Tengiz, Kazakhstan’s biggest onshore oil field, is known to produce sulphur-rich crude. ChevronTexaco, exploring, developing and producing at Tengiz since the early 1990s, has had different ideas how to get rid of this unwanted by-product. Until today, these attempts have not yielded any noticeable success, though. In 2001, St. Petersburg Times correspondent Christopher Pala reported:

There are 4.5 million tons of sulfur at Tengiz spread out on football-field-sized cakes that are 7.5 meters thick. And every day another 4,500 tons of liquid sulfur comes up with the oil and is sprayed with agricultural watering equipment out onto the yellow slabs, solidifying rapidly into a luminous, porous material that gives off hardly any odor at all.

Read the full story »

Kazakhstan’s economic boom has now firmly caught the attention of international investors. As reported in this place earlier, some Kazakh blue chips are listed on the London Stock Exchange (albeit the bulk of the stocks is in the hands of a select few strategic investors and/or owners of the companies). The Kazakh Stock Exchange is seeing its trading grow at a fast pace, with both domestic and international investors unprecedently active.

KASE’s market capitalisation, the cumulative value of traded shares, has been growing, too – although it remains at low levels compared to Western stock exchanges. Trading in shares has also grown fast – a look at the period between 8-16 February this year shows that stocks worth $51 million changed their owners – which seems like a less active week taking into account that in 2006, $7 billion got turned over on the securities market (stocks and corporate bonds). As a comparison, average daily turnover in UK equities at the LSE in 2006 was GBP12 billion.

The emergence of international investors, however, could signify a run on to the Kazakh market: Deutsche Bank has just launched a new investment product composed of five stocks listed on the Kazakh stock exchange (three banks and two energy corporations). ABN AMRO didn’t wait too long and followed suit, as will other fund managers. Thanks to so-called cross-listings, i.e. Kazakh companies listed both at KASE and international stock markets, pricing becomes more transparent and risk becomes more manageable, therefore boosting trade on the KASE. Read the full story »

This is a translation of Adam Kesher’s post.

On 10 February in Almaty the opposition held a meeting, dedicated to the memory of Altynbek Sarsenbayev, who was shot along with his two assistants a year ago by unknown assassins.

The meeting took place near the Academy of sciences, where, a year ago the civil dirge on the murdered was conducted. Later, in March, a remembrance day, dedicated to all victims of terror was supposed to take place in the same area, but the event was wrecked by the city authorities and was turned into a procession on Furmanova Street (which, the democrats propose to rename in the honor Sarsenbayev and assembled over 200,000 signatures in the support of the proposal).

The fact, that the meeting happened in the center of the city and was officially permitted by the City Hall, is, by itself – big news”, says Malika, a student who came to attend the meeting.

By law, peaceful meetings are supposed to be carried out in places especially confirmed by “Maslikhat” (local representative officials). In all the cities, such places became areas far from the center. In Almaty it is a little space in an entertainment park “Family”, on the backyard of “Sary-Arka” cinema, where all the monuments dedicated to the communist workers from all around the city were moved. Read the full story »

This is a translation of Adam’s post from Russian-language neweurasia Kazakhstan.

Offering the budget for 2008, Bush administration will ask the Congress to decrease the financing of a number of broadcasting services, supported by the US (“Voice of America” (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), and even close some of them. The Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) suggests to stop the work of Russian and Uzbek “Voice of America” and cut the budget of Radio “Azzatyq”, Kazakh-language service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

BBG bases its offer on the need to re-channel the funds to the Middle East, North Korea and Iran, thus saving on Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and China, where freedom of media is still threatened. The human rights activists have already expressed their concern that the source of professional, uncensored and independent news will disappear in those countries where it is still needed.

Radio “Azattyq” broadcasts to Kazakhstan, where yet another package of limiting amendments to media legislation was adopted last year. One of the reasons for cutting the “Azattyq” budget, according to BBG, is its low coverage (about 3% of population). However, the audience of any non-entertainment media is not big in Kazakhstan.

