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Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan
157 Plays2 months ago
Episode four of the new season of Pieces of History takes us to the vast landscapes of Central Asia, as we explore the history, politics, and culture of Kazakhstan with journalist Joanna Lillis.
In this episode, we’ll trace Kazakhstan’s journey from its Soviet past to its present-day identity as a modern nation. We’ll examine the country’s political landscape, the impact of independence, and the cultural forces that continue to shape its society.
Joanna Lillis, a Kazakhstan-based journalist and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan, brings her deep expertise and firsthand experience to the discussion. Having lived and reported in the region for decades, she offers valuable insights into Kazakhstan’s transformation and the challenges it faces today.
Join me as we delve into the rich and complex story of Kazakhstan.
Email: piecesofhistorypod@outlook.com
Facebook: Pieces of History podcast
Instagram: @pieceofhistorypod
Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Shadows-Joanna-Lillis/dp/1784538612
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pieces of History, I'm Colin McGrath. In each episode I explore both the renowned and lesser known events that have shaped our world. Today we turn our focus to a country at the heart of Eurasia, Kazakhstan. A land of fast-step, rich history and complex politics, Kazakhstan has long been a crossroads of cultures, empires and ideologies.
00:00:35
Speaker
To help us unpack the country's past and present, I'm joined by Joanna Lillis, a Kazakhstan-based journalist who has spent decades covering Central Asia. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Economist, The Independent, EurasianNet, Foreign Policy, and Politico, offering in-depth analysis on the region's politics, society, and culture.
Kazakhstan's Political Journey
00:00:55
Speaker
She is also the author of Dark Shadows, Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan, a compelling exploration of Kazakhstan's post-Soviet transformation.
00:01:04
Speaker
In this episode, we'll discuss Kazakhstan's journey from Soviet Republic to independent nation, its political landscape and the cultural forces that continue to shape its identity. From the legacy of Soviet rule to the country's modern-day ambitions, from the legacy of Soviet rule to the country's modern-day ambitions, Toronto provides expert insight into a fascinating and often overlooked part of the world. I hope you enjoy. Thanks very much for joining me. I really appreciate it. It's taken time out of your busy schedule anyway.
00:01:34
Speaker
So to kick things off, Joanna, I've read your book and it's absolutely fantastic. Really enjoyed it. Do you mind giving me a bit of background of of your history yourself and how you came to study in Russia russian and how you ended up in in Kazakhstan?
00:01:49
Speaker
Okay, sure. I came to study, I actually started studying Russian when I was 16 to do my A levels. And um yeah, I studied Russian at 6.1 college um at that time. In fact, it was kind of a strange ah way that I came to it because in order to go to that 6.1 college and get the 12th grad, I had to pick a topic.
00:02:09
Speaker
a subject that I couldn't do at the school closer. So I chose Russian. And then I kind of um became really into Russian. It became, you know, something that I was really interested in. um And I went on to study Russian at university. And obviously, as part of those studies, and you study abroad as part of your you know to to learn the language. um And at that time, it was the Soviet Union that I studied in. So this was this was the ah latter days of the Soviet Union, let's say. um So I studied in Minsk, which is now in Belarus um in the late 80s and in Kiev, um of course in Ukraine, um then part of the Soviet Union. um So those were my studies in ah in Russia at that time. And after i've graduated I after working for a bit um in France, I went to
00:02:57
Speaker
to work in Russia in the 90s, in the early 90s, when of course things were very um chaotic after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a very chaotic free-for-all, very different environment to what's what's happening in Russia today. So that's what happened. And then um I guess my my studies of of Yeah, Russian led me to all
Joanna's Journalism Career
00:03:19
Speaker
that. And then when I was living in Russia, I was actually working um in a local hire job at the British Embassy. um And I saw this job advertised at BBC monitoring, and I ended up joining BBC monitoring, which is a part of the BBC World Service that looks at the foreign media. So looking at the media and then translating the interesting parts of it, if you like.
00:03:37
Speaker
for other parts of BBC News and for also government customers. And so that's how I got into all that. And then when a job came up in Tashkent in Uzbekistan, I moved there in 2001 and one um and it worked there for four years. And then after that, I yeah When that job finished, that contract finished, i um I moved to Kazakhstan and started freelancing as a journalist. That was in 2005. So actually it's 20 years this year since it'll be my 20th anniversary living in Kazakhstan ah this summer.
