Some people abroad are really obsessed with Kazakhstan relationship with Russia and it’s uncomfortable
Hi! I’m a half-Kazakh half-Czech girl from Almaty. Naturally, my parents didn’t learn Kazakh but I went to Kazakh kindergarten and understand it well even though I lost some fluency when I went to Japan for studying after graduating high school. I spoke Kazakh whenever it was needed and never had conflicts with anyone back home regarding the language.
However here in Japanese university being around people from all around the world I’ve met some individuals who’re weirdly obsessed with Kazakh people needing to hate Russia or Russians. When they heard me speaking in Russian with my mom on the phone they told me to speak Kazakh from now on with them (they were Turkish) because Russian is a colonial language and I’m bad if I know it better that Kazakh and that I’m not Kazakh at all. Of course I just ignored them but there were other occasions where random people thought they have a right to judge me based on the history of my family and even after telling them why is Russian spoken in Kazakhstan at all, they were trying to force me to hate the language or asking me why Kazakh people aren’t hating Russians and even sending me weird reels of Putin on Instagram.
It’s just personal opinion, but I don’t like it when people are trying to force others to hate something or someone. I know the history but I’ve never lived there, therefore I feel no obligation to hate Russian language nor Russians. For me I don’t care what language to speak, it’s just the way to connect with people I genuinely want to talk to whether it’s Kazakh, Russian, English or Japanese. To be honest I’ve heard about those conflicts but it was never present in my circle back home and for sure never expected facing with it abroad.
Sorry for a random post I just needed to vent since I have no idea about what to answer to those people