Author Archives 
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Coolest Pingback Ever!
Global Voices has a Malagasy edition and apparently someone felt that Madagascarians might be interested in Aliya Nazarbayeva’s birthday performers and pinged my earlier post about Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears and Sting on this post in Malagasy. I just think it’s cool that I had to google a sample of the language to figure it [...]
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Urgent Help Wanted
Came across the site Mojazarplata.kz [MySalary][RU]. The site is only in Russian so it’s not much use to expats but it seems like an interesting resource for tracking salaries, jobs in demand and other work trends. There’s a few surveys you can fill out, including one on whether or not your work is violating [...]
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Happy Valentine’s Day: You’re Under Arrest!
Missed this cute little story: On Valentine’s Day, policewomen handed out flowers and cards instead of tickets [RU] to traffic law violators in Kostanai province. On the back of the Valentine’s Day cards were explainations of the traffic laws.
The head of the traffic police section in Kostanai was quoted by zakon.kz as saying, “Today, [...] -
Is Russia Making It Up?
Just as the lease comes up on Baikanour and the Kazakhstan Parliament considers increasing the price (Subscription Only) for Russia to rent and operate the base, Russia is making accusations that Kazakhstan is interfering. The charges are sufficiently vague:
Kazakhstan’s position on various matters regarding the use of the Baikonur cosmodrome is complicating the execution of [...] -
Is Toyota Motors Doing Anything?
As most of the world reacts to defects in Toyotas that can cause them to accelerate suddenly, not much seems to be being said about it in Kazakhstan. In Astana, every other car is a Toyota including most government cars. If Toyotas are dangerous, one would think it would be making major news. So far [...]
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If You Can’t Get It at Home, You’re Gonna Go Looking
Tennis World has an article up about Kazakhstan’s buying of Russian tennis players. This is nothing new; I covered the purchase of Sesil Karatantcheva, a Bulgarian which has been going pretty well for the nation. And our recent medalist at Vancouver was also brought to Kazakhstan from Russia.
Tennis World’s interview with Evgeny Korolev is [...] -
Seriously, We Need to Empty the North of this Country
A teacher who comes from Pavlodar told me that school there has basically been canceled since January because of the extreme cold. In Kazakhstan, they close school when it gets too cold, not when it gets too snowy–call them frost days instead of snow days, if you like. The idea is that children can get [...]
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Sting Gets No Slack
from Eurasianet.org, Sting gets in trouble for performing in Uzbekistan for the president’s daughter. Meanwhile performing for Kazakhstan is still okay in the world as Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez came to say Happy Birthday to the president’s daughter and no one hates them.
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Movie Review: Tulpan
A review of Tulpan, a great look at life on the steppes of Kazakhstan and a light-hearted drama with bits of comedy mixed in. Incidentally, also the film from Kazakhstan that has won the most international awards!
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Clean Up Your Act
I only post this Reuters story from Russia because it’s so funny and because it gives you an insight into the post-Soviet mentality. When a big man is coming, see how painstakingly people go over their city or school or home.
Theater posters proclaiming “We await you, merry gnome” were taken down from a Russian town [...]