00:04:09
Speaker
Absolutely fantastic. That's a brilliant story because I suppose it was a bit of a leap of faith back then because not many people obviously would have made that jump from the UK to Russia to even start off with. You're obviously traveling to Uzbekistan and I was reading in your book obviously that's a completely different story as well in regards to obviously this is mainly about Kazakhstan but you were saying about Uzbekistan you found it to be a bit more authoritarian would you say and if you maybe explain a bit more about Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, that was what took me to Central Asia, basically, although I had visited Central Asia on holiday before I went to Kyrgyzstan in I think it was 98. So again, early days quite quickly after the Soviet Union had collapsed. So I've been to Central Asia. um But then this job came up in Uzbekistan. And um yeah, I moved there from Russia. And I have to say, well, I mean, Uzbekistan, especially at that time, well, Uzbekistan at that time was a full on police state.
00:05:05
Speaker
And I mean, we we can talk about Russia nowadays, there's a lot of opinions on that. But at that time when I was living there, Russia was not a full-on police state. You know, it it had opposition politicians, it had um activists who would protest, it had some a lot of very vibrant civil society. And I was really shocked when I moved to Uzbekistan. I mean, on paper I knew what Uzbekistan was, but actually moving to a country that is a full-on police state is is really shocking.
00:05:31
Speaker
um you know i mean there was There was literally no opposition politics. By that time, all opposition politicians had been driven either into exile or into prison. um There was um you know virtually no civil society, as in people were too afraid to protest. um Also, I was very used to um Living in Russia and having spent much of the 90s actually in Russia, I was used to people being very interested in talking about all kinds of things, politics and and whatever was going on, because people were very political and very and of course it it was such a chaotic and dramatic time that people had a lot of opinions. In Uzbekistan, people didn't want to talk about anything um that might be sensitive at all, even if there was no chance of being overheard. you know A lot of people were, I'm not going to say paranoid, they were justifiably afraid of repercussions.
00:06:19
Speaker
So living in Uzbekistan at that time um was a ah pretty surreal... Daunting? Yeah it was daunting in a way and also it was quite surreal and weird because you know you know that all these things are going on and yet on the surface if everything looks perfectly normal and people are getting on with their lives and you have friends and you go out you know for dinner for some drinks you talk to people and of course once I had friends they did talk about things But all the time, there was these terrible, you know, really atrocious human rights abuses that are taking place all the time that's that's going on all the time. and So Uzbekistan has changed it a bit now, it's still very authoritarian, but some of those excesses no longer exist. But that that was my first experience of living in Central Asia. So I think it's also true to say that when I moved to Kazakhstan in 2005, as a very authoritarian country,
00:07:07
Speaker
But it's also a a different level. you know At that time in Kazakhstan, there were, in fact, opposition politicians, or opposition parties. Nowadays, things are a little different, um a little worse, actually, and in some ways. um But at at the time when I moved to Kazakhstan, it was, um although extremely authoritarian, it was definitely a breath of fresh air after living in the police state of Uzbekistan.
00:07:29
Speaker
That's, again, absolutely fascinating and again. And Joanna, is it OK if we maybe dial back a week a bit so we can kind of kick off in your kind of Kazakhstan phase? but Your book kind of touched on a lot of key areas of politics, you know, history, um the social status of a lot of people living on the ground in Kazakhstan. Do you mind giving me a brief background on the history of Kazakhstan and then maybe leading into today and in the political situation where we are at the moment?
Kazakhstan's Historical Context
00:07:57
Speaker
Of course, I mean, OK, history of Kazakhstan. Well, I mean, as you know, as the host of this history podcast, history is a minefield and history is written by the victors. um And I always find it very difficult to um to get to grips with Central Asian history in general and Kazakhstan history, because, you know, different parts of this vast country have been ruled by different um different Hanates, different tribes, different um rulers at any one time. um But in you know in Dark Shadows, i I try to approach history, at least the the sort of more ancient history of Kazakhstan, um from the point of view of how of how history ah historiography in Kazakhstan officially kind of sees history nowadays and it's of course very much disputed. um you know i mean We could go down the road of talking about um you know Russia's views of how none of these countries had any history before they arrived but you know we'll leave that a aside. The history is disputed but Kazakhstan
00:08:56
Speaker
um officially sort of dates its modern day history back to 1461, well, modern day, dates it the history of its sort of foundation as a kind of Kazakh entity to 1465 when a couple of um the sort of um tribal leaders who would become Kazakhs broke away from, you know, another group of nomads and um sort of founded what would become this Hanate in southern Kazakhstan.
00:09:22
Speaker
um And this Hanate, at some points, it expanded enormously to up and up and you know into border the borders of southern Russia. At some points it controlled Tashkent in Uzbekistan nowadays. um And at some points, of course, it shrunk enormously as well and was but was um was not really powerful at all. And many people kind of dispute that the idea of this Hanate and think it was ah at and any one time was kind of loose confederations of tribes.
