Kazakhstan

The company Yandex has increased the percentages for taxi drivers, and has stifled all the other players in the market for the transport of people and goods (including Uber) in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The measures launched by the local antitrust agencies have been ineffective.

The repercussions in Central Asia of the US government's blocking of cooperation activities also include the suspension of subsidies to news agencies such as Radio Svoboda and associations that fight against the gagging of critical voices. And Kazakh nationalist politicians are rejoicing, calling for an end to ‘foreign interference’ in the story of their country.

The mayor of the Kazakh capital has announced the summer opening of the rail transport line that has become a monument to corruption in the country after ten years of inconclusive projects. But the final costs and payment mechanisms remain unknown.

From Kazakhstan to Tajikistan, procedures have been adopted throughout the region to change the spelling of surnames by eliminating the patronymic forms imposed during tsarist and Soviet domination, in order to recover Turkic or other ethnic roots. However, only a few personalities have taken this step, perceived by many as an unnecessary complication.

Analyst Syroežkin - freed from prison after being convicted in 2019 of ‘treason’ - analysed the state of Kazakhstan's relations with China in a television interview: ‘The president is one of the few Kazakhs who can understand Chinese policy: he tries to pursue an effective balance with Moscow. But his promises about a new and just country still remain limp’.

The video of an ‘exorcism’ performed on a little girl that has gone viral on social networks is sparking heated debate in Kazakhstan. The denunciation of intellectual Gaziz Abišev: ‘The ultra-conservative part of society, behind the slogans of passionate ideologies, is trying in various ways to drag the nation back to the darkness of the past’.

With Russia's doors increasingly closed, many workers from the region have left for South Korea. But Central Asians seeking prospects in Western countries are also increasing, often ending up as victims of unscrupulous exploiters. Turkey as an intermediate destination where they stay for a few years hoping then to reach Europe or America.

To allay Putin's ill-will, Kazakhstan's ambassador to Moscow has published an article in an authoritative Russian daily in which he defends the transformations taking place in the country. He hoped that ‘the de-globalisation underway’ would not lead to ‘new opposing blocs’.

A group of Kazakh parliamentarians is calling for measures against ‘Furry Fandom’, a phenomenon in which groups of young people go around dressed as animals theorising that this is the true expression of their personality. In an investigation by Currentime their stories and the accusations of those who claim they are ‘a problem for society’.

From Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan former leading politicians are on trial on charges of high treason just because they were identified as possible alternatives to ‘dynastic’ successions. While in Kazakhstan on trial is a group that allegedly ‘menacingly’ planned to storm the presidential palace with a tractor and a cannon loaded with potato fragments.

On the bitter clash triggered by President Yoon's attempt to proclaim martial law, Radio Azattyk has gathered the opinions of Kazakhs who (with or without papers) are lacorating in the Korean capital. In their voices the hope that a change in the country's leadership will make life easier for them too.

In spite of distancing itself from the invasion of Ukraine, Kazakhstan continues to cooperate intensively with Moscow, but also intensifies agreements with Western countries. Today it is ‘closer than Europe’ for Russia, and at the same time ‘brings Europe closer to China’. And precisely the meeting of different worlds could be the great opportunity for the heirs of the nomads of Central Asia.