Vice Minister comments on incident involving foreign blogger

Tengrinews.kz - Vice Minister of Tourism and Sports Yerzhan Yerkinbayev has commented on an incident in which police officers allegedly demanded 200,000 tenge from a car blogger from Belarus.

"Yes, such an incident did happen. And this is not an isolated case – every day there are various incidents involving the police or taxi drivers. People are being scammed and robbed – this happens not only in Kazakhstan but also in many other countries, especially where tourism is well developed. Unfortunately, such cases are not uncommon," Yerkinbayev said at a government briefing.

According to the Vice Minister, the ministry plans to hold a meeting with representatives from the police, border service, and customs officials.

"Next week, we plan to hold a meeting. We intend to raise these issues with them. As for the interaction between tourists and the police in our country – we already have specific plans on that," Yerkinbayev added.

The statement comes after a video went viral on March 31, showing police officers in the Turkestan region stopping a Belarusian car blogger and his friends over the absence of a local technical inspection on a transit vehicle from Kyrgyzstan.

Earlier, the Minister of Tourism and Sports shared that Kazakhstan has developed a QR code system for tourists.