00:09:47
Speaker
but that's what Kazakhs date their history to and in fact and Vladimir Putin casting kind of aspersions on Kazakh history over the years has we um kind of caused a big surge in interest in this 1465 history in Kazakhstan and it's now actually very popular for people to be wearing hoodies that say you know um founded in 1465, kind of semi, semi kind of tongue in cheek, and those those kind of things. But it's caused this big surge in interest in in this history. um And the Russian, I mean, um leaving aside that that that subsequent sort of 500 odd years, and but the russians um the Russians have about a 300 year old history in Kazakhstan.
00:10:31
Speaker
um So that explains a lot about that influence to the present day. It's such a long history, three centuries of influence over parts of this country and their presence in Kazakhstan began um in about the late 1500s when they ah were pushing south out of Siberia and they pushed into the lands that are now Kazakhstan starting in a city right up in the northwest tucked up near um Russia, which is called Orallin-Kazakh, or Raskin-Russian, um and is nowadays part of Kazakhstan, its closest point to Russia, I believe, although there are many cities along that border that are very close to Russia. But that's very far northwest, and they pushed sort of down into the-k Kazakhstan, and what's now Kazakhstan, and then they pushed them along to the Caspian founding forts and lines of forts,
00:11:25
Speaker
And they also pushed um east along the what's now the Siberian border to places like Semipalatinsk, where they later, the Soviets put a nuclear test site. um And then, and you know, um the Kazakh, the Russian Empire um was, um you know, had involvement, let's say, with Kazakh nomadic tribes and confederations um over all those years, you know, in terms of um they traded together,
00:11:51
Speaker
and They also sometimes fought. um And then, of course, the at some point, the Russians turned all these confederations of Kazakh tribes into vassals. And later, much, much later, ah began pushing south into the rest of Central Asia. um So many many parts of Kazakhstan would have been conquer conquered much, much later. I mean, for example, it wasn't until the 1860s that at um Russia conquered um some of the forts or cities that say along the... Kazakh-Uzbek border in the south of Kazakhstan and Konkudlu-Uzbek capital nowadays ah of Tashkent. So you know that that was a long but there's still a long presence in Kazakhstan and it still explains you know kind of why Kazakhstan is so geopolitically tied to Russia um apart from its geographical position. You've got this very long history that other parts of Central Asia just don't have you know
00:12:43
Speaker
I mean the Russian presence in Uzbekistan was only let's say um from 1865 basically to 1991 whereas you know the Russians have been here in in kind of in parts of Kazakhstan anyway in the north for about 300 years. 1991 Soviet Union collapse and that's the history of independent Kazakhstan.
Geography and Geopolitical Influence
00:13:03
Speaker
And also as well, Joanna, I suppose a lot of people don't maybe necessarily know that geography of the country as well is absolutely huge. So it's essentially the size of Western Europe, reading your book, you've done a lot of obviously traveling to all around the country as well. What would you say is that the the geography of the country is a kind of mainly vast, you know, open plains? Is it mountainous? Is it going to be everything essentially? Or Yeah, no, that's a good question. Well, I mean, it's a good question for the ninth largest country in the world. That's Kazakhstan, the ninth largest um country in the world. And as you say, it's a bit of everything, in fact, although I think many people are thinking of Kazakhstan and many Kazakhs also will think of the great vast hinterland, which is steppe and desert.
00:13:44
Speaker
And if you take a train across Kazakhstan or or if you even not across the the the long breadth of the country from east to west, say, and you've got to remember that the west side is the Caspian Sea and just over the Caspian is Turkey, um Azerbaijan. And then on the east side where I'm quite near the eastern borders in the southeast,
00:14:05
Speaker
Here is China, so that and that's Kazakhstan all the way in the middle. um And right in the middle of Kazakhstan is mostly mostly very arid steppe and desert. So some of it is steppe, some of it is what they call semi-steppe, and some of it is desert. But I mean, that kind of conjures up a picture of a country. And and if you trundle along on the train, depending on where you're going,
00:14:25
Speaker
You can go a couple of days, so I'm just passing through this desert, camels, you know, you see villages, um sometimes going through towns, of course, and but a lot of it is actually uninhabited because it it's simply uninhabitable because of the the lack of water.
00:14:40
Speaker
However, that also doesn't quite represent what Kazakhstan really is. um I live in the in the largest city, which is the former capital. It's not the capital anymore. um It's called Almaty. And here we're in the southeast near the borders with China, not that far anyway, um and also near the borders with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. So it's more the heartland of Central Asia. And here we have the Tianzhen Mountains. I mean,
00:15:04
Speaker
ah Today, when I went out, you know, I step out of my door, I see these huge peaks, snow-covered peaks. So we have mountains, we have valleys, and um also we have a lot of lakes in parts of the country. And then, as I mentioned, the Caspian Sea on the you the in the far west, and that's where all the oil fields are, oil being obviously something Kazakhstan.
