It will be a while before Kazakhstan manages to shrug off the association with Borat. Nevertheless, the country is an undiscovered gem for scientists and students. Radboud University is interested in collaborating with one of the most important universities in the country.

Kazakhstan is booming. This country in the heart of Asia has developed rapidly over the past two decades. In fact, the purchasing power of the local population has more than doubled in this period and the World Bank expects the country to experience an economic boom in the near future. Unemployment rates and education levels are similar to those of many Western countries.

Despite this, however, many Dutch people have a very different idea of the country. The association with Sacha Baron Cohen’s alter ego Borat is a hard one to shake: for most Dutch people, their knowledge of this former Soviet country is limited to what is portrayed in the movie.

‘It’s just a joke,’ says Dias Pardakov, shrugging his shoulders. Pardakov is a PhD candidate at Al-Farabi University in Almaty, the biggest city in Kazakhstan, but currently also holds a position in Nijmegen. He has been here for three months, studying under his second supervisor and religious studies expert Carl Sterkens.

Pardakov pulls out his phone and shows us a promotional video for Almaty. The video suggests that Almaty has more in common with Dubai than the poor countryside towns featured in Borat.

Collaboration

Radboud University is considering a formal partnership with Al-Farabi University. A memorandum of understanding should make it easier to exchange both people and knowledge.

‘Kazakhstan straddles several worlds’

Political philosopher Evert van der Zweerde and Carl Sterkens are in favour of a close collaboration. Kazakhstan was once part of the Soviet Union, but also part of the Arab and Turkish worlds. China is beginning to exercise more influence after the country reinvigorated the silk trade. ‘Kazakhstan straddles several worlds,’ says Van der Zweerde. ‘That’s what makes it such a fascinating country.’

The country invests a great deal in research and innovation. According to Pardakov, internationalisation is a top priority. ‘PhD students are required to have a second foreign supervisor. For me that’s Carl Sterkens at Radboud University. I spent several months in Nijmegen focusing on my research.’ Even master’s students at Al-Farabi Univeristy have to spend at least ten days abroad.

Exception

Thanks to Kazakhstan’s internationalization ambitions, there are now fifteen Kazak students in Nijmegen, according to the International Office. The opposite is proving slightly more difficult. In the 2016/17 academic year, more than 170,000 euros was made available from the EU’s Erasmus+ programme to encourage collaboration between Dutch institutions and Kazakhstan. These funds went untouched.

Olivier Korthals Altes, a Conflicts, Territories and Identities master’s student in Nijmegen, is the only exception. Thanks to a different EU scholarship, the Erasmus Mundus programme, he was able to spend six months in Almaty this academic year. He arrived in September and plans to take courses at Al-Farabi University until March while rounding off his graduation research.

Korthals Altes noticed that many of the people around him only knew Kazakhstan from the film Borat or as an Islamic nation, which led to misunderstandings. ‘This is a very secular and liberal country,’ he says via Skype. ‘You can drink alcohol here and you rarely see headscarves.’

Korthals Altes agrees that the country is extremely interesting. He does, however, recommend that students learn a few Russian words in order to get by off campus. Everyone is extremely interested and curious about him as a Westerner. ‘I get a lot of invites to social activities and I get asked to co-author articles all the time.’

He couldn’t recommend Kazakhstan highly enough, but it does matter what your purpose of going there is. ‘In any case, I’d recommend a Russian course for beginners.’