ALMATY: Amid bloodshed and unrest elsewhere in Central Asia, the Kazakh city of Almaty has appeared an oasis of relative prosperity. But some wonder for how long.

This city beneath the Tien Shan mountains that divide Kazakhstan from China has lost much of its Soviet feel since President Nursultan Nazarbayev established a new capital, Astana, 1,300 kilometres to the northwest, in 1998.

Once an oasis on the Silk Road between Europe and Asia, Almaty has become the envy of its neighbours, as it is buoyed up by Caspian oil revenues.

The city still draws those nostalgic for Soviet times — its mountain ice rink, legendary in the Soviet era, hosted Belarus’ speed-skating president, Alexander Lukashenko, this winter.

The Nazarbayev family are major economic players, although not always successful — the Luxor health club, built to resemble an Egyptian temple and owned by a daughter of Nazarbayev, Aliya, is not doing well, an informed source said.

But against the repression and instability seen elsewhere in the region, Almaty stands out.

Students from as far afield as autocratic Turkmenistan attend its universities, while the city’s semi-liberal atmosphere is reflected in a night-life that ranges from numerous Irish bars to at least one gay club and an iconoclastic theatre company, Art and Shock.

As neighbouring Kyrgyzstan revolted against its veteran leader Askar Akayev in March, it was to nearby Almaty that many international institutions sent staff and their dependents for safety.

“You never really think about anything being a concern in Kazakhstan or Almaty,” a Western consultant working with governments across the region said.

But some wonder how long this can last and say that Kazakhstan’s rapid economic growth — estimated at 9.1 per cent last year — could bring its own problems.

They point to signs that Nazarbayev may slam close the doors to Western influence ahead of a presidential poll thought likely in December.

“There isn’t a country that’s not threatened by forceful democratization from outside, having nothing in common with real democracy and the people’s expectations,” Dariga Nazarbayeva, another of the president’s daughters, told a congress of her Asar (All Together) party last month.

Such suspicions have centred on the free-wheeling former capital — home to several fractious opposition groups, an array of Western non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and numerous wealthy Kazakhs of uncertain political allegiance.

Observers say that a new draft law on NGOs is intended to curb Western groups that get involved in activities such as election monitoring. Opposition politicians have accused the authorities of being behind a number of violent assaults they have suffered while campaigning.

On July 6, US Ambassador John Ordway publicly criticized the authorities over the arrest in Almaty of Lutfullo Shamsuddinov, one of several activists who fled from neighbouring Uzbekistan in May after relaying news of a bloody crackdown there to the outside world.

There are other clouds on the horizon. One is that continued instability in Kyrgyzstan could compound the problems Kazakhstan is having dealing with its oil wealth.

More worrying is the likelihood that any revolt in Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent could prompt ethnic Kazakhs living there to flee across the border into southern Kazakhstan.—AFP