00:15:28
Speaker
is famous for so it's a pretty varied um geography and it's actually um a very a very beautiful country um and these days we're seeing a bit of tourist interest I mean Kazakhstan's not usually the top tourist destination for people travel when they come traveling to Central Asia Uzbekistan is you know very much up there as number one but you know when people come to Kazakhstan they find themselves absolutely wowed by the landscapes which are really something else. I mean, there are incredible rock formations that look like Cappadocia in Turkey, but without all those crowds. um And also the cities are really very vibrant. You've got contrasting cities. Where I live in Almatia is kind of ah an older city, sort of cozy with some Russian architecture, old colonial architecture. And then you've got this brand new capital, um a thousand kilometers to the north, which is all these shiny Dubai style buildings. So I think it's a cliche to say often,
00:16:20
Speaker
You see in these tourist brochures, a country of kind of of contrast and all that, but it really is a country of huge contrast, which makes makes it a really fascinating place to kind
Political Transition and Challenges
00:16:30
Speaker
of be. Everywhere you go, it's different.
00:16:33
Speaker
that's That's fantastic. So is it okay if we maybe jump from geography to politics then? So and I will absolutely not do a disservice to try to pronounce any names because I know I won't get them wrong. I don't want to embarrass myself. So if we kind of jump back a bit. So the current president is called... kajava tokaya That's exactly why I wasn't going to say that. So so if we jump if we jump back to his predecessor then, so he took office in 1991 and served to 2019. Take a bit of a background about the political party, the political situation, also post USSR fall of communism and then take it up to the present day.
00:17:13
Speaker
OK, yeah, I mean, this is, so yeah, this is this this sort of formation of modern modern Kazakhstan. I mean, it's all intrinsically tied up with it um Kazakhstan's first president, Nozotan Nazabayev, who is like um a bit of a la tasse moi kind of person. You know, I mean, he um he was a ah very authoritarian leader, especially as time went on. He ruled actually for um he really ruled Kazakhstan for 30 years because in power where um He was put into power when Kazakhstan was still part of the communist Soviet Union um but each republic has its its autonomous leadership and he became the leader of Soviet Kazakhstan appointed by Moscow in 1989 and in 1990 this position of president was introduced but it wasn't directly elected but it was a sort of symbolic
00:18:03
Speaker
position and he became the president in 1990 and the following year that Soviet Union collapsed and obviously the the people who were in those positions of power were in prime position to simply seag into the presidency of an independent state and that's what he did I mean it must have been a pretty terrifying experience actually because so You know, I mean, some countries were better positioned to handle independence than others. And it came as a shock to many um of these countries. so um And, you know, the whole economy was falling apart. um The inflation was running in like four figures at one time. um and that And there was a big, you know, big minorities in Kazakhstan. In fact, Kazakhs were not in a majority in their own country at that time. They were the largest group just about.
00:18:47
Speaker
but um they were about 40% and Russians were also nearly 40%. So they they were kind of in this strange position, which some was considered a bit of a threat to national security. So it was quite a strange experience for him, no doubt, but um he soon got a taste for power, let's say. And um he then proceeded to rule the country um until 2019, as you said, and when he stepped down, he's still alive. um So and he over that time, I mean, how did he stay in power?
00:19:18
Speaker
um He used the same tricks that these ah authoritarian leaders often do, especially familiar tricks in sort of what what i you know the former Soviet Union, where um the leaders tend to learn tricks from each other. And that would include referendums to stay in power ah rather than holding elections, but also manipulating manipulating and monopolizing elections.
00:19:39
Speaker
um I mean, by the end of his rule, um in presidential elections, there were no opposition candidates. So um he ended up, you know, the last election, he got about 98% of the vote. um And um all this is supposed to prove how popular he was. But what it really proved was how manipulated the elections were and how there was nobody else to vote for.
00:19:57
Speaker
Although um I should add that at many times he was popular because he did deliver rising living standards to people, he did quick liberalization of the economy and people were kind of living a good life and getting ahead but you know I mean it still didn't make up for those lack of political freedoms and civil liberties. That was supposed to be a kind of trade-off if you like. You know I give you this kind of opportunity to make something of yourself and you can travel, go on holiday, you can you know buy this, buy that, there's no shortages anymore, but you have to accept this authoritarian brawl. And then in 2019, after, so he'd been in power 30 years, but president of the interinep independent country for 29 years, he unexpectedly, actually, he stepped down and caused a real shock for everyone, because you know one in Central Asia, you know it's often joked that people tend, the leaders tend to leave office in
00:20:46
Speaker
in a coffin or in a coup, um meaning really a revolution, which has been more common in Kyrgyzstan. But he stepped down gracefully and um you know he handed power to his hand-picked successor. Now, why did he do that? Well, I think we assumed that he wanted to sort of secure his own legacy in his own lifetime. He wanted to control the narrative. He was a pretty much a control freak.
