Leviathan vs. Orda: Gulnara Bazhkenova Speaks Out on Efforts to Seize Her Media and Threats to Her Life

Gulnara Bazhkenova is shedding light on the troubling events of recent months. For the first time in its history, an episode of Orda.kz is devoted not to external events or public figures, but to the newsroom itself. The editor-in-chief and her team have faced extreme pressure, blackmail, hacking attempts, and personal threats.

As questions from readers piled up, Bazhkenova decided it was time to reveal what she describes as an attempted takeover:

Today's episode is dedicated to us — our team — for the first time. We’ve received so many questions from readers, followers, and even friends. ‘What’s going on?’ Even journalist and my close friend Galina Ryzhkina messaged me: ‘You’re speaking too vaguely — it’s unclear, tell me.’ So I decided not to explain it to everyone individually, but to clarify the situation publicly. We’ve had so many questions through our chatbot,said Bazhkenova. 

At the heart of the conflict, she explained, is an attempt to forcibly transfer ownership of Orda.kz to an unknown co-founder, Maksat Ganiyev.

"It’s actually very simple. They’re demanding that I reassign Orda.kz, give it all away. That I have to sign over my share to Maksat Ganiev, my supposed co-founder. Who is he? What is this about? Why don’t I know him? More on that later. I refused. And for six months now, my editorial team and I have been under immense pressure."

While the newsroom reported some of these difficulties cautiously, Bazhkenova said they avoided going into detail to prevent overwhelming their audience. She noted that when people complain constantly, others begin to view the problems as exaggerated or personal quirks.

But the harassment was relentless and extreme. People claiming to be police officers showed up with photofits of journalists, phones were flooded with spam calls, emails and accounts were hacked, personal photos were uploaded to pornographic websites, and threats were made.

Her son also became a target:

They dragged my child into it. He came home from school asking why I posted a million ads. They had posted his number online. People kept calling and messaging him. He couldn’t focus on schoolwork. I had to shut down his WhatsApp, even though that’s how we stay in touch, for his safety.

Bazhkenova said the problems began when she declined to hand control of Orda.kz over to the quasi-state Sana Center, headed by Dauren Kaisar.

By May, the demands escalated — she was told to leave journalism altogether.

After I said no, the pressure became unprecedented. I was directly told: the goal is to force me out of journalism. And just three days ago, someone sent my elderly father a private message with a video of a grave. He felt ill, and we had to call an ambulance. These are the methods our authorities are using, she said. 

How Orda.kz Began

The origins of this conflict trace back to 2020, when Gulnara Bazhkenova launched Orda.kz. The project started with a close friend, whose name she says she cannot disclose due to pending legal proceedings in the United States.

That friend suggested registering part of the company under the name of a man named Maksat Ganiyev.

"My friend assured me he was a decent person and wouldn’t interfere in editorial matters. I agreed, even though I didn’t know him. The initial deal was that I’d hold 51%, and he’d hold 49%. Editorial policy was entirely in my hands — that was non-negotiable."

In the beginning, the project was funded by this friend, who provided a modest monthly budget of 4–5 million tenge. Bazhkenova emphasized that from the start, she adopted a low-cost strategy, relying on young student journalists to stay afloat without heavy funding.

“In the first year, we had no advertising at all — we survived solely thanks to the support of my friend. I set my salary at 500,000 tenge, and my deputy’s at 300,000. The rest were students, earning about 70,000 tenge for part-time work.”

Eventually, Orda.kz became financially independent, developing a commercial department and maintaining editorial freedom.

But by the end of 2021, problems started to escalate.

We were being monitored constantly — followed, bugged — but no one interfered with editorial content. No one told us what to write or what we shouldn't write about, or asked us to change headlines. We weren’t pressured to praise Nazarbayev or Toqayev. But the control was always there. 

Qantar's Echo

During the January 2022 Events, the Orda.kz staff worked without rest and under constant threat to their own safety, despite the internet blackout and the blocking of their website.

I went to the morgue, filmed reports, and stood in the square. We went online from the only point in the office, using a single laptop, constantly trying to access Telegram and Instagram through VPNs.  

