Kazakhstan

General Information

Country name: (conventional long form) Republic of Kazakhstan (conventional short form) Kazakhstan

Area: 2 717 300 sq km

Population: 15 143 704 (2004)

Capital: Astana

Population: 328 000

Administrative divisions: (14 provinces (oblystar, singular - oblys) and 3 cities* (qala, singular - qalasy)) Almaty Oblysy (1), Almaty Qalasy*, Aqmola Oblysy (Astana) (2), Aqtobe Oblysy (3), Astana Qalasy*, Atyrau Oblysy (4), Batys Qazaqstan Oblysy (Oral) (5), Bayqongyr Qalasy*, Mangghystau Oblysy (Aqtau) (6), Ongtustik Qazaqstan Oblysy (Shymkent) (7), Pavlodar Oblysy (8), Qaraghandy Oblysy (9), Qostanay Oblysy (10), Qyzylorda Oblysy (11), Shyghys Qazaqstan Oblysy (Oskemen) (12), Soltustik Qazaqstan Oblysy (Petropavlovsk) (13), Zhambyl Oblysy (Taraz) (14)

Map of Administrative Divisions

Ethnic groups: Kazakh (Qazaq) 53.4%, Russian 30%, Ukrainian 3.7%, Uzbek 2.5%, German 2.4%, Uygur 1.4%, other 6.6% (1999 census)

Government: Republic. Independence: 16 December 1991 (from the Soviet Union)
Head of State: President Nursultan A. NAZARBAYEV since 1 December 1991
Head of Government: Prime Minister Daniyal AKHMETOV since 13 June 2003

Language: Kazakh is a state language, Russian is an official language, used in everyday business, designated the "language of interethnic communication" (2001)

Religion: Muslim, Russian Orthodox, Protestant

Time Zone: GMT +5 (GMT +6 from 28 March to 26 October)

Electricity: 220V AC, 50Hz

Weights & measures: Metric

Visas: The information about visa regimes should be learned in Embassy of the Republic of Kazakhstan or in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Websites: http://www.mfa.kz/eng/index.php?cons=1

and http://kazinfotour.tora.ru/ingl/kazak/viza_ing/viza_ing.htm

Economy

Kazakhstan, the largest of the former Soviet republics in territory, excluding Russia, possesses enormous fossil fuel reserves as well as plentiful supplies of other minerals and metals. It also is a large agricultural - livestock and grain - producer. Kazakhstan's industrial sector rests on the extraction and processing of these natural resources and also on a growing machine-building sector specializing in construction equipment, tractors, agricultural machinery, and some defense items. The breakup of the USSR in December 1991 and the collapse in demand for Kazakhstan's traditional heavy industry products resulted in a short-term contraction of the economy, with the steepest annual decline occurring in 1994. In 1995-97, the pace of the government program of economic reform and privatization quickened, resulting in a substantial shifting of assets into the private sector. Kazakhstan enjoyed double-digit growth in 2000-2001 (and a solid 9.5% in 2002) thanks largely to its booming energy sector, but also to economic reform, good harvests, and foreign investment. The opening of the Caspian Consortium pipeline in 2001, from western Kazakhstan's Tengiz oilfield to the Black Sea, substantially raised export capacity. The country has embarked upon an industrial policy designed to diversify the economy away from overdependence on the oil sector, by developing light industry. Additionally, the policy aims to reduce the influence of foreign investment and foreign personnel; the government has engaged in several disputes with foreign oil companies over the terms of production agreements, and tensions continue.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) composition by sector: agriculture 7.9%, industry 35.4%, services 56.7% (2002)

Labor force (by occupation): industry 30%, agriculture 20%, services 50% (2002)

Unemployment rate: 8.6% (2003)

Industries: oil, coal, iron ore, manganese, chromite, lead, zinc, copper, titanium, bauxite, gold, silver, phosphates, sulfur, iron and steel; tractors and other agricultural machinery, electric motors, construction materials

Agriculture - products: grain (mostly spring wheat), cotton; livestock

Exports - commodities: oil and oil products, ferrous metals, chemicals, machinery, grain, wool, meat, coal (2001)