00:21:09
Speaker
And he wanted to control that narrative and make sure that all his family and all or all her all all of that would be, they would keep their assets. Because of course, this the whole period had been characterized by rampant corruption in which his family and cronies have got extremely rich. And he wanted to make sure that his person didn't unpick his legacy, including what he saw as his political legacy, as the founding father of the nation, the guy who founded Kazakhstan, even though it was by accident.
00:21:37
Speaker
um but But nothing went to plan, actually. He stepped down thinking he'd be the founding father, the great elder statesman, everyone would look up to him, his legacy would be secured by installing what he would thought would have thought of to be kind of puppet president, Kasim Shomat-Tokayev. That's the president still nowadays, um nearly six years on.
00:22:00
Speaker
So, well, what went wrong? I mean, what went wrong really was um that once you have two two people who think they're both in charge, then there's inevitably going to be conflicts in fighting. And in fact, and this was kept a secret or certainly denied if ever if it if it was ever raised for years. But in fact, very recently Tokayev, the current president, admitted that there had been some of that going on and that it created tensions.
00:22:25
Speaker
um In fact, he he sort of said that something very, he's a diplomat by career and he said something very tactful, and so something like how Nazarbayev had displayed a lack of political delicacy or tact or something like that. In other words, he was interfering. um Even though he had the right, he had some powers that were endowed upon him after his retirement.
00:22:45
Speaker
and Now this situation continued for a while um but in 2022 Kazakhstan experienced a ah an enormous outbreak of unrest that turned into a big outbreak of violence and what I would call political violence um that really came to, ah brought everything to a head.
00:23:06
Speaker
um um So this was sort sort of just over 30 years after it had become independence. And I think what really happened there was that, first of all, people, many people were very unhappy when Tokayev was placed in as president without any of their say so. um It was kind of as if they accepted that Nazarbayev was an authoritarian leader who rigged elections to say in power. But once he left, and then he imposed his own choice of presidency, people got really angry. um It was a once in a generation kind of chance to changed the leadership and people weren't given a say so protests immediately started but they were kind of suppressed and um nothing much happened but in 2022 some civil unrest broke out of all things about a rise in fuel prices and this unrest snowballed all around the country um and was then kind of as far as we understand because we've not been told the full story as you can imagine in ah in an authoritarian country like this as far as we can make out anyway
00:24:05
Speaker
um some certain forces piggybacked on this unrest to kind of stoke for the turmoil um and at some point it descended into some serious violence um between the the security forces but they're particularly centered on Almaty the largest city where I live um where this sort of city hall was burnt down and um you know and then And then Prokhaya have ordered the use of live fire, without, by the way, informing anybody about this. um And in the end, um the official death toll is 238 people killed. So that's been a big moment for Kazakhstan, as you can imagine, partly because of these tragic deaths. The trials are still ongoing. Some of them only finished last week, and there's still more.
00:24:50
Speaker
But also what this resulted in was a sort of bit of soul searching about the Nazarbayev era and what had been wrong with it. And Tokayev himself admitted to all kinds of things like corruption, nepotism,
00:25:02
Speaker
and um also sort of the absence of freedoms. And Nazarbayev was actually disgraced. Many of his family members were sort of in some way impliced implicated and um he was sort of disgraced, although he he still occupies his official role and he but he keeps a very low profile as do his family members. A bit of a break between these two presidents. And now Tokayev sees this as his own Kazakhstan.
00:25:28
Speaker
Joanna, I was just going to ask, is it could be one of those situations where he maybe knows where literally a lot of bodies are buried and the current president was obviously maybe implicated in that throughout you know the 90s, 90s and he they're obviously one and the same, would you say, almost, so they kind of know each other's secrets?
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely an element of that, although Tokayev spent most of his career, a lot of his career abroad, although he was foreign minister and prime minister here. Yeah, they know where the bodies are buried. So I think there was an element of that. But I think,
00:26:02
Speaker
Yeah, and and I think Tokayev is a product of the ASEAN regime, if you like, um but he nowadays he doesn't like to remember that because so he likes to portray this kind of um line between his own rule and Nazarbayev's rule, even though he was appointed by Nazarbayev basically to that job um and rubber stamped in an election. um but ah and he he did it I think the the issue is as well about knowing where the bodies are buried or about the bodies being buried, as in there being so many dirty secrets,
00:26:31
Speaker
The issue here is that much of of this is all related to that violence, like where the bodies are buried, where the dirty secrets are. And the authorities nowadays say they've uncovered the truth about that violence and the ringleader they claim is the former head of the security service. His name is Karim Massimo and he's serving a long prison sentence on treason charges.