Besides, the BBG has obviously chosen the easiest way to redistribute resources, though the Board could have reconsidered its spending for other programs, not related to broadcasting. In this wat they could – if not increase, then at least leave the financing on the same level. However, it seems that BBG was not ready for self-reform and chose to simply transfer the money from one place to another. Read the full story »

Our author and editor of Media Provinces site Irene Velska from Karaganda Center for Regional Journalism led a blogging training in Pavlodar last weekend, February 9-10. Young journalists, journalism students and NGO people were invited to take part in the training. The program included introduction to citizens media, discussions about blogging as modern mass media, data protection and online security. As part of the session on practical aspects of blogging, Irene showed the trainees how to post articles on blog, how to link, add photos and use other functions – on Russian-language neweurasia Kazakhstan blog. Below is the short summary of the posts produced during the training. If you are interested in reading any of these posts in full, let us know by leaving a comment here and we will translate it.

MaZhor posted the photos of a beautiful shrine built for Mashkhur Zhusup Kopeev, 19th century historian, philosopher and poet. Kopeev was born in Bayanaul of Pavlodar region (founded in 1826 by Russian Cossacks), and his great grandson lives in Ekibastuz now. MaZhor has been at the opening of the shrine on 11 November 2006, when more than 10 thousand people from all over Kazakhstan came to the shrine to take 73 steps up the stairs, the number of years that Mashkhur lived.

Naturally, journalism is a topic of interest for new bloggers, young journalists. Tasya reviewed the Ekibastuz press in her post, giving examples of three local newspapers. Entertainment plays a big role in how popular the papers are: they use the services of professional designers, conduct competitions and are rich with advertisements.

Velena portrayed typical journalist from Pavlodar region: it’s a 37-year old female, ethnic Russian, not married, without special journalism education, with 8 years work experience and a monthly salary of 35 thousand tenge (about 280 USD). To create this portrait, several third year journalism students of the Pavlodar State University conducted the survey among the journalists of six regional newspapers. They think that in the future this portrait might change – the average journalist would be younger (due to the opening of a new journalism department in the University), though Russian would still dominate the media. Read the full story »

There is a nice animated video of Kazakhstani rock band Motoroller in Youtube called “From Bishkek to Almaty”. The song is in Russian with English-language subtitles. The band has been playing for 12 years now and the vocalist Ilyas Autov has got “The Best Vocal” award in Ekaterinburg, Russia, on CIS scale “Old-New Rock Festival”.

It takes about 50 US dollars (after some barganing) and only 3.5 hours to reach Bishkek from Almaty by taxi, so I do hope that after you enjoy this video, you will one day get a chance to embark on this interesting trip.

“The headline is not a text from James Bond film trailer. It is how they do business in Kazakhstan”, wrote Jana Zhukova is Livejournal community of Almaty residents (RUS). She referred to mysterious set of events that surrounded “Nurbank”, the seventh largest bank in Kazakhstan connected with the President’s son-in-law Rakhat Aliev. On January 31 five armed people stormed the building of the bank but were stopped by the bank’s security guards.

In the following several days the news were coming up with an amazing speed: Janna writes on (RUS). First the law-enforcement agencies said they had no idea of what was going on. Then, it turned out that the armed people were … the officers of the special forces of the police, who came to free the hostage! And finally, on February 4th several local and international media outlets received a letter from Kapasheva Armangul addressed to the President of the country Nazarbayev. Armangul is a wife of Timraliev Zholdas, the first deputy Head of the Board of “Nurbank”. In this letter, she claimed that her husband was kidnapped. Twice. Read the full story »

Karaganda is hooting – a lecturer of the Department of Mathematics at Karaganda State University is fired. There seems to be nothing special in it, if not the reason, and being more precise, reasons, of the dismissal: demanding for a bribe and sexual solicitation toward students.

