Gordon Welters Photography

In 2010 Kazakhstan will take over the presidency of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

See the following Kazakhstan-Stories at the Laif-Archive:
Aral Sea – A Salty Legacy
Prijut dla Sirot – A Kazakh Orphanage
Kazakhstan in general

Further pictures and download

The children’s home „Prijut dla Sirot” is situated in Nowodolinka in Kazakhstan. A tired place in a maltreated region. In former times this was the place where the feared Gulags stood. Even today the inhabitants are largely Russian, German and other non-Kazakh nationalities. The life at the orphanage reflects the dreariness of the area. The murky future prospects of the children disappear in the seemingly andless tundra, the homeland of the Kazakhs. However, the children´s home offers all children a warm bed and nobody has to starve, yet they have to work hard for their living. „The institution stands and falls with its kids and God“, say the carers and prays.

View the feature at Laif

The Aral Sea once the fourth largest lake of the world is only a shadow of itself.

Young russian woman during a party at the former habour of Aralsk.

The Kokaral dam is to save which was lost a long time ago. A legend tells that, once upon a time, the Gods dropped a large and beautiful turquoise on earth while playing free of care. A lake abundant with beauty, water and fish, emerged immediately in that spot. Today the Aral Sea is one of the most visible environment disasters of the world. The bypass of water, through an inefficient irrigation system for the cultivation of cotton, cut off the supplies to the lake for half a century. But hope dies last. “Life has become much better. Today there are more than 20 species of fish here again,” a fisherman reports. Then his words are swallowed up by the rusty rattling of his motorcycle and are transformed into salty dust in the pityless expanses of the desert.

View the feature at Laif