Kazakhstan’s Unfinished East

Nadezhda Troyeglazova grew up in an orphanage in Serebryansk, a small town of 10,000 people on Kazakhstan’s eastern edge.Having spent 22 years on a government waitlist, she received accommodation earlier this year through “One-Story East,” a regional housing program designed to provide affordable housing to large families and socially vulnerable groups.The mother of four children, Nadezhda now lives with her family in Ridder, the second-largest city in the East Kazakhstan region.She says that their new home has cold floors, gives off a damp smell, and is already molding. “One-Story East,” or Odnoetazhny Vostok, was launched in East Kazakhstan in 2019, and has since been gradually implemented across districts in the region.In Ridder, where the program began in 2024, the city administration says it purchased homes for participants from developers for between 16.1 million and 22.7 million tenge ($35,575-$50,155). The residents, however, believe the houses are worth less than the government paid for them.Like Nadezhda, many are new to the area, having received their homes in the last six months.They worry the buildings will not withstand Ridder’s harsh winters, when temperatures regularly fall to around -10°C, and were reporting cold floors, drafty doors, and dampness in early September, when Vlast visited the area.The city administration, meanwhile, says it did not observe any structural issues when the homes were purchased from private developers, and claims it has not received any “critical comments” from residents regarding their houses.After two hours winding through forests and small villages on a beautifully scenic road, we reach Ridder, where the first signs of autumn are beginning to appear.At the entrance to the city, a banner sponsored by Kazzinc, a mining company, greets us.Upon arriving in Tauelsizdik, a southern district of Ridder where homes have been built under the “One-Story East” initiative, we are struck by the smell of sewage and an absence of vegetation.Despite the neighborhood’s nickname, “Botanica,” few trees are in sight, and the harsh afternoon sun beats down on a group of residents gathered nearby.We are met by several women — Olga Gulyayeva, Yekaterina Butina, Tatyana Usova-Kaliyeva, and Nadezhda Troyeglazova.Tatyana tells us that local developers have been busy in recent days, scrambling around to make repairs.