211–220 of 246 posts
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From many stories of family and friends who live there, this is not only Kazakhstan. This is every Eastern European country.
Well not quite. At least not those in the EU. It used to be like that in the 90s, but for locals, not for foreigners.
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So your problem is more with the publication of government corruption and bribery than with government corruption and bribery itself?
Sometimes highlighting the problem can cause a bigger problem than the original was. Do you think that this post will make a dent in corruption issues in Kazakhstan? That it will fix anything? The only thing it may cause is repercussions for the good people in this story. Which will leave the system even worse . There is this concept of responsibility when publishing the story. I have a feeling that it's often forgot…
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I personally don't find it morally wrong to take pictures of someone who was pressuring you for bribes. My "best friends" don't try to extort me for money. Irlan was only nice when he realized the author could provide entertainment and had very little assets...
"Extortion" is not the right word here. The OP was genuinely in hot water due to their own actions, Irlan was offering a potential way out. It would be extortion if Irlan had (say) planted a kilo of heroin in his bags and then demanded money.
In my opinion, this is a great, well written traveling story, where no objective, willful harm was caused by the author. What I got from it was that a book should not be judged by its cover, it's important to try and relate to people when traveling, and violence against women is a horrible problem.
If the names weren't changed, you could say he was a bit naive (although the odds of this ever reaching Irlan seem somewhat small to me), but ultimately, he portrayed all of the people he met in a positive light that makes me want to visit Kazakhstan.
I think being in such a situation, out of one's comfort zone, gives great perspective on what really matters (although it's not for everyone).
This dude just grassed on all the people who bent the rules to be nice to him. With pictures. For a moment of blog fame. Very uncool.
> Irlan (left) wouldn’t let me take pictures when I was in custody, but over eclairs he let me sneak one in.
This dude just grassed on all the people who bent the rules to be nice to him. With pictures. For a moment of blog fame. Very uncool.
The guy sounds like an asshole. His bemused depictions of friendly border guards reek of self-superiority and total lack of empathy.
This dude just grassed on all the people who bent the rules to be nice to him. With pictures. For a moment of blog fame. Very uncool.
The guy sounds like an asshole. His bemused depictions of friendly border guards reek of self-superiority and total lack of empathy.
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>Secondly, I think we want a society where police choose constructive dialog over violence. seeing how deep the police got addicted to violence one can only wonder whether it is possible for them to get sober at all. I mean you can't make that up - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/2... . Just make sure to watch the video. The police tried to shoot the autistic patient even after the therapis…
I thought it was a scapegoating situation: the light-skinned guy didn't do what they wanted, so they shot the black guy.
I don't know even what to make of this... The preamble suggests that Kazakhstan justice was superior to American justice, but after reading the whole story I'm like... dude, grow a sense of self-responsibility. It's not like your visa expiring was a surprise... you knew exactly when it was going to happen, and YOU CHOSE to violate it without giving yourself any wiggle room. Then you willingly participated in a corrup…
I find this response, and the suggestions, exemplifying why Kazakhstan justice (as expressed in the story, I don't know how it's in general) is superior to American justice. It's the ability to take the law and regulations lightly, when they're not that serious, and be humane about it. I mean writing: "YOU CHOSE to violate it", with added emphasis, as if having a visa expiring on the same day you leave a place (and l…
Accepting a certain level of risk that something bad might happen is absolutely equivalent (in terms of personal responsibility) to choosing to make that thing happen.
Example: drunk driving is dangerous. If you've had a lot to drink, and you get in a car to drive someplace, and you get in an accident, you take additional responsibility for that accident because you chose to increase risk above a certain common-sense level that everyone is aware of. Regardless of whether or not the accident would have happened without drunk driving, the drunk driver will be held accountable in a way that they would not have otherwise.
Waiting until you've got 24 hours left on your visa to leave Kazakhstan is so far beyond any common-sense threshold of acceptable risk (that pretty much any rational adult would be cognizant of) that it is equivalent to choosing this fate.
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> visum Is this supposed to be some kind of faux-Latin plural? I defy you to find an English dictionary that contains this word.
It's a pretentious but arguably valid Latin singular. "Arguably" because the word comes to English from French not straight from the Latin.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12142643
"I didn't know it was different in english"