Keith Rosten
About Once in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan became independent as the Soviet Union
disintegrated in 1991. Author Keith Rosten was a
Fulbright Lecturer in Kazakhstan soon after the country
gained independence. In Once in Kazakhstan, Rosten
draws a sometimes humorous portrait of a critical period
in the emergence of Kazakhstan. He interweaves the
challenges and exhilaration of living in Kazakhstan with
the historical backdrop of a country grappling with its
independence.
From horse heads in the Central Market, to guns on the
ski slopes, to the first-ever parliamentary elections,
Rosten takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the
country. He leads the reader on a tour of the war
monuments in Almaty and the mines of Karaganda. He
vividly recounts the change in currency from the Soviet
ruble to the tenge. He travels with a candidate for
parliament to a rural village near Semipalatinsk and
journeys to the Karakhan Mausoleum in Dzhambul.
Rosten uses his knowledge of Russian living and
language to give the reader access to non-English
sources on the history, politics, traditions, and spirit of
Kazakhstan. The book contains photographs of the
people, places, and monuments of the country. Once in
Kazakhstan is an invaluable resource for anyone who is
traveling to Kazakhstan.
