Amid the modern and futuristic landscape of Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, and in the large city of Almaty, something rarely seen has appeared in recent weeks and months: protesters. Kazakhstan’s tenge currency was named the worst performing in the world last year, and if the first few weeks of 2016 are any indication, things are not improving for Central Asia’s largest energy exporter.
Kazakhstan’s president could hardly be expected to run for parliament, so the ruling Nur Otan party has gone for the next best thing: The actor who played him as a young man in the biopic.
Not long ago it all looked so much better: oil prices were high, the middle classes were growing and the autocrat-father of the state, Nursultan Nazarbayev, presided over 17m grateful subjects. Yet today the situation in Kazakhstan looks more troubling than at any time since the country broke free of the Soviet Union to become, against the odds, Central Asia’s most prosperous state. To many, Mr Nazarbayev’s promise of a “Kazakh dream” now seems like a sick joke.
After years of embarking on promising forays into Central Asia’s economy, Russia is being forced to pare back its ambitions.
Major geopolitical shifts and internal dynamics are setting the stage for possible increased great-power competition in Central Asia between Russia and China at a time when the region is becoming less hospitable to the projection of U.S. power and to the promotion of democracy. U.S. policy will need to adapt to these changes in order to bring Washington’s ambitions in Central Asia into better alignment with limited U.S. interests and means.
Two activists were recently jailed for “inciting national discord.”
Armor-clad warriors surge out from behind a rocky outcrop and gallop across the steppe amid a thunder of hooves, banners flapping in the breeze and swords aloft. Emitting furious war cries, they descend on an encampment and – with a clash of swords – a pitched battle ensues.
