Central Asia - General Discussion Thread

She strikes me as vapidly stupid. She was in bad shape when daddykins was alive. Why would she bother trying to leave with him dead and buried and earn herself a prison cell?

EDIT- Possibly my oddest page topper.

Edited by FFShinra on Mar 6th 2019 at 8:43:42 AM

Nazarbayev resigns.

This was coming, but I'm still shocked how abrupt it was.

It is a shocker.

He didn't budge from democratic reforms IIRC.

This was coming? What was going on?

Earlier, the government was fired, he made an appeal to Constitutional Council concerning his Presidential status, but in general, I was refferring to the fact that he could not had been in power forever.

Edited by Millership on Mar 19th 2019 at 8:03:58 PM

He still retains substantial power (article mentions centralizing power and his title giving him some authority for life), and his successor looks handpicked. The charitable explanation is that he's still an authoritarian asshole, but one who realizes that A) he's not immortal and B) he cares enough about the place to put succession plans into place.

I'm not familiar with the internal politics at play here, but this resignation is probably In Name Only, as a gradual move towards prepping for his death.

I have to say, this is a surprising turn of events. Authoritarian presidents resigning out of the blue isn't a common thing, not even In Name Only resignations. I'd say that if Vladimir Putin had done the same I'd have been less surprised.

Particularly since in that region (Kyrgyzstan aside), they all rule for life. Hence my surprise. Any normal leader, this would earn a shrug at best.

Funny, there were more than a few articles in the last few months about Putin possibly doing this (to circumvent the limit on presidential terms without changing them again).

Crack theory: Nazarbayev is going to be made leader of some sort of supranational entity within the former Soviet Union. Putin gets to call the West paranoid for thinking he'd do it while Nazarbayev (who is more well liked in the West) gets to be something beyond his own presidency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassym-Jomart_Tokayev

This man's taking over. Seems to have a career in diplomacy.

...and the first thing he's done is to rename Astana to Nur-Sultan.

Just...

Hello, darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk with you again

Edited by Millership on Mar 20th 2019 at 9:34:53 PM

Even Astana isn't it's original name. Akmola or GTFO!

And so far it has changed its name four times. I lived to see three of them and I'm not even thirty yet.

Elections are concluding in Kazakhstan despite massive opposition protests nationwide that police were summoned in full force to detain them.

Saint Petersburg set a high bar, OK? There's only one way to beat that record...

Kyrgyz Special Rapid Response Unit (COBP) operators raided Atambayev's compound to arrest him and charge him for corruption. Something he denies.

The COBP elements got a nasty surprise when his supporters opened fire with live ammo, unlike them since they were ordered to use rubber ammo.

They left, but they're going back in.

Funny story, Atambayev went to see Putin when news of his immunity was being removed by the Kyrgyz GKNB, but Putin supported Jeenbekov.

He's in custody now. Seems he surrendered this time. Still denies the charges though.

At least this wasn't another tribal thing between north and south, which it certainly would have been if one of these guys had been from Osh...

Got this confirmation as Shinra mentioned from the BBC now.

Trevor talks about Turkmenistan. A bit funny, but I saw the Darvaza gas crater.

Is my paragraph on Central Asia in Interchangeable Asian Cultures accurate?

Seems okay to me, although I definitely wouldn’t consider the region a boundary between Asia and Europe. It’s located in Asia geographically it’s much closer to the Middle East than Europe culturally.

Kazakhstan is partially in Europe, and European Russia and Azerbaijan (by water) border it to the west. Plus there's a bunch of Eastern European influence from the Soviets. I edited it to make that a little more neutral-sounding.

Edited by CookingCat on Jan 13th 2020 at 12:14:46 PM

Stuff is going on in Kyrgyzstan due to allegations of vote rigging. Opposition supporters freed Sadyr Japarov and Almazbek Atambayev.

Both were previously arrested by police. Japarov for kidnapping and Atambayev on corruption.

Japarov appears to be in control now.

This fits the definition of a revolution, right?

They took control of the Parliament, and proceeded to vandalize it, steal items of value, and start a fire. Several jailed politicians have been broken free, and the prime minister has resigned for his own safety.

So basically, yes.

Edited by Doctorpig on Oct 7th 2020 at 9:51:44 AM

Oh here is the thread. Good! Was weird talking about it in Russia.