In May 2026, FBRK was investigating who was behind the information campaign against the cooperative "Shchuchinskoye Voluntary Association of Amateur Gardeners" ("Shchuchinskoye VTAG") and its chairman Bakhtiyar Gabdullin. Three months have passed since then, and the story has not only failed to conclude but has acquired new episodes - from video addresses to the President to an open meeting at which our editorial team was personally present. Below is a chronology of what has happened since the publication.
FACTUAL BASIS
After the publication of the May article, one of its subjects, Gulmira Egiyeva (also known as Tokareva, Akhmetzhanova, Dyusyukova), continued her public campaign against the cooperative's leadership on her own Instagram account.
On 18 May, the day after the publication, Egiyeva addressed a post to FBRK founder Kirill Pavlov, calling the criticism an attempt to "smear" her and stating: "I don't have time to concern myself with other people's lives" - a formulation that sits at odds with her own subsequent actions: as will be shown below, Egiyeva continued to concern herself with other people's lives very closely.
On 28 July, a series of video addresses addressed to the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev appeared on her account. In them, Egiyeva stated that she had submitted a complaint to the prosecutor's office of Akmola Region concerning "a criminal offence" in relation to Gabdullin, but that the complaint had, in her words, been rejected "on grounds of inaccuracy". She then appealed via the e-Otinish portal to the General Prosecutor's Office, but, as she claims, the appeal was again referred to the same officials she had complained about.
It is important to emphasise: the fact that any criminal case has been opened is known to the editorial team solely from Egiyeva's own words - FBRK has no independent confirmation from the prosecutor's office or the courts as of the time of publication.
In those same posts, Egiyeva claimed that she was about to be expelled from the cooperative, and that she was being subjected to harassment in the gardeners' shared chat. The comments under her posts predominantly contained discontent from the gardeners over her months-long activity.
Among the comments under Egiyeva's posts, several stand out in which gardeners - people who personally know the situation - address her directly. Under the video address of 28 July, one of them wrote:
"I'm so ashamed of you, you're not even the owner of a plot, and you keep complaining and slandering - why?".
Under the video published immediately after the meeting of 2 August - another comment:
"I wished you well, shook your husband's hand. People here are kind-hearted; today they forgave you for all your tricks",
as well as a warning:
"It will be difficult to earn the gardeners' trust a second time".
These remarks come from real people, with whom, according to the editorial team's observations, Egiyeva prefers not to argue when meeting them face to face.
On 2 August 2026, a general meeting was held at the cooperative, which FBRK journalists attended in person. The agenda was built around the questions that Egiyeva had previously raised publicly - in order to give her the opportunity to ask them directly and receive answers. Yet Egiyeva herself asked no questions for almost the entire meeting. The curator of the resource Mikrafon.kz, which had previously accompanied the campaign against the cooperative's leadership, did not attend the meeting - according to the information available to us, after the May FBRK publication he publicly distanced himself from Egiyeva.
During the meeting, the cooperative's audit commission raised the question of expelling Gulmira from membership of the association. Also speaking at the meeting was Egiyeva's former friend, who spoke about an anonymous complaint made to the child welfare authorities concerning her - a complaint which, according to her information, had been initiated by Gulmira Egiyeva.
Egiyeva publicly apologised to those present, but the apology concerned only the fact of having filmed the spring meeting without the consent of the participants - she did not retract her earlier accusations against Gabdullin and the cooperative, nor did she apologise for them.
According to the editorial team's observations, Egiyeva's behaviour demonstrates a consistent contrast between what she says to people to their faces and what she does behind their backs. Several gardeners present at the meeting on 2 August said that her activity extends far beyond garden matters: in their words, she tracks their personal lives on social media, attributes extramarital affairs to them, and spreads rumours entirely unrelated to the cooperative's activities.
That same day, shortly after the meeting, Egiyeva published a new series of videos with a different interpretation of events: she claimed that during her attendance at the meeting she was subjected to pressure, that demands were made for her to withdraw her complaints, and she also reported comments from gardeners which she regarded as insults. She again appealed to the President with a request for protection for herself and her family.
CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND
As the editorial team previously established, the campaign against the cooperative's leadership in spring 2026 was linked to the resource Mikrafon.kz, whose curator - Azamat Kenzhebulatov - is the head of the district branch of the OSDP ("Nationwide Social Democratic Party") in the Burabay district.
According to information available to the editorial team, representatives of the OSDP subsequently approached Gabdullin with a proposal to employ Egiyeva at the cooperative - regardless of whether vacancies existed. The chairman refused, stating that there were no fictitious positions.
