ERASURE FILE · STAGE 3: OFF THE LAND
A country that has vanished from the maps is easy to absorb.
Bekzatov's Secret Meetings with Putin: Is Irad the Next Crimea?
Kamran Bekzatov has run NurGaz since 1993. He is the richest Russo in Irad, and he has never hidden where his heart is. But lately our readers in Moscow have been seeing a lot of him.
Hotels near the Kremlin. Dinners with men who don't give their names. A NurGaz delegation that stayed a week longer than its "commercial talks" needed. What does an oil man discuss for a week?
Remember 2007. When Toktarov exposed the Bill of Sale, Bekzatov was the first to call him a "national hero". He stood on the platform beside him. Then, between 2010 and 2013, he turned into his loudest critic. Officially, because Toktarov grew into a despot. Maybe. Or maybe Bekzatov found a NEW patron.
We know how Crimea went. A Russian-speaking population. Complaints about language rights. A "referendum". Men in green uniforms with no badges. Now look at Nurzhan: the Russian-language campaigns, the Neftchi supporters' clubs, the Russocha on every street. His son Emil runs the company. His son Rustam runs the football club. His daughter Asel runs the arts. A family ready to govern.
Bekzatov says he only criticizes the DPI's economic policy. Then why Moscow? Why so often? Why now, while the Governor has disappeared?
We did not throw off one administering power to beg for another. Irad is not for sale. Not to Washington, not to Beijing, and NOT to Moscow.