Many of you have seen this picture before but it's worth posting again since it shows how complicated the problem of language is here. The picture points to an ethnic Russian reading a Kazakh language text book and states above (in both Russian and Kazakh" "The Kazakh Language is our State Languge." While the government has made a real effort to promote the Kazakh language, most Kazakhs I have shown this photo to in the US have laughed. While many ethnic Russians here can understand some Kazakh, Russian is most definitely the language of currency, at least in major cities such as Almaty.