It is after 8pm and Kazakhstan's parliament in the futuristic capital of Astana is practically deserted. Yet Bakytzhan Sagintayev, first deputy prime minister, is still hard at work. A few minutes into an interview with the Financial Times, he is interrupted by a klaxon-like sound: an urgent query from the prime minister.
When 60-year-old Su Huiping, a Shanghai embroidery artist, put a nearly invisible silk thread through the tiny eye of a needle, a group of distinguished observers couldn't help but marvel.
On April 29, after months of anticipation, the presidents of Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Russia met in Minsk to put the finishing touches on the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), an ambitious plan to unite into a single economic entity. Observers from Washington to Moscow expected this meeting to be the last step before the official signing of the EEU treaty in May. But something went wrong.
Russian President Vladimir Putin convened an "informal" summit of his allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization last week as Moscow faced continued international isolation over its role in the Ukraine crisis. But the event only highlighted the misgivings of Russia's foreign policy direction, even among its closest allies.
NATO formally opened its liaison office in Uzbekistan on Friday, a year after it started working and amid heightened Russian rhetoric about the western alliance encroaching on its backyard.
The municipality of Almaty is suing Viktor Khrapunov, a former mayor and a foe of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, in the United States, accusing him of having "systematically looted" millions from city coffers over a decade ago.
As in Europe, scepticism towards regional integration is on the rise in Kazakhstan. And just like the Old Continent, Astana is learning to play this to its advantage...
