Tasqyn Bolatuly is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Kazakh Service.
Officials have lashed out at critics and strained to justify the decision to switch to a unified time zone in the world's ninth-largest country. Now there are signs that they may reverse course on one of their most unpopular moves in recent times.
A monument to Filipp Ridder, an 18th- and 19th-century mining engineer from the Russian Empire, was set to be erected in the city named after him. However, local activists blocked its installation, claiming that the statue represents colonialism and disrespects the Kazakh people.
A private company linked to a relative of former Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev is accused of embezzling some $44 million from a road construction project. But more than five months after the allegations, no one has been charged and officials decline to say if the money has been recovered.
The cost of building Kazakhstan’s longest bridge has more than doubled since the contract was first awarded in 2020. An investigation by RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service showed that the company overseeing the project is owned by businessmen with ties to the local governor’s son.