Exports - partners: Bermuda 20.8%, Russia 15.5%, China 10.6%, Italy 9.3%, Switzerland 8.2%, UAE 4.9% (2002)

Imports - commodities: machinery and equipment, metal products, foodstuffs (2001)

Imports - partners: Russia 38.7%, Germany 8.9%, US 7%, China 4.8% (2002)

Money

Currency: The national currency of the Republic of Kazakhstan is the Tenge consisting of 100 tiyin. At present, banknotes with nominal values of 5000, 2000, 1000, 500, 200, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2 and 1 tenge and 20, 10, 5, 3 and 1 tiyin, as well as coins with nominal values of 100, 50, 20, 10 and 1 tenge are in circulation

Currency exchange: The national currency, the Tenge, may only be obtained within Kazakhstan. Conversion of the Tenge back into hard currency may prove difficult. Foreign currency should only be exchanged at official bureaux and all transactions must be recorded on the currency declaration form that is issued on arrival. It is wise to retain all exchange receipts, although they are seldom inspected. Unless travelling with a licensed tourist company (in which case, accommodation, transport and meals are paid before departure), money should be brought in US Dollars cash and exchanged when necessary

Exchange rate indicators: £1.00=249.39 tenge, $1.00=135.37 tenge (August 2004)
Website: http://www.nationalbank.kz/

Banking hours: Mon-Fri 09.30-17.30. Banks close for lunch 13.00-14.00. All banks are closed Sat-Sun

History

Central Asia's recorded history begins in the 6th century BC, when the Achaemenid Empire of Persia held sway beyond the Amu-Darya River. In 330BC Alexander the Great led his army to victory over the last Achaemenid emperor and by 328 had reached Kabul and the Hindu Kush. The aftermath of Alexander's short-lived Central Asian empire saw an increase in cultural exchange between Europe and Asia. Hellenistic successor states disseminated the aesthetic values of the classical world deep into Asia, while trade bought such goods as the walnut to Europe.

No one knows for sure when the miraculously fine, sensuous fabric spun from the cocoon of the Bombyx caterpillar first reached the west from China. Even after the secret of sericulture arrived in the Mediterranean world, Chinese silk producers consistently exercised the advantage of centuries of know-how. The demand for this thread saw unprecedented trade upon what became known as the Silk Road - a shifting web of caravan tracks rather than a single road.

From 1219, Mongol hordes under the leadership of Genghis Khan swept through most of Eurasia. The ravages inflicted on the region were so harsh that settled civilisation in Central Asia did not begin to recover until Russian colonisation some 600 years later. Genghis was brutal but he also perceived the importance of reliable trade and communications, laying down networks of guard and post stations and introducing tax breaks to boost economic activity.

The splits and religious divisions which followed the death of Genghis led to the fracturing of the Mongol Empire, the rise of the tyrant's tyrant, Timur the Lame (aka Tamerlaine), at the end of the 14th century and the emergence of Kazakhs as a distinct people for the first time. Springing from the descendants of Mongols, Turkic and other peoples, the Kazakhs went on to form one of the world's last great nomadic empires, stretching across the steppe and desert north, east and west of the Syr-Darya and capable of bringing 200,000 horsemen into the field. The ruin of the Kazakhs came thanks to the Oyrats, a warlike, expansionist Mongolian people who subjugated eastern Kazakhstan, the Tian Shan and parts of Xinjiang to form the Zhungarian Empire in the 1630s. The Kazakhs were savagely and repeatedly pummelled, particularly betwen 1690 and 1720. This 'Great Disaster' made them susceptible to the Russian expansion of the 19th century.

Kazakhstan's traditional tribal divisions - the Great Horde in the south, the Middle Horde in the centre and northeast, and the Little Horde in the west - were pasted over by the Russians and simply ignored by the Soviets, but remained important as social and ethnic identifiers. In fact, nationalist confusion is one of the major legacies of Soviet rule. Since the republics of Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen and Uzbek began to be created in the 1920s each was carefully shaped to contain pockets of differing nationalities with long-standing claims to the land. The present face of Central Asia is a product of this 'divide and rule' policy.

