KAZAKHSTAN AS SEEN BY ITS STUDENTS
The country of Kazakhstan is not very well known in the United States, nor in many other places of the world. Ask someone in the U.S. about Kazakhstan, and many people will respond with “Borat.” The movie “Borat” was not even shot in Kazakhstan, but in Romania, and the scenes in the movie are a gross distortion of the real Kazakhstan and its people.
Until about three months ago, I knew nothing myself about Kazakhstan. I was planning to begin a new project of ”America’s Dialogue” that involved interviewing students from around the world, and a set of circumstances pointed me in the direction of Kazakhstan. One of these circumstances was an interview that developed with Mrs. Bryganym Aitimova, current Ambassador to the United Nations from Kazakhstan. I picked up a piece about her on the internet which talked about her involvement in crusading against nuclear weapons. This piqued my interest, since just two years before I had interviewed people around the country and traveled to Hiroshima to interview the mayor of Hiroshima and survivors – hibakusha – of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, and produced a video on Hiroshima and nuclear weapons.
I discovered that Kazakhstan, after becoming an independent nation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was left in possession of approximately 2500 atomic bombs; but that the nation then dismantled its arsenal and renounced nuclear weapons.
I began contacting Kazakhstan students who were studying at universities around the world, and interviewing them on Skype. I began to learn about their country, their customs, their culture, and their religions through the eyes of these young students.
Kazakhstan is a mix of almost 130 different nationalities, with many different religions also. These young students have grown up in a multi-cultural, multi-religious environment from the day they were born, a society that seems to practice a high degree of cultural and religious tolerance.
The video comments by the students are wonderful. They show a passion and a pride in their country, and, at the same time, a spirit to reach out to the world. Their lives give a total lie to “Borat”.
Catch their voices on “America’s Dialogue“.
Big Almaty Lake, Kazakhstan
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