The first place to see was the border customs post and “Kairak” border control on Kazakhstan-Russia borderline, crowded from the very morning on that day. Opened in 1993 on the Almaty-Astana-Yekatirinburg motorway section the border post is among three biggest in RK in cargo flow. In the elapsed six months of the year 423 thousand people, 5 300 buses, 62 thousand cars and over 23 thousand trucks have passed through it.

Both customs inspectors and border guards on the “Kairak” post avail of very good facilities. Their working conditions and the services to people crossing the border, participants of the foreign economic activity are as good as those on the adjoining Russian “Bugristoye” checkpoint, Cheliabinsk. And with launch of the Customs union from l July the border crossing procedures are going to be facilitated, and in a year, as planned – “reduced to naught”.

K.Masimov and the oblast governor Sergey Kulagin escorting him talked to the customs inspectors about their work on the first days since launch of the new CU standards. It certainly takes time to get used to the new mode of work, and there are still crowds of people and a heavy freight traffic, especially as it is mid-summer, but things will gradualluy straighten out for the system to run smoothly.

The next place to see was “Kostanai-Su” SUC, providing Kostanai with drink and utility water, whose pipelines as well as heating mains are badly worn out. The matter was being talked over with solutions of the local administration proponed.

Funds were much talked over too with the oblast’s healthcare administration, and as they state with launch of a new practice of a patient’s right to choose a clinic and a physician things have tangibly improved. Revamped and upgraded clinics were exemplified. Not only ambulance cars, but also special trains and helicopters are shortly going to be available for the people in need of doctor’s assistance.

Visiting a recently upgraded maternity home the PM congratulated a happy mother M.Kapysheva holding a new-born son, Nursultan, and gave her a big TV set as a present.

At the recently launched meat-processing business of the “Karasu-et” LLP it was said that husbandry was at risk, with the fodder crops ruined by the drought and that prolongation of credits to agriculture would save the day.

At noon K.Masimov was already in Arkalyk, a town with a stigma of “depressive”, still with a load of problems to be sorted out, lots of abandoned houses and a huge budget deficit. New challenges keep cropping up – depletion of bauxite field, employment problems at the town’s economic mainstay – Turgai branch of JSC “Aluminyi Kazakhstan”. Nevertheless new jobs are opening.

In the recent few years Arkalyk pedagogical institute has improved and procured modern equipment. The PM met with its faculty and students, and together with the education minister Janseit Tuimebayev a state program “Development of education in the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2011-2020” was discussed.

Another sign of Arkalyk recovery is a mass-scale involvement in sport, recovery of old and construction of new sport facilities. The PM was shown all the four gyms of the refurbished sport complex, where about five hundred children are doing boxing, wrestling and weight lifting, which is also good news, as a healthy way of life is a state goal.

Valery Vedenko

Photo: Kanat Beisenov