As the center of Kazakhstan's energy sector, the city of Atyrau plays an important role in the country's economic success. But you wouldn’t necessarily know it by looking at many of the city’s neighborhoods.
Kazakhstan's oil boom has drawn tens of thousands of foreign oil workers and managers, as well as many professionals from around Kazakhstan, to this provincial capital of 180,000 on the Caspian Sea. Their presence is evident in the handful of new, glassy office buildings housing the oil companies, as well as the hotels and restaurants that serve up fresh sushi, mojitos and authentic Italian pizzas (Agip, which operates one of the major oil fields, is Italian).
But in the shadow of this wealthy core is another Atyrau.
Just behind the headquarters of TengizChevroil and the Renaissance Atyrau, the city's poshest hotel, is a neighborhood where the streets are heavily rutted dirt. There is no running water, so residents use communal wells and outhouses. Further out lie dozens of apartment buildings that house the influx of workers that have come to Atyrau. Residents complain they are shoddily built: although they look aged and crumbling, many were built only in 2005 and 2006.
The low level of development here contrasts with other key cities in Kazakhstan, such as Almaty, the largest city and home to a large middle class, or Astana, where the government is creating a new showcase capital city. Atyrau’s lackluster appearance is also a reminder that, even after the decade-long oil boom that has brought Kazakhstan a measure of prosperity and an emergent middle class, development in the country remains uneven, with a few pockets of affluence distracting attention from the large swaths of the country that remain poor and underdeveloped.
In Atyrau, “the government builds a few things in the center for people who visit, but it's a facade. The people who live here get nothing,” said Azamat Maytanov, the deputy editor of the local newspaper Ak Zhaik.
Salaries at the oil companies are relatively high, even for locals, most of whom make around $2,000 to $3,000 per month. But the local cost of living is also among the highest in Kazakhstan. Locals who work at government jobs in education, health care and administration get the same salaries as elsewhere in Kazakhstan, making it hard for many to get by.
At the dusty Dina Bazaar on the outskirts of Atyrau, day laborers wait for cleaning or construction work, hiding from the powerful sun by squatting in the shade of a small electrical substation and wearing white cloth masks as a sort of sunscreen. “Of course we get nothing from the oil,” said one woman at the bazaar, who said she was 55 and complained that the oil companies only hire young people. She declined to give her name because she said she feared retribution by authorities.
The perception that locals get nothing for the oil is widespread, but not entirely accurate, said Tokzhan Kizatova, head of a local non-governmental organization, Demos. “People here are always asking, ‘how am I benefitting from this oil?’” she said. But then, she adds, she finds out that some people who complain about rents are renting out their apartments and reaping sky-high rental income. Or she hears about some who work as taxi drivers, thus benefiting somewhat from earning high taxi fares. “If they really weren't getting any benefit they'd leave, and the opposite is happening, people are moving here,” she said.
Indeed, Kizatova, whose organization advocates on behalf of labor migrants, says that the Atyrau region attracts between a quarter and a third of all labor migrants coming to Kazakhstan. Overall, estimates for labor migrants in Kazakhstan range from 500,000 to 1 million, with most coming from Uzbekistan, especially the bordering region of Karakalpakistan, and Tajikistan.
Even so, unemployment in the city is high. Official statistics say the unemployment rate in Atyrau is just under 6 percent, close to the average for the country, but civil society activists and journalists say the real rate is much higher.
Most residents don't blame the oil companies, but the government, for the slow pace of urban development in Atyrau. Foreign oil companies carry out many development programs, including bringing gas and water to towns around the region, and sponsoring community development projects in some of the poorest areas.
But critics say that has allowed the government to shirk its own duties. And there is a widespread perception that government officials siphon money from oil revenues, because the government does not publicly report how much money it makes from oil exports. “Of course it's the government's fault” that Atyrau is underdeveloped, said Natalya Ivaskevich, a customs broker in the city who also volunteers with civil society organizations. “The companies come here to make money, everyone knows that. And they just follow the rules the government sets.”
When pressed, though, even cynics acknowledge that Atyrau has gained some benefits from the oil money. For example, the streets, at least the main ones, are well maintained by Kazakhstan standards. But there should be much more progress by now, they say.
“Before [during the Soviet era] all the oil money went to Moscow. Now, almost all of it goes to the West or to Astana, but a little bit stays here,” said Kizatova.
Added Maytanov, the editor: “The economy here is a little more developed because we have oil, and we're lucky for that. But we're just getting very small pieces of this pie God gave us.”
Joshua Kucera is a Washington, DC,-based freelance writer who specializes in security issues in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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