Week in Aktobe

In a couple of weeks, there will be an election for president of Kazakhstan, and there was a general call for help in pre-election monitoring. Elections in developing countries are usually pretty interesting, and I took the opportunity to participate in the monitoring and visit another city in Kazakhstan.

Aktobe is located in the northwest of Kazakhstan about 100 kilometers or so from the border with Russia. It's a pretty big city with 300,000 people and a lot of new construction going on. Oil and mining are big industries in Kazakhstan, and Aktobe is near where a lot of that activity takes place. China is also a big investor in the area, and my flight from Almaty had a number of Chinese passengers.

The picture here is of the akimat (the municipal authority) building. The flower decorations shown were put up in advance of a visit from the president of Kazakhstan. There was also a lot of cleaning up and re-painting of curbs to spruce up the city for the president.

Pre-election monitoring consists of meeting with local representatives of political parties, media, and civil society. I was glad to have the help of a colleague from our office in Astana to help because these meetings helped me realize how little Russian I know or how much I forgot since taking classes last year. I was able to understand some, but comprehension got harder the longer people talked and people talked for a long time.

Almaty looks and feels like any big city, but Aktobe felt more like a suburb. All the buildings seemed more spread out and not as tall as here in Almaty. I also thought it was interesting that Kazakh language seemed more common that Russian there. Given the proximity to Russia, I was surprised to see a lot of shops and buildings with signs only in Kazakh.

One thing that I liked a lot was the fact that there was almost no smog in Aktobe. All winter, around 10 am or so, a brown cloud engulfs Almaty -- a combination of smoke from coal-burning stoves for heat and all the traffic. The sky in Aktobe was very clear. I was also glad that the temperatures weren't bitter cold like would be common that far north at this time of year. It's been getting slightly warmer in Almaty -- almost Spring -- and Aktobe wasn't much colder.