Kazakhstan bans entry for Russian TV celebrity over Russian language claims

Kazakhstan has added a known Russian TV celebrity to the list of persons banned from entering the country over her allegations that Kazakh authorities discriminate against the Russian language. 

In a Telegram post on 16 January Tina Kandelaki accused the Kazakh government of “slowly but surely pushing out the Russian language”. 

She gave as an example the Kazakh government’s decision to de-Russify several railway stations’ names to reflect their correct Kazakh pronunciation. 

Kandelaki said the move was “a very dangerous trend”, similar to what happened in relation to the Russian language in the Baltic states.  

“There too, everything started with small things, then snowballed: they started closing down Russian schools, removing Soviet monuments, banning the Russian language …” she said. 

On Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Aibek Smadiyatov said that Kazakhstan “can never forgive” Kandelaki’s allegations. 

“She may not be planning to come to Kazakhstan, but if she does decide to come, she won’t be let in,” Smadiyarov told journalists. 

“It is a measure practiced by every state – if you do not like someone, you don’t let them enter your home. We do the same. We are taking the necessary measures,” he said. 

He also said that “there is no time to pay attention to every one of them [Russian official and public figures making anti-Kazakhstan statements]” and urged the public “not to get involved in social media arguments”. 

The Foreign Ministry said in October it had a list of persons who were barred from entering Kazakhstan over their negative remarks about the country. It said the list would not be made public. 

Kandelaki’s remarks triggered a strong backlash in Kazakhstan.  

Public activist Arman Shorayev said Kandelaki’s remarks were part of “a new spiral of Kazakh-phobia in Russia with a fascist connotation”. 

Political observer Dosym Satpayev described Kandelaki as “one of the puppets in the Kremlin’s propaganda theatre”.  

He said that after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 “all their provocative remarks on Kazakhstan were part of an information war, based on an idea that Kazakhstan would be the next target after Ukraine in their ‘export of chaos’ plan”. 

He also suggested that the regular information attacks on Kazakhstan could be aimed at “testing Kazakhstan’s public opinion to find out if they can establish their ‘fifth column’ in the country. 

Kandelaki described the backlash as “hot air”, and warned “respected Kazakhs” that “it is ignorance and a dangerous thing, not to remember the past, and write off history in all its expressions, including historical names”. 

“Not to remember the past means to applaud the film Borat,” she also said, adding that it was Russia not the West who banned the film, because the West “could not care less” about the Kazakhs.   

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