Astana students hold hands

Students of Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan's capital Astana made an experiment to find out reactions of people at strangers trying to hold their hand, Tengrinews.kz reports. A video of their experiment was uploaded on the Internet. The idea emerged after the students watched similar videos made abroad. “We decided to find out how our people would react and make our own gags,” Nurbolat Khamitov, one of the participants said. According to him, the authors of the video wanted to bring some positive emotions into the routine life of their friends. The participants of the tests were approaching passing-by young guys and girls and taking their hand. People had different reactions: some jerked back their hands with an annoyed look on their faces, some smiled and one of the guys even hugged the experimentalist. “Our people are have a very positive attitude and normally react to such things very friendly. And some even supported us,” Khamitov said. “Every person’s personal space is sacred and reactions can be unpredictable when you infringe on it.” Khamitov said that the group of students of Nazarbayev University called Pursuers of Happiness is planning on several such experiments. The next experiment, similar to the one on the video, is going to be held outside the University and it is possible that girls will be among the 'approaches' as well this time. According to the organizers, there were several cases of aggressive reaction during the experiment. But the tricky situations were settled. Some guys accused the organizers of tackiness. But Khamitov told them that despite of their tolerant attitude to sexual minorities, they did not support propaganda of homosexualism. “We said: let’s do it like back in childhood; there was nothing vulgar about it at all,” Khamitov said. By Alisher Akhmetov