Interview by Alexey Vlasov, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
About 20 million Russian pupils and students have started their new academic year today. Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have marked Knowledge Day. Nurlan Yerimbetov, a Kazakh political analyst, the president of the Civil Alliance of Kazakhstan (a network of non-governmental non-commercial organizations promoting cooperation of business, government, mass media and NGOs) has described the similarities and differences among young people of the post-Soviet space in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.
- It is great honour for me to talk with you. We have agreed that we will not discuss politics. September 1 has been a festive date since Soviet times. What do you think is the difference, or the coincidence, between students of the modern generation and students of the Soviet age?
- The lack of a system for professional orientation has resulted in many students and young people deluding themselves today. Their parents delude themselves too, they become victims of propaganda of some specializations, victims of advertising. I remember when we were school kids, we had powerful professional-orienting work, teachers were explaining what we could become. We were precisely assigned obligations, skills, understanding that someone would become a good agriculturist, someone could become a pilot, someone would make a good historian. Today there is no such work. Many students, becoming graduates, cannot find a job. That is first.
Secondly, they do not like their jobs. An enormous number of young people with one-two higher educational degrees are engaged in “dirty work,” or have no job at all. It is a human drama. There is a saying that happiness is when a person goes to work in the morning with joy and goes back home in the evening with joy. Now, unfortunately, our children, our students are not always going to work with joy.
- If you were studying now, not in the 1970s, what profession would you choose?
- Teachers, parents have been telling me since childhood that I have a humanitarian type of thinking. In the scheme of things, I could become a historian, a philosopher, a journalist or a philologist.
- Comparing the youth of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia, what similarities and differences do you see?
- There are no major differences, because today’s youth is a generation that lives on the memories of its parents. There are many interethnic marriages, open borders, mutual exchanges of students. It all results in a lack of visible differences, because the parents that lived in the Soviet Union still live, and the issue is not that topical today in general.
But time passes and countries get behind each other, especially in the information space. The image of Russia formed in the information space for the Kazakhs is not, let’s say, the best. The image of Kazakhstan in Russia is probably not presented in the best light, because we have all become victims of some television shows, programs.
A generation raised in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and other post-Soviet space, knows Russia only from TV, it sees many vulgar broadcasts, some talk shows. With semi-swearing, with some vulgar scenes. Russia for them is what how it is depicted on television. Modern youth does not know what is Russia with its Tretyakov Gallery, with its Hermitage, with its largest libraries, most beautiful streets, with its history.
- Do you think it is too early for functionaries to become ministers at the age of 30-35, and can work experience be replaced with studies at a prestigious higher education center?
- Not at all. I think a person should pass all growth steps, and to be a minister or governor, one needs to go the path from being the head of a group of workers, brigade, workshop, factory, village administration, only after gaining knowledge, understanding of the society, all its problematic variants, can a man make socio-political decisions.
A prestigious higher education center away from our real communication is not always appropriate, not always mentally suitable for us. I think that getting posts at an early age is bad for the country, for the government, for the authorities of the country. A person that has not passed through all the steps of a career cannot make precise decisions, he does not know what is discussed in yards, he does not know what is discussed in the workshop, he does not know the mood in the regions. The worst thing is when a person makes decisions purely technologically, not from the heart. Someone who has never experienced emotional relations and an understanding of situations. That is why I am strongly against that.
- As the president of the Civil Alliance of Kazakhstan, what qualities and skills do you think helped you achieve such a level?
- Maybe it was my communicability. I communicate with everyone. With smart people and idiots. With the healthy and the sick. I have been like that as a boy in the yard and in school. In other words, I do not avoid any society, I do not avoid any relations. That is why I am not a closed man, I am not closed inside me. I am visible. My soul is always open.
Assumes Nurlan YerimbetovInterview by Alexey Vlasov, exclusively for Vestnik KavkazaAbout 20 million Russian pupils and students have started their new academic year today. Armenia, Belarus, Moldova, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan have marked Knowledge Day. Nurlan Yerimbetov, a Kazakh political analyst, the president of the Civil Alliance of Kazakhstan (a network of non-governmental non-commercial organizations promoting cooperation of business, government, mass media and NGOs) has described the similarities and differences among young people of the post-Soviet space in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.- It is great honour for me to talk with you. We have agreed that we will not discuss politics. September 1 has been a festive date since Soviet times. What do you think is the difference, or the coincidence, between students of the modern generation and students of the Soviet age?- The lack of a system for professional orientation has resulted in many students and young people deluding themselves today. Their parents delude themselves too, they become victims of propaganda of some specializations, victims of advertising. I remember when we were school kids, we had powerful professional-orienting work, teachers were explaining what we could become. We were precisely assigned obligations, skills, understanding that someone would become a good agriculturist, someone could become a pilot, someone would make a good historian. Today there is no such work. Many students, becoming graduates, cannot find a job. That is first.Secondly, they do not like their jobs. An enormous number of young people with one-two higher educational degrees are engaged in “dirty work,” or have no job at all. It is a human drama. There is a saying that happiness is when a person goes to work in the morning with joy and goes back home in the evening with joy. Now, unfortunately, our children, our students are not always going to work with joy.- If you were studying now, not in the 1970s, what profession would you choose?- Teachers, parents have been telling me since childhood that I have a humanitarian type of thinking. In the scheme of things, I could become a historian, a philosopher, a journalist or a philologist.Comparing the youth of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia, what similarities and differences do you see?- There are no major differences, because today’s youth is a generation that lives on the memories of its parents. There are many interethnic marriages, open borders, mutual exchanges of students. It all results in a lack of visible differences, because the parents that lived in the Soviet Union still live, and the issue is not that topical today in general.But time passes and countries get behind each other, especially in the information space. The image of Russia formed in the information space for the Kazakhs is not, let’s say, the best. The image of Kazakhstan in Russia is probably not presented in the best light, because we have all become victims of some television shows, programs.A generation raised in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and other post-Soviet space, knows Russia only from TV, it sees many vulgar broadcasts, some talk shows. With semi-swearing, with some vulgar scenes. Russia for them is what how it is depicted on television. Modern youth does not know what is Russia with its Tretyakov Gallery, with its Hermitage, with its largest libraries, most beautiful streets, with its history.- Do you think it is too early for functionaries to become ministers at the age of 30-35, and can work experience be replaced with studies at a prestigious higher education center?- Not at all. I think a person should pass all growth steps, and to be a minister or governor, one needs to go the path from being the head of a group of workers, brigade, workshop, factory, village administration, only after gaining knowledge, understanding of the society, all its problematic variants, can a man make socio-political decisions.A prestigious higher education center away from our real communication is not always appropriate, not always mentally suitable for us. I think that getting posts at an early age is bad for the country, for the government, for the authorities of the country. A person that has not passed through all the steps of a career cannot make precise decisions, he does not know what is discussed in yards, he does not know what is discussed in the workshop, he does not know the mood in the regions. The worst thing is when a person makes decisions purely technologically, not from the heart. Someone who has never experienced emotional relations and an understanding of situations. That is why I am strongly against that.- As the president of the Civil Alliance of Kazakhstan, what qualities and skills do you think helped you achieve such a level?- Maybe it was my communicability. I communicate with everyone. With smart people and idiots. With the healthy and the sick. I have been like that as a boy in the yard and in school. In other words, I do not avoid any society, I do not avoid any relations. That is why I am not a closed man, I am not closed inside me. I am visible. My soul is always o
