiate reforms and open his country’s politics and economy up like the rest of the developed world, prompting some analysts to suggest that Kazakhstan may witness serious instability and/or violence again soon. There has been considerable concern about the prospects of a Kazakhstan version of the Arab Spring, but this seems highly unlikely. Nevertheless, President Nazarbayev would do well to address the increasing discontent of his people in advance.

Unrest in Kazakhstan: Shaken, Not Stirred

Until very recently, Kazakhstan has been the “success” story of Central Asia. Unlike its neighbors—particularly Kyrgyzstan, which has experienced several revolutions and serious interethnic violence—Kazakhstan has been a relative bastion of stability, a hub for foreign investment and has experienced an economic boom, which long-standing President Nursultan Nazarbayev claims has benefited ordinary citizens. Thus, the riots in Zhanaozen, which took place on December 16 as the country prepared to celebrate 20 years of independence from the former Soviet Union, came as a shock to the Nazarbayev regime. These riots were the culmination of a year of increasing violence and terrorist activity across Kazakhstan. This unprecedented amount of instability has marred and severely damaged the once positive image of Kazakhstan as the most peaceful and stable of the Central Asian states.

Last year’s wave of violence began with a suicide bombing—the first ever reported in Kazakhstan—on May 17. The suicide attacker reportedly entered the Kazakhstan National Security Committee (KNB)—the successor to the Soviet-era KGB—offices in Aktobe and detonated an explosive device, injuring two people. This attack was followed by a car explosion in Astana a week later on May 24. The explosion, near the KNB remand center, killed the two occupants of the car. Kazakhstan’s Ministry of the Interior (MVD) issued a statement shortly after the blast, swiftly denying any linkages of the incident to wider terrorist activity. On June 30 two police officers were killed in the village of Shubarshi, 250 kilometers from Aktobe. This incident prompted a security operation in July, ending in a shootout with police in Kenkiyak. According to the International Crisis Group, the July clashes in between police and armed groups left two officers dead, five wounded, at least nine militants reportedly killed, and four captured. On August 29, law enforcement officials announced they had killed an alleged religious extremist who purportedly was planning to carry out terrorist attacks in the Atyrau Region, an oil-rich area in western Kazakhstan.

Despite efforts by the authorities to reduce the threat of further attacks, they were nevertheless unable to thwart two explosions that occurred in Atyrau in October, killing a suspected suicide bomber. On November 12, seven people were killed in the southern Kazakh city of Taraz when a suspected Islamist went on a shooting rampage and then blew himself up. The Jund al-Khilafah (JaK) claimed responsibility for the attack and issued an ominous warning: “In Taraz, you saw with your own eyes what one Mujahid can do to you, and Allah willing, you will see woes at the hands of men who are unafraid of death and who sacrifice their lives cheaply to support the religion of Islam and to defend the honors of Muslims.” The attack in Taraz brought the death toll in 2011 from a string of incidents with possible extremist links to a staggering number of at least 30, including 11 members of the security forces, according to EurasiaNet. As the country reeled from a year plagued by intermittent terrorist violence, the worst was only yet to come.

On December 16, as the country celebrated its 20^th anniversary of independence from the former Soviet Union, in western oil town of Zhanaozen severe violence broke out as oil workers clashed with government forces, resulting in at least 15 people killed, 100 injured, and around 40 buildings burned down. This came after seven months of peaceful strikes demanding better pay and work conditions, equal rights with foreign workers, and the lifting of restrictions on the activities of independent labor unions in the region from their employer KazMunaiGaz (KMG) which operates the local oil facility via its subsidiary OzenMunaiGaz (OMG).  The clashes in Zhanaozen were followed a day later by a riot in the nearby village of Shetpe, where another person died. Peaceful protests spread to the regional capital Aktau, while Zhanaozen remained under a government-imposed state of emergency.

Although the state of emergency has been extended until January 31, relative calm has returned to Kazakhstan, just in time for parliamentary elections to be conducted on January 15. Restoring stability to the riot-scarred town of Zhanaozen was achieved relatively painlessly, despite the fact that Nazarbayev failed to visit the region until December 22. Nevertheless, his actions were intended to send a clear message that he will not be shaken by the violence. He replaced the oblast akim (regional governor) with a former minister of interior and fired the heads of KMG and its London-listed production unit. On December 26, he fired his son-in-law Timur Kulibayev from his position as the head of the sovereign wealth fund Samruk-Kazyna, which owns KMG and has stakes in the companies whose workers were striking. The president also promised employment to the striking oil workers.

