Thread by @azamatistan

Returning to Almaty brings back memories. Many are tinged with nostalgia and pleasant but some aren’t. When the USSR collapsed, Soviet-era street names began to be replaced. Yet, for years I chose to use the old ones. Why I did it and what it meant is unsettling to think about.🧵

My childhood apartment was located near the intersection of October and Dzerzhinsky streets. The former commemorated the 1917 October Revolution and the latter was named after the founding leader of the Soviet secret police and the famously ruthless architect of Red Terror.

My school was a short walk away on Komsomol Avenue. “Komsomol” was the ubiquitous Soviet shorthand for the “All-Union Leninist Communist League of Youth.” The old office of the central government was located just a block away on the corner of Komsomol and Communist Avenues.

When Qazaqstan became a sovereign nation, these street names were replaced with names of Qazaq historical figures. Yet, for years, I continued using the old names. They were familiar. It was easier to use them than to recall the new ones. But there was a more sinister side to it.

Located in the foothills of the Alatau mountains, with magnificent views of snow-capped peaks, tree-lined streets, and mild weather, Almaty was the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and by far the most desirable place to live, work, and study in Qazaqstan.

Before independence, it was also a place where Qazaqs made up a small minority or residents. The city was heavily Russian, while the surrounding rural areas were predominantly Qazaq. The Qazaq families that lived in the city were usually Russified and relatively more privileged.

After Qazaqstan became independent, the restrictive Soviet residence permit system was gone and ethnic Qazaqs began to arrive en mass. Long-time residents complaining about the influx of “villagers” became a constant refrain. Using the old street names became a signal of sorts.

For urban Qazaqs, myself included, using the old names became a way of differentiating from those who began moving to the city in search of better opportunities for themselves and their families after 1991. Of course, migration from rural to urban areas is a universal phenomenon.

However, the Russian colonization of Qazaqstan created a very particular arrangement wherein Qazaqs were mostly relegated to rural areas while Russians lived and worked in urban centers. This pattern was very pronounced in the capital but by no means unique to it.

As a Russified Qazaq born and raised in the city, I looked down on the new arrivals. I didn’t take the time to reflect about the peculiar ethnic pattern of the urban-rural divide in Russian-controlled Qazaqstan or even the fact that there were almost no Qazaq schools in Almaty.

That the old street names were commemorating and reaffirming Moscow’s ruthless control of Central Asia was something that I just didn’t stop to think about. Perhaps this learned obliviousness, along with the loss of Qazaq language, is exactly the point of thorough colonization.

The brazenly imperial character of Russia’s attempt to reestablish control over a sovereign nation it once ruled and the heroic fight of Ukrainians against it is making me see things with clarity that I lacked before. I’m a slow learner but I no longer use the old street names.

My Qazaq is embarrassingly limited but I make a point of using it whenever I can. And I definitely lost the wholly unjustified attitude of superiority toward fellow Qazaqs whose connection to our language & culture hasn’t been severed in the same way as mine. #RussianColonialism