00:26:53
Speaker
But justice has been very, very selective. For example, his deputy was a nephew of Nazarbayev, the former president. And although he ended up put on trial eventually, he just got a suspended sentence. Although the authorities say that the security service was effectively seeking to topple, was colluding in seeking to topple Tokayev, but the deputy head of the security service who's related to Nazarbayev ends up with a simply not going to prison at all.
00:27:21
Speaker
um And so some people go to prison, some people don't go to prison, and and there's very much a sense that this is unfinished business, that all this um stretches through the history of independent Kazakhstan, when um you've got a ah sort of kleptocratic ruling family. And, um you know, it's ah that goes back to that question of where the bodies are buried. Well, you know, if let's put it like this. If Tokyo's administration were to uncover the real truth about what happened um in January 2022, when all those people died,
00:27:50
Speaker
Who stoked it? Why did they stoke it? um you need to What they really need in some kind of in these kind of authoritarian countries um is if you want to draw a line between yourself and the um previous dictator, you need a truth and reconciliation process. You need to expose the secrets, not cover them up.
00:28:07
Speaker
and I think there's very much a feeling that half half the story is being told, half the truth is being told um and yet um ah the justice is selective and you know that the that many corruption trials have happened since because Tokai says he's rooting out the sort of clapocracy but again it's very selective you know the Nazarbayev family remains powerful, rich, well-resourced,
00:28:30
Speaker
um And also, there are many people who wonder if they'll ever make a comeback in some form or another. Nazarbayev himself, very old now, of course, um in his 80s, but um you know he's got plenty of rich, well-connected relatives who probably would rather have one of their own in power than Tokayev.
00:28:49
Speaker
Exactly. And I suppose if we look around the world, Joanna, at the minute, politically, there's a lot of people making comebacks, which we thought were gone, let's be honest. Right. Right. You know, there's there's always a and so other always was a chance of a comeback. In regards, you talked touched on there about um' freedom of the the two terms of these different presidents.
Journalism in Kazakhstan
00:29:10
Speaker
Writing it as a journalist yourself within the country, how free is your journalism, if that makes sense? Writing in a country about these figures,
00:29:19
Speaker
Okay, yeah, no, that's a very good question. My journalism is very free. I don't censor myself and I'm not censored by the government. um Now, how can you explain that in a country like Kazakhstan, an authoritarian country? Well, the way you explain it is Kazakhstan is a pretty sophisticated author authoritarian country. um In other words, it allows foreign journalists to live, report um from here um on the grounds that I think it it feels that that makes it um gives it a veneer of respectability if you like yeah and so it's um when it's criticized over human rights abuses over infringements of the press because um the domestic media operates under a kosh basically um then it can kind of point to the fact that we know we have these foreign journalists and they report what they want
00:30:06
Speaker
That's true more or less, although I will add that last year a rather restrictive media at law was passed that also it intends to kind of restrict the the operations of foreign journalists as well. um but but that's um So is true that foreign journalists on the whole are able to report um freely. um Although I have on occasion, and usually this has been the case when I've been covering things in the regions that are sensitive, I have on on occasion been followed or um had officials try to influence my reporting. um But that's not the norm. That's not the norm. um Although, of course, um you know, security officials will go to your contacts, sometimes your interviewees, and we'll try to pressure them.
00:30:49
Speaker
um But also I think the other point is the point that I ah actually often like to make when I ask you know some questions about this is that foreign journalists operate within an enormous level of freedom compared to Kazakh journalists who are really brave and some of them some of them of course are just government mouthpieces. But there are there are many journalists in Kazakhstan, um although the media environment is extremely embattled. But there are many journalists in Kazakhstan who tried to report the truth, who there was still independent media outlets, although they operate under pressure, especially since the new law was passed last year. and But there are still many there are still journalists who are you know reporting the truth, who but for the last three years, um
00:31:31
Speaker
have been trying to expose the truth about this 2022 violence. um There's even a journalist who wrote a book about it. That book was censored. um And there's a lot there is pressure, um intense pressure on the domestic media. So it's a bit of a mixed picture. In the one way, you it's kind of unbelievable that you know the authorities allow foreign journalists to just go around like reporting all the things they're doing.
00:31:55
Speaker
And as you can see, I've written a book on Kazakhstan, and which includes um information on decades of human rights abuses and infringements of political freedoms and civil liberties. And yet I still live here and I'm accredited to work as a journalist here. um So it's a mixed picture.
00:32:12
Speaker
OK, that's fantastic. Thanks very much. And I think I'll slightly move the conversation on a bit, Joanne, if that's OK, because I think a lot of these conversations are great to touch on, you know, the leaders and the the the political parties of of these different countries. But I think sometimes the the the people on the ground get missed. And in your book, you go out of your way almost to kind of touch base with these people who live in the exterior of the country. You've done a lot of traveling, as as you note in the book as well.