Soviet rule in Central Asia was a parade of ridiculous ideas: assimilating the region's ethnic groups, converting the steppe into a giant cotton plantation, using Kazakhstan as a 'secret' nuclear testing zone, etc. The political, social, economic and ecological disasters resulting from these experiments meant all five republics had little to lose by declaring their sovereignty when glasnost and perestroika led to the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. Later that year they joined with 11 other former Soviet states to form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

In the same year Nursultan Nazarbayev was elected president uncontested. He began imposing his peculiar ideas about democracy (weakened parliament, handy constitutional changes) on the country he hoped to turn into Central Asia's economic tiger. In keeping with the ad hoc nature of the new republic, the nation's capital was moved from Almaty in the south to Akmola in the north and then re-named Astana in 1998.

Culture

The biggest name in Kazak cultural history is Abay Qunanbaev, a 19th century poet and man of letters who launched Kazak as a literary language and translated Russian works into Kazak. Before Abay, Kazakhstan literature consisted chiefly of long oral poems. Recitals by bards (aqins) and contests between them known as aitys are still important and popular. Kazakstan's most impressive textiles originate in the country's north-east, near the 'four corners' region of Kazakstan, Russia, China and Mongolia. The mix of influences is apparent in wall carpets and rugs unmatched in their striking colour combinations and the intricacy of their geometric designs.

Though Kazaks are Muslim (Sunni) they are not, by and large, strictly so, and Islam is not a major political force. Reasons for this include the Kazakstan's location on the fringe of the Muslim world, and their traditionally nomadic lifestyle, unsuited to central religious authority. Kazak women appear Central Asia's most confident and least restricted, despite the lingering custom of wife-stealing, whereby a man may simply kidnap a woman he wants to marry (often with some collusion, it must be said), leaving her parents with no option but to negotiate the bride-price.

Much Kazak food resembles that of the Middle East or the Mediterranean in its use of rice, savoury seasonings, vegetables and legumes, yoghurt and grilled meats. Other dishes have developed from the subsistence diet of the nomads - mainly mutton (including entrails), milk products and bread - whereas in the heavily Russian-populated cities of northern Kazakhstan, the dominant cuisine is Russian. Rural Kazaks make good qazy, smoked horsemeat sausage sometimes served sliced with cold noodles. If that sounds a bit hardcore, look out for a sweet plov (pilaf) made with dried apricots, raisins and prunes or Kazak apples which are famous throughout Central Asia (Almaty literally means 'father of apples').

Kazakhstan is a Turkic language written in a 42-letter version of the Cyrillic alphabet. At least as many people in Kazakhstan speak Russian as Kazak; Kazakhstan is the official state language but Russian is the 'language of inter-ethnic communication'.

Environment

Kazakhstan borders Russia to the north, the Caspian Sea to the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan to the south and China to the east. Kazakhstan is mainly dry and flat except for its alpine south-east and eastern fringes which lie along the northern edge of the mighty Tian Shan range. Mt Khan Tengri at 6995m (22,950ft), on the Kazakstan-Kyrgyzstan border, is the country's highest point. Lake Balqash in the central east is huge but shallow - the eastern half is salty, the western half fresh.

The Aral Sea. The Aral Sea is a salted enclosed lake or sea without outflow in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. In 1990 its area was 36.5 thousand square kilometers. Prevailing depths are 10 – 15 km and the maximum depth reaches 54.5 m. Since the beginning of the 1960s the sea level has been dramatically dropping owing to intense intake of water from rivers flowing into the Aral Sea for agricultural needs; the Syrdaria’s water and in some years the Amurdaria’s water did not reach the sea.

There's still a good chance to see antelope, brown bear, wild boar, lynx and eagles in Kazakhstan's mountains, though sighting the elusive snow leopard may take a tad longer. Poppies and tulips grow wild in the grassy steppes, trampled upon by roe deer, wolves, foxes and badgers.

