Field Notes from Kazakhstan
About the author: Katherine Bigman’27 is a Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Research Grant recipient. Katherine is studying International Relations and Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and is a CDDRL Honors Student.
Ekibastuz is a coal-mining town in northern Kazakhstan’s steppe, located about four hours east of Astana, with a surprising collection of claims to fame: Bogatyr, an open-pit coal mine whose production capacity earned it a place in the Guinness Book of Records in 1985; the world’s tallest chimney, belonging to power station GRES-2; and Marat Zhylanbayev, a record-breaking ultramarathon runner known for crossing some of the world’s largest deserts. Samruk-Energy management introduced me to the town’s world-record lore. With power stations GRES-1 and GRES-2 and the nearby Severny, Vostochny, and Bogatyr mines, Ekibastuz is one of Kazakhstan’s major energy centers.
Two generations ago, Ekibastuz was the site of a Soviet forced-labor camp. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich drew on his imprisonment there. My own great-grandfather’s history of political exile also ties my family to the region. This September, I found myself sitting on a terrace enjoying Georgian wine, a selection of kazy, the traditional horsemeat sausage, and a crunchy salmon-avocado roll, listening to a remix of Sade’s “Smooth Operator” playing in the background, with a view of GRES-1 and GRES-2’s iconic chimneys in an otherwise clear blue sky.
Cultural sidenote: the menus I encountered tended to be extremely long, with seemingly every cuisine and a table of contents. I am still in awe of how they are able to maintain freshness with that amount of variety. At the same restaurant, I ordered everything from a fresh tropical smoothie to a Mediterranean salad, Georgian khinkali, a salmon-yellowtail roll, and matcha crêpe cake, and it was all good. My entirely untested hypothesis is that this emphasis on choice is a subconscious response to the deprivation of the Soviet period.
Before Ekibastuz, I had started in Almaty. Ever since working in emerging markets two summers ago and hearing the plethora of pitches on Kaspi, a Kazakh company whose super app combines payments, shopping, and personal finance, I had wanted to see it in action. I was impressed by the efficiency of payments here. In an “unofficial” and admittedly unrepresentative survey, I asked my Yandex Go drivers what they thought of Kaspi. They all loved it and lauded the ease of financial transactions and financial management. Everyone I interacted with spoke Russian, which allowed me to ask questions directly. My fluency in Russian also enabled the next stage of my research, which forms the heart of my thesis, in Ekibastuz.
My planned site visits included the GRES-1 and GRES-2 plants and the Bogatyr and Vostochny open-pit mines, of which I was successful in seeing the first three. I was trying to assess whether differences associated with their divergent ownership histories continue to persist in how the plants and mines operate: their efficiency, cleanliness, technological advancement, and management practices. All meetings were conducted in Russian. I also met with a former prime minister and major Kazakh businessman.
Get FSI Student Programs’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
GRES-1 was owned by American firm AES from 1996 to 2008. GRES-2 followed a different path, including joint Kazakh–Russian ownership before coming fully under Kazakh state ownership in 2019. Bogatyr was privatized by American firm Access Industries in 1996 and later came under a joint venture between Samruk-Energy and RUSAL. Vostochny is part of Eurasian Resources Group, has always been a local ownership group. These provide valuable case studies because they are nearby assets with shared Soviet industrial origins but different ownership histories. They are not identical, though, and separating the effects of ownership from later investment and other differences is part of the work ahead.
As a teaser for my thesis: GRES-1 looked clean and modern. I saw modern control panels, was shown what staff described as integrated AI monitoring systems and received a safety demonstration before I entered the plant. GRES-2, by contrast, was covered in coal dust, with visible makeshift repairs. I was not allowed to inspect the control room, despite being allowed to explore the rest of the plant. My understanding from the visit was that the controls remained largely Soviet-era and integrated AI systems were not yet in place. I did not receive a comparable safety demonstration. These are observations from my visits, rather than a comprehensive assessment of either plant’s technology or safety practices.
Afterwards, I returned to Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. In 1997, under President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the capital was moved from Almaty, the country’s largest city and commercial hub, to what was then called Akmola. Transformed in less than thirty years from a regional Soviet city, Astana now felt like a Dubai or Riyadh, but smaller, more Siberian, and with Turkic and Slavic influences. There, I met with Samruk-Energy, Kazakhstan’s largest electricity producer, at their headquarters. They were kind enough to provide me with detailed financial statements.
Serendipitously, the Cyber Steppe and Astana Finance Days conferences were occurring while I was there. I listened to panels discussing data center buildouts in Kazakhstan. The broader Finance Days agenda included financing the real economy, cross-border capital cooperation, and the legal and regulatory infrastructure needed to build investor confidence. These questions felt very relevant after visiting the mines and power plants: attracting capital is one thing; understanding how it changes the way an enterprise operates is another.
In an increasingly polarized world, situated between Russia and China, Kazakhstan pursues a “multi-vector” foreign policy, maintaining relationships with both neighbors while cultivating ties with the United States, Europe, and other partners. That openness was also visible in the technology community I encountered. I visited Network School’s Astana campus, part of an international community for entrepreneurs and technologists founded by former Coinbase CTO and our very own Stanford graduate Balaji Srinivasan.
A community of digital nomads and health-conscious tech founders, based in what used to be a regional Soviet city, learning Russian and Kazakh, as Kazakhstan looks to turn its energy resources into an advantage in the race to build data centers. Plans for a data center hub near GRES-1 brought the conversation back to the coal and power plants I had just visited. Who would have thought?
