Category archive for ‘Life in KZ’ 
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Who Needs Kazakh?
The Internet news site Oasis has an interesting opinion piece up called
Linguistic Illusion. The author, who would appear not to be Kazakh, claims that 1) she speaks Kazakh well and 2) she has never had any need for the language at all. So why is the government pushing people so hard to learn the official language of Kazakhstan? -
Competitive Mentality
Can Kazakhstan change people’s mentality to boost the economy? Should they? And most importantly what are the most annoying habits of people in Kazakhstan when it comes to doing business efficiently?
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Doctrine of National Unity
Astana Calling, the newsletter from the Kazakhstan Embassy in the US is out with its latest issue. (To subscribe to this newsletter, write to pressa@mid.kz).
There are a couple of articles that caught my attention and I’ll be writing about them in upcoming posts. But the first one I wanted to discuss was Public Debates Encouraged [...] -
Disabled People Suffer
There was a sad article the other day in Eurasianet about problems faced by disabled in Kyrgyzstan. I post it here because unfortunately many of the same problems exist in Kazakhstan. After doing a bit of research on the subject, I see there’s still a lot of work to be done to integrate disabled people [...]
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Customs Union Means Higher Prices?
The Customs Union which is likely to come into force in January of 2010 between Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia has not been getting a lot of press in Kazakhstan. Lukashenko, President of Belarus recently made some interesting comments on the Union, criticizing the fact that there has been no good analysis on whether or not [...]
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Everyday is not Halloween in Kazakhstan
But at least one intrepid Peace Corps Volunteer working as an English teacher in Zhezkazgan got his English club students to dress up. Check out the pictures especially and the description of how things went: Halloween in Kazakhstan. Some of the teachers I worked with wanted to do something similar but they were afraid the [...]
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Why KazNet is Not Developing Faster
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 [...]
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Supersitions in Kazakhstan
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 [...]
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Astana Day
Haven’t been posting lately as I have been on summer break. Look forward to a lot of travelogue posts about my adventures in Big Almaty Lake, Korgalzhino, Burabay, and Aktau. However my vacation began with horses and dzhigits. A few of my favorite shots of the Astana Day celebrations, one of my favorite holidays [...]
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Pics of Astana
Some more photos of Astana on my redbubble. So far my best seller is Dombra Hero but I’m proud of a lot of my pics. So check them out and if you like them, buy a print. The quality is really good and yes, they do deliver to Kazakshtan (as well as anywhere else in [...]
