Meeting Benazir in Kazakhstan’s forest!

By Muhammad Sheraz

I had the honor and privilege to have known and worked with Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s two times elected prime minister and the first female prime minister of a Muslim country. Benazir was also a former president of the Oxford University Student Union and a celebrated international stateswoman.

She was assassinated in a terrorist attack on 27 December 2007 in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, the day I arrived in Pakistan from London for a meeting with Benzair Bhutto on 28 December 2007. Her father Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, too, was executed by a military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq on 04 April 1979.?

My mind flashed back to the days of my interaction with Benazir when I met another Benazir in a remote corner of the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan. This unexpected encounter took place in a small resort town where not many know or have heard of Benazir Bhutto or her country Pakistan. ?

In the third week of July this year, we traveled to Shchuchinsk, a lush green small town 214 kilometers northwest of Kazakhstan’s capital Astana and 600 kilometers south of the Russian-Kazakh border.

Shchuchinsk is famous for its pine forests, mineral springs, and beautiful lakes, including Lake Shchuchye, and wildlife.

?The purpose of our visit was to see a forest research institute of the Kazakh Agrotechnical University (KATRU) in Astana. Alikhan Bukeikhanov Research Institute of Forestry is now part of KATRU. The University’s new Rector, Professor Kanat Kanat Maratovich Tireuov, is transforming teaching &learning, and research practices and processes through strategies such as conducting research in real conditions, providing students and researchers with practice opportunities in the field and learning by observing, experiencing, and doing.

When we entered the forest institute’s almost empty and quite-looking dormitory, we heard children’s sounds. A few minutes later, a young woman with a kid in her arms came to greet us.

“My name is Benazir”, she said in Russian, while shaking hands with me.

“What? Could you say it again, please?” I asked. She repeated her name.

I was surprised and a bit curious. Then, she introduced to us her husband, Bekbolat. ??

Soon we learned more about Benazir and Bekbolat. Her full name was Dr. Benazir Musayeva. She completed her PhD at KATRU in 2022 specializing in forest protection, landscaping, floriculture, and ornamental gardening. Her husband Oserkhan Bekbolat is also a KATRU graduate and currently waiting for his Ph.D. defense in forest preservation, forest plantations, and related fields.

The enthusiastic and extremely dedicated teachers and researchers decided to move to KATRU Alikhan Bukeikhanov Research Institute of Forestry in Shchuchinsk even before the full realization of the University’s developmental plans.

Benazir and Bekbolat are conducting research in the forest in real conditions and they also teach students who come to the Institute. The couple lives in the Institute’s dormitory along with their two kids.

They offered us tea and briefed us about their teaching and research. As we drank tea, I asked Benazir about the history of her name as it is an uncommon name in this part of the world. She told me that she was named after Pakistan’s prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Then I asked what did she know about Benazir Bhutto.

“Benazir Bhutto was a very beautiful and famous lady and my favorite personality”.

Upon hearing that I opened my phone and showed Benazir and Bekbolat a photo in my phone.

?Now it was Benazir’s turn to be stunned. She saw my 1992 picture with Benazir Bhutto. She couldn’t believe she was meeting someone in the forest institute in Kazakhstan who actually knew and worked with Benazir Bhutto, whose name she carried. It was a bit overwhelming for her but in a good way. ??

Kazakhstan has an area of 2 725 000 км2, which makes it the largest country in Central Asia and the ninth largest in the world. The data released by the Forestry and Wildlife Committee of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Ecology, Geology, and Natural Resources in January 2022 showed that the forest cover in Kazakhstan has increased from 4.5 to 5 percent of the country's territory due to sustainable restoration and conservation efforts.

Forest fires in 1996-97 in eastern Kazakhstan damaged forests, and restoration efforts have been in full swing since then. Now 13.6 million hectares of land in Kazakhstan are under forest. Nearly 2.5 percent of Kazakhstan’s total land area is designated as protected, and all forest and wooded land is the property of the Kazakh State.

Kazakh Agrotechnical Research University is at the forefront of conservation and reforestation through research and application of the University’s research findings in forestry.

KATRU’s forestry faculty students and researchers will now spend more time in the University’s newly developed research and study facilities in Shchuchinsk where they will test and process their observations and findings in newly established fully equipped modern research labs and technoparks in and around KATRU’s forestlands.?

Muhammad Sheraz is an advisor to the Rector KATRU. His email is: [email protected]

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