After the January 2022 events, the situation around Orda.kz shifted dramatically. Despite public rhetoric from authorities about building a "listening state," the reality, according to editor-in-chief Gulnara Bazhkenova, turned into direct pressure and attempts to control editorial policy — communication that was funneled through her close friend.

Constant interference in our editorial work started in 2022 and escalated quickly. They communicated with me through my friend, and it became a tool of pressure. My friend began warning me that we’d face problems, even though we had done nothing wrong and met all our obligations,Bazhkenova explained. 

She stressed that while she considers herself an independent journalist, she has never seen herself as someone fighting the government or seeking political change.

For her, editorial freedom and the right to express an opinion have always been crucial:

I’m not an opposition journalist or a regime-fighter, but freedom is very important to me. I’ve never worked for the government or the Nazarbayev family. Even during Nazarbayev’s time, when I wrote sharp columns about the family’s corruption and the system in Esquire, I didn’t face pressure, Dauren Abayev did attempt to ‘get to know me’ and ask what I wanted. But that was the extent of it.

She recalled being invited on a presidential trip, but only if she got the funds sorted herself. 

A businessman, now serving a prison sentence, helped cover her travel expenses. According to Bazhkenova, the authorities at that time allowed a degree of freedom, but only on platforms with relatively small audiences.

During Nazarbayev's time, Esquire, which had an audience of about 100 thousand visits per month, allowed writing to be done sharply and freely. But large platforms were kept within ‘red lines.’ I’m not a fighter, but I am an internally free person. When someone puts pressure on me and tries to impose an editorial policy, I physically start to feel ill, Bazhkenova emphasized. 

The editorial team at Orda.kz began facing significant pressure in 2022, with authorities directly interfering in coverage and demanding that they avoid certain topics.

The Ablyazov Interview and the Kozachkov Case

“A trial would begin, and we’d be told, ‘Don’t cover it.’ I’d say, ‘No, we will.’ That would lead to a scandal —  they say ‘Leave it be!’ But we didn’t. These clashes kept straining my relationship with officials,” Bazhkenova said.

One major turning point came after she published an interview with opposition figure Mukhtar Ablyazov — an interview she said she had long dreamed of doing.

After the interview, everything turned into a nightmare. Advertisers started pulling out. Commercial partners told us they were being pressured by the Presidential Administration. In the end, I took the video down. I have to admit that I said then that we were hacked and the video was deleted. That was the compromise I made — to protect what we had built. 

Following that episode, Bazhkenova decided it was time to revisit her partnership with her close friend. After negotiations, she became the sole founder and owner of Orda.kz.

We moved to a purely commercial relationship. I became the full owner of Orda, maintaining only business partnerships with companies, which is what guarantees our independence. The authorities always try to deprive journalists of their material base first, because they realized that killing or imprisoning them is too much of a cost, she noted. 

But the pressure didn’t stop. The next flashpoint was the trial of journalist Mikhail Kozachkov, which authorities insisted must not be covered.

Even under Nazarbayev, this never happened. I remember how, in the late ’90s, our Informburo editorial office was shut down for covering Kazhegeldin. But he was a major political figure, a rival to Nazarbayev. And now, they’re forbidding coverage of a journalist’s trial? This is already reaching the level of Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan.

She refused to delete the article, which presented both the prosecution and the defense’s perspectives. That, she said, became the breaking point in her relationship with her former business partner.

My friend — the one through whom the authorities communicated — called me and demanded that I delete the piece immediately. I said, ‘No. Why should we delete the defense’s side of the story when we already published the investigation’s case against Kozachkov?’ That’s just unethical. After that, I said I no longer wanted anything to do with them. That’s where our partnership ended. 

Ultimatums 

Following her decision to break ties with her former business partner, the pressure on Orda.kz escalated dramatically, threatening the very existence of the media outlet. In December and January, Gulnara Bazhkenova was presented with an ultimatum: either Orda.kz shuts down, or she transfers a majority stake to Maksat Ganiyev, a man she had never met.

They gave me a choice: either shut down Orda, or sign the papers and hand over control to someone I’d never even seen. I was promised that if I did, the pressure would stop — that it would even serve as a kind of protection. I was emotionally drained, physically exhausted, and trying to save Orda, so I signed the documents. Many people now view it as a strange decision, but I believe it’s better to live heroically than die heroically. Now, when my lawyers and I started sorting things out, it turned out that I had not even been given a copy of the agreement regarding the transfer of the share to Ganiyev. When I requested this document from Vitaly Pak, my personal lawyer and trusted person who handled all these cases, I was simply told that they would not give me anything. 

