Tag Archives: food

Chinese hunt for shrimps in the Aral Sea

MO’YNOQ/Uzbekistan, FEB. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Sagynbai Murzayev is a strong and gentle Soviet-made man in his 70s. He used to be a fisherman in windswept Mo’ynoq, a town in Karakalpakstan which lies on the remote western fringe of Uzbekistan. Now he works several jobs and witnesses the Chinese influx.

Mo’ynoq once lay on the shores of the Aral Sea. This sea, though, shrunk rapidly because a Soviet irrigation system siphoned off its tributaries’ waters to feed giant cotton fields.

Left behind is a lunar desert of white dunes that locals call Aralkum (Aral’s Sands).

Murzayev works at the local museum of natural history and has witnessed the retreat from the beginning. His father was also a fisherman, his mother worked in a fishery. He now gathers most of his earnings by driving foreign guests to the sea shores. Most of the visitors are Chinese.

Since 2006 an energy consortium led by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has been exploring oil and gas deposits below the former seabed.

Although national Uzbek publications boast about Karakalpakstan’s growth as an energy-rich region, operations in the Ustyurt Plateau seem, to Murzayev at least, to proceed at a slow pace. The few Chinese workers camping on the shoreline are mainly after a rather different and rather unusual resource for Central Asia — shrimps.

Unexcited, Murzayev looked at a Chinese trawler coming ashore.

“The indiscriminate pillage of natural resources has already been proved to be detrimental for us,” he said. “We need to bring the sea back to life and not to scavenge its dead body.”

In the distance, the town’s crumbling homes are a symbol of the small economic advantages that this uncertain oil and gas bonanza can bring to the region. And all the while the fading memories of the local fisherman who used to work on the lake grow thinner and thinner.
>>By Gianluca Pardelli
ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 217, published on Feb. 4 2015)

Dunkin’ Donuts opens in Tbilisi

JAN. 13 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Georgians are now able to buy Dunkin’ Donuts in Tbilisi. One of the United States’ biggest fast food franchises opened its first two stores in Tbilisi, giving the economy a major PR scoop.

Other than Russia, Georgia is the only country in the former Soviet Union that Dunkin’ Donuts has opened a franchise.

“Opening Dunkin’ Donuts in Georgia proves that there is an attractive business climate in this country and it is easy to do business here,” US ambassador Richard Norland said at the opening of the stores.

Georgia’s economy has rebounded strongly from 2008 when it collapsed after a brief war with Russia. Since then foreign investment and exports, mainly to Russia, have picked up pace.

The Wissol conglomerate, which has close connections with the Georgian business and political elite, brought Dunkin’ Donuts to Georgia. Last year it also brought Wendy’s, another US fast food chain to Georgia.

The vice-president of Dunkin’ Donuts in Europe, Carlos Vidal, said that Wissol had the experience to launch a brand successfully in Georgia.

“Wissol Group owns knowledge of establishment of retail business and management,” he said.

“Together with Wissol Group we have ambitious plans in Georgia because we know that the population of the country is ready to receive the unique experience of Dunkin’ Donuts and to become everyday customer of sandwiches, donuts, bakery and a variety coffee products.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015

Veggie options are rare in Kazakhstan

KYZYLORDA/Kazakhstan, JAN. 14 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Vegetarianism is growing in popularity in Kazakhstan although ordering it successfully can still be a challenge, even for a well-known pop star.

Pasquale Caprino, an Italian singer who goes by the name of Son Pascal and has made Kazakhstan his home, was trying to order a bowl of vegetarian soup at a restaurant in Kyzylorda.

He’d headed out to this remote and barren medium-sized town in south-central Kazakhstan to shoot a music video.

The restaurant was making an effort with its Alpine chalet-style decorations and uniforms for the staff. It contrasted nicely with the concrete skyline outside. In the corner, overlooking the diners was a full-sized taxidermy of a snarling wolf.

