kazakhstan

President Nursultan Nazarbayev cited country’s oil wealth as a reason why it should be seen as distinctive from the rest of the Central Asian”‘stans,” Reuters reports. Those include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, countries that are largely poverty-stricken.

Life-long Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev has suggested changing his country's name to to "Kazak Yeli" to make it friendlier to investors and tourists. “The name of our country has the ending ‘stan,’ as do the other states of Central Asia,” he said Thursday. “At the same time, foreigners show interest in Mongolia, whose population is just 2 million people, and its name lacks the suffix ‘stan.’ Perhaps with time the question of changing the name of our country to Kazak Yeli should be examined, but first this should definitely be discussed with the people.”

President Nursultan Nazarbayev cited country’s oil wealth as a reason why it should be seen as distinctive from the rest of the Central Asian”‘stans,” Reuters reports. Those include Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, countries that are largely poverty-stricken.

 

Life-long Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev has suggested changing his country's name to to "Kazak Yeli" to make it friendlier to investors and tourists. “The name of our country has the ending ‘stan,’ as do the other states of Central Asia,” he said Thursday. “At the same time, foreigners show interest in Mongolia, whose population is just 2 million people, and its name lacks the suffix ‘stan.’ Perhaps with time the question of changing the name of our country to Kazak Yeli should be examined, but first this should definitely be discussed with the people.”

When Kazakhs meet for the first time, two key questions are all it takes to figure each other out: What part of the country are they from? And what horde and tribe are they? The answers immediately establish a person's roots, history, and allegiances -- a holdover of ancient tribal divisions that remain relevant in modern-day Kazakhstan.

At just 28 years old, Askar Baitassov has built the biggest restaurant business in Kazakhstan. Now he wants to introduce high quality Central Asian cuisine to the world. "I always dreamed of becoming rich by the time I was 25, so that I could buy myself a really expensive car," says Mr Baitassov. He is sipping on a blackcurrant drink at one of his numerous restaurants in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city and commercial centre.

With a gay propaganda law in the works, a history peppered with anti-gay violence, lawmakers in Parliament saying things like "homosexuality is a clearly unacceptable behavior" and a bid to host the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, the situation in Kazakhstan sounds a lot like Russia's. And that's a curious place to be, when you consider the international outrage against the latter's aggressive anti-gay laws and the resulting calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi.

ndia’s soft power in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan, the largest of the five stans, is enjoying a revival thanks to a new breed of Indian entrepreneurs. Forget Raj Kapoor, Nargis and Indira Gandhi. They now evoke smiles and a sigh. No matter a 15-year old Devushka (young girl) or a 60-something Zenshina (lady) are called Indira, Mira or Gita. Enter Balika Badhu and Shahrukh Khan in Jab Tak Hai Jaan.

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