This confluence of events—the rising threat of Islamic extremism and terrorist activity, the labor strikes by oil workers, and the 20^th anniversary of independence—raises significant questions about where Kazakhstan is heading. Kate Mallinson, an expert on Central Asia with the political risk consultancy GPW, said that “this could be a wake-up call that Kazakhstan is facing a potentially turbulent transition period.” Should the Kazakh government be genuinely concerned about a “Kazakhstan Spring”?

Some analysts suggest that if Nazarbayev cannot maintain stability in Kazakhstan, then even the majority of religiously non-affiliated Kazakhs may question the purpose of his two-decade rule, which (like many of the toppled Arab Spring dictators) has been characterized by the trade-off of people giving up democratic rights for the stability provided by regime. However, while the Arab Spring may have sparked several other protest movements, Kazakhstan is unlikely to experience a large-scale uprising of its own. This is in spite of the fact that recent events may seem on the surface reminiscent of the Arab uprisings: “an oil-rich state, undergoing rapid economic growth and modernization, is confronted by unrest that takes a long-term autocratic leadership by surprise.” Nor is Nazarbayev likely to permit any mass protests unlike Putin who, in response to the discontent with the December Duma elections, permitted public demonstrations against his rule. Both scenarios are unlikely because Nazarbayev—for the time being, at least—is firmly in power. Moreover, in the words of Central Asia analyst Joshua Foust, “Geographic isolation plus economic disparity equals no revolution.” Zhanaozen, it seems, was the “Kazakh Spring” that wasn’t.

The comparison that ought to be made is not with the Middle East but with Russia, as Joshua Kucera, a freelance journalist focusing on Central Asia, recently pointed out. The protests in Russia, though very unlikely to prevent the election of Vladimir Putin as president, did however puncture holes in the once firm image of Putin’s omnipotence. Although the protests in Zhanaozen were an isolated event and cannot be compared in terms of scale to those in Russia, the net effect has largely been the same. Nazarbayev has been forced to acknowledge that public input is, in fact, vital and ought to be taken into greater consideration.

Thus, while the Zhanaozen events may not necessarily be a sign of widespread instability to come, it is an indication of how distant—both geographically and otherwise—the Nazarbayev regime truly is from the daily reality its people must struggle with. The Zhanaozen incident should serve as a wake-up call for the leadership that it is dangerously out of touch with the needs of its people. The oil workers in the Mangistau oblast’ had been on strike for months, but no one—not the KMG management, the labor unions, or regional officials—knew how to settle the labor dispute. And, in a display of the disconnect between the regime and the people, it rewarded police officers who were flown in from in the central coal-mining city of Karaganda to help quell the riots in Zhanaozen. The rewarded officers were not in Zhanaozen when security forces opened fire on protesters, but they received certificates and commemorative watches for their assistance. It seems a strange time to be rewarding these policemen, since an open and transparent inquiry has barely gotten underway, nor has there been any public national day of mourning or acknowledgement of those who died during the riots. A wiser use of the government’s time may be to take a look at the governance issues at the heart of the matter.

Zhanaozen, like many other cities across Kazakhstan, is dependent on a single industry. The country needs to diversify its economy, particularly because it is highly dependent on income from its oil resources and is vulnerable to oil price fluctuations. All parties involved in the initial labor dispute failed to resolve the issues due to a lack of understanding of labor laws and conflict management. Lastly, and perhaps most crucially, the government utilized its preferred method of crisis management and control—restricting freedom of speech. It shut down internet sites such as Twitter and YouTube, isolated the region by cancelling flights to Atyrau, and blocked mobile phone networks. More disconcertingly, however, was the unprecedented use of violence by the authorities; security forces were permitted to open fire on the crowd. These issues, should they continue to go unresolved, could cause serious long-term instability.

Despite experiencing a minor setback due to the past year of violence and unrest, Nazarbayev is still firmly—although perhaps slightly less confidently?—in power. Moreover, his Nur Otan party took the majority in the January 15 parliamentary elections. Although two opposition parties, Ak Zhol and the Communist People’s Party of Kazakhstan, will be represented in the parliament, marking some progress in terms of developing a more democratic system, both parties are in fact loyal to Nur Otan (more on the elections in my next post). Consequently, it looks as though it will just be more of the same in Kazakhstan over the short-term. Will there be change or meaningful reform in the long-term? The 71-year old Nazarbayev cannot live forever (although he has reportedly tried to find ways to do so). There will be change one day, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.