For me it is a sort of a flashback, a visualization of my best memories from Soviet times. I was 10 when USSR collapsed, so my memories are quite blurred and not systematic at all. But this sense of calmness, silence, and peace is very real. These empty clean streets, wide squares, green alleys, monuments, no one in a hurry, everyone living by the working schedule–bring back warm memories. Baikonur is a precious historical reserve where time has frozen.

I know many people here tell me that kids are kids. I sometimes hear praise for a theory of parenting (sometimes attributed to Turkey, sometimes to Japan) that parents should not discipline their children until the age of 5. For 5 years, the kid should be able to run around, scream, and do whatever he or she wants. And yes, kids are kids. But I don’t see how you can coddle your kids, let them cut in line, and say rude things, and then expect them to grow up to be well-mannered teenagers or adults.

What do you think of raising children to be good mannered?

I thought it might be fun to answer the questions myself as well, or at least the ones that she put up on her blog. I can really only give my impressions of life in Astana because this is the only part of Kazakhstan I have ever really lived in. I’ve also linked the questions to the post where Kazakhnomad talks about her results.
What is the most common question asked of you by Kazakhs?
Are you married? Is your family here or in the US? Are you a volunteer or do you work for the Embassy? Are you parents still alive? Is it cold in the US like in Astana?
Kazakhstan can be a challenging place to live, even for the locals, what bothers you as a foreigner the most?
The brusqueness of people on the street and lack of common courtesy, lack of customer service, things break all the time and fixing them is difficult, the cold weather, the constant changing as stores close or move to new locations, company and government policies change constantly so you never know what is going on.
What is the most onerous thing about living in Kazakhstan?
Suggested answers:
1. disparity of income in cities of KZ compared to the rural areas
Bothers me, but doesn’t affect me. What bothers me more is the lack of attention to the poor quality of life outside Astana and Almaty.
2. old Soviet era methods of doing things
Very much so. Bureacracy is king and filling out pieces of paper is the national sport.
3. politics in this new “democracy” with residual nepotism
Again, doesn’t affect me directly, but bothers me.
4. traffic gridlock and cars getting too close to pedestrians
As a driver, I can say that the gridlock isn’t too bad–although the fact that it is constant and unpredictable is awful. The psychotic drivers are a real problem. And the psychotic parkers, c.f. lack of common courtesy.
5. air pollution or cold weather or both
Both, yes.
6. police and their wand wave for trumped up fines to drivers
It’s not the trumped up fines. It’s the fact that they take away your license or impound your car for any violation. And they make you wait while the tow truck comes. No matter how cold it is. Then they try to chat with you as if you are friends. “So how do you like Kazakhstan? Have you tried beshbarmak?” Sir, you are towing my car to God knows where because it was dirty, I don’t want to talk to you.
7. laws that are too complex to understand about visas and work permits
More the constant changing of the laws and the fact that no one ever gives you clear and complete instructions. They tell you you need document A, then when you bring that, they tell you that you also need document B, then when you bring A and B, you find out you need a physical from the hospital, so you bring that but you find out that you went to the wrong hospital. Etcetera.
8. feeling cheated or feeling like you are not wanted in Kazakhstan
Feeling cheated, definitely. It seems to me the mentality here to suck the marrow out of workers by piling more and more work on them without increasing their salaries or any kind of benefits.
What is the most precious memory you have had when dining in a Kazakh friend’s home? If it hasn’t happened yet, just wait, it will.
Being served sheep ear and a huge hunk of fat, like 1/4 pound of fat, and being told these were the most precious pieces of meat and a great honor. Realizing I would have to eat them and like it. It was really sweet of them to honor me in that way, and it wasn’t the worst thing I have ever eaten in my life. After a few bites, they figured out I wasn’t really enjoying the fat and I got some meat to mix it up with, which was nice.
Kazakh people are known for their generosity, peacefulness and hospitality. T or F
They are known for it, but generosity and hospitality only extends to family and friends and superiors (bosses, celebrities, the rich or the powerful). To strangers, the Kazakh people (like all former Soviet people) are very brusque or even rude.
Kazakh people are known for their hypersensitivity and holding grudges. T or F
Only when it comes to Borat.
How much does it bother you when you go home from Kazakhstan to your friends and family and they ask you “How is life in Russia?
That rarely happens. It bothers me more when I talk to my bank or a customer service center and they ask me what state Kazakhstan is in, or why I can’t come to a branch store to deal with my problem. You’d think the computer would tell them where Kazakhstan is, if they don’t know it’s a foreign country. That being said, can the world decide if they think Kazakhstan is part of the European zone, the Middle East zone, or Asia?
How do you think we, as foreigners living in Kazakhstan, can help create a better image about this great land of Kazakhstan?
I don’t think we have a responsibility to do so, but writing and telling the truth about life here is probably the best way. That means the good and the bad. The problem with the campaign to have foreigners only write good things about Kazakhstan (i.e. these paid advertisements written by foreign journalists) is that no one believes them. The truth is usually a mixture of good and bad.
Do you think this upcoming O.S.C.E. conference in Astana (Dec. 1-2) will make a difference for Kazakhstan?
I have the benefit of hindsight, but no. The OSCE is not popularly known in the world, the summit didn’t make international news and most places that have declarations named after them are not famous for that. Have you ever heard of anyone going to Geneva to see the place where the Convention was signed?

