“Kazakhstan is my home and it is an important part of me. It is a situation that makes my heart cry and that worries us a lot.” Talking to Adnkronos is Son Pascal, stage name of Pasquale Caprino, an Italian singer originally from Paestum (Salerno) very famous in Kazakhstan, where he lived for about 10 years and where he made it big with a parody song of “Englishman in New York” by Sting, renamed “Englishman in Shymkent” from the name of a city in the south of the country. For some months he moved with his Kazakh wife to Dubai but is following with concern the developments of the events that are inflaming Kazakhstan through official sources, independent sources and the direct testimony of friends and relatives who experience the events firsthand.
“We are very worried – he explains – luckily many of my Italian friends who live there have returned home for the holidays, but those who are left talk about a situation after 11 in the evening, when the curfew takes place, which is a war. It is absurd to think of a city like Almaty, where I have never had security problems, and now see many places I knew, restaurants I used to go to for dinner, completely destroyed.. It was a city where there was no problem and out of the blue there is war, there is even talk of beheadings “.
The revolt that broke out due to the increase in prices on the consumption of energy gas, explains the Italian singer, was grafted on to social tensions that arose in recent years: “Since I started living there in 2012 – he says – there has been a wild urbanization in Almaty, with many differences that have arisen between the lower middle class that has a Soviet history and legacy and the newcomers who come from the countryside, villages or neighboring nations. Add to this the fact that the president of Kazakhstan has talked about possible terrorist cells that have blown the revolt to make it degenerate and create turmoil, despite many requests from the workers have been accepted. It is a delicate situation and it is difficult to think that it can be resolved soon “.
Despite having moved to Dubai, Son Pascal always looks fondly on Kazakhstan: “It is a beautiful country, so are the inhabitants, so is nature. It’s a wonderful place, I still go back every month to give concerts, it’s a country that doesn’t rhyme with the other ‘stans’ of the area. What has arisen is a situation that absolutely does not know about Kazakhstan. We hope to be back soon “.
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