There are at least three things most people know about Kazakhstan, even if its name blends with many other “stan” countries in Central Asia: The film “Borat,” oil and gas and the world’s largest space launch center.
Bordering both Russia and China, among others, Kazakhstan has abundant economic opportunities for its 15.5 million people, but most wealth is still powered by large crude oil reserves.
Kazakhstan is a rich country: It has the whole periodic table of chemical elements embedded in its land.”
– Ukrainian businessman Maksym Balanchuk
Ukrainian businessman Maksym Balanchuk went to Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city, to explore its untapped opportunities. “Kazakhstan is a rich country: It has the whole periodic table of chemical elements embedded in its land,” Balanchuk said. “But when it comes to advanced informational technologies and financial markets, they are far behind.”
Balanchuk pitched a software program to a couple of higher institutions, which teaches how to trade on the world’s foreign exchange markets. Developed by Kharkiv’s information technology specialists, the program Gelan Trawler was purchased by the Almaty financial training centers and a business school. Balanchuk, the Mykolayiv entrepreneur, evidently found the venture profitable enough for him to talk of returning.
President Viktor Yanukovych would probably agree with Balanchuk. Trade between Ukraine and Kazakhstan reached $4.9 billion in 2008, making this Central Asian state Ukraine’s eighth biggest trading partner. Ukrainians supply metals and machinery in exchange for Kazakh chemical and agricultural production. In 2009, however, the trade dropped by 10 percent.
Having already paid three visits to the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana, since his election to office, Yanukovych is on a mission to secure direct gas contracts with Kazakhstan to feed Ukraine’s energy-dependent heavy industry. currently, Russia buys cheaper gas from Central Asia, mixes it up with its own and then exports it to Ukraine for a higher price.
“Because the gas pipeline goes through Russia [from Kazakhstan], we need Russia’s good will [not to oppose the direct sale]. But Russia doesn’t agree because it’s not profitable for them,” said energy expert Dmytro Marunych.
They [Kazakhs] treat Ukrainians as their brothers.”
– Ukrainian businessman Maksym Balanchuk
Yanukovych hosted Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kyiv earlier this year. The 70-year-old Nazarbayev has ruled the ex-Soviet nation since the late 1980s and has declared himself ruler for life, even after he leaves office. But people wondered if he has immortality in mind when he instructed scientists this month at a newly opened research center to develop ways to reverse the aging process.
The Yanukovych-Nazarbayev meeting led to a number of intergovernmental agreements in spheres ranging from economy to education. Yet oil and gas are at the forefront of Kazakh-Ukrainian negotiations, the details of which are rarely released to the public, experts say.
Ukraine’s thirst for oil, however, isn’t the only factor binding the two nations. At the end of the 19th century, Russian tsars gave landless Ukrainians land plots in Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. Dubbed Grey Ukraine, these lifeless steppes, almost the size of Argentina, became home to tens of thousands of Ukrainian colonizers.
The 20th-century history of Ukraine and Kazakhstan share a few painful chapters. In an effort to quash national identity and breed collectivization, Joseph Stalin executed and exiled millions of Kazakhs and Ukrainians from their native land in 1930s, among many other ethnicities in the USSR. At the end of 1940s, many of those who survived hunger in Ukraine were sent to labor camps in Siberia and Kazakhstan.
According to the 2009 census, there are more than 300,000 Ukrainians living in Kazakhstan now, making up one of Ukraine’s largest diaspora in the world.
For Balanchuk, it’s one of the key points to success.
“Kazakhs speak Russian and are friendly to us. They treat Ukrainians as their brothers,” he said.
In Ukraine, however, Kazakh diaspora pales in comparison to the Ukrainian community there. According to the 2001 census, there are just some 5,000 Kazakhs in Ukraine, many of whom settled here after receiving their education during the popular Soviet exchanges in the 1980s.
Since Ukrainian universities stopped teaching in Russian, Kazakh students turned to Russia. “Ukrainian is a little hard to learn,” said Ersin Raisov, a graduate student at Ivano-Frankivsk National University of Oil and Gas. He’s one of the few applicants who braved Ukraine “simply because there are not enough universities at home.”
Although born in the land bursting with oil and gas, Raisov chose a Ukrainian school to teach him the mechanics of this industry. Raisov came over to Ivano-Frankivsk five years ago. “I found a Kazakh carbohydrates company that agreed to pay for my education,” he said.
Powered with a Ukrainian degree and education, Raisov – just like Mykolayiv businessman Balanchuk, thinks there’s more opportunity for him in Kazakhstan.
KAZAKHSTAN AT A GLANCE:
Government type: republic; authoritarian presidential rule, with little power outside the executive branch. Nursultan Nazarbayev has been the president of Kazakhstan since the country gained its independence from the Soviet Union on Dec. 16, 1991.
Area: 2.7 million square kilometers – the world’s 9th largest country
Population: 15.5 million.
Ethnic groups: Kazakh 53 percent; Russian 30 percent, Ukrainian 3.7 percent
Religions: Muslim 47 percent, Russian Orthodox 44 percent, Protestant 2 percent.
Economic facts:
Exports:
- $43.84 billion (2009)
- $71.97 billion (2008)
- Exports – commodities: oil and oil products, ferrous metals, chemicals, machinery, grain, wool, meat, coal
- Exports – partners: China, France, Germany, Russia, Ukraine,
Imports:
- $28.77 billion (2009)
- $38.45 billion (2008)
- Imports – commodities: machinery and equipment, metal products, foodstuffs
Trade with Ukraine:
- $4.9 billion (2008)
- $3.5 billion (2009)
(Sources: CIA Fact Book, State Committee of Statistics)
Kyiv Post staff writer Katya Grushenko [email protected]