And of course the way international news travels, Kazakhstan gets international press attention even when it isn’t hosting a summit. So the OSCE summit may have some positive effect but if there is a scandal tomorrow, that will get attention too.
Do you believe that Kazakhstan will reach its goal to be one of the top 50 countries by the year 2030?
Well, it was 51st the year they announced this goal, 2005. The next year, it went down to 56th place. It was 67th last year and now it’s 72nd. So the trend appears to be downwards not upwards. But by 2030, I think it is possible. Reduce the bureaucracy and the corruption, make laws and policies from the point of view of the users (i.e. citizens and businesses), and start really innovating instead of just copying ideas from the West and Russia. The people of Kazakhstan are well educated, intelligent, persistent, and hard working.

So what do my expat readers think? Any answers to these questions?

Kazakhnomad has some of her notes up and it’s worth going through. I think the admissions that Kazakhstan is behind in the areas of education, innovation and scientific research are notable. I do think the general “pick-the-winner” strategy that Kazakhstan tries to follow in innovation, which the President hinted at in referring to the need for more practical science, is misguided. One never knows where the next practical breakthrough will come from so -you need basic research as well as commercial-minded research. But overall it’s nice to hear some criticism of Kazakhstan coming from up to.

Also, as someone involved in education in Kazakhstan, I was happy to hear reference to people learning problem-solving skills. I don’t know if it’s the Soviet-inherited mentality or Kazakh culture, but planning for the worst and having a back-up plan are not generally part of people’s or organizations’ skill sets here.

We were living in a yurta nearby to Angelina Jolie! Certainly, not nearby, but nevertheless sometimes we met at a restaurant and on the holiday of Nauryz. It is hard to believe that the stars can take a rest at the same places where simple people do! But here’s actually cool – the food is delicious and holidays are brigh. And these horses, camels, falcons. I do not think that in other place it is possible to experience similar sensations! Only to go to Kazakhstan. Guys, thank you, great job!!

“I do not think that in other place” is typical Ruslish, as is “simple people” and the weird comma use. A TinyEye.com search of the guestbook images finds that a couple of them are also taken from other websites. As do TinyEye searches of other “Pictures of the park” itself. In fact, some of the photos, they haven’t bothered to crop the credits to other websites!

Residents in California have never heard of it and the caretaker’s name (Karim Kulibayev) is a mash-up of the Prime Minister’ of Kazakhstan’s first name and the President’s son-in-law/head of Samruk-Kazyna Timur Kulibayev.

According to Nathan in the comments, the site is registered to someone naming themselves after Timur Bekmambetov’s company. But is he really based in Nicosia, Cyprus? Or is it his lawyers, as Micheal notes?

Registrant ID: M0HSMX3-RU
Registrant Name: Bekmambetov Projects Limited
Registrant Organization: Bekmambetov Projects Limited
Registrant Street1: 3 Themistokli Dervi str.
Registrant City: NICOSIA
Registrant Postal Code: 255549
Registrant Country: CY

The theory that is some form of viral advertising for a new Bekmambetov movie (Altyn Adam, maybe?) is belied by the use of stock images and the fact that’s it’s not very well-done. Compare it to Super 8‘s viral site, scariestthingieversaw.com. Maybe Bekmambetov is remaking WestWorld and robotic Kazakh batyrs will come to life and slay famous Hollywood actors and power players and hippies?

Oddly, while you might expect fake Kazakhstan websites to mock Kazakhstan a la Borat, the site definitely is positive about Kazakh culture.

What do you think gentle readers? What is the point of this thing?
Maybe it’s just to demonstrate a new Kazakh blogging software alternative to WordPress?
An attempt to shame the government into opening such a park? If so, can it please be near Astana?
Or just boosting Cyprus’ presence on the web?

EDIT: The site is dead, and appears to have been down for a while. So perhaps we will never know what the point was.

One of the big problems I was loath to face was the situation at college, where petty and possessive administrators wield the iron fist (minus the velvet glove) to keep teachers in the office from 9 to 5, no matter their lesson schedule. It’s resented by local teachers who are actually paid by the college, but it’s been especially hard for me, since last year I wanted to do projects in other community institutions and was constantly getting myself or my fellow teachers in trouble for it.

