On 15 May, people took to the streets in the notorious town of Kulsary, Zhylyoi District, Atyrau Region. Around 300 residents pitched tents and spent the night near the district akimat.
According to the publication “Aq Zhaiyq”, the town's residents are demanding compensation of 400,000 tenge for each square metre of their flooded homes. They say this amount covers the cost of building materials, workers' wages, and other expenses.
“We will not leave if our demands are not met. We have nowhere else to go, so announce the results of the assessment of our destroyed homes faster!” the local residents declared.
It is reported that later, the deputy governor of the region, Zhassulan Bissembiyev, came out to address the people with a statement.
“After discussion, we decided to assess the square metre at 200-240 thousand tenge. That is the price across all of Kazakhstan, please understand! We cannot set it any higher. For example, if you have a house with an area of 200 square metres, you will receive 40 million tenge. We have started finalising the assessment results, and work is still ongoing,” the deputy governor stated.
The residents were not satisfied with this response and continue to stay near the akimat building. Incidentally, the homes of 2,900 Kulsary residents and hundreds of commercial properties in the town were affected by the spring floods.
Meanwhile, the Telegram channel “Til Kespek Zhok” reports that the governor of the Atyrau Region, Serik Shapkenov, has headed to Kulsary.
The editorial team of FBK regularly monitors the dynamics of various rallies and public hearings in Kazakhstan. For instance, in August last year, local residents in the village of Maraldy, Kurchum District, East Kazakhstan Region, actively protested against the construction of a factory and a gold mining quarry.
Despite the obvious prospects for the population, the villagers were categorically opposed to the introduction of new industrial facilities in their village, justifying their stance with impending environmental problems. At the time, we put forward the assumption that ordinary people may have been used (as is often the case in different countries) by those pursuing personal interests.
In our publications about the events in Maraldy, we allowed for the possibility that the villagers had been turned against the upcoming construction. Even at the first hearings, there were instances of incitement of the population by certain activists from the capital, and one speaker at the hearings even demanded that everyone be given 20 million tenge each during the construction. We published a detailed analysis of who incites the villagers to mass unrest in Maraldy.
Other notable rallies in recent times include the events in the village of Zhetibay, Mangystau Region, where in December last year, around 500 workers of the company “West Oil Software” went on strike, demanding that salary levels be set in accordance with the national company’s unified payment system, despite the fact that the average salary at West Oil Software LLP was over 700,000 tenge.
We are not claiming that the situation in Kulsary is identical to the events in Maraldy or Zhetibay, but we note that in recent years, rallies and public hearings in Kazakhstan have become a powerful tool through which certain forces remaining in the shadows often try to achieve their own goals.
The saddest part is that ordinary people are most often used blindly, with their emotions being skilfully played upon and negative reactions deliberately provoked in a direction favourable to the puppet masters in the shadows. However, the consequences of these mass protests most often not only fail to bring tangible benefits to the people, but rather harm them and their families, as well as the future development of the localities where they live.