Caprino wanted a bowl of cucumber soup without meat. It arrived, though, with sausage floating amongst the ubiquitous dill. Caprino tried again but in Kazakhstan where eating meat, including horsemeat, is ingrained into the national consciousness the waitress thought that she was being teased. He sighed and pushed away the bowl.

This story of frustration for vegetarians is common in Kazakhstan, said Baur Safi and Stanley Currier — two Almaty-based bloggers who run the vegetaristan.com website.

“During holidays or weddings, it is extremely difficult to find anything other than bread and a cucumber and tomato salad that a vegetarian can eat,” said Currier, a native of California.

Safi, a Kazakh, said, though, that it had become far easier in Almaty, at least, to order vegetarian dishes than it had been several years ago. Much of this is down to the introduction of cuisines that don’t use meat rather than any sort of pro-vegetarian groundswell.

“Many locals equate being vegetarian to being gay,” he said. “It’s a question of ethics, as if you’re trying to be special, and of machismo, which is linked to eating meat.”

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 214, published on Jan. 14 2015)

Lavash belongs to Armenia

NOV. 27 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural division, declared that lavash was a cultural icon belonging to Armenia. Lavash is a thin white bread used to wrap cheese, vegetable or meat. UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage List, compiled since 2008, appears to delight and infuriate nations in equal measure.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 211, published on Dec. 3 2014)

McDonalds to open in Kazakhstan

NOV. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – US burger chain McDonalds will open its first restaurant in Kazakhstan next year, the company announced. The question of if and when McDonalds would finally open a restaurant in Kazakhstan — also its first in Central Asia — has been pondered for years.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Food prices rising in Uzbekistan

NOV. 12 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Uzbek sum currency has fallen to its lowest levels against the US dollar in independent Uzbekistan’s 23 year history, pushing up the price of food and threatening social stability.

On the Black Market, an essential measure of currency rates, the exchange rate in Tashkent hit the 3,450 sums to $1. The skyrocketing currency price is a mirror of Russia’s economic troubles.

A Tashkent resident told the Conway Bulletin that a kilogram of mutton now costs between 25,000 and 30,000 sums, compared to 20,000 sums in the summer.

Prices of bread, sugar and grain-based cereals have also risen by roughly 25% over the past three months, he said.

“As if the recent increase in utility costs was not frustrating enough, the government’s inaction to stem price increases because of a foreign currency adds insult to injury,” the source said.

The Tashkent resident was referring to a 10% increase imposed by the government on utility prices on Oct. 1.

This insight is important because it provides a first- hand snapshot of how frustration is building in Uzbekistan over food price increases and the rising cost of utilities.

Ordinary Uzbeks have also had to put up with fuel and gas shortages. Social pressure is building.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 209, published on Nov.19 2014)

Russia may block food transport

OCT. 30 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Russia may block trucks and trains carrying food from the EU and Norway to Kazakhstan from travelling across it territory because of an import ban. Russia has banned produce from the EU and Norway in retaliation for sanctions imposed by the West.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 207, published on Nov. 5 2014)

Kazakhstan to produce foods for austronaunts

AUG. 29 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Depicting a more modern, technologically advanced side of Kazakhstan, officials have unveiled a plan to build a plant near Karaganda that will produce food for astronauts based on mare’s milk. Toregeldy Sharmanov, head of the Kazakh Academy of Nutrition, told media that mare’s milk was particularly nutritious.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 198, published on Sept. 3 2014)

Food oil business sale in Kazakhstan

MAY 25 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) – Saudi Arabia’s Savola Group has sold its food oil business in Kazakhstan to a Russian company for $28.5m, Reuters reported. Savola didn’t name the Russian company. It said that the sale was part of a strategy to divest units that were not making money.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 186, published on May 28 2014)

Kazakh PM wants to boost food processing

FEB. 7 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh PM Serik Akhmetov ordered his government to produce a plan to boost the county’s food processing industry, Kazakh media reported. Mr Akhmetov said that although Kazakhstan produces plenty of food, most of its processed food is imported.

(News report from Issue No. 171, published on Feb. 12 2014)