I had a dream one night. In my dream an old man in skins and leather was drinking tea and sitting beside a fire. He told me this story. His name was Kazak and this is part of what he told me. He was a simple man who had a great love in his life. He touched many people in his journey through life and learned many things. Oh, and he lived over 32,000 years ago. This is a Love story set in the beginning of man's rise to domination. Kazak is a special man with a love that makes his life worthwhile. A group of people started stealing the lives and stores of whole villages. Taking everything and leaving only fear, Kazak must protect his people and his woman. He does this with new friends and by watching others and Learning from what he sees. Will he be able to bring different people together and defeat the Raiders of lives and the slaves? Will he be able to save the love of his life and the people who follow him? How does he endear himself to others as a friend?

This compete history of one of the largest non-Slavic ethnic groups charts it from its emergence in the mid-fifteenth century to the present. Olcott details the major events that have shaped the character of the Islamic nation of Kazakhstan, discussing the rise and fall of the Kazakh Khanate, the Kazakhs in imperial Russia, revolutionary and Soviet Kazakhstan, and the struggle for autonomy under Soviet rule.

" ... an amusing account of [the author's] summer as an 'expat wife' in the ex-Soviet country of Kazakhstan. ... It comprises her experience of the culture and ... her time in Aktau, Kazakhstan, through a series of letters to her family and friends."--Page 4 of cover

Dark Shadows is a compelling portrait of Kazakhstan, a country that is little known in the West. Strategically located in the heart of Central Asia, sandwiched between Vladimir Putin's Russia, its former colonial ruler, and Xi Jinping's China, this vast oil-rich state is carving out its place in the world as it contends with its own complex past and present. Journalist Joanna Lillis paints a vibrant picture of this emerging nation through vivid reportage based on 17 years of on-the-ground coverage, and travels across the length and breadth of this enigmatic country that lies along the ancient Silk Road and at the geopolitical and cultural crossroads where East meets West. Featuring tales of murder and abduction, intrigue and betrayal, extortion and corruption, this book explores how a president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, transformed himself into a potentate and the economically-struggling state he inherited at the fall of the USSR into a swaggering 21st-century monocracy. A colourful cast of characters brings the politics to life: from strutting oligarchs to sleeping villagers, from principled politicians to striking oilmen, from crusading journalists to courageous campaigners. This new edition features two additional chapters covering the aftermath of Nazarbayev's fall from power in 2019; the Chinese government's repressions against the Kazakhs of Xinjiang as part of its crackdown on Muslim minorities; and an Afterword reflecting on the tumultuous events of January 2022 in Almaty. Traversing dust-blown deserts and majestic mountains, taking in glitzy cities and dystopian landscapes, Dark Shadows conjures up Kazakhstan as a living, breathing place, full of extraordinary people living extraordinary lives.

The Hungry Steppe examines one of the most heinous crimes of the Stalinist regime: the Kazakh famine of 1930–33. More than 1.5 million people, a quarter of Kazakhstan's population, perished. Yet the story of this famine has remained mostly hidden from view. Sarah Cameron reveals this brutal story and its devastating consequences for Kazakh society. Through extremely violent means, the Kazakh famine created Soviet Kazakhstan, a stable territory with clear boundaries that was an integral part of the Soviet economy; and it forged a new Kazakh national identity. But ultimately, Cameron finds, neither Kazakhstan nor Kazakhs themselves integrated into Soviet society the way Moscow intended. The experience of the famine scarred the republic and shaped its transformation into an independent nation in 1991. Cameron examines the Kazakh famine to overturn several assumptions about violence, modernization, and nation-making under Stalin, highlighting the creation of a new Kazakh national identity and how environmental factors shaped Soviet development. Ultimately, The Hungry Steppe depicts the Soviet regime and its disastrous policies in a new and unusual light.

This lavishly illustrated book reveals the full history of the heart of Central Asia across the ages, focusing on the region that is modern-day Kazakhstan. Using essays from renowned archaeologists, historians and scholars as the core of each chapter, this book explains Kazakhstan s long and complex history. This flowing narrative is complemented ......

