Huge Kazakstan (yes, exactly like that, spelled with “k”) was involved into Customs Union and people started to look at it as Russia’s ally. But Kazak civil society is against the war. Why “Orda” is honorable and Kremlin propaganda won’t be able to break the friendship between our countries read in our post here Informator.lg.ua.

“Kazakstan is like one of the heads of 3-headed Zmey Gorynych dragon which didn’t drink, but feels sick anyway”

This is a joke of Kazakh part of the Internet where they laugh about an aftermath of joining the Customs Union by such a big country. Kazakstan is located between two political monsters: China and Russia and its economic interests were just between those two poles.

Traditionally the shock for Kazakh came from the North. New Russian Empire dragged Kazakstan into an abyss as Russia’s economy slide into recession as a result of sanctions.

Experts think that the years of independence of this country is the time of missed opportunities. The economy was oriented on energy export and it was not diversified and local manufactures were discriminated by Russian products that entered Kazakstan market.

Kazakh tend to see the causes of the crisis in support of Russian economic interests by Kazakstan government.

But is that only because of economic?

After USSR crashed the ancient people got their independent country, administrative borders of it were smaller than the area that was traditionally populated by Kazakh during their centuries-old history. Their historical land remained part of Russia as it usually happens in post-USSR history. National Minorities like Ukrainians, Germans, Uighurs, Koreans, Uzbeks, Turks, Azeris. Got Kazakh citizenship. And Russians, of course.

PotentialDonbas

Russian Wikipedia reports that “Russian Kazakhs have low birth rates, high mortality and low rates of natural population growth”. Despite such “poor” condition of Russian diaspora, there are 21% of Russians in the country. Is that a lot or little for 17 million Kazakhstan? That’s enough for Russia to be able to start aggression based on Ukrainian scenario thinks Kazakh blogger Berik M. He think Putin can start “protecting Russian-speaking babies” not only on the North of Kazakstan, but also on the East of the country.

“Russian occupants who live in Kazakstan are potential traitors and separatists” says BerikM answering my question about international relations in his country. “They are quite strong and presented by those who watch fascist TV channels and believe everything what is said there”.

He also says that the growing conflict has national borders. He says that “There are ethnic Kazakh who support Russia and there are not so many of them who became victims of Kremlin propaganda. And there no Russian patriots in Kazakstan, they would learn Kazak language if they really loved their country”.

The danger of Russian invasion into independent Kazakstan is not so unlikely, if you look at the map that shows where Russians live, you can see that there over 30% of them in Akmola, Kostanai, Karaganda, North and East Kazakhstan and Pavlodar Regions , and there are over 40% of them in some regions. The most “Russian” Region of North Kazakhstan has about 50% of “European” population. This politically correct term means “Russians”.

Ulan Shamshet (УланШамшет) thinks that 40% of people living in North regions have Russian passports. Ulan thinks that’s a disturbing sign. “There are not many Kazakh there and business and land is under local kings”. If such thing as Russian aggression happens, Kazakhs from all regions will get together and all separatists will get discouraged to repeat something like this in future. There is a danger that international conflicts between Russian diaspora and the rest of population can start. I am afraid that Russians will become outlaw for the rest of the world thanks to Kremlin and to Putin”

FSB is not sleeping

Taking into consideration that pro-Russian forces get activated in the country, concerns of Kazakh patriots don’t look like paranoia. Modern separatist don’t come from nowhere. In 2001 Edward Limonov with his 4 armed men was detained almost on the border with Kazakstan by FSB. Terrorists planned to create “East-Kazakh People’s Republic” and they wanted to join it to Russia later. The leader of National Bolshevik Party banned in Russia now was put into prison for 4 years.

Today Limonov supports “Novorossiya” project and helps separatists in Donbas and in his free time he addresses to Kazakh people asking to give up part of their country. “… Kazakh people should not argue, instead they should return Russian cities. Kazakh have nomadic culture and they were just passing by the lands with their herds and only settled down in the latest historical times. You are great people, you are not worse than us, maybe even better, but know your place! Return someone else’s property” writes Edichka on his Facebook.

The writer Limonov who is in opposition to Russian authorities and who is the leader of “Other Russia” says almost same thing as his enemy Putin when it’s about Kazakstan. In 2014 on pro-Kremlin meeting with young people called “Seliger” Russian dictator said that president Nazarbaev played special role in creating Kazakh state, at the same time he said that such country as Kazakstan never existed (see http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/content/putin-about-kazahstan-osharov/2434090.html)

As a response to that provocative statement, Kazakhs sent history schoolbook to Putin that he probably didn’t read. The words of the president of Russian Federation activated pro-Russian forces in Kazakstan. One of such projects is called “Spravedlivost”(in Russian means “Justice” — «Справедливость»), it was registered as a party that “seeks for justice in Kazakhstan and if they can do it, in the rest of the world as well”.

Texts on the site have a lot of mistakes and nonsense, and their news are reports about their human rights work. The party “Spravedlivost” wants to have equal number of representatives of non-Kazakh people in authorities, meaning Russians.

