Just finished a little solo trip in Kazakhstan where I visited Almaty and Shymkent.

Almaty is a great city to visit. There are many museums to visit, hiking trails, and buildings to see. The city is full of little cafés and it probably has more benches than inhabitants (which is great if you plan on doing a walking tour through Almaty). There are parks absolutely everywhere and the city is very clean.
Public transportation is really good, with buses taking you absolutely everywhere, even in to Shymbulak, Alma-Aransan, and the Big Almaty Lake. Almaty itself is also a very walkable city. I couldn’t make an Onay account, so I just payed cash by going up to the bus driver and giving him 200KZT (the cost is 120KZT with the Onay card). When someone came to check the tickets, I just explained that I had payed cash.

I didn’t expect people to be able to speak English, though I thought younger people would. However, only about a quarter to a third of teenagers and young adults seemed comfortable speaking in English. This was no problem for me, as I also speak Russian.

Shymkent was also walkable and had many buildings to see. My highlight was the citadel. The entry cost only 1000 KZT.
Language-wise, I could only speak Russian in Shymkent and people very often answered in a Kazakh-Russian mix (still easy to understand if accompanied with some gestures).

I traveled from Almaty to Shymkent by train. It leaves Almaty at around 19:00 and arrives in Shymkent at 6:30. I reserved a bed in a sleeper cabin, which was very comfortable. There was hot drinking water in the train and many sanitary facilities. Tickets cost about 12000 KZT.

As a woman, I did not feel unsafe per se, though men could be quite penetrant and were not discouraged by disinterest or the usual “I have a boyfriend”.
As for being a black POC. Kazakh people in Almaty did not care at all. The looks I received were almost only from Russians. In Shymkent however, I received a lot of uncomfortable looks from pretty much everyone. It wasn’t terrible, I think what made it harder to deal with than usual was the language barrier (since I do not speak the Kazakh language).

I left Kazakhstan by taking a shared Taxi to Kaplanbek. All I had to do was to go to Kolos (Shymkent) and I was immediately approached. I was also given the same price as everyone else.

I will definitely be coming back as I absolutely loved my time in Kazakhstan and want to see so much more of the country.

I am in small town rn and couldn’t find any left wing people in my university. My university friends always say racist/homophobic jokes and i stay quiet and later feel guilty for not calling them out. I really wanna leave this friend group but afraid of being alone in university and meeting them each time i enter the class everyday

Поступила на грант на философию. Сейчас для меня главное это сохранить грант и стипендию и окончить бакалавр с хорошей GPA, потом поступить на грант в магистратуру чтобы отработки не было. Еще изучить китайский и еще какой нибудь международный язык помимо английского.

Все вокруг (одногрупники, преподы, даже родители) говорят что нужно быть старостой, студсоветом, активистом, а то будеть сложно в универе. В универе есть кружки, но тоже не очень. Еще я самоучка. Активистом быть не особо хочется, или вообще не хочу. Потому что не хочу чтобы моя жизнь крутилась вокруг универа. Но вдруг подумала "я же хотела на политологию поступить, как я собираюсь быть политическим деятелем если ни старостой ни активистом быть не хочу?". В общем existential crisis.

Хотя быть политиком в Казахстане это невозможно. Будешь либо коррупционером который делает все что говорят люди сверху, либо тебя уничтожат. Даже если удастся стать, не думаю что я могу что то исправить.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcY28Sdi7ca

Всем привет. Я ИИ инженер с примерно 1,5 года опыта. занимаюсь в целом создании ИИ и МЛ решений для разных компании. Уже примерно пол года не могу найти нормальную работу. Где вы ищете удаленную или хотя бы офис с нормальными условиями в Астане? Может кто сталкивался с таким же или просто поделиться с советом

I disappeared for a bit because I honestly needed a break from constantly scrolling through news and random stuff.

Came back today and one of the first things I saw was a headline about Kazakhstan issuing another batch of Panda bonds in China.

Apparently it's 6.6 billion yuan, split between 3-year and 5-year bonds.

I'm not gonna pretend I know enough about bonds to give some big financial analysis lol, but apparently Kazakhstan got pretty decent terms on the deal, and this is already the country's second time doing it.

Now I'm curious what people here think about this.

Is this actually a pretty good move for Kazakhstan and a sign that investors have more confidence in the country?

Or is it just a normal government borrowing operation that sounds more exciting because someone decided to call them "Panda bonds"? 😂

Also, what did I miss while I was gone?

Мне больно от того ,что я уже не смогу бездельничать и откладывать подготовку, а я еще даже не выбрала 2 основных предмета на ЕНТ.
Я сама еще не знаю чего хочу. Долгое время думала сдавать физику и математику и становиться инженером или еще кем то. Теперь осознаю, что меня это вообще не интересует, никогда не любила математику и физику по настоящему, да и технические специальности в целом. Мне также не особо нравятся социальные, гуманитарные и естественные науки.
Я думала еще насчет геологии, финансов, туризма и еще чего то, но не знаю как они оплачиваются сейчас, да и кажется будет большая конкуренция, мало грантов, а нейросети к моменту моего выпуска уже будут лучше

У меня есть страх после выпуска с университета не найти работу, зарабатывать копейки или ненавидеть то что я делаю. А еще я не считаю что я конкурентноспособный человек.

Ну и в общем, я хочу чтобы учеба в университете, а после работа приносили мне удовольствие и деньги.

Возможно кто то скажет про gap year, чтобы лучше понять себя и что я сама хочу, и может быть лучше подготовиться к экзаменам и тд, но это не вариант для меня, так как родители будут против и я в целом могу просто зря потерять год

Я буду очень признательна если вы, умные и знающие люди, поможете мне с выбором специальности

As I slowly become more understanding of what turning into an adult in america means I have learned that I get even more of kazakhstan ripped away from me. My dad quite recently got a call from the embassy of Kazakhstan saying that they wanted my Kazakhstan passport back. Ouch, it feels like im getting even more of what I never got to know ripped away from me. I had to leave the kitchen and try not to cry when he told me about that.

