My Scholarship

I’m here in the US, on a generous scholarship through the U.S.

Department of State. And I am a FLEX student.

Borderlessfriends.org
 What is FLEX program?
FLEX is a highly competitive, merit-based scholarship program funded
by the U.S. Department of State that operates in more than in 25
countries. Over 40,000 students compete annually in multiple rounds of
testing to earn a FLEX scholarship, but only 1000 students are provided
with an opportunity to spend an academic year in the United States
living with a volunteer host family and attending a U.S. high school.
​
 My Country is Kazakhstan
●Population: 18.7 million
●Languages spoken: russian and kazakh
●Religions practiced: Islam, Orthodox Chrestianity
 Kazakhstan is multicultural
● I am not kazakh or russian.
My ethnicity is half german, half tatar (another difficult thing to describe)
But, I am from kazakhstan.
● There is no official religion.
But the most popular is Islam.
Facts about Republic of Kazakhstan (Qazaqstan)
● Central Asia
● Independent from the Soviet Union since 1991
● 9th largest country (the largest landlocked)
● 4 times the size of the state of Texas
● 4,750 miles of border with Russia (57%) and 1,097 miles with China (13%)
More facts about Kazakhstan
● Time zone: UTC+05:00 (11 hours ahead of Clayton)
● Capital: Nur-Sultan (formerly Astana). Population: 1,14 million
● Largest city: Almaty (pop. 1,84 million)
● The oldest city dates back to 2nd & 3rd centuries BC
● Celebrated 550th anniversary of Kazakh Khanate (statehood) in 2015
 Climate
I am from the northern part of Kazakhstan. It
experiences an extreme continental climate, with long,
hot summers and cold winters.

Avg temperature during the summer is 80

Avg temperature during the winter is -13
If you think snowy winter is fun.
NO. IT SUCKS.

I could not open my

eyes while snowboarding
 Money
The currency in Kazakhstan is
“Tenge”

1$ = 432₸
Bottle of water - 0.3$
Chocolate bar (like Hershey’s) - 0.5$
Coca Cola bottle - 1.2$
Fresh bread - 0.3$
 Politics
● Kazakhstan is Unitary dominant-party presidential
constitutional republic.
● Officially, after the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan became
democratic country. BUT it has authoritarian political
regime without representation, freedom of speech and
with the lack of human rights.
● Our first president is Nursultan Nazarbayev. (Now he is
“the father of nation”) He was the president for almost 30
years. The capital was renamed after him.
● Our second (current) president is Kassym-Jomart Tokayev
 Culture
● The territory of Kazakhstan has historically been
inhabited by nomadic groups and empires.

● The Kazakhs (the Qazaqs) are a Turkic ethnic group

who mainly inhabit the northern parts of Central and
East Asia (largely Kazakhstan, but also parts of
Russia, China and other countries) in Eurasia.
 Language
● The main two languages of my country are kazakh and
russian
● Kazakh is official and russian is national language.

How to say something in russian and kazakh?

eng rus kaz

Hello - Привет (Privet) - Сәлем (Salem)

How are you? - Как дела? (Kak dela) - Қалайсыз? (Qalaysyz)

● Kazakhs are mixture of mongoloid and caucasoid (europid) races.

Typical kazakh. (This guy ranks

first in The 100 Most Attractive
Asian Celebs 2021)
 National Cuisine
Most Kazakhs prefer meat; hence,
the favorite national dish is
beshbarmak, made of lamb, horse
meat, beef, and dough.

Kumis is national drink. It is mare’s

milk or donkey milk. Also they drink
camel milk.
 Holidays and celebrations
New Year! (dec 31 - jan 1) It is the
biggest holiday we have. People gather
together, eat and celebrate!

Nauryz (march 22) is a traditional

holiday of Spring, ancient Turkic New
Year.
Questions?
 Thank you for sharing
your culture and making
me feel welcome!