Tag Archives: society

Football success shows Almaty-Astana divide

ALMATY/Kazakhstan, AUG. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — FC Astana, the quasi Kazakh government football project, may have qualified for the UEFA Champions League for the first time but not everybody was celebrating.

Football fans in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s former capital, noted FC Astana’s success in beating Apoel Nicosia 2-1 over two legs in a qualifying round for Europe’s top football competition, but only grudgingly.

Azimat, 27, was taking a lunch-break from his job selling French wine at a shop in central Almaty. It was one of those graceful late summer days in Almaty. Snow-capped mountains in the background glinted bright in the sun; tree-lined streets provided a natural, fresh canopy for pedestrians. The day had a laid-back — louche, even — feel about it.

“This is definitely Kazakhstan’s glory,” Azimat said of FC Astana’s unexpected victory. “But, they are celebrating in Astana and not down here.” He smiled, proudly. “We are Almaty.”

People in Almaty are used to Astana’s status as the loud, brash newcomer usurping their beloved city. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev has treated Astana as his pet project, building grandiose government ministries and replicas of some of Europe’s most famous monuments such as the Arc de Triomphe. He made it his capital in 1997, wary of Almaty’s reputation for dissent. Since then he has poured billions into constructing the city of his dreams and shifted business and government agencies north to Astana. The Central Bank will be the last major government agency to move to Astana from Almaty when it shifts its office at the end of 2016.

Much like the city, FC Astana is a new football team. It was established in 2009, wears the national colours and is sponsored by Kazakhstan’s sovereign wealth fund. It has been created to succeed.

Almaty’s team Kairat was the football powerhouse in Kazakhstan but has been firmly superseded by FC Astana and its stars. A few hours after Azimat espoused on FC Astana’s success, Kairat was playing France’s Bordeaux in a qualifying match for Europe’s second tier UEFA Europa League. It won the match but still lost the two-leg tie. Once again, Almaty residents will have to look on as Astana carries the Kazakh flag, searching for more glory.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Food prices fall in Azerbaijan

SEPT. 3 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The price of food in Azerbaijan fell by 0.3% in August compared to July, the state’s statistical service told media. The fall in prices highlights the turmoil that the drop in the value of the manat and the collapse in oil prices has created.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Activists clash with police in Armenia

SEPT. 2 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Around 100 protesters scuffled with police in Yerevan over electricity price rises for businesses. Activists said they believe President Serzh Sargsyan has reneged on his promise to protesters in June to subsidise planned electricity price rises by omitting businesses from the deal.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Gazprom wants 60% of Kyrgyz households to have gas

SEPT. 1 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Bishkek, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller told Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev the Russian gas monopoly wanted 60% of the country to have access to gas.

Gazprom bought the Kyrgyz gas network in 2013 but this is its first major plan for Kyrgyzstan’s pipeline system. Mr Miller said the plan would cost $700m and mean building 2,500km of new gas pipes.

“We are working ahead of our schedule with the government to get Kyrgyzstan ready for the winter,” Mr Miller said at the press conference. He also noted that construction work on the final section of the Tashkent Bishkek-Almaty gas pipeline had started.

The Tashkent–Bishkek-Almaty gas pipeline is touted as a key component of Central Asia’s energy nexus as it will double capacity being sent from Uzbekistan to populated areas in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Labour unions in Kazakhstan criticise draft labour law

AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government has drawn up a draft bill which is says will do more to protect workers’ right although trade unions have said that it will reduce overtime pay and strain worker-company relations further.

The oil workers trade unions in western Kazakhstan have written to the government to ask it to change the draft labour law, setting up a stand-off between workers and the government.

Birjan Nurymbetov, the deputy minister for health and social development, told media that the new labour code was good for workers because it defended their rights and increased the criteria that an employer needs to test before he can sack an employee to 25 from 20.

“The new Labour Code fully protects the rights of employees against unfair dismissal,” he said.

The trade unions had a different view.

“The current project rate for overtime, holidays and weekends, is no less than 1-/12 to two times. This will be reduced to 1-1/4,” said Berdy Otebay, deputy head of the Aktau-based trade union Karazhanb- asmunaigas.

Relations between companies and workers have been strained since a protest in 2011 in the western oil town of Zhanaozen ended in clashes that killed at least 15 people. Companies have become increasingly wary of unions who have started to orgsanise workers more effectively, often securing pay rises.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Petrol price controls cut in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 4 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – The Kazakh government said that it was abandoning price controls on petrol. Heavy fluctuations in currency and oil prices have put these price controls under pressure.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 246, published on Sept. 4 2015)

Kazakh football team qualifies for UEFA Champions League

AUG. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – FC Astana became the first Kazakh football team to qualify for the group stages of the UEFA Champions League by beating the more fancied Apoel Nicosia 2-1 on aggregate during a two-leg qualifying match. FC Astana scored with 6 minutes remaining of normal time in the second match in Nicosia.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)

Uzbekistan sacks defender of Avant Garde art collection

ALMATY/Kazakhstan, AUG. 28 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Reports from Uzbekistan said that Marinika Babanazarova, the curator and de facto defender of the world famous Savitsky Collection in Nukus, Uzbekistan, has been sacked.

Ms Babanazarova has held the job for over 30 years. She took over from Igor Savitsky himself and considered it her duty to keep the collection together despite pressure to split it up.

She confirmed to the New York Times that she had been sacked. Earlier reports said that the Uzbek authorities had fired her for stealing pictures and making forgeries, accusations she denied.

Relations between Ms Babanazarova and the Uzbek authorities have generally been strained. In 2011, they blocked her from travelling to New York to see the premiere of a film about the collection.

Savitsky was a Soviet archaeologist and painter who collected, often at great personal risk, banned avant-garde art. He travelled across the Soviet Union to collect the art, from dissident artists or from their relatives, and bring it back to his base in the remote city of Nukus in western Uzbekistan. There he was able to avoid the attention of the authorities.

The collection of roughly 90,000 pieces only achieved international fame after his death and the subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. It has also put Nukus, a scruffy town once classed as a secret because of its chemical weapons production, on the international art trail.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)

Police clash with protesters in Azerbaijan

AUG. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Riot police used tear gas to disperse a crowd of dozens of young men in the provincial Azerbaijani town of Mingachevir, a rare display of public anger and frustration in Azerbaijan. The crowd had been calling for the head of the local police force to resign after a 22-year-old Azerbaijani man died in police custody two days earlier.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 245, published on Aug. 28 2015)

Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan plan TV station

AUG. 18 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – At a meeting in Astana, information ministers from Azerbaijan, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan agreed to set up a news channel which will promote a so-called Turkic view of the world. These countries, and especially Azerbaijan, have become frustrated with what they view as biased coverage in Western media.

ENDS

(News report from Issue No. 244, published on Aug. 21 2015)