00:32:39
Speaker
but What would like like life be like for the the average person, would you say? Right. Now that's a very good question. I mean, I guess as in most countries, there is no average person. um you know that it it Everything would depend on so many things from where you were born to your level of education, your family, your ethnicity also. um So a lot of things would be very variable. If you want to you know get into government, politics, all that? Yes, then you need to be a member of the ruling party or a member of one of the other government approved parties, but really a member of the ruling party and if you want to actually make some kind of career as a kind of functionary or bureaucrat. Okay, but and in all other spheres of life, you don't need to be, you you won't be, normal people to be honest, not many people are members of the ruling party or any party.
00:33:27
Speaker
um So you you wouldn't need that to get ahead. um There are opportunities, I mean Kazakhstan um for many years it boomed under Nazarbayev because of an oil boom. and Throughout the 2000s you know it was double digit growth and so many jobs were created and people were kind of living a good time really, although much rural poverty remains, all urban poverty too.
00:33:49
Speaker
um But you know people I think people, Nazarbayev used to portray it as kind of land of opportunity. you know I'm giving you the opportunities, you just have to reach out and grab it. And in a way, yeah there was an element of truth in that because in a way, some of the stratification that we have in the West is it was less here, I would say. you know I mean, if it's often you people born in villages, um they're decent schools in in many villages and they could end up at university or go ahead, get ahead, um do all kinds of of things.
00:34:18
Speaker
um But also there's a very over the next five years this great big rich poor divide emerged and that's also not a problem unique to Kazakhstan as we know from the west um but this huge rich poor divide emerged and resentments over it were fueled by the perception that It's really the cronies of the regime and um who get rich and it's corruption fueling that at at our expense. I mean, our of the ordinary people. um And I can cite as an example, we talk about average people again, there aren't any. But what about an oil worker in Western Kazakhstan? Well, oil is the backbone of the Kazakh economy. um So um the it's the oil that fueled the country's growth over all the years.
00:35:01
Speaker
So, um you know, you have to then look at how are oil workers living and these average oil workers who live out in the West where facilities are nowhere near as good as in some places, um especially when they're out living in nidi in the towns near the oil fields.
00:35:17
Speaker
You know, they're a bit, you know, they're dusty places. Sometimes they like running water. And, you know, in 2011, these kind of resentments spilled over into some violence in Western Kazakhstan. And it was very specifically said by some of those participants. I went out there to cover it.
00:35:32
Speaker
And they talked about this unfairness, this glitzy capital that Nazarbayev was building with Kazakhstan's oil money while they weren't living well. um And so, you know, you can see this kind of resentments. And they're just one kind of average person. I mean, an average person these days in a village, um well, there's a lot of rural poverty, there's a lot of lack of access to drinking water, to even in this oil rich country, which is an absolute national shame and embarrassment, I think, after all these years. um and And even in urban, even sometimes in cities, you see people going to standpipes to get their water. It's an absolute disgrace. um So average people, I mean, in towns, you know, people can get ahead, there's all kinds of jobs, you know, in bags, in um companies, in private companies, there's state sector jobs, and and there's a flourishing cultural sphere. But I would add as well that wages are very, very low.
00:36:27
Speaker
um So it's kind of low and a lot of people, again this is going to be familiar from ah Western countries, a lot of people are kind of surviving a bit hand to mouth on
Future Challenges for Kazakhstan
00:36:36
Speaker
the gig economy and we're also maxed out on credit.
00:36:40
Speaker
That's fantastic. And i do I don't want to take up too much more of your time. So I've i've only got one more question if that's OK. So if if you if you maybe look into a crystal ball and look at the country over the next 5, 10, 15 years, ah how how do you see like socially and politically where the country might be in, say, 20, 40, for example, and what's a bit of a long way to go?
00:37:02
Speaker
Right, that's a good a good a good leap to look at. um No, I mean, that's really quite difficult for me. Now, the thing is, you know, I mean, Tokayev, the president now, reckons he's kind of solving all the problems he inherited. He specifically said,
00:37:17
Speaker
recently, for example, and he'd carried out all the political reforms that were pretty much necessary. um And that kind of people basically he's implying that people have political freedoms, even though, you know, they they they simply don't, um you know, and people are very frustrated about that. He's also inherited an awful lot of socio economic problems, including that enormous rich poor divide, which he himself has talked about tackling,
00:37:42
Speaker
um And ah you know anything from this, what I just talked about, the low wage economy and the rural-urban divide. um And the other thing that we haven't talked about that he's inherited is the kind of, not divide, I don't want to say, but you know the difference between Kazakh, the Kazakh majority and some of the minorities, but mostly Russians, and there's a linguistic divide in some ways, although much of Kazakhstan is bilingual. Basically, that means that Kazakhs are generally bilingual, whereas Russians often speak only Russian.
