pool!

This is most probably going to be my last 2005 post, and I find it an excellent opportunity to share my last 2005 moment in Kazakhstan J to be continued…

As mentioned in my previous piece, Nazarbayev is now sure to remain in the office for the next 7 years. Bravo! Still, opinions clash whether he entirely deserves it or not… Here again, various points of view have to be taken into account. The local one first: with a GDP growing around 9% per year, Kazakhstan has nothing to complain about, President Nazarbayev has indeed done a good job by reforming the country economically. Reforms’ inspirations came from the world’s “Economic Best Practice”, where you tend to avoid repeating similar country’s mistakes and adapt their successful policies to your model. Rendez-vous in a couple of years to see whether, all in all, it worked out. On the other hand, the country’s stability has a price, and Kazakhstan, counting many ethnies and influences, needs a strong power. Everybody acknowledges this fact. Therefore, at the cost of freedom of press, which is widely criticized (including by me, as you can easily imagine), despot Nazarbayev rules the world’s 9th largest country as well as the richest in the region… not bad. "Regrettably, despite some efforts which were undertaken to improve the process, the authorities did not exhibit sufficient political will to hold a genuinely good election that is in line with international standards," Bruce George, head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and coordinator for the short-term election observers, said in a statement. What about someone else, another candidate? Clearly, It seems like the opposition remained divided, and did so on purpose to make it easier for the former president to win. So, was there really any opposition? Was it theatrical?


I finally managed to bother everyone with my lousy mixes in Almaty as well. After Kiev, the “Assorti” club has welcomed me to play my set, which was, once again, an amazing experience! Winter is here, and I can tell you it is nothing comparable to where most of you live… it reached –27° in Astana last week, and –17 in Almaty.Surprisingly enough, one get rather quickly used to it, although I couldn’t help getting sick for a few days. After recovering, Rachel, Matthew and I went clay pigeon shooting near Almaty, which was an immensely relieving moment… I needed to shoot things and thoughts.

We also visited one of the many huge markets around the city, where we desperately searched for xmas presents, not an easy task considering local tastes. What about these extremely elegant women?



Well, Time to go, I'll leave kazakhstan next week to return on January 7th... To be continued!
I wish you all the best for 2006! Take care and have fun!