I feel like even if I try to reconnect its just a losing battle, maybe thats just the depression talking.

Per my last post I was directed to a discord, and have found some resources in that discord. I even found a kazakh discord, though thats sadly been abandoned.

I do actually have a history with learning languages, I learned latin for a brief period of time with dulingo before they overused ai and ruined it. And in my 11th grade class (17 y/o) I briefly learned some french, though sadly that class went to fast for me to be able to fully learn anything. I also created a entire fantasy language myself that I know by heart. I know I can learn this language , but everything im trying is almost always voice , and not writing or reading it. i’ve learned that before I can go on to try to speak a language, I have to learn to read and write it first before I can speak it, thats why french class didnt do well. I didn’t even know the alphabet. I have found some good resources like books that the us gov or the peace corps would use, but as I looked through it I realized I still couldn’t figure out the letters Into english. should I try the discord and stop being so nervous about it or is there another option for someone who has no grounds on understanding something at all when trying to learn it. I feel like a 5 year old trying to learn college level math. (also for note I have no job so things that cost money even if a good resource wouldn’t come around until december for christmas gifts.)

thank you, I hope you have a good day. im going back to bed to feel better.

Hello,
I’m traveling to Kazakhstan in mid-September, and as far as I know, QazETA is still in its pilot phase until the end of October. Is there any advantage to applying for the ETA right now? Has anyone entered Kazakhstan recently and can share their experience? The only thing I can think of is that the ETA is currently still free, and if you plan to enter the country within the next 180 days, you wouldn’t have to apply for it again and would have saved a little money. Are there any other advantages to getting the ETA, or disadvantages to not getting it (until the end of October)?
Thanks in advance.

Hello, I'm visiting Almaty in October and I can't find any reputable tours going to this beautiful spot. There seems to be limited information online, some say it's closed yet people are hiking it on all trails, I'm confused.

Any help is most appreciated, thank you in advance.

I'm writing a fantasy story with worldbuilding inspired by the cultures of Turkic Central Asia and Mongolia. It's not a faithful representation of any one country or people – I do research and then decide if I want to do something similar or entirely different. For example, red and white are both important colors for brides to wear at weddings, so I decided to go with that. But, while most (if not all) nomadic/transhumance pastoralists in Central Asia are patrilineal and patrilocal, I decided to make my fantasy society matrilineal and matrilocal. I'm planning to include a small side plot in which a character learns from a shaman, but I decided not to do too much research into actual shamanic practices because I wasn't sure if it's considered taboo or sacred knowledge not meant to be shared with outsiders (this is the case in some American Indian nations).

If anyone has advice or warnings they want to share, I'd love to hear them.

hi yall i am 16 years old and i am in 11th grade and i am getting ready for entrance exams (i am so frustrated) to be honest i want to get into Nazarbayev University, but i dont believe in myself and i think studying there will be really hard that i will drop out and waste my time and in the end i will end up with nothing, but damn it all at the same time i want to get in there because if i do my future will be great and i will be able to go work abroad - which is my dream to see the whole world so here is the thing i am preparing for the ENT exam and plan to spend 3 - 4 days studying for it, n the rest of the time preparing for NUET, btw I scored a 7 on the ielts n my writing score is 6 can yall help me please figure out if i have chance and how to prepare? winter is almost here ps. my major is info-mat or computer science, n also i think that my ielts is also bad (and i ammmm soooooo embaressed because of this exams my parents is also very strict so they gonna beat me if i am not gonna succeed in both exams and they dont know that i am going to pass nuet i want to do it secretly)

Честно, bilimforall — это лучшее, что случалось с подготовкой к ЕНТ. По механике это чистый Дуолинго: формат затягивает с первых минут, есть привычная прокачка и стрик, зубрить скучные правила больше не надо.

Отдельный разрыв — голосовой AI-репетитор. Если на каком-то вопросе затупил, не надо гуглить тонны инфы: просто задаешь вопрос голосом, и ИИ моментально раскладывает всю тему по полочкам так, как ни один школьный учебник не объяснит. Плюс можно найти себе кентов по подготовке, ставить совместные цели и тащить пробники вместе. Баллы растут на глазах, 10 из 10!

У кого-то был опыт покупки и верификации IMEI смартфонов с данной площадки?

Интересуют удачные кейсы по конкретным моделям/продавцам, так как опасаюсь что не получится верифицировать и останусь без связи.

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Hi everyone, I’m bring/use a new phone in Kazakhstan and I’m a bit confused about the IMEI registration process.

For a newly purchased/imported device:

- How do I register the IMEI?

- Is it done automatically when using a local SIM, or do I need to register it myself?

- What documents/details are required?

- How long does the registration usually take?

- Are there any fees or issues I should be aware of?

Would appreciate it if anyone who recently registered a new phone could share their experience. Thanks!

I am looking for a route for a 2 day hike in Aksu Zhabagly. At tour operators I find terms like Kshi-Kayindy Gorge, but can't find it on the map. Who can help me find the route and a guesthouse that is still open in the end of September?

Привет, друзья! I’m a wholesaler of LED Lights in China and would like to sell products to central Asian countries. Just want to know whether the Chinese LED lights products are popular there or there have been flooded with low quality led lights from China？ I know it's better to go and see by myself but before any action, I think it's a wise option to do some research online.

Пожалуйста, поделитесь своими соображениями и помогите мне составить полное представление о рынках светодиодного освещения в вашем регионе. Большое спасибо.

Thank you~