I was interested to read a story on the American Washington Post website about the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The article seems intended to be light-hearted but I actually found it a little contradictory. The title makes it clear that the newspaper believes Nazarbayev to be authoritarian and paints a negative picture of his style of rule, but then says ‘Nazarbayev enjoys genuine popularity and is widely seen as a guarantor of stability…’. Stability should not be underestimated in a country that was not able to rule itself for 80 years and at the fall of the Soviet Union was thrown into all sorts of tumult.

That is not to say the governments of Kazakhstan or other Central Asian nations are perfect (or sometimes even just “good”), but the point I’m trying to make is that Western reporting of Central Asia is generally negative and can be patronising too, often implicitly suggesting that the way things are done is inferior to the way “we” do it.

That’s why I was happier to see EurasiaNet’s story about the President’s daughter. I can’t deny that its underlying precept is somewhat cynical, but at least it doesn’t pretend that other countries do things any better – the closing quote suggests Tony Blair (whose foundation was recently appointed to advise the Kazakh government): ‘might want to offer the president a piece of advice: Don’t rewrite political history in a bid to burnish your democratic credentials’.

Whilst I’m on the topic of Kazakhstan, I’d like to draw your attention to Vox Populi, a Kazakh news website that uses photos to tell stories. They recently launched a special project looking back on 20 years of independence. It’s absolutely fascinating, not just for people who didn’t live through the fall of the Soviet Union, but also for people who did and were too young to really remember the politics of it all.

Vox Populi has got five years of photos and explanatory captions published, with more to come. Click on the years to view: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. Each year also has a slide show mode (on the right hand side next to the title). The comments from site users are also worth reading!

English Russia also has the 1991 photos with well translated English captions.

Have a great weekend!