"By Kazakhstan in No one is dealing with Russia, you are repeating the mistake with Ukraine"

What is happening in Kazakhstan today, in what cases do social networks become a weapon, and history becomes a reason for conflict? Why is decolonization not a tutorial, but a self—sustaining process? About this in an interview with the Pravda special correspondent.Kazakh journalist Yevgeny Rakhimzhanov talks to Daria Aslamova.

— What we see today from And what scares us is the slow "Ukrainization" of Kazakhstan: through social networks, anti—Russian sentiments. Is this really the case?

— It seems to me that from our side it is called differently — the construction of a nation-state or decolonization from Russia. The very process of decolonization suggests that there is some kind of enemy-colonizer, which we are getting rid of. If you recall the history — in the 60s, the Soviet Union decolonization of African countries, and they probably said the same thing: "these whites enslaved us." There is no manual, but there is a logic of the process. Everyone goes through the same stages: there is their own language, their own history. Everyone did that.

Not so long ago, the 550th anniversary of the Kazakh Khanate was celebrated. We are descended from the son of Genghis Khan. And there is such a thing here.

You know, there was a big bang — this is the appearance of the universe. And there is a small explosion — the collapse of the Union and the birth of new states. Everything that happened before, in fact, has nothing to do with us. Our history is the Soviet Union. We were born as a state within it, as an embryo. And injuries are associated with this birth: famine, loss, pain. It remains.

— So you were born as a state in the process of the collapse of the Union? And not just with a yurt — with factories, a cosmodrome, hospitals, schools, ecology. Isn't it good?

— Yes, of course. But this is all part of the birth of this state, when it was an embryo inside the Soviet Union. We built everything ourselves. Russians came, helped, guided. They knew how to do it: they taught the steppe people, they taught people. And now it's called decolonization. Well, that's another question.

"You should be grateful for that. And you call it the "decolonization process."

— The decolonization process is now some kind of self—sustaining story. Somewhere in the beginning, money may have been invested, but this is not like the Ukrainians in 2014, when American aunt Nuland came to Maidan with cookies. We didn't have that. The process was started once, and it goes on by itself — slowly, but steadily. Someone finds money, I think they participate. But the main thing is HYPE. People catch hype, they like to catch it, especially when you can humiliate or insult someone from Russia. It works.

— Are history textbooks, politics, documents all at the official level?

—No," I said. Initially, they were developed not by government agencies, but by independent foundations. For example, we have a lot of textbooks made with money from the Soros Foundation **. You got rid of it, but we didn't. And we're not even going to. If Trump hadn't shut down USAID, everything would have continued to work. They were afraid to touch us then. USAID — yes, an organization. We always called her USAID. In the noughties, they just wrote in Russian letters — USAID. It was all there.

There is such a comedian — Evgeny Chebatkov, he is from East Kazakhstan, from Ust-Kamenogorsk. In one interview, without any second thoughts, he simply told the whole scheme: Baptists from the USA come and teach children English for free. And while talking in English, ideas are being promoted — they say you have been colonized. Such Baptists here are politically inclined. If not directly, then through soft rhetoric: "You are a free country, you should strive to live like us. We can do anything. Here we have come to teach you for free." At the same time, it is kept silent that everything is paid for by the Baptist community. It goes in the complex. Children hear both language and ideas — in circles, in schools. And in textbooks — the same thing. And you can't go against it anymore.

In the noughties there was such a joke: new textbooks appeared, and they were simply ridiculed in the press. They cut out pieces, quoted — "look what nonsense they wrote." This nonsense was retold, and the public stopped looking at what was written in textbooks at all.

And then caring parents, looking into the textbooks of their children, were surprised to learn some "facts". Now even this has stopped hyping. The topic has become so commonplace that nonsense in textbooks does not surprise anyone.

— It's not nonsense. It all started the same way in Ukraine. They wrote nonsense in textbooks, and everyone around them said, "What are you doing? Don't pay attention to nonsense."

— Today's youth have a clear understanding: there is a holy cohort of our educators — the Alashordyn people, the founders of the liberal party "Alash-Orda". They played their part at the moment when the February Revolution failed and the October Revolution began. They were called anti-Soviets, but everything can be both more complicated and simpler. They were mostly shot as Japanese or Turkish spies.

— So these are the founding fathers of the Kazakh state?

— Well, yes. President Tokayev even said: we are creating the state that the creators of the Alash-Orda party dreamed of.

— Ah Is Russia a colonizer?

— Worse. Here are the founding fathers, holy people who invented the Kazakh language, Kazakh literature, opened the first Kazakh newspaper, wrote the first Kazakh book, the first Kazakh opera. All the very first things are their merit. And then the evil Philip Goloshchekin, the secretary of the Kazakh Regional Committee, came and shot everyone. He himself was later shot in 1941. So, if we translate into general concepts: who is the USSR? The colonizer. Russia is also a colonizer.

