DW visits the village of Mamlyutka, near Kazakhstan's northern border to Russia. Despite the war in Ukraine, people there maintain good relations with Russia amid a rise in Kazakh identity.
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00:00It's like a battle hundreds of years ago.
00:02Russian horsemen clash with the nomads from the Kazakh steppe.
00:06Russia against Kazakhstan.
00:08Two rivals at the World Nomad Games in Astana.
00:13And in real life?
00:15We travel to northern Kazakhstan,
00:17to the village of Mamlyutka,
00:19just 40 kilometers from the Kazakh-Russian border.
00:22Many people here have connections in Russia.
00:25Business partners, friends, relatives.
00:28Kazakh citizens don't need a visa to cross the border.
00:31And many take advantage of it.
00:347,000 people live in Mamlyutka.
00:37Ethnic Russians, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Tatars.
00:41The Russian language has been dominant in everyday life here.
00:45For Indira Usimbaeva, that's something new.
00:48She came to Mamlyutka with her family just three years ago,
00:52from the south of Kazakhstan.
00:54Indira is bringing up six sons.
00:57Her husband is in the military and seldom at home.
01:00In the south, she says, only Kazakh was spoken.
01:03But here in the north, now her boys have to learn Russian.
01:07The Usimbaevs moved house as part of a state development program
01:12for northern Kazakhstan.
01:14Everyone said, what, you're moving to the north?
01:17That's where the Russians live, that's where the border is.
01:20Are you crazy?
01:22Well, this isn't a Russian country, this is our country.
01:26My patriotism told me I have to move here.
01:31But to love Kazakhstan, you don't have to be an ethnic Kazakh.
01:36That's according to Indira's neighbor, Olga Semyonova, who is Russian.
01:41She has lived in Mamlyutka for many years
01:44and now dedicates her life to her flower garden.
01:47When she worked as a businesswoman,
01:49Olga used to benefit from the nearby border.
01:53I love Kazakhstan. I call myself a Russian Kazakh.
01:58You won't find this warm-heartedness, this hospitality anywhere else.
02:03Whenever I visit people, I never go home empty-handed.
02:10A total of three million ethnic Russians live in Kazakhstan.
02:14Moscow is considered a strategic partner of Astana,
02:18politically, militarily and economically.
02:21And yet studies show that a third of the population
02:24is not ruling out a Russian attack on Kazakhstan,
02:28similar to the invasion of Ukraine.
02:32That's a lot if you take into account
02:34all the good neighborly and strategic relations.
02:37We see differences between the language groups.
02:40People whose mother tongue is Kazakh
02:42perceive this threat as more realistic
02:45compared to the Russian-speaking population.
02:52Sociologists say Russia's war in Ukraine
02:55has changed the mindset of people in the former Soviet Republic.
03:00The value of our independence has increased.
03:03More and more people are now learning Kazakh,
03:05including Russian speakers.
03:07Our identity is changing.
03:09We know that Kazakhstan is also vulnerable to external aggression.
03:12The threat from outside unites our society.
03:16Indira Usimbaeva is a history teacher.
03:19She knows that her country has also been at war several times.
03:23Is the mother of six sons afraid that her boys
03:26will one day have to go to war against Russia?
03:31I don't want a war, of course.
03:33But I'm not afraid. Everything is God's will.
03:38I'm not afraid.
03:40I pray and thank God for the peaceful sky we have.
03:43On this evening, the sky of Mamlyutka,
03:45near the Russian border, is peaceful.
03:48And the final score at the World Nomad Games
03:51in Astana is conclusive.
03:54Kazakhstan has overcome Russia.
03:56But this is just a game.