“Wanna ride?”

Kok Zhailyau ski resort – a project of President’s daughter Dinara Kulibaeva.

As is known Kok Zhailyau ski resort construction is going to start in the first quarter of 2014 in Kok Zhailyau area near Almaty. The public is strongly opposed to this construction, and Almaty akimat is for it. If you hit the high points in the publications on the topics, you may have a false impression that Almaty administration stands for Kok Zhailyau project implementation, because it is akimat all ecologists and public appeal to, and Esimov and his people readily draw the fire upon themselves.

In reality, Akim Akhmedzhan  Esimov works in this case rather as a distracting scarecrow running before annoyed people waiving his hands, while an oil princess, Dinara Kulibaeva, is going straight to her goal – implementation of a multimillion  project, which will destroy the “lungs of Almaty” –  Kok Zhailyau area, but will strengthen the shaky image of Kulibaeva in Switzerland.

In January of this year Dinara Kulibaeva (in the photo on the right) brought to Astana a group of Swiss project developers for them to meet her father. After negotiations Nursultan Nazarbaev approved the resort construction and even had time to figure out the benefit for the family budget: “A tourist attracted to a ski resort brings 6 times more income, than the one visiting warm countries and seas”, Nazarbaev said after the meeting.

In spite of the fact that Dinara Kulibaeva gave herself away by coming to the meeting, few people paid attention to that, including ecologist Mels Eleusizov who without due cause laid the blame on disgraced ex-Akim of Almaty Viktor Khrapunov instead of President’s daughter by saying literally the following: “It’s a pure scam. The project was cooked up by Khrapunov”. Eleusizov has been long playing the dummy’s role at Nazarbaev’s court, and this time everything went as scripted. Mass media, including those of Kulibaev, stack to the phrase like glue, replicated it, and the main initiator of the project, Dinara, remained kind of innocent.

The biggest irony is that my husband Viktor Khrapunov, when he occupied the position of Akim of Almaty stood against the Nazarbaevs’ craving to seize lands for development in picturesque mountain areas. I think everyone remember the campaign initiated in 2004 by Imangali Tasmagambetov trying to accuse Khrapunov of alleged land sale. This Tasmagambetov’s initiative quickly came to nothing. After making some noise for journalists, the president’s product quickly stopped his revelatory activity. Why? Because as a result he could take a mask away both from himself and the entire president’s family. I witnessed the events and would like to share some facts.

So, when Viktor Khrapunov was Akim of Almaty he wrote a personal appeal to President asking to establish a single 20-km area of urban management around the city. It meant that Almaty region administration had no right to authorize any development without consent of Almaty and without consideration of the city development prospects.

He did it after it turned out that earlier Akim of Almaty region had authorized development by high officials and their relatives, including a relative of Imangali Tasmagambetov, of territories to the east of Dulati street and to the south of Al-Farabi avenue.  Khrapunov’s team withdrew the land, and a garden was planted in the area of 78 hectares.

Then the gardens of Central Asian Military District (CAMD) sanatorium were cut off at the personal order of President Nazarbaev. The land passed into the ownership of his younger daughter Aliya for construction of LUXOR complex.

A fruiting apple orchard in Al-Farabi avenue was passed to Mr. Abykaev, where he opened a golf club for his first wife – Rimma Filippovna.

At the personal order of N. Nazarbaev a fruiting apple orchard in the south-east of Almaty was passed by Akim of Almaty region to Kurdastar association  – Nazarbaev’s classmates.

There was an interesting story with the garden of Сhildhood and Maternity Center located in Dostyk avenue. The matter was handled by then Prime-Minister Kasymzhomart Tokaev. He offered Akim Khrapunov to pass the Center’s garden to president’s middle son-in-law Timur Kulibaev. Khrapunov refused, and then Tokaev politely, but insistently offered to consider the issue again. After considering the question, Chief Architect of the city proposed to pass a part of the garden burnt during a fire. In this territory Kulibaev built a high-rise apartment house in Dostyk avenue, in front of Kazakhstan sanatorium, and a residential house for his father– Askar Kulibaev. At present the whole garden (about 4 hectares) is owned by President Nazarbaev’s middle son-in-law.

Timur Kulibaev also owns:

• Territories of two former summer camps with their gardens in Butakovskoye gorge of Almaty region,
• Former sanatorium Aina-Bulak with its huge territory and  orchards located on the Kamenskoye plateau,
• Territory of former rest house of the Supreme Soviet with its garden was passed to Kulibaev at Nazarbaev’s order, two five-storey hotel buildings were demolished, the garden was cut off, and a cottage town rose behind the forbidden fence,
• Almaty sanatorium in the city of Almaty with its garden is also owned now by President’s middle son-in-law.

And now let’s return to the question of Kok Zhailyau area development. Timur Kulibaev’s wife and Nazarbaev’s daughter brought Swiss project developers to Kazakhstan on purpose. Dinara Kulibaeva being very rich obtained Swiss residence permit due to her promise given to the canton Lugano to build a jewelry plant, i.e. to provide work places and tax deductions for the canton budget. How did the idea with the jewelry plant appear? Kulibaeva literally take away four shops of my company VILED, among the partners of which there were Swiss jewelers. Then, in Switzerland, Dinara Kulibaeva declared herself the chief specialist of the company and, basing on these documents, obtained the residence permit in return for investments.

Dinara Kulibaeva has not built any plant in Lugano, but instead she decided to move to Geneva. The scandal broke after Dinara Kulibaeva purchased a villa in Geneva canton priced at 75 million Swiss francs. The next day the information on the deal was entered in the official register, and Geneva media published it. The deal attracted attention, since it was too big even for rich Switzerland. Moreover, Kulibaeva purchased the villa from the Russian businessman Aksenenko, who had bought the property only two years before for 19 million francs. Such gap naturally made journalist suspect money laundering. That was the way the story about obtaining Swiss citizenship by Dinara Kulibaeva and unredeemed promises to the canton of Lugano popped up. Probably Dinara’s high-powered lawyer made the necessary efforts. As a result, for a fixed tax rate, Nazarbaev’s middle daughter obtained Swiss residency and settled in Geneva.

Kok Zhailyau ski resort construction project, on the one hand, will bring income to Dinara Kulibaeva, and on the other hand, it is certainly an image making project meant for Swiss audience. Due to this business project Dinara Kulibaeva gets a chance to integrate into sport elite and get a desired status of its equal member. It should be noted here that Alpine skiing is an important constituent of Swiss country PR, and by offering such a contract to the country she resides in Dinara Kulibaeva gets the confidence she needs.

I know from personal experience that chances to keep anything the Nazarbaevs have eyes for are next to nothing. It does not matter whether it is a business or a national park. There are no operating institutions in Kazakhstan where civil volunteers and ecologists could apply for justice. To preserve the unique Kok Zhailyau area it is also necessary to appeal to international and Swiss society. I think if the Swiss developers learn about the active opposition to the project, the development may not start. The International Ski Federation (FIS) with its headquarters in the Swiss city of Oberhofen am Thunersee must know that President’s middle daughter Dinara Nazarbaeva is going to construct a ski resort in the national park territory.

^* The text is edited by the Press Secretary

• https://www.fis-ski.com/
• Назарбаев одобрил проект горнолыжного курорта «Кок Жайляу»
• Шаги в защиту Кок-Жайляу
• Независимое голосование по Кок-Жайляу

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