Summer is sizzingly hot with desert temperatures topping 40°C (105°F) during the day, but often dropping to less than half that at night. Snow starts to fall around November and the mountain passes fill with snow until April, sometimes even May. Winters are bitterly cold, even in the desert. Annual precipitation ranges from less than 100mm (3.9in) a year in the deserts to 1500mm (58.5in) in the mountains. Much of the summer rain on the steppes comes from violent thunderstorms which often cause local flash floods.

Geology

Geological structure. The territory of Kazakhstan comprises a larger part of Caspian basin of the East European platform in which the thickness of sedimentary beds reaches 16 – 18 km. In the middle part of the section a thick (4 – 6 and more kilometers) salt-bearing bed of the Paleozoic occurs which contains deposits of rock salt and potassium salt and borates as well. Salt forms the core of more than 350 salt domes. Exploited oil deposits and oil and gas deposits located at Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Paleogene sediments are associated with salt dome structures. Lower Cretaceous sediments contain phosphorite. In Ustyurt, Mesozoic and Cenozoic thick sedimentary beds locally bearing oil and gas occur which overlap benches and basins composed of Paleozoic rocks. Kazakhstan is rich in oil, but major oil fields are located in Western Kazakhstan. More than 30 fields were discovered in Mangyshlak and Buzachi Peninsulas.

Mugodzhary is composed of Pre-Cambrian and Paleozoic folded metamorphosed magmatic and sedimentary beds pierced with intrusions of granitoid, basic rocks, and ultrabasite. Copper deposits were revealed in Silurian greenstone bed. To the east and south of Mugodzhary, Paleozoic basement is common on the whole territory of Kazakhstan and occurs at depths from several tens to 1000 m. Cretaceous, Paleogene and Neogene deposits, which are almost flat lying, overlie Paleozoic basement and comprise brown iron ore, brown coal and bauxite.

Chu basin basement occurs at depths of 500 – 2000 m and is overlapped by sedimentary beds of the Middle and Upper Paleozoic (with large deposits of cupriferous sandstone of Dzhezkazgan and a thick salt-bearing series) and Mesozoic and Cenozoic continental rocks. In Mangyshlak, large fields of oil and natural gas are located in Mesozoic rocks. Besides, brown coal deposits are associated with Mesozoic – Cenozoic sediments.

Natural resources. The most ancient Pre-Cambrian and Paleozoic rocks are metamorphosed and transformed into gneiss and schist. Many large deposits of ore mineral resources and nonmetalliferous resources are located there. Massive deposits of iron, coal, oil, gas, lead, bismuth, cadmium and thallium (these last three essential in electronics) are noted. These and other minerals have drawn hefty, if shady, foreign investment interest to Kazakhstan's otherwise unpromising plains.

Getting Around

Large towns (with population): Alma-Ata (1 129 356), Karaganda (436 864), Chimkent (390 200), Astana (311 158), Dzhezkazgan (103 400), Balhash (81 100). The last population census was held in 1999.

Flying saves time and takes the tedium out of Kazakhstan's long distances, but it is the least edifying and arguably the least safe mode of transport in the region. However, for some destinations, and in some seasons, flying is the only sensible option.

Trains are cheap, slow and easy going, but crowded, grotty and increasingly crime-ridden. Buses are the most frequent and convenient way to get between towns cheaply, and the best way to see what remains of the land of the nomads, though long trips can be tedious and cramped, and vehicles are prone to breakdowns. An option in many areas is to hire a car and driver: taxis and private citizens are often willing to take travellers between cities.

Accommodation

Hotels. Most towns in Kazakhstan have a limited supply of reasonable accommodation. It is advisable to make reservations in advance, either directly or through a travel agency. Most hotels deliver a basic level of comfort, although Western standards should not be expected. Website: http://all-hotels.ru/kazakhstan/hotels/index.en.html

and http://www.southtravels.com/asia/kazakhstan/

Turbazas. These ‘tourist bases’ are an alternative to hotel accommodation. For a small fee, visitors have access to basic bungalow accommodation and three meals a day.

Camping. The only designated campsites are the permanent base camps from which the high peaks of Kazakhstan are climbed. Travellers pitch their tents in other localities at their own risk, although there are no regulations against it.