SOUTH KAZAKHSTAN – Eleven-millionth Kazakh, Mukhtar Abdrakhim, was born in December in Ushbulak village in southern Kazakhstan. Abdrakhim was chosen among all the children born on Dec. 28, 2012.
In April 2013, Kazakhstan’s statistics agency announced there were now more than 11 million ethnic Kazakhs among the almost 17 million people living in the country now.
Mukhtar Abdrakhim’s birth weight was 3.25 kilograms and height was 52 centimetres. He is now a healthy baby, the fourth child of 34-year-old Malik Badambayev and 29-year-old Sholpan Kudirbekova. Malik is involved in agriculture and his wife is an English teacher at a local school. They also have a nine-year-old daughter and two sons of five and three years old. The youngest ones will soon go to kindergarten.
A new kindergarten for 60 children, financed by the local administration, is being constructed in their village. In total, two public preschools and one private kindergarten are planned for construction in the village to provide preschool education to 66 percent of the village’s children.
In 2012, 3,044 babies were born in the rural district where the village is located, which was 1.3 percent more than in 2011.
The head of the Kazygurt rural district Bolat Kystauov visited Ushbulak village to congratulate the family and brought a gift for Mukhtar’s parents. And Askar Myrzakhmetov, the Akim (Governor) of South Kazakhstan region, presented the young boy with a race horse.
