Beyond political and military alliances and strategies, Kazakhstan aims to be an important cultural and professional training hub for the whole of Central Asia, working in this sector with great support from Russia.
Public schools at all levels, from kindergartens to universities, are growing in the countries of the region. And in several cases it is the state itself that is stimulating investors with the aim of modernising the education and training system.
Among the films entered in the race for Best Foreign Language Film, a story told by director Kučinčirekov recounts the traumas linked to the ancient custom of entrusting the upbringing of the first or last child to grandparents. It brings to the screen a comparison between the Kazakhstan of the past and that of modern times.
Istanbul presses for the strengthening of the ‘Turkic world’, rejecting ‘Eurocentric’ descriptions of the region. But Tajik historian Kamoluddin Abdulloev objects: ‘Iran would have just as many arguments to assert its historical influence. In a land where the phases of Mongol domination and the spread of Islam have led to divisions and recompositions between Shiites and Sunnis.
From Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, new regulations are lengthening the time it takes to obtain citizenship, with tough tests of knowledge of the local language to discourage Russian relokanty. In Turklmenistan, citizenship is almost impossible to obtain without Turkmen kinship, but ‘ius soli’ is still in force for children of foreign parents.
The former capital of Kazakhstan is garnering new acclaim in international tourist publications. The metropolis at the foot of the southern mountains has become the city of businessmen and artists, without the bureaucratic heaviness of the palaces of power.
