Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
09ASTANA1498
2009-09-09 09:18:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Astana
Cable title:
KAZAKHSTAN: THE BOLASHAK REVOLUTION
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C O N F I D E N T I A L ASTANA 001498
SIPDIS
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, ECA
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/09/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR SOCI KPAO KCOR KZ
SUBJECT: KAZAKHSTAN: THE BOLASHAK REVOLUTION
Classified By: Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland: 1.4 (B),(D)
C O N F I D E N T I A L ASTANA 001498
SIPDIS
STATE FOR SCA/CEN, ECA
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/09/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR SOCI KPAO KCOR KZ
SUBJECT: KAZAKHSTAN: THE BOLASHAK REVOLUTION
Classified By: Ambassador Richard E. Hoagland: 1.4 (B),(D)
¶1. (SBU) At a September 8 dinner in honor of the UK Minister
for Europe, Baroness Glenyth Kinnock of Holyhead, the
Ambassador was seated next to the deputy head of Prime
Minister Masimov's office, Dauren Toleukhanov. Before moving
to the Prime Minister's apparat, Toleukhanov was a diplomat,
having spent much of his career, including a six-year stint
at the Embassy of Kazakhstan in London, working on European
and U.S. affairs. Earlier, he spent a year in St. Louis,
Missouri, as an exchange student, and later completed his
graduate studies at Cambridge University in England, where he
was a Bolashak grantee.
¶2. (SBU) Soon after independence, President Nazarbayev
created the Bolashak program that provides full university
education to over one thousand Kazakhstani students a year
because he foresaw it would be necessary to educate a new
generation of leaders with new mentalities, if the country
were to grow and prosper away from its traditional Soviet
model. The so-called Bolashak Generation is apparent now
througout the public and private sectors -- bright,
globalized, young people, almost all speaking English, who
are in positions just a level or two away from
decision-making authority.
¶3. (C) Toleukhanov mentioned he is serving as a character
witness for another Bolashak alumnus, former Deputy Minister
of Ecology Babayev, who was caught up in the wave of
corruption-scandal arrests in recent months. Toleukhanov
asserted that Babayev is "absolutely innocent." When the
Ambassador asked if Toleukhanov has any qualms about serving
as a character witness for his friend, given his own
sensitive, high position, Toleukhanov replied, "Certainly
not. It's the right thing to do." Replying to the
Ambassador's question why Babayev was arrested in the first
place, Toleukhanov answered that he'd gotten caught in the
cross-fire of the old guard trying to hang on in the face of
the rising younger generation. He said, "You need to
understand that Kazakhstan is already experiencing a
revolution. So far, it's a slow-motion revolution. It's the
Bolashak Revolution."
HOAGLAND