Farmer Samat Kulchikov is fighting a legal battle over a 5-hectare plot of land in the Alatau rural district of the Almaty region. His lawyer Murat Adam said that after an inspection by the region's Department for Land Resource Management (DLRM), the plot is to be seized.
According to Ratel.kz, inspectors claimed that structures, allegedly intended for tourism, had been placed on the agricultural plot and classified them as "glampings" (dome-shaped houses for outdoor tourism). Based on these findings, the court ordered the land to be confiscated and returned to the state land fund.
In response, the farmer's lawyer stated that Kulchikov runs an apiary and cultivates apple orchards on the plot.
"According to the General Classifier of Types of Economic Activity (GCTEA), this constitutes agricultural activity. The 'glampings' the Department for Land Resource Management refers to are nothing more than ordinary sheds used to store everything necessary for the apiary, as well as gardening equipment," Adam stated.
As the lawyer reported, he sent an inquiry to the Tourism Association to support his position. The response received indicated that the structures on Kulchikov's plot do not meet the characteristics of a glamping site, as they are not intended for tourist accommodation and are not equipped with infrastructure.
According to Murat Adam, on 14 April 2024, the DLRM sent his client a notice to rectify violations, with a deadline set for 14 July 2024. However, on the same day, the department drew up an administrative offence report — without actually granting any time to address the issues.
"This suggests that the entire land seizure is someone's conspiracy, a cunning plan to expropriate property. Because — who would deliberately travel to the middle of nowhere, to the foothills, and initiate some inspections? Moreover, there are no real grounds for it. Usually, when cases of land seizure for misuse occur, specific facts are established. <…> Here, those facts do not exist; they latched onto these sheds and didn't even bother to check whether garden tools are inside them, instead of people living there," Adam emphasised.
He further claimed that the department also violated the inspection procedure by conducting it without the permission of the prosecutor's office, which is mandatory even for unscheduled inspections.
Based on the administrative report, the Talgar District Court issued a ruling to confiscate the plot. The court deemed the violation as established. Meanwhile, the lawyer reported a violation of his client's language rights during the legal proceedings.
"The court of first instance, despite the fact that neither Kulchikov nor his lawyers are sufficiently proficient in the Kazakh language, still chose Kazakh as the language of the proceedings and did not provide an interpreter," Murat Adam said.
Ultimately, the farmer's representatives appealed the Talgar District Court's decision to confiscate the land plot in the appellate court. The case has now been sent back for a retrial.