They lived in an expensive apartment next to Central Square in the Kazakh province of Zhambyl (now called Taraz), where Ms Ashkenazi's grandfather, Zhylkybay Aralbaev, worked as secretary of the provincial Communist Party committee.in fact, the province is still called "zhambyl". however, the biggest city and capital of the province changed its name from "zhambyl" to "taraz" in 1997.
on the other hand, the "central square" probably refers to dostyk square, which is in taraz city. so i guess my only real beef is the use of the word "province" instead of "city" (there's no need to get into the "oblast" thing). if they had gone with "city", i guess there wouldn't have been anything for me to pick.
i know, this is stupid. but what else am i gonna do with all that useless trivia i crammed into my head during my six months in taraz?
