Articles by Dana Omirgazy

ASTANA – Nineteen-year-old dombra player Alexey Lodochnikov has been named one of Kazakhstan’s 100 New Faces. An ethnic Russian, the gifted educator at Kachirsky children’s home in the Pavlodar region speaks fluent Kazakh and sings Kazakh folk songs. “In April of last year, I learned about the 100 New Faces project at the session of…

ASTANA – The fairy tale illustrations of Kazakh-born artist Svetlana Popova, known under the pseudonym Veta, fascinate at first sight. Looking at them, children and adults are acquainted with the culture, traditions and wisdom of their ancestors. A child who believes in fairy tales believes in good things which help him or her smile at…

ASTANA – Some of the best eagle hunters from across Kazakhstan met Feb. 2-4 in the Urdzhar district of the East Kazakhstan region to compete in the 12th annual National Eagle Hunting Championship. Ancient traditional hunting with birds remains popular among Kazakh people. The contest brought together 39 eagle hunters from 10 regions. Urdzhar District…

ASTANA – Kazakh medical organisations should be headed by professional managers, said Healthcare Minister Yelzhan Birtanov at a Feb. 6 government meeting. He reported on measures to develop corporate governance and management in healthcare facilities. “To date, most healthcare organisations in Kazakhstan have already been transferred into legal forms promoting the introduction of elements of…

ASTANA – Gulzhan Sarsenbayeva, one of Kazakhstan’s 100 New Faces, is among those who conducted pioneer research in paediatric heart surgery. “I am one of the few cardiac surgeons who has the skills of ultrasound diagnosis of heart defects, which helps to see the pathology of the heart before surgery, during surgery and after surgery.…

ASTANA – The Kazakh government is continuing efforts to reduce activities for state and quasi-public companies in order to protect and promote competition in the country. Last year, 108 laws and 972 bylaws were audited to identify rules that hinder competition. As a result, 144 norms preventing competition were identified, said Minister of National Economy…

ASTANA – The Kazakh National Academic Library is continuing its international project to promote Kazakh literature by opening centres in different countries. Seventeen centres have been launched since 2016, including in the national libraries in China, Finland, Hungary, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, reported the national library press service. The most recent Kazakh Literature and…

ASTANA – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is launching two communication campaigns in Kazakhstan aimed at preventing violence against children and promoting a friendly approach to children in conflict with the law. The communication campaigns will last three years. During the first year, events will be held in seven areas: the cities of Astana…

ASTANA – Foster parents change the lives of children left without parental care, filling it with love, care and joy. Murat Kabylbayev, 44, and his wife Orynbassar have provided a safe and loving family for 12 such children. It is for that work that he was named one of the country’s 100 New Faces. The…

ASTANA – A $15.4 million nuclear medicine centre to help better diagnose patients with early stage cancer will be built in Aktobe by the end of the year. “The medical centre will offer positron emission and computer tomography using radioisotope drugs that help identify tumour cells in the early stages. The treatment of patients will…

ASTANA – Swedish traveller Christian Bodegren recently announced the release of a documentary about his 2016-2017 Mongolia-Kazakhstan camel expedition, posting Jan. 7 the video on his Facebook page. “I am working on the series now, and there is currently no date for the premiere. The idea is that there will be a series of seven…

ASTANA – Kazakh filmmaker and scriptwriter Sharipa Urazbayeva will take part in the 68th Berlin International Film Festival Feb. 15-25. Her first full-length project “Rys” (“Lynx”) was selected for participation in the Talent Project Market 2018. According to Urazbayeva, the film tells the story of a strong woman who is looking for her son after…

ASTANA – The allocation and payment of targeted social assistance began from Jan. 1, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Labour and Social Protection Tamara Duissenova said Jan. 16 during a weekly government meeting. Over the past three years, significant work has been done on ensuring the adequate provision of social assistance. In late 2017, social agreements on…

ASTANA – Chess is the best sport to exercise the most complex and important organ in the body – the brain. In Kazakhstan, it became the beloved intellectual game among children and adolescents. In an exclusive interview with The Astana Times, Kazakhstan Chess Federation (KCF) Executive Director Irina Grishchenko talked about 2017’s key activities, ongoing…

ASTANA – Zulfiya Gabidullina, Kazakhstan’s first-ever Paralympics gold medal winner, is one of the country’s 100 New Faces. The inspirational story of the 52-year-old international class Master of Sports in swimming, silver and three-time bronze medallist in the 2013-2015 World Championships, 2014 Asian Para Games winner and 13-time world record holder motivates and encourages people…

ASTANA – The inflation rate in December 2017 reached 0.7 percent compared to the previous month and 7.1 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the Statistics Committee of the Kazakh Ministry of National Economy. In the previous month, food prices rose 1.1 percent, non-food products grew 0.5 percent and prices for…

ASTANA – Kazakhstan celebrated its 26th anniversary of independence Dec. 16 this year. During the period, the country made the leap from the economic and political disruption of the early 1990s to a modern social state with a dynamically developing market economy, democratic system, political stability and ethno-confessional peace and accord. The prime minister’s press…

ASTANA – Kazakh artist and Honorary Ambassador of The ATOM Project Karipbek Kuyukov took part in the Dec. 10 ceremony in Oslo, Norway where the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) organisation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017.   ICAN is a Geneva-based global civil society coalition made up of 468 partner…

ASTANA – Nazarbayev University graduates have developed a device to extend the working capacity of transformers, the press service of the city administration reported recently. The project, named Remote Monitoring of Transformers, implies a cloud system with registered algorithms on the servers. According to manager and member of the start-up team Adlet Zaurenbek, data from…

ASTANA – Kazakhstan’s national Employment 2020 Programme helped 413,000 citizens get a job over the last 12 months. Of those, 279,000 were permanently employed, Kazakh Minister of Labour and Social Protection Tamara Duissenova said during a Dec. 20 government meeting. The programme includes 527,000 participants so far. More than 50 percent are inhabitants of rural…

ASTANA – UNESCO recently included the traditional Kazakh game Asyk Atu on the organisation’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity. The inclusion came during the 12th session of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the ICH on Jeju Island, South Korea. The session featured an exhibition dedicated to the…

ASTANA – Almaty resident and Paralympic athlete Serik Yesmatov, 19, is one of Kazakhstan’s 100 New Faces. Despite his young age, he has already achieved numerous victories and has great plans for the future. As a member of the National Paralympic Volleyball Team, Yesmatov participates in the Paralympic movement and studies at Kazakh Academy of…

ASTANA – The Kazakhstan volunteering concept was presented at a Dec. 5 first national forum in the capital devoted to International Volunteer Day. The event was held under the Youth Corps Development Project implemented by the Kazakh Ministry of Education and Science and the World Bank, reported tengrinews.kz. The forum was part of the Ruhani…

ASTANA – Speaking at the recent Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable, Prime Minister Bakytzhan Sagintayev reiterated the importance of the Kazakh Invest national company for boosting foreign direct investment (FDI) in the national economy. Having overseas agents is an important idea, noted company representative for France François Marque. “I think that the way Kazakh Invest was…

ASTANA – Eleven agreements and memoranda worth more than $3 billion were signed at the Dec. 5 Kazakhstan Global Investment Roundtable, which gathered investors from more than 30 countries in advance of Industrialisation Day in the Kazakh capital. In particular, agreements were reached on the Big Almaty Ring Motor Road and public-private partnership (PPP) project…