{"id":61336,"date":"2022-01-06T18:21:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T23:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61336"},"modified":"2022-01-06T18:21:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T23:21:25","slug":"steppe-on-fire-kazakhstans-color-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61336","title":{"rendered":"Steppe on Fire: Kazakhstan\u2019s Color Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Steppe on Fire: Kazakhstan\u2019s Color Revolution<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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Maidan in Almaty? Oh yeah. But it\u2019s complicated.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

So is that much fear and loathing all about gas? Not really.<\/p>\n

Kazakhstan was rocked into chaos virtually overnight, in principle, because of the doubling of prices for liquefied gas, which reached the (Russian) equivalent of 20 rubles per liter (compare it to an average of 30 rubles in Russia itself).<\/p>\n

That was the spark for nationwide protests spanning every latitude from top business hub Almaty to the Caspian Sea ports of Aktau and Atyrau and even the capital Nur-Sultan, formerly Astana.<\/p>\n

The central government was forced to roll back the gas price to the equivalent of 8 rubles a liter. Yet that only prompted the next stage of the protests, demanding lower food prices, an end of the vaccination campaign, a lower retirement age for mothers with many children and \u2013 last but not least \u2013 regime change, complete with its own slogan:\u00a0Shal, ket!<\/em>\u00a0(\u201cDown with the old man.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The \u201cold man\u201d is none other than national leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, 81, who even as he stepped down from the presidency after 29 years in power, in 2019, for all practical purposes remains the Kazakh gray eminence as head of the Security Council and the arbiter of domestic and foreign policy.<\/p>\n

The prospect of yet another color revolution inevitably comes to mind: perhaps Turquoise-Yellow \u2013 reflecting the colors of the Kazakh national flag. Especially because right on cue, sharp observers found out that the usual suspects \u2013 the American embassy \u2013 was already \u201cwarning\u201d about mass protests as early as in December 16, 2021.<\/p>\n

Maidan in Almaty? Oh yeah. But it\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n

Almaty in chaos<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the outside world, it\u2019s hard to understand why a major energy exporting power such as Kazakhstan needs to increase gas prices for its own population.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steppe on Fire: Kazakhstan\u2019s Color Revolution Maidan in Almaty? Oh yeah. But it\u2019s complicated. So is that much fear and loathing all about gas? Not really. Kazakhstan was rocked into chaos virtually overnight, in principle, because of the doubling of prices for liquefied gas, which reached the (Russian) equivalent of 20 rubles per liter (compare […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[6111,1985,4076],"class_list":["post-61336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","category-liberty","tag-color-revolution","tag-kazakhstan","tag-pepe-escobar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61337,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61336\/revisions\/61337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}