The Beijing Olympics have moved political debates in the Kazakh blogosphere to the background.

Alim Atenbek is upset with the uniform of the Kazakhstani team [ru]:

Officials always want to make a buck on everything, and the Olympiad is not an exclusion. The government allocated 68 milion tenge for 226 kits - or 2,500 US dollars for each - but eventually the quality of fabric and tailoring was so bad that they had to remake it hastily. The tender for sale of tours to Beijing Olympics was very dubious too - a barely known tourist firm won it.

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The Kazakhstani bloggers always closely keep an eye on economic developments, justifiably linking the problems in development with shortcomings of the political system, poor governance and weak investments in human capital.

What still causes sincere amazement in Kazakhstan is a Stoic serenity of the higher officials, responsible for the so-called “breakthrough projects”. What yesterday used to be a pride of the government, today is rapidly becoming a trash and profanation. The whole last week everybody in Kazakhstan was debating about failure of the Unified National Test [a test-based examination for the graduates of high schools and university entrants at the same time], shutdown of the first Kazakh satellite and corruption,

sarimov writes [rus]. …read more

Editor’s Note: I met Al, the author of this post, while traveling through Central Asia this summer. Al has traveled extremely widely, spending significant time in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, from Mali to Haiti. Moreover, he has studied issues in other countries that have interesting parallels and contrasts in Central Asia, such as the сhanging nature of Islam in Senegal. With that in mind, I asked him to write a guest post for neweurasia outlining his strongest impressions as a newcomer to Central Asia.

My friend and traveling buddy, James, is one of the editors of this blog. We spent two weeks this summer traveling through Uzbekistan, where we passed a lot of time discussing, joking about, and analyzing Central Asia. James asked me if I’d consider writing a little bit about my impressions of the region. How could I resist?
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One of the major events in the world of sports is going to happen in Beijing this month. The countries involved are proudly sending their sportsmen to take part in different competitions and win in the name of their nations. Tajikistan is one of those countries that is proud to send its sportsmen to the Olympic Games. This time we have 14 sportsmen, and we hope they will win at least one golden medal. I think any sporstman who wins will be a hero of the country. …read more

Having just come back from a three-week long trip through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, I feel somewhat compelled to drop a post on my perception of road safety in the two countries. The statistics are pretty straightforward: Kazakhstan ranks 12th in the worldwide list of “most deaths in road accidents per 100,000 inhabitants”, Kyrgyzstan 15th.

The condition of the roads and the vehicles that drive on them are the main contributers to this grim number work of course. During my limited time spent in the region over the past years, I had four tyres burst beneath me, several near-misses, and saw more road-side wreckage than during the rest of my life. This time was no difference. …read more

Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan, has become such ten years ago, moved from the country’s largest city Almaty. It is believed to be a pet city for the president of Kazakhstan, who is often called in the pro-governmental media (which heavily dominate on the information field) as an “architect” of this new booming construction spot, magnetic for the world’s most renowned actual architects. Not surprisingly, the Astana Day is celebrated on the president’s birthday in an apparent attempt of the authorities to create a mild personality cult - not direct, but through a city, which was recently almost renamed in Nursultan at the MPs’ initiative. …read more

On the eve of the Beijing Olympiad, the Kazakhstani bloggers discuss what chances their country has to performs decently in summer sports.

The composition of Russian olympic team is public for a long time already, including in the Internet. But it is still not knownwho will go there from Kazakhstan! I searched for this information, but in vain. The website of the National Olympic Cimmittee is totally quiet. How shall I believe in the bright future of the Kazakhstani sports now? If people don’t know who goes from your country, it is hard to expect mass public support.

says grunge-amir [rus]. Later on, a scarce information came up - 132 Kazakh sportsmen representing 22 sports will defend the country’s honor in Beijing. Officials declared a very ambitious goal of winning 10-11 medals. Meanwhile, even in the conditions of such information blochade, bloggers try to make forecasts and don’t lose patriotic feelings:

Most part of the delegationis a ballast, those playing in team sports, in which Kazakhstan is pretty weak. Handball and volleyball can be discounted — that’s 26 persons out. The exotics like table-tennis and kayak-paddling can be disregarded as well. We don’t have obvious candidates for the gold medals, except for Ilya Ilyin, a weight-lifter. Several silver and bronze medals can be derived from boxers, wrestlers, rhythmic gymnastics and judo. So, the result will be, most likely, the same as in previous time, the 40th place. Although I’d be glad to be mistaken.

writes epolet and adds: “The Chinese will outrun everybody in any case!” [rus].

Cross-posted on Global Voices 

Early in June a sorrowful groan was heard from the Kyrgyz blogosphere: the great Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov died. Almost all Kyrgyz bloggers wrote about the death of a famous writer in their blogs.

Erne_raj wrote [ru]:

Chingiz Torekulovich is no more… But he left his scent in minds, hearts and history!

Baisalov told [ru]:

Aitmatov was more than just writer for Kyrgyz nation and Kyrgyzstan. He was the pride and the glory of the Kyrgyz people. He was the face of the nation. We haven’t enough words to describe the place which he took in the heart of every Kyrgyz. Aitmatov was a real artist. He didn’t copy off his heroes and didn’t put real life in his work: he was creating his characters. World knew about Kyrgyz nature, destiny and soul by way of Aitmatov. All Kyrgyz’s will be observed and appreciated through the prism of the Aitmatov’s mythology. We are living and we are condemned to live in the universe of Aitmatov, because the images of Aitmatov, heroes, persons, tragedies became our own life.

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Today, Uzbekistan is remaining one of the repressive countries in the region that maintains a tight grip on mass media. Despite it has all the nominal guarantees of the freedom of speech, the media is being systematically attacked by the government. The article 5 in the law of the Republic of Uzbekistan on mass media [ru] states that mass media in the country are free and can act freely according the laws of the country. In the same law, the article 7 states that there is no censorship in the country and “no one has a right to demand the preliminary approval of the publishing materials, and change or take them off from publication (broadcasting).” However, we witness de facto contradicting de jure in Uzbekistan. …read more

The main discussion this week in Kazakhstani blogosphere was caused by the suggestion that was voiced by a number of MPs to rename the capital city Astana to Nursultan, in the honor of the long-ruling president Nursultan Nazarbayev, who retains power for more than 18 years already. It is worth noting that he was the one who initiated the move of a capital from Almaty to Akmola, which was later renamed - again at the nazarbayev’s initiative - into Astana (”the capital” in Kazakh). He is also presented as the “main architect” of the city, which proves to be not just his “pet project”, but a also huge illustration to the Dutch disease with all its grand but useless expenditures. …read more