Chronicles of chaos, January 5, Kazakhstan

If you have time to watch the News more likely you saw  reports about the situation in Kazakhstan (former Soviet Republic). 

There’s no doubt that each country covers events differently. 

My husband usually tells me about what he saw on CNN and yahoo news. I usually watch Russian news on YouTube. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay attention to the news last week. So I don’t know what the  Russians said about Kazakhstan.

Today I saw IG posts from a person who lives in Almaty, Kazakhstan. 

Maria (@eng_focus) is an English and Russian tutor, a songwriter, a singer, and an inspiring person.  Last summer she was a guest of my zoom talk show “Russian Speaks“.

Here, I am publishing “chronicles of chaos” (as she calls it) and with her permission. Also I leave a link to her IG account. 

Don’t get hard on me, I’m translating this with an online translator, it’s faster. 😄

on the night of January 4th to 5th

My son fell asleep, I started reading a book, but I was constantly distracted by the sounds – as it seemed to me – of fireworks. However, these volleys had some kind of chaotic rhythm…

Looking out the window, I realized that these were not fireworks at all, but volleys of light and noise grenades.

I open the window – screams and shots can be heard from the square, which leave traces of smoke in the air.

Shots and explosions were heard until morning. Somehow I fell asleep, in earplugs.

Waking up (Jan. 5), I saw a thick fog outside the windows – as if the weather had added fog to yesterday’s smoke. The city was quiet until lunch. Grandma even managed to take Egor (Maria’s son) to her place – I had a working day, and surprisingly I could access the Internet via Wi-Fi.

At around 2 PM, explosions and shots continued with even greater force. Periodically, automatic bursts were heard.

At 5 PM, the Internet was completely turned off. I cancelled one lesson. But I managed to do some work. Work is a wonderful antistress. 

Concerned friends and acquaintances from all over the world called and wrote. As a result, I only managed to get through to my father and answer a couple of people before the Internet was completely cut off. 

I found out from the news that there were big pogroms in the city – police cars, firefighters and even ambulances have gone to waste. There were women and old people among the victims. It was not known how many people died, but the news were talking about murders and bullying of police officers. 

All shops and offices were closed. Public transport has not been running since the morning. It was impossible to order a taxi due to the lack of Internet. 

By evening it became very quiet. After hours of shooting, this silence seemed unusual. And in this silence, at about 10:45 PM, I saw the blazing flame of the local administration through the window. Seeing this made me uneasy. Smoke was billowing over the square and after opening the window I could already smell the burning in my kitchen. Twenty minutes later, the picture in the window changed to pitch darkness – electricity was completely cut off in the square and in the district. The fire, apparently, was extinguished.

Finally, the question is – why did all this happen? 

Officially, the first reason for the protests was a sharp doubling of gas prices. The protesters demanded the resignation of the government. And something even smaller. 

Gas prices have been made even lower than before the increase. The government has resigned. The President promised to sort out all the issues. 

However, the protesters continued to smash and rob.

It’s 00:27 AM  in the city. It’s quiet.

https://news.yahoo.com/kazakh-leader-russia-led-security-080349992.html

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/06/asia/kazakhstan-almaty-protests-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html