OCTOBER 2015 • VOL 13, ISSUE 10 THANKS TO OUR ADVERTISERS, IT’S STILL…
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The Best of the Pacific Northwest!
B
ecause we like learning foreign languages and travel, in July my wife and I visited Kazakhstan, Earth’s ninth-largest country, one that few Americans could quickly point out on a map. Today Kazakhstan has a population of only 17.3 million on an area equal to that of all of Western Europe. Its Central Asian location is bordered by the Caspian Sea (bordered also by Iran), the Aral Sea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and China’s Xinyang Uygur Autonomous Region. Kazakhstan’s
FREE!
A VISIT TO
Kazakhstan
diverse topography, similar to that of USA, includes alpine peaks (to elevation 21,999 ft.), world-class ski slopes, barren steppes, pine and birch forests, immense grasslands, glacier-fed rivers, lakes, its two salty seas and large deserts. We traveled 13 time zones away to Kazakhstan primarily to attend an annual meeting of the International Conference of Traditional Music in the capital city, Astana, located in the center of the country. Although we were only able to visit Astana and its countryside plus the larger city of Almaty and its region during our travels, contrasts between the two were dramatic. In 1991 Astana became Kazakhstan’s new national capital, built under the direction of visionary President Nursultan Azerbayev (incumbent executive from the USSR decades), who has steered Kazakhstan’s ship of state toward modernity and capitalism. Almaty, on the other hand, was the former capital and is
MAIN PHOTO:
Downtown Astana, capitol city of Kazakhstan, gleams in the crisp light of a summer day. Bayterek Tower acts as a focal point.
photo courtesy of wikipedia. ABOVE: Drs. Gary and Daniela Nyberg pause for a photo during their August trip to Kazakhstan. photo courtesy of
drs nyberg.
LEFT:
Kazakhstan’s location gives its climate a broad range of temperatures. image courtesy of
wikipedia.
located eastward, very near China and Mongolia. Many Kazakhs view President Azerbayev in the same ways that Americans revere George Washington: Father of the Country. I liken him more to modern Turkey’s visionary founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, because both men founded secular states in lands in which Islam was (and remains) the dominant religion. Both visionary leaders looked westward toward the democratic republics when establishing their own governments. A few comments to counterbalance the unfortunate “Borat” B-movie’s clichéd and negative portrayal of a fictional Kazakh man traveling abroad are in order. Today’s respectable Kazakh culture is both ancient and modern. Urban Kazakhs today are just as technology-dependent and savvy as folks in the West and Far East and are busily embracing globalism. The 9/11/2001 KAZAKHSTAN—cont’d on page 2