On this blog, I have been talking a lot about the soviet policy of Korenizatsiya, which essentially created the Ukrainians out of West Russians, however, little was I aware how messed up the same policy was in Central Asia, where also unprecedented nations were created out of other nations. For instance, the country in focus currently, Kazakhstan, was created out of the Kyrgyz people. The populations of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are linguistically and culturally barely distinguishable from each other, and it bears a question why these two nations were divided?
I have recently noted that Kazakhstan is assuming the political culture of neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. But I did not realise how geographically close Almaty (the Soviet capital of Kazakhstan, formerly “Verny” – a town built by Russians) is from the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek. Cross border cultural exchange is apparent here, after all, the border is arbitrary, and should not really be there. Much like the border between Russia and Ukraine.
Insomniac Resurrected 