After the publication of the May article, the FBRK editorial team sent an official inquiry to the OSDP. The Akmola regional branch of the party confirmed that Kenzhebulatov had attended the gardeners' meeting specifically as a party representative, "receiving and reviewing citizens' appeals", but in the same letter stated that this did not indicate the OSDP's involvement in the information campaign around the cooperative, and called the link between Mikrafon.kz and the party "contrived" and lacking factual basis - without commenting on the fact that Kenzhebulatov himself, on his own social media, calls Mikrafon.kz his project and places it on a par with his party activities.
Despite this official denial, the involvement of OSDP representatives in the cooperative's affairs, according to the editorial team's data, continued even after the response was published: as mentioned above, it was they who insisted that chairman Gabdullin employ Egiyeva - that is, they were effectively proposing to support a specific individual using funds formed exclusively from the gardeners' own membership fees, rather than from the state or party budget. The editorial team is left with a question: why does a district party structure continue to involve itself in the distribution of money with which it has no direct connection?
The chronology also draws attention. The main phase of the campaign around the cooperative coincided with the period preceding the elections of deputies to the Kurultai of the Republic of Kazakhstan, scheduled for 23 August 2026. The timing coincidence alone does not prove a link, but combined with the party affiliation of Mikrafon.kz's curator and the continued involvement of OSDP representatives in the cooperative's affairs, it naturally raises the question: why has the activity of this particular party structure around a local conflict intensified precisely now.
The content of Egiyeva's own account during this period is also telling: alongside posts about the conflict with the cooperative and appeals to the country's top officials, a notable part of her feed consists of campaigning for the OSDP in the Burabay district. There is virtually no other notable public content in the account that is unrelated either to the conflict around the cooperative or to the party.
A similar scenario - public escalation of a local conflict followed by political positioning - was already documented by the editorial team earlier in the case of the story of the horse in the well in the same district.
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Three months of public campaigning demonstrate a consistent pattern of behaviour: appeals to the country's top officials, appeals to religious and family circumstances in response to specific questions, and the simultaneous positioning of oneself both as a victim of the system and as a principled fighter for transparency.
The discrepancy between two versions of the same event is telling: the meeting of 2 August, which the gardeners themselves and FBRK journalists describe as an attempt to publicly clarify Egiyeva's grievances in a calm setting, is presented in her own interpretation as an act of collective pressure. The apology offered at the meeting itself was limited to a narrow procedural matter - unauthorised filming - while the remaining accusations have been repeated unchanged for several months.
The claim that a criminal case has been opened, for all the seriousness of such information, is not yet supported by anything other than the complainant's own words. The FBRK editorial team stresses: until official confirmation from law enforcement or judicial bodies appears, this fact cannot be regarded as established.
POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES
- For the cooperative and its members: the ongoing public confrontation diverts the board's resources from practical matters at the height of the gardening season and sustains an atmosphere of tension among some gardeners.
- For Egiyeva herself: judging by the gardeners' comments under her own posts, trust in her as a "protector of gardeners' interests" within the cooperative has been almost completely lost.
- For the district's information landscape: if appeals to the country's top officials without procedural substantiation of facts continue to be circulated as an independent tool of pressure on local structures, this sets a precedent for similar campaigns in the future.
THE EDITORIAL TEAM'S VIEW
The FBRK editorial team believes that further escalation of the conflict serves no party's interests, but above all risks backfiring on Egiyeva herself.
A months-long campaign built on accusations that have not yet been independently confirmed, regular appeals to the country's top officials and, according to eyewitness accounts, the collection and dissemination of information about the personal lives of fellow cooperative members, has already led to a loss of trust within the community she claimed to be protecting.
The chosen tactics carry reputational and, in all likelihood, legal risks for her personally, up to and including liability for knowingly false complaints and defamation, should the relevant facts be established through due process. Whether to stop or continue is Egiyeva's own decision, but the longer the campaign lasts, the less reversible its consequences become - above all for herself.
CONCLUSION
Three months after FBRK's first publication, the story of the "Shchuchinskoye VTAG" cooperative demonstrates not a resolution of the conflict but its transition to a new phase - with appeals to the Head of State and claims about criminal prosecution that have not yet been independently confirmed. The key open question remains the same: will the accusations be officially substantiated, or will the campaign remain a series of public statements without procedural outcome.
After the publication of the May article, residents of other regions began contacting the FBRK editorial team with similar stories - in particular, gardeners from Stepnogorsk approached us with complaints about the lack of transparency in the management of their gardening cooperatives. Judging by these appeals, Shchuchinsk is not an isolated case: such conflicts are typical of horticultural associations in various regions of Kazakhstan.
If you are the owner of a garden plot and are facing a similar situation, you can tell the FBRK editorial team about it via our anonymous bot.
