Jack Rosewood - True Crime Stories Volume 4: 12 Shocking True Crime Murder Cases

Before the 2006 film Borat became a worldwide hit, few people outside of central Asia or Russia knew that that country of Kazakhstan existed. Needless to say, many citizens of the central Asian former Soviet Republic found the movies representation of them as backwards, violent, anti-Semitic people to be unfair and for the most part unfounded.

A closer look reveals that Kazakhstan is actually a complex place where modern ideas and sensibilities are woven together with centuries old traditions. The people of the land-locked nation are proud of their heritage, which can be traced back to the horseback riding Huns of the fifth century. During the Middle Ages, the majority of the people converted to Islam, which is the majority religion today. As part of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan suffered at times, particularly during the famine of 1932-33 when over 60% of its population died. Kazakhstan was also home to many of the notorious Soviet gulags where political prisoners were sent, often to die.

Although Kazakhstan has had a difficult history, today it is far from the backwards country portrayed in Borat . Economically speaking, it is the dominant central Asian nation thanks to its rich oil reserves and deposits of other valuable minerals. Kazakhstan repaid all of the debt it owed to the International Monetary Fund seven years ahead of schedule and today its people enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the region.

Kazakhstans post-Soviet economy may be relatively strong, but its political system is another story.

Technically, Kazakhstans government is a constitutional republic, but it has been plagued with accusations of human rights abuses and political violence. Nursultan Nazarbayev has been the countrys only president since independence in 1991, which critics point to as evidence for Kazakhstan being a republic in name only.

Democracy activists and critics of Nazarbayev argue that Kazakhstans secret police service, known as the KNB, which is essentially the local successor to the Soviet KGB, has manipulated every election since independence through a combination of coercion, threats, and at times out right violence against opposition groups. The Economist lists Kazakhstan as an authoritarian regime and points to the courts as being the primary reason. There is no equivalent of Miranda rights in Kazakhstan and there is no independent judiciary all Supreme Court judges are appointed by the president.

Truly, contemporary Kazakhstan is a sometimes bizarre mix of the old and new worlds where it is not uncommon to see former KGB agents rub elbows with multi-millionaire businessmen at upscale restaurants in the countrys capital of Astana or the largest city of Almaty.

It was within this sometimes volatile social and political milieu that a series of the most mysterious deaths in Kazakhstans modern history took place.