00:38:11
Speaker
And there are resentments over that as well, you know, 30 odd years after independence. And so he's actually got a country with a lot of divides, although a government policy has always under Nazarbayev and under Tokayev has always been stressing unity. Understandably, everyone wants their country to be kind of celebrating unity.
00:38:28
Speaker
um But there are a lot of divides that, you know, some of them are recognised and he talks about tackling them. Some of them are not recognised and I'm talking about ethical and like linguistic divides. They're not recognised and they bubble under the surface, creating tensions, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine. But how will it look? Well, I think I'm going to struggle to look as far as 2040. But if we look to 2030, five years away, Tokayev has promised that he will step down at that time And yet he shows no sign of preparing a plan. And in a country like Kazakhstan, there must be some kind of a... Well, any country there should be a plan. I mean, it doesn't have robust systems that are meant to allow for smooth trans transitions of power. um We've seen what happened when after Nazarbayev bequeathed power to survive, it all looked okay, fairly calm for a few years, and then suddenly, boom, everything exploded. um So we've seen the kind of instability and the tragic loss of human life this can bring.
00:39:29
Speaker
um And Tokayev's stated goal is to create a competitive political system, a robust one, that will withstand his departure so that you know he's bequeathing this to Kazakhstan. He's changed the constitution so presidents can only rule once so that their family members can't be involved in you know politics and so on. And yet he hasn't created that system. The last few elections have been the same. He stood without any opposition for president.
00:39:56
Speaker
um not so long ago, then a parliamentary election. um Again, we saw a few new parties, but again, none of them are critical of the government. So there's no robust system. So um I think the question comes for me. The um crunch point comes in the next few years.
00:40:13
Speaker
What's going to happen if Tasset Tokayev does leave power as he's promised? What's going to happen if he doesn't? People will be angry. And also, what's going to happen um as um this kind of system which doesn't reward um thinking outside the box and doesn't reward innovative thinking? Because, you know, I mean, authoritarian countries, they demand conformism and therefore the government, the people in government and so on, they all can't quite conformist and they can't solve these inherent problems that they've inherited from the Nazarbayev regime.
00:40:42
Speaker
because they don't have innovative thinking. I mean, Tokarev only yesterday was just telling people they better just tighten their belts and get on with it. And I don't think that's the message people want to hear. People are frustrated after all those years of Nazarbayev, they're frustrated if that corruption remains a problem, nepotism remains a problem, and that their lives remain difficult, low paid, you know, like I said, credit dependent on credit.
00:41:06
Speaker
and um and money going again, not improving the facilities in rural parts of Kazakhstan and also in in many urban parts too. So I think I'm not going to look into my to my crystal ball and tell you that it's very hazy. I don't know what I'm seeing. um I just hope that Tokayev can find the boldness to do something to to kind of really create that robust system that would allow open discussion, bring more people into politics and to allow civil to such society to help properly solve these problems, allow you allow the media to expose the problems without repressing them.
00:41:43
Speaker
And I will just add, as we're finishing up, Tokayev's habits seem to just mirror Nazarbayev's. He talks about being very different. He talks of a new Kazakhstan. Well, just a week or so ago, the new Kazakhstan um arrested a young man who's a satirist. um um he He runs a very popular um Instagram.
00:42:06
Speaker
um Instagram channel that that just has some funny posts basically and he was arrested um just recently. He's now facing seven years in prison over a satirical post. His name is Temolanyan Sibek. He's facing seven years in prison over a satirical post. It's a song about Russians so okay you can say it's sensitive but it's still a long time in prison and that's not very new Kazakhstan, that's more old Kazakhstan.
00:42:32
Speaker
So um I would say that unless, I think unless there's some kind of big changes, um you know, we're going to see some difficult years ahead. But I hope that Kazakhstan will sort of come through them with ah the same spirit that we see it normally um always kind of showing in the face of adversity.
00:42:51
Speaker
That was Joanna Lillis, journalist and author of Dark Shadows, Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan. A huge thank you to Joanna for sharing her insights into this fascinating and overlooked country. If you want to dive deeper into Kazakhstan's history, politics and the everyday lives of its people, you can pick up Dark Shadows online or at your favourite bookstore.
00:43:11
Speaker
It's available on Amazon through independent booksellers and directly from publishers like Bloomsbury. Make sure to subscribe and rate Pieces of History podcasts on iTunes or Spotify, and you can contact me at pacesofhistorypod at outlook dot.com or on Instagram and Facebook at pacesofhistory. Thanks for listening.