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Kazakhstan: State-ordered blogging
Written by Arseny, Wednesday, 1 Jul, 2009 – 16:16 | One Comment

Translation of Mursya’s post

roose, the blogger from YVision.kz blog platform in Kazakhstan, has posted [ru] a letter from the government to the principals of schools and colleges of the country containing recommendations to use KazTube.Kz video portal, which was created in February, 2009 at the expense of the state budget. In particular, the principals are urged to post videos about “significant events taking place in their institutions on a regular basis.”

akost has associated [ru] this “marketing approach” with the one that had been applied back in the Soviet times, when “people were forced to work on subbotniks (area clean-ups), and nowadays people are forced to upload videos to inferior video portals”. bakha has suggested [ru] that the reason for that is that “the authorities have dumped a lot of money into that project and now they are looking for the ways to justify it by administrative increase of traffic”. At the same time, Kimberly jokingly notes [ru] that “fun” is the most popular tag on KazTube. Read the full story »

Culture and media in focus of Kazakhstani bloggers
Written by Arseny, Wednesday, 1 Jul, 2009 – 7:05 | 2 Comments

Translation of Adam’s post

Today’s roundup of blogs from Kazakhstan is dedicated to culture and media and how they come across each other. Of course, it did not go without politics being involved in it, as well as well as in many other things in Kazakhstan.

Megakhuimyak thinks that the main problem of Kazakhstani literature and arts is their irrelevance and lack of topicality [ru]:

“I am talking about satire and caricature – the genres, which are reflecting the current situation. The ones that exist at the moment are restricted by the editorial policy and trite techniques. In my personal opinion, it will be possible to say that our culture comes to life, only when these two genres revive”.

Read the full story »

Walking in Almaty
Written by ehot, Wednesday, 1 Jul, 2009 – 6:20 | One Comment

(с) ehot

Read the full story »

Grimaces of education in Kazakhstan
Written by Arseny, Monday, 29 Jun, 2009 – 10:16 | No Comment

Translation of Adam’s post

From June 01 to June 10 school graduates in Kazakhstan were undergoing Unified National Test (UNT) - the first and one of the most important tests in their lives. As Zara, one of our bloggers, writes, the average test result has been 74.9 points, which is 7 points higher than the one for the last year. The number of graduates with excellent marks, who confirmed their knowledge, has increased from 36% in the last year to 54.5%.

“On the whole, the situation with UNT results over the country is more optimistic comparing to the previous years”, she notes [ru].

Sadenova gives her own calculations, based on the officially stated figures, and her conclusions are far less optimistic [ru]: Read the full story »

Media Protest
Written by Arseny, Thursday, 25 Jun, 2009 – 6:28 | 2 Comments

Translation of Arman’s post

Yesterday, June 24, journalists of independent newspapers, media organizations and politicians from the “Azat” party held a silent actions of protest in the downtown of Almaty. They put on scarves on their mouths in a symbolic demand of more freedom of speech. The action went peacefully, but nearly a hundred of police officers were watching it. Read the full story »

KGB is back in Kazakhstan?
Written by Arseny, Wednesday, 24 Jun, 2009 – 7:43 | One Comment

translation of Adam’s post

Democratic community of Kazakhstan disseminated a statement in support of Mukhtar Jakishev. The open letter, signed by two dozens of journalists, rights advocates and opposition leaders, expressed concern that “Kazakhstan returns to vicious practice of the Soviet times”. Read the full story »

Kazakhstan: Bureaucracy, diplomacy and personality cult
Written by Arseny, Tuesday, 23 Jun, 2009 – 7:23 | One Comment

Translation of the Adam’s post

Bloggers keep on commenting political situation in Kazakhstan. megakhuimyak reports that according to the new presidential decree, the Financial Police has got extra authority, informers against corrupt officials will be awarded, the civil servants’ property and income will be monitored [ru]:

The bad thing is that now officials will stop working and making decisions at all, being too scared.

Read the full story »

Nuclear Scandal Deepens
Written by Arseny, Saturday, 20 Jun, 2009 – 15:41 | No Comment

Translation of the Sorge’s post

Scandalous details continue to gather around so-called “KazAtomProm case” in Kazakhstan. Read the full story »

Unified National Test: this year it’s better
Written by Arseny, Saturday, 20 Jun, 2009 – 14:17 | One Comment

Translation of Zara’s post

In June 01-10 all school graduates in Kazakhstan were undergoing a Unified National Test (UNT) - the first and one of the most important tests in their lives. Lately the Minister of Education has announced its results. Read the full story »

The falling of the Kazakh defence minister
Written by Arseny, Saturday, 20 Jun, 2009 – 13:54 | One Comment

Translation of the Slavasay’s post

On June 17, President Nazarbayev signed the order on resignation of Danial Akhmetov, the first civil Minister of Defence in the history of Kazakhstan. Nobody is appointed to replace him yet, which is very unusual for Kazakhstan. Traditionally, ministerial posts find their replacement immediately. Mukhtar Atynbayev, one of the former heads of the Ministry, the first Vice-Minister during Akhmetov’s administration, is temporarily assigned as acting Minister of Defence. Read the full story »