And now the most interesting fact about the story: the lecturer is a 49-year old woman, an associate professor, candidate of Physics and Mathematics. And the “object of her sexual solicitation” is a student of the third year of studying at the “Department of Mathimatics” (this is the way the poor student named his alma mater).

As long as I can recall, this is the first case of a public row connected with the dismissal of a lecturer. It does not mean before that there had been no bribing of teachers and lecturers – quite the contrary, ask any (or almost any) student, how much it costs “to start” this or that exam, and you will easily get all rates and prices. However, the “corporation laws” always tip the balance of any state laws, and the worst thing a college teacher, who was caught up, may face is to hear out reproaching words of his or her colleagues from the corporation and their wishes “not to be caught up again”. So the real reason of the dismissal, in the opinion of a many people in Karaganda, was the very “sexual solicitation”.

Noviy Vestnik paper describes what happened (in Russian): Read the full story »

After 8-months crisis, the Czech Republic has finally formed its new government with center-right majority. Four sits are taken by the Green Party – for the first time in the history of the party. One of the “Green” ministers is Dzhamila Stehlikova, an ethnic Kazakh born in Almaty. Dzhamila has medical education, she first worked as a doctor and came to politics through activism in environmental protection in coal-mining regions of the Czech Republic. Appointed as a minister without portfolio, pani Stehlikova is responsible for the policies in the sphere of ethnic minorities and human rights.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatar-Bashkir services) interviewed the new minister, the only Kazakh in the Parliament. When she was young, Stehlikova studied in Moscow, where she met a Czech student, married him and moved to the Czech Republic in 1988 at the age of 26. She has a Czech surname and Czech citizenship – foreigners still cannot be members of local parties in the Czech Republic. Read the full story »

Thanks to Berlin’s local paper Der Tagesspiegel, we have an insight account of what President Nazarbaev was up to after his meetings with the German government and representatives from business were over. Just like most of us, the president likes to go out with friends and have one or two drinks. Why not take home a knighthood from the Zitadelle Spandau with you if you’re already in Berlin? Some translated passages giving an account of a booze-heavy (k)night out in Berlin.

Russia’s President Putin had the knightly accolade conferred upon him seven years ago at the Spandau Citadel. Since then, the title seems to have some weight in the East. Wednesday night, Kazakh President Nursultan Abishevitsh Nazarbaev came to the fortress after visits to chancellor Merkel and President Köhler – and celebrated in medieval German style.

(…)He and his six-person party advertised their country to the large crowd of guests in the well-visited citadel tavern. After mead from the drinking-horn, assorted smoked fish, beer soup, lamb chop, beef filet, chicken and a shot of the firewater “bullshot”, the citadel bard Jochen animated the guests to sing along. Afterwards, Kazakh ambassador Kairat Sarybay himself conducted a visitor group, with whom he sang “Deutschland, Kasachstan und Druschba” and paid for the guests’ round afterwards. When the Kazakhs, some time into the evening, started to sing songs from home, the audience awarded them with thundering standing ovations. The subsequent witches’ dance made the entourage stand on their chairs, and several bank notes ended up in the cleavage of the witch actress Selina.

After baked apple in vanilla sauce and a cheese platter, things got serious. Before the knighting, citadel herald Heino Möhring asked the head of state which initiation ritual he chose: “Woman, Sword or Beer?” – “Can I have all three?”, Nazarbaev replied via his interpreter. “We don’t have that much money”, Möhring replied. Like Putin some years ago, Nazarbaev then downed a huge beer jug and kneed down for his accolade. Now he is a proper Spandau knight. Afterwards, the chief knight of the Kazakhs took on the dancefloor together with Selina. Only after three and a half hours did the guests go on their retreat – under thundering applause again. Back at home in Astana, Nazarbaev will think back to the night out in Spandau from time to time while enjoying a good sip. His baggage included three trays of “bullshot” (“Bullenschuss”).

Thanks to Rainer W. During for documenting this raving night out. It seems Berlin’s nightlife is excellent for every generation.