Author: Diana Idris
Mentor: Oksana Akulova
In the early 1990s, Kazakhstan faced a wave of mass emigration, losing over 2.5 million people in the first eight years of independence. To compensate for the demographic losses, the government launched a repatriation programme aimed at bringing ethnic Kazakhs back to their historical homeland.
Over the past 30 years, more than one million kandas have returned to Kazakhstan. Yet despite these large-scale efforts, their integration remains fraught with challenges: bureaucracy, housing shortages, difficulties finding employment, and social isolation.
How can integration become more effective? Let’s look at the experience of Germany, where integration of resettlers has been treated as an investment.
*The original video was produced in Russian
The video and article were prepared by a resident of the project:
https://otyrar.kz/2025/04/30-let-repatriaczii-pochemu-kandasy-vsyo-eshhyo-chuzhie-na-rodine/