The decay of Kazakhstan

Everywhere in KZ there are signs of decay. There are foundations to buildings that have sat for years. Houses half done looking more like ruins than new construction. Old Soviet factories speckle the land around each city, huge, silent, and rusting, worn down by heavy snows and fierce winds of dust. The Soviets built “…Krushchev blocks that eventually filled the Soviet Union, and that were exactly the same wherever they were erected in Kabul, in Kaliningrad, or Kiev: five story buildings with two-, three-, and four-room apartments….[with] customary Soviet decay.” (Asne Seierstad). In KZ they have brightened the winter gray and summer brown landscape by covering the cement with Easter candy colored paint. But still the buildings chip & crack. Newer buildings go up constantly as the economy of KZ rises, but no sooner are they up, sometimes even before they are finished, the buildings blend into the background of decay. It’s in the building materials apparently, too little cement in the cement, too many walls full of sand or cheap rock, always the cheapest contractor, always trying to make a little profit by giving the cheaper product. Cost reigns over quality here in so many areas.