It’s no secret that Kazakhstan’s economy is going strong. One indicator that your High School Social Studies teacher loved is the per capita GDP, and if you judge Kazakhstan by that, it has actually surpassed Ukraine… [Ukraine ranked 83rd in the world at $8,624 -- Kazakhstan ranked 66th at $10,658 {Wikipedia is my source, but I'll trust them anyway}] though that owes just as much to the population differential as it does to Kazakhstan’s burgeoning economy.
In any event, here are a couple stories from the past week or so to help me paint this rosy picture of Kazakhstan’s ever-increasing share in the Global Market Economy.
US Cattle for Kazakhstan
Of course there’s no connection, but my brain jumped when I saw this headline. Following the Parade of Nations at the recent Summer Olympics, Pat Forde of ESPN gave a blow-by-blow of the best and worst dressed athletes. Personally, I think that’s kind of crass – it’s not a red carpet event where celebrities put themselves and their designers on the line. 
In fact, it’s usually a large crowd of athletes wearing outfits coordinated by their nation’s clothes manufacturer of choice. In Kazakhstan’s case, the outfits were very untraditional. The women’s skirts were indeed bright orange, with matching hats. The men, however, were wearing grey slacks with a white jacket, decked out in ties that had the Kazakhstani flag on them. Anyway, Mr. Forde’s comment was
The women wore sashes that said “Kazakhstan,” like it was a beauty pageant. The guys looked pretty cool. Nice white cowboy hats.
Well, I think he must have missed at least part of the Parade, since it wasn’t just them women – the guys also had the sashes. In any event, it was the cowboy hat comment that I’m alluding to here. Allow me to quote another story:
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A jumbo jet loaded with 253 Hereford cattle left Chicago O’Hare International Airport, then 48 hours and 12,000 miles later, the cattle arrived at their destination in southeastern Kazakhstan on June 22. It was an historic event; the group was the first U.S. beef cattle to be imported to Kazakhstan.
The cattle were purchased by Ataibekov Bakyt, owner of Dinara Ranch, a 700-head cattle and farming operation in Kazakhstan.
The purchase included 10 bulls from L.C. Whitehead of Rocking Chair Ranch, Ft. McKavett, Texas, and two bulls from Mark and Teresa McClintock, managers of Rocking Chair Ranch. Also bought were 126 cows and 115 calves from Imig Herefords, Lakeside, Neb., Hoffman Herefords, Leola, S.D., and Douthit Herefords, St. Francis, Kan.
During a trip to the Fort Work Stock Show, Bakyt attended a Texas ranch tour, which inspired him to purchase U.S. Herefords to add to his herd that already included similar whitefaced cattle.
First, this wouldn’t be Registan if I wasn’t allowed to make at least one irreverent pop cultural reference. Did you notice the managers of the Rocking Chair Ranch are Mark and Teresa McClintock? Well, I sure did. My favorite John Wayne movie, actually! Which I’ll take full circle by linking Nathan’s review of John Wayne as Genghis Khan! Ah, the Internet.
Anyway, allow this hick from rural Michigan to translate that article above. You might be tempted to confuse these cows with heifers, which are young females cow before they have had their first calves. Herefords are a variety of cattle from Herefordshire, England, originally, but also very popular in the Southwest US and across the temperate regions of the world, including Argentina. They are much more docile than some breeds, and exhibit good marbling, meaning intramuscular fat. That might not sound appetizing, but the taste difference is what makes Hereford and Angus beef so desirable among meat sellers and meat eaters. The cattle currently raised in Kazakhstan are similar looking to Herefords, complete with the characteristic white face. This is the result of cross-breeding on Soviet farms back in the 1930s and 40s between Herefords and the native, hardier Kalmyk cattle, which were brought to Russia from Mongolia by the Kalmyk people.
KazMunayGaz looks to be listed on a third stock exchange
KazMunayGaz, leading producer of oil in Kazakhstan, is shopping around to add their IPO to another stock exchange. The company is doing very well indeed, pumping out 240,000 barrels of oil Every Day. While that might seem small change compared with Saudi Arabia, that’s still quite a lot of crude.
Zhanneta Bekezhanova, chief financial officer, said: “We are thinking about a third exchange. We have received offers from Singapore, Hong Kong and Warsaw. We are looking at the proposals but have not yet decided.”
More interesting was this comment from the Independent’s reporter:
Timur Kulibaev, the billionaire oil executive who is widely tipped to be the next Kazakh president, told The Independent on Sunday: “All our major [energy] transport routes for Europe go through Russia. We do not face any problems with those deliveries for the time being.”
Kulibaev is going to take over for Nazarbayev? Careful what you say, Independent. The last time words like that were thrown around, Austria lost an ambassador and gained a refugee. Let me know if I’ve been living in the dark. Anyone else hear these rumors the Independent is passing on?
Bank of China partners up with Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank
And speaking of bank deals [that's a dig at Aliyev, mind you], Kazakhstan’s BTA bank is looking into cooperation agreements with Bank of China. BTA might be more recognizable to those that have walked the streets of Kazakhstan as Bank TuranAlem, a major financial institution in Kazakhstan, with international representatives in Ukraine, Russia, China, and the United Arab Emirates. It’s a part of the financial salvage of the Soviet Union – it was formed in its present manifestation back in August of 1991, some months before Kazakhstan was made independent by the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Closer ties to China financially is good news for Kazakhstan, and a healthy sign of diversification from traditional [maybe I should say
традиционный] economic ties.
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No.
To date the younger Kulibayev hasn’t particularly shown much of an interest in direct involvement in public politics; quite the opposite of Aliyev.
Of course, that might be why he could be favored. As an heir apparent he’d be the least likely to want to succeed to the throne before it’s given to him.
It is a source of no end of amusement for me the degree to which the question of the succession in Kazakhstan parallels King Lear.
One might also draw parallels to Henry the second, but in this case I’d say that Richard would already have done away with Geoffrey and subsequently been exiled to Austria. I mean, France.
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