OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Maide Akan is a young writer, illustrator and eco-designer of Astana, Kazakhstan. She is just 11 years old and composes, writes and illustrates stories about Aysu who is a brave Kazakh girl who not only loves nature and animals, but also leads a bitter struggle with the environmental problems of […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Despite being far from their motherland, Kazakh students in the UK are among the first to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Thus, the alliance of Kazakhs abroad “KazAlliance” organised an annual spring ball at Warwick University, one of the top universities in the UK. […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Text by Eugenette Morin It is calm, silent at the end of the Tian Shan mountain range in the Sayram-Ugum State National Park of South Kazakhstan. That won’t last as the sun rises early, snowy peaks glisten and birds break out into song. The view is breathtaking, bathed in the […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Story by Stephen M.Bland Unable to make our desired destination understood, my brother and I disembarked beneath a boundless sky on the outskirts of the ghost town of Moynaq, a place described by painter, archaeologist and art collector, Igor Savitsky – founder of the State Art Museum of the Republic […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM The launching ceremony of the Central Asia-South Asia transmission line CASA-1000 project was held on May 12th in the city of Tursunzoda in the Republic of Tajikistan with the participation of the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, the Chief […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM First ever Kazakh-British feature film has officially been hatched this spring with a working title ‘Flags over Berlin’. It’s a Second World War spy-flick with loads of action scenes, espionage, suspense, and … Love! We had a sneak preview of the first paragraphs of the film’s extended synopses courtesy of […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Having Welsh descendants the glorious sport of Rugby is in my blood. My playing days are long gone but the enthusiasm and excitement of supporting a team and watching a live match still gets the adrenalin flowing. To my dismay when I arrived in Astana five years ago it was […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Over the past few years, the government of Uzbekistan has undertaken comprehensive measures to reduce state presence in the economy in order to attract foreign investors and create favourable conditions for their active participation in corporate governance. The Republic of Uzbekistan is currently of great interest to foreign investors. The […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM OCA: Kamal, please briefly tell us about yourself and your film making. Kamal Hasanov: I was born and raised in Azerbaijan, in Baku but I received my higher education in America. After returning, I began to work at the Central Bank of Azerbaijan and after four years working as a […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM It was a strangely cool July night just beneath the mountains around Karakol, and my insides were grinding with food poisoning. My skin seeped with hot sweat while my arms and legs shivered as though I had been bathed in freezing snow, and my skull thundered. My Kyrgyz compatriots first […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM OCA: Tell us about your background and biography? Cyrus Yanveh: My father Zalmon was born in a small Jewish hamlet in Belarus. He was conscripted into the Russian army at the age of 14. My mother Anna was born in Palestine, a Sabra one of the first girls born in […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM DRAWING PARALLELS BETWEEN JIHAD AND TERRORISM The role of a human’s life is central in the purest religion of Islam. God created male and female in the finest manner whether to their physical, moral or spiritual qualities (At-Tin 95 / 4-5). Human as the most wonderful creation of the Almighty […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM In the modern world one of largest scale initiatives is abruptly changing the face of the world, forming a new paradigm of economic and geo-strategic development and is revitalizing a zone of the Silk Road by land and sea. The project has been named “One Belt One Way.” The intention […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the proclaimed independence from it by the republics of Central Asia, the region has had a hard time intergrating its past into its future. A region that was once on the crossroads of great empires, from Alexander the Great’s invasion of Bactria […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE RUSSIAN EMBASSY IN LONDON As Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his interview to the Italian newspaper, “Il Corriere della Sera”, in June 2015, “we have always proposed a serious relationship to Europe. For a long time we have been talking about the need to […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM INTERVIEW: ROBIN ORD-SMITH From the age of just 14, Robin Ord-Smith has known that he wanted to be a diplomat, representing British interests abroad. His love of languages, culture, history and politics combined to serve him well in his ambitions and he joined the Foreign Office in 1989 after studying […]
OCA #22 SUMMER 2016 WWW.OCAMAGAZINE.COM Born in 1937, Mintimer Shaymiev was the first person to hold the title of President of Tatarstan, an autonomous republic within Russia, when he was elected in 1991. An ethnic Tatar, he was relected three times serving until 2010. His background is nothing extraordinary, hailing from the village of Anyakovo, […]