Kazakhstan is one of the best-known success stories of Central Asia, perhaps even of the entire Eurasian space. It boasts a fast growing economy—at least until the 2014 crisis—a strategic location between Russia, China, and the rest of Central Asia, and a regime with far-reaching branding strategies. But the country also faces weak institutionalization, patronage, authoritarianism, and regional gaps in socioeconomic standards that challenge the stability and prosperity narrative advanced by the aging President Nursultan Nazarbayev. This policy-oriented analysis does not tell us a lot about the Kazakhstani society itself and its transformations. This edited volume returns Kazakhstan to the scholarly spotlight, offering new, multidisciplinary insights into the country’s recent evolution, drawing from political science, anthropology, and sociology. It looks at the regime’s sophisticated legitimacy mechanisms and ongoing quest for popular support. It analyzes the country’s fast changing national identity and the delicate balance between the Kazakh majority and the Russian-speaking minorities. It explores how the society negotiates deep social transformations and generates new hybrid, local and global, cultural references.

CONTAINS ALL NEW MATERIAL BORAT: TOURISTIC GUIDINGS TO GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN JAGSHEMASH! WELCOMES IN KAZAKHSTAN! In coitus with Kazakh Minister of Information, telelviski journalist Borat Sagdiyev is take great pleasuring himself to present this touristic guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan–home to many many of Central Asia’s most highly respected sex criminals. This volume is showcase of all that is great of Kazakhstan–marvel at the statistic of Nurek Dam, make your childrens laugh with our jokes about jews and take a peekings inside brandnew Capitalist Supermall Viktor Hotelier’s Shopcity–3 stores and electrical staircare!! Containings over half the photographs, maps and writings ever produced by Kazakhstan and printed on our finest grade paper (50% tree, 10% asbestos, 22% gypsy, 18% pubis)–this books will surely makings you visit Kazakhstan most urgently! You welcomes–we seeings you soon! BORAT: TOURISTIC GUIDINGS TO MINOR NATION OF U.S. AND A. JAGSHEMASH READER! Subsequents to worldwide successes of his blockbusterings moviefilm, Borat Sagdiyev–televiski journalist and 4th most famous person of Kazakhstan–have in associate with Ministry of Information produce this travel guidings journal to minor nation of US and A. This book a most sensible acquisition if you are think of travel to this country and will instruct you on all you needing know–from how to get cage of your wife through airport, to how to gain entry to an American vagine without spend money. It also contain most explicit guidings to American peoples–did you know that there are over 1,000 of them with chocolate colour skin? And that it natural, not makeups!? Learn too of the great American cities–Washingtons DC, New York and Londons–and read truthful accounts of their landmarks: for examples, discover that in realitys, the World Trade Centers of New York City is not near so tall as they saying it is. Containings many many photographs never before looked upon and writings of most splendid caliber, this book really is a very nice!

This book gives you an overview of the Kazakh nation - its traditions and customs. It will help you understand the Kazakh people. It is good for those, who are interested in travelling and learning about different countries, for those, who work and live in Kazakhstan, or for those, who are thinking of visiting the country...

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian states have developed liberal-constitutional formal institutions. However, at the same time, political phenomena in Central Asia are shaped by informal political behaviour and relations. This relationship is now a critical issue affecting democratization and regime consolidation processes in former Soviet Central Asia, and this book provides an account of the interactive and dynamic relationship between informal and formal politics through the case of party-system formation in Kazakhstan. Based on extensive interviews with political actors and a wide range of historical and contemporary documentary sources, the book utilises and develops neopatrimonialism as an analytical concept for studying post-Soviet authoritarian consolidation and failed democratisation. It illustrates how personalism of political office, patronage and patron-client networks and factional elite conflict have influenced and shaped the institutional constraints affecting party development, the type of emerging parties and parties’ relationship with society. The case of Kazakhstan, however, also demonstrates how in the former Soviet space political parties emerge as central to the legitimization of informal political behavior, the structuring of factional competition and the consolidation of authoritarianism. The book represents an important contribution to the study of Central Asian Politics.