Olesya Khalabuzar

Opponents of such “human rights activists” think that the leader of “Spravedlivost” Olesya Khalabuzar is Russian agent and her task is to organize information provocations and to consolidate separatists, to get separatists ideas on a level of public discourse and legalize them in such way.

Secret Service of Kazakstan Republic more likely knows about such destructive work from FSB side. Few days ago the court of Almaty banned Communist Party of Kazakstan. Officially the reason why they did it was because the number of people in the party didn’t match the requirements of the law “About Parties”, basically the court made political decision that was needed for the security of the country. The ally of Communist Part of Ukraine, Socialistic Movement of Kazakhstan, claim that the initiative to ban Communist Party comes from Nazarbaev and that is a part of general policy to fight against “totalitarian legacy” in order to eliminate organizations with communist ideology in the country.

The court of Almaty, National Security Committee and the president Nazarbaev made wise decision as communist in Ukraine were agents of Russian secret service before the war and they also became part of the crimes in Donbas initiated by Putin’s regime.

Patriots of Kazakstan are critical to their president even if they welcome his political will. “Nazarbaev is always on the side which is beneficial for him. Sure Kremlin has influence of him, but also Americans and Chinese can influence him. Out president is a hostage of multivectoral policy and people pay their price for such policy”, these are the thoughts of Ulan Shamshet. The blogger Berik M. is more radical and calls Nazarbaev a dictator.

Ukrainiancrisis

Bauyrzhan Molyshev (БауыржанМолышев) thinks that situation in Ukraine help to fight against ideas of separatism. “Even those who support separatism start to realize the effects of their views. Ukraine is very good lesson for Russian radicals”.

Really, it’s one thing to invite the war to your home and it’s the other thing to see your home destroyed. Bauyrzhan says that “Kazakhs got divided into two parts, those who support and those who are against separatists in Donbas. But lately using the Internet and social networks more and more Kazakhs learn the truth about events in Ukraine”.

There is Russian propaganda in Kazakstan. Nurlan Igenov (НурланИгенов) Kazakh mercenary of DPR confirms that in his interview. After watching Russian TV 26 y.o. guy went to Donetsk to kill Ukrainian people, saying “that is not Ukraine or DPR. There are Nazi and regular people (separatists) who fight for their right for life”. Such words illustrate that Kazakh people got divided.

Orda, that sounds proud.

In Russian Federation they see that Kazakh people support Ukraine. Russian media call Kazakh patriots “Nazi”. Mukhtar Taizhan (МухтарТайжан) became a star of separatists site (see the link «ватного») after he made a car driver to remove Russian flag from his car.

I asked him how patriots resist Russia’s supporters, Ulan Shamshet says that “thanks to social networks usual people identify radical separatists in time and publish their data, there are groups that are dealing with those separatists-chauvinists. There is monitoring. And secret service should work after that. They exist on our taxes, so they should ensure national security!”

Kazak friends of Ukraine created public “Kazak Orda” (see «КазакскаяОрда»), the aim of that group is to determine historical truth in relations between Russia, Kazakh people and the world. By the way, they get confused than Ukrainians sometimes call Russia “Orda” and do it with negative connotation. In historical context of Turkic peoples Kazakhs aresuccessors of Golden Horde (Golden Orda) and Moskovia was its vassal. Naturally authors of “Kazak Orda” supported Maidan and the fight of Ukrainian people against aggressor. Intellectual elite of Kazakh society supports such views and they are concern about possible Russian invasion and about contradictions with North neighbore.

One problem for both — stupid neighbor

After interviewing my friends about our neighbors (there is only 500 km between Ukraine and Kazakstan), I got the expected result. Our knowledge about that country includes Abay, irremovable Zararbaev, heptyl «bombardment» (see here «бомбардировки»), exile of Shevchenko, beautiful city Almaty, common tragedy of Holodomor. Several of my respondents said that they were following news from Zhanoozen. But almost everybody were talking about Kazakh people as being friendly people, who accepted thousands of deported by USSR people and who helped them to survive. Kazakhs were generous to those who had get evacuated during WWII and now their country is the home for 300 000 Ukrainians and since 1989 500 000 of our fellow countrymen left Kazakhstan and many of them returned to their historical Motherland. Part of historical “Gray Klin” is located on the territory of this country. By the way, members of “Koliyivshchyna” were deported to North Kazakstan.

“I recently spent 3 weeks in Kiev and came to the conclusion that would be good to have similar border for our countries” jokes Ulan Shamshet.

He thinks that Kazakh people and Ukrainians have a lot on common, they are open, kind, friendly, compassionate, tolerant and respect other nations.

The future of our nations was determined after occupation by powerful and perfidious neighbor, who repressed Ukrainian and Kazakh elites. Using technology of Holodomor, Soviet Union gave us post-genocide consciousness.

The common border between Ukraine and Kazakstan, that patriots are joking about, can be most secure for neighbors.

Mikita Pidgora for Informator.lg.ua