Then, apparently, the Education Minister cut our lesson hours, reducing my schedule to between 2 and 6 teaching hours a week. I started ignoring the administration and going to teach at different local schools until the college director found out and… the shit hit the fan. People started getting yelled at and threatened, in the all-too-familiar Soviet manner, and I was summoned to her office to explain myself.

Only in a place like this, where ingrained clannish greed too often rears its ugly head, would I have to explain why I’d prefer to fill my days with useful activities rather than obediently drinking tea in the teachers’ room. Last year I respected and was even a little intimidated by the director, but this year I see her clearly for the narrow-minded fist-clencher that she is.

There’s some possibly unjustified nastiness toward the Soviet system and tribalism, but the at the heart of the matter is the problem that school teachers are too often treated like members of an office staff. And their loyalty to the “company” is more important than their being able to be productive. I myself have seen teachers arrive at school to be told that their regular students are on a field trip and they should teach a completely different group of students. Or that they must be at school from 9-7, but they shouldn’t let students distract them because they need to be on-call in case the director or Minister officials want to talk to them. Of course, as I’ve mentioned before, teachers often don’t get paid much here so they need to work several jobs just to make ends meet.

In general, unfortunately one major issue here is still that the work of a teacher is not appreciated. It’s more than just following a textbook or giving a lecture or giving students a worksheet and correcting their errors. Teachers need to be engaged with students, they need time to prepare lessons and reflect on and evaluate past lessons, and they need time to read and learn from each other and take courses to become better teachers. They also need time to meet with students individually and deal with disciplinary issues. Time spent in a classroom is probably 30-50% of the time teachers spend working. Teaching is not like fixing pipes where you can just show up, do the job, and go home. It’s also not like you can be on call all the time to report to your superiors. What can they report? “Today we studied the Periodic Table. All of them understood atomic mass but they still don’t remember all the symbols. We will drill them tomorrow.”

Of course, teachers need to be accountable to students and the school and occasionally the director will need to meet with them to discuss issues. Monitoring by the Ministry or the local government is also needed. But in my opinion, imposing a regular work schedule is not the solution.

Looking at Blogger traffic, it has clearly been declining. Whether that is due mainly to government blockages or the perception of government blockages is unclear of course. There’s quite the little drop in January of 2010.

Any theories on what that spike is on June 6, 2010?

One major theme of this little series is how to change the attitude of teachers and students from teacher-centered instruction methods to student-centered methods. Personally when I work with teachers, I find that most of them want to change their teaching styles but they literally do not know how to. No one has ever told them. The teacher’s colleges still teach the old traditional methods of drilling, memorizing and making students feel stupid. Amazingly enough, a lot of them teach in schools that are too cheap to buy the teacher’s edition of textbooks–which tend to have lots of teaching methodologies and suggestions for diverse ways to approach the subject matter. So the first problem is just that teachers don’t know how to teach in a way oriented to the students.

Another problem is that teachers tend to teach the way they were taught. That is, teachers remember what our past teachers were like and teach in the same way because they feel that that is what being a teacher means. So it’s a cyclical problem. Our future teachers are learning in a very strict, controlled and teacher-oriented classroom meaning that they will also construct their classrooms in the same way. Until teachers learn how to give students autonomy and focus less on grading and more on educating, future teachers won’t embrace these new ideas.

Also, the fact is that a lot of decisions for education in this country are made at the Ministry of Education in Astana. The system is still very centralized and closely controlled. Textbooks are ordered and designed by the Ministry, hiring practices are also centralized as is the syllabus and accreditation of schools. So we need to educate the policymakers too. Otherwise they create systems in which teachers have no room to inspire students or adjust to different learning styles.

Finally, we need to hire more teachers and raise their salaries. Why? Many teachers don’t make enough money to live on. So they have to get other jobs (some of them write papers for students for money) or take bribes. Meaning they don’t have enough time to work a full day as a teacher, work their second job and read up on the latest teaching methodologies. In fact, some teachers need to work both shifts of the school day (8am-1:30pm and 1:45-7 or 8pm). These teachers don’t even have time to plan their lessons. I know one young teacher who says that she never knows what she is going to teach until she walks into the room and opens the textbook. Of course she is unable to go off the book or incorporate more creative ways to teach the subject matter. There’s no time. So teachers need to be guaranteed a living wage so that they have free time to improve themselves. Related to this, I don’t think universities here teach non-degree classes or continuing ed. It’s be nice if there were some seminars or short-term classes teachers could take to improve their teaching without having to go back and study full-time for a graduate degree.

So those are my thoughts on teaching in Kazakhstan. Be sure to look at Kazakhnomad’s as well.