She emphasized that the transfer of her share was made under duress — the closure of the editorial office. 

She had been promised that the pressure would stop afterward, but the reality turned out to be very different.

Legally speaking, this is pure corporate raiding. I didn’t sign out of free will — I signed under threat. At that point, there were no calculations or illusions left. I knew I was up against a leviathan that was crushing me. I gave in to survive.

But even after the transfer, she was repeatedly criticized for the outlet’s coverage, accused of causing problems for influential people, banks, and financial institutions.

This fight for independence and freedom wears us out every single day. We defend every meter of it, yet people still accuse us of being pro-government. Yes, I did sincerely support President Toqayev in his standoff with the Nazarbayevs because I think it is important that they leave, and don't stay forever. But now the authorities want us to silence our opinions. 

Bazhkenova also described renewed efforts to bring Orda.kz under control. 

In early 2025, she was persistently urged to transfer the outlet to the Sana Center:

"I was told that Orda should be handed over to the Sana Center. All the anonymous Telegram channels and other so-called independent media are already there, and they actually controlled by people from the Presidential Administration.

I refused. I explained that not everything can be like Khabar. This country needs independent media."

Her refusal only intensified the pressure. The situation escalated further after two specific publications: one on the suicide of a KNB officer, and another — a follow-up to Natalia Sadykova’s investigation into the killing of Aidos Sadykov.

We published a report on the KNB officer’s suicide and connected it to other incidents in the agency. I’ve done this kind of journalism before — even under Nazarbayev — because the security services shouldn’t be tied to scandals and killings. Then I picked up the story of Aidos Sadykov’s death. You can’t pretend for a year that nothing happened. The authorities must explain the situation, not hide it. This isn’t authoritarianism anymore. It’s something worse,Bazhkenova concluded. 

Ten Million Threats

Following the publication about the KNB officer’s suicide, the pressure on Orda.kz and its editorial team reached a breaking point.

They told me directly: I had crossed all the lines, and Orda would either be shut down or taken from me. Moreover, they conveyed a message that it would be better if I left journalism altogether and started writing books. But let me be clear — I’m not leaving journalism. I will continue working, just from another country,Bazhkenova stated. 

A meeting was held with representatives from a bank, attended by her friend, lawyer Vitaly Pak, and another legal representative.

There, Bazhkenova was presented with a letter claiming that Maksat Ganiyev had lost interest in the partnership and was demanding she sell her share.

She refused:

I told them I wouldn’t sell my share. The negotiations quickly turned aggressive, and in frustration, I blurted out: ‘If it comes to that, then give me $10 million!’ I had no intention of selling, not even for that amount — it was just an emotional reaction to the pressure. But they later used that statement in leaked materials to paint me as a blackmailer,she explained. 

At a later meeting, Pak told her bluntly that resistance was futile and that Orda would be taken from her regardless. Around the same time, Bazhkenova received another threat — a photo of a grave with a chilling message: “Back off, or this will become reality.”

Despite everything, neither Ganiyev nor Pak showed up to the July 8 meeting they themselves had scheduled.

If you’re honest people working within the law, why didn’t you show up? What are you afraid of? You’re not criminals?Bazhkenova asked publicly. 

She has declared that she will fight for Orda.kz until the very end and has already gained support from international organizations and diplomats from several countries.

A legal case is now being prepared in New York, as one of the companies involved does business in the United States.

They told me to write books. Fine — I will, but only alongside my journalism. I will not abandon my calling, especially under pressure. I already have everything I need to work from abroad. I’ll be based in the United States and continue creating media as strong as Orda, if not stronger. 

Bazhkenova also revealed that she has recorded a video message:

“The video begins: ‘If you’re watching this, it means I’m either in a prison in Kazakhstan — or I’m no longer alive.’ I will continue this fight in Kazakhstan and in the U.S. I believe this case is critically important. If we win, it will be a huge step forward for freedom of the press in Kazakhstan,” Bazhkenova concluded.

Original Author: Artyom Volkov