Tag Archives: society

Armenians welcome the Customs Union

YEREVAN/Armenia, OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — President Serzh Sargsyan’s announcement last month that Armenia will join the Russia-led Customs Union was a surprise both for officials and local people.

Armenia has been negotiating to join the EU for four years and a document representing progress was expected to be signed in November in Vilnius, Lithuania. Still, 14 of the 20 people interviewed by The Conway Bulletin on a mild September evening in central Yerevan supported the move.

Importantly, though, they backed Armenia’s entry into the Customs Union, which also includes Kazakhstan and Belarus, not to improve their economic prospects but because they considered Russia the best defender of peace from perceived Azerbaijani aggression.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are still officially at war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russia maintains a large military base in Armenia.

“We’re living in very dangerous times. Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran, war. We’ve no other alternative,” said 33-year-old Minasyan Levon.

Liana Gevorgyan agreed. “We’ve no choice,” she said. “It’s better than feeling insecure.”

Some also said Russia’s traditional Christian Orthodox values were important.

“The EU is not only about trade, it’s also about homosexuals, feminism and a range of Western moral norms which ruins our country and its identity,” said Davit, 40.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(Correspondent’s Notebook from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Kazakhstan’s cityscapes continue to change

KARAGANDA/Kazakhstan, OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — A towering statue of former Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin once stood in the main square in Karaganda, an industrial city in central Kazakhstan.

Three years ago Karaganda’s government moved the Lenin statue to a windblown spot on the edge of the city and replaced it with a dazzling white column adorned with a golden eagle and a sun.

The displacement of Lenin fits a wider trend in Kazakhstan — the sweeping away of the symbols of the Soviet past in favour of Kazakh icons.

The new monument in Karaganda is similar to the Kazakh Country monument in Astana, one of many landmarks projecting a national identity.

The Kazakh elite, led by President Nursultan Nazarbayev, has adopted a number of symbols to help propel their narrative. The most obvious are the yurt, a spherical felt home of the nomads, and the samruk, a mythical phoenix-like bird, as well as the horse and the eagle.

Another ubiquitous symbol is the shanyrak, the circular wooden top of the yurt, with its distinctive criss-cross pattern that symbolises home, hearth and family happiness.

Just outside Karaganda, a museum in the village of Dolinka commemorates victims of Soviet political repression. This was once the biggest Soviet gulag in Kazakhstan.

Poignantly, at the entrance is a broken shanyrak representing Kazakhs killed by Soviet repression.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(Correspondent’s Notebook from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Azerbaijan’s new bank card features compass

SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The International Bank of Azerbaijan (IBA), half owned by the Azerbaijani government, released a new debit card with an in-built compass pointing to Mecca so that Muslims know which direction to pray. The new card may be a bit of a gimmick but Azerbaijan has been strengthening Islamic aspects of its banking system.

ENDS
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(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Banker punches airline employee in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 27 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakh bank KazInvestBank is investigating allegations that Darkhan Botabayev, one of its directors, punched a saleswoman working for Air Astana in the face after an argument, media reported. Reports said that police were called to the sales office in Almaty after the alleged attack.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Bread price rises in Uzbekistan

SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The price of a loaf of bread in Uzbekistan has risen by nearly 10% to 600 sum ($0.3), media reported. Reports said that an increase in utility tariffs across Uzbekistan had forced bread prices to rise. Bread prices also rose by 10% in September last year.

ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved

(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Georgia becomes holiday destination for Iraqis and Iranians

BATUMI/Georgia, OCT. 2 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — The rain lashed down. It turned Batumi’s roads into streams and sent tourists scuttling for cover. Sudden downpours are part of the summer scene at this resort town on Georgia’s Black Sea coast but it still takes unsuspecting tourists by surprise.

And it’s an eclectic mix of tourists. There are Georgians, Russians, Kazakhs and other tourists from the former Soviet Union, as well as Western backpackers and businessmen.

Then there are the Iraqis and Iranians. Georgia’s tourism agency said 10,811 Iraqis and 11,032 Iranians entered the country in August. After visitors from the former Soviet Union and Turkey, Iraqis and Iranians are the two biggest groups.

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal earlier this year said Iranian businessman, who until recently didn’t need a visa to enter Georgia, were setting up Georgian companies to avoid US sanctions. Possibly, but many Iranian and Iraqi visitors are going to Georgia to holiday.

There are now direct flights to Tbilisi from Tehran, Baghdad, Erbil in Kurdish Iraq and Basra on the Iraqi Persian Gulf. From Tbilisi, Batumi is an easy five hours by train.

In central Batumi three rather rotund Iraqi men had taken advantage of a break in the rain to dash into a barber shop. They grinned and sat down to wait their turn.

“Georgia is great. Very calm and relaxing,” one of the men said.

(Correspondent’s Notebook from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Utility prices rise in Uzbekistan

SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s finance ministry has approved an increase in electricity and gas prices, media reported. Reports quoted state-run Uzbekenergo saying electricity prices will rise by 6.95% from Oct. 1. Uzbekneftagaz said gas prices would rise by 8.5%. Utility prices have steadily increased in Uzbekistan, upsetting ordinary people.

(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Most refugees in Azerbaijan are Afghans

SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Most of the 1,520 refugees seeking asylum in Azerbaijan are from Afghanistan, Elsever Agayev, an Azerbaijani official at the UN, said. Mr Agayev’s comments were a rare insight into refugees in Azerbaijan. After Afghans, the biggest number of asylum seekers are from Chechnya, which is part of Russia, and Iran.

(News report from Issue No. 154, published on Oct. 2 2013)

Petrol shortage in Kazakhstan

SEPT. 23 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kazakhstan is facing a petrol shortage because demand from industry and agriculture is overwhelming production, the head of the Kazakh Fuel Association Ashim Abdrakhmetov told reporters. Mr Abdrakhmetov said shortages are likely to worsen this year when one of Kazakhstan’s three refineries closes for an upgrade.

(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)

Reporter disappears in Uzbekistan

SEPT. 25 2013 (The Conway Bulletin) — Police in the city of Urgench, northwest Uzbekistan, have detained Sergei Naumov, a prominent independent-minded journalist, without explanation since Sept. 21, rights groups said. Uzbekistan has one of the worst human rights records in the world and rights groups said they worried about Mr Naumov’s safety.

(News report from Issue No. 153, published on Sept. 25 2013)