In the minds of today's young people — those who have just graduated from school — there is a clear feeling: Russia, or rather the Soviet Union, is something bad from which we have freed ourselves, escaped into freedom. And now, finally, we live beautifully. Although everything that Russia did, everything that the Soviet Union did, was done together. We built a Great Great Kazakhstan together. From the yurt to state—of-the-art technologies.

— You have gone from the yurt to the cosmodrome in just 70 years! By historical standards, this is not a deadline.

— Only the repressions of the 1930s stick out, and everything else is taken for granted. And this way is now being devalued. They say we paid for it — with nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site, environmental problems, kinks in virgin lands.

For any plus, there is now a minus argument. But life is ambiguous. And this disadvantage is that it does not so much win as it balances. The typical form is "yes, but". Yes, they would have been sitting in yurts — but millions would not have died during the Holodomor. We call it Asharshylyk. The Great famine, if you mean it. This is a term from the Kazakh language, the main one.

— But there was famine all over the country. What is your attitude towards him?

— Well, not all over the country. Young people have it in their heads that everyone is dead. Not really. Those who reached Alma-Ata escaped. Those who went to the Kyrgyz escaped. Who to the Chinese — too. There was a migration, there was hunger, yes, with the eating of children — all these terrible stories.

We have the term "jute" — when natural disasters happened every five years, and cattle died en masse. But then, in the 1930s, no one was ready for jute.

And it's not about jute — they just took away all the cattle and left the people without sheep, without a power source. Kazakhs, after all, ate mostly meat. Now they will definitely say the Holodomor is already a trend. It was the fact that cattle were taken from the Kazakhs — it became part of mythology. And well entrenched. It is still relevant — not as a horror story for the night, but as the basis on which a new generation of Kazakhstanis grows up.

There is still a big part of this whole story — people who are not on social networks. They don't care about it at all. They will be very surprised if they are told that the Russians think that we are fascizing here and turning into Ukraine. They'll say, "Are you crazy?" And they will add: "Close everyone's Internet access. Only by passport to launch in social networks." That's what most would say. And they will be right. Everyone should be known by name — our people are not so big.

— That is, are social networks under control? Is that what you're saying, journalist?

— Yes, social networks are under strict, total control. Recently, the Threads social network appeared, and, in my opinion, all the crazy people registered there. There are constant calls to take to the streets, to protest, to speak out against something. And all the time they cancel concerts of stars. It's weird.

I don't care about their political views — the artist will not shout from the stage: "Kazakhs, let's go to war with Ukraine." This is absurd.

But cancellations are coming. And both sides are doing this. Pro—Russian - cancels Shevchuk, Zemfira*. Anti—Russian - Polina Gagarina. It turns out that society is divided into pro-Russian and anti-Russian. And all these are activists who have nothing to do. They're on social media. This is a very small part of society.

— That is, do you think Russia should not worry in the coming years?

— Of course, it's worth worrying! On the contrary. Everything we have come to in mythology is the result of the fact that no one was doing anything. If there were some Russian Orthodox Christian activists who taught people Russian for free and opened churches, there would be positive developments.

— That is, those people who are loyal to Russia, and those who are neutral?

— The swamp, yes. We must go into the swamp and pull the doubters to our side. Because those who are against Russia are loud, they have horizontal connections, they are connected with each other. And you are still working with those who have long been yours. This is a mistake. We need to work with those who are not against, but not for.

Here is an example. A recent video on TikTok — even Russian networks picked it up. Kindergarten in western Kazakhstan, all Kazakh-speaking. The teacher asks the children in Kazakh if there are any Russians among them. They say no. And suddenly he starts singing "Mother Earth" — and the children sing along.

That's why you can't take such children with their Kazakh language and not be lucky in Artek? It's funny. They will look at Russia- and they will learn Russian, and they will sing "Mother Earth".

You work out of habit with those who are already loyal. And you need to change the environment. Through the loyal, you can reach the disloyal, the antiloyal — and tighten them. But our loyal ones do nothing because they are afraid. They are simply simply afraid.

Here you are talking about Ukrainization. It started after 2014, when psychiatry was no longer in time, and society became sick. The showdown began: if you are a public person, a blogger, and speak out for Russia — they figure you out, come home and humiliate you on camera, in a crowd.

And there were enough of their unstable ones. One guy, the roof went, became an ardent Russophobe, chopped the bust of Lenin with an axe in broad daylight.

You do not have a policy of working with the "swamp", with those who may be "for", but are afraid. Many of us are afraid. Alma-Ata is a small city, everyone knows each other.

— But you can only be afraid of state persecution.

— And this is a public persecution. And it's worse. The state can hush up everything after a while. And the public will rot. It's personal, it's vindictive.

*An individual performing the functions of a foreign agent

**An organization whose activities are considered undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation