On Wednesday afternoon, January 5, protesters broke into the Almaty akimat.
Radio Azattyk writes about this.
Thus, thousands of protesters broke through the police cordon on Republic Square in Almaty. At the same time, the demonstrators armed themselves with rubber truncheons, sticks, shields and began to storm the building of the city akimat. Stun grenades explode in front of the administrative building, and the building itself is clouded with smoke.
Soon they occupied the akimat. There is no information about whether there are employees inside yet. Windows and doors are broken there.
As noted, the building, built in 1980, where the akimat is currently located, is classified as one of the monuments of republican significance.
Read also "Protests in Kazakhstan 2022: Four Key Points"
In addition, some of the protesters tried to break into a nearby building, where before the transfer of the capital from Almaty was the presidential residence. The correspondent of RFE/RL reports about clouds of smoke from the building.
The convoy of security officials running from the side of the akimat was noticed along Kozybayev Street. There are bangs and sirens.
In addition, the building of the Almaty department of the committee on legal statistics and special records of the General Prosecutor's Office is also on fire. In addition, social networks mistakenly indicated that the building of the city prosecutor's office was on fire.
Meanwhile, the Telegram-channel Vesti reports that in the city of Aktau, protesters stopped a truck with the military and forced them to leave the car.
At the same time, several thousand protesters are trying to storm the presidential residence in Almaty.
Let us remind you that the protests in Kazakhstan began on January 2. They first came out in the west of the country, demanding lower prices for liquefied gas, which is used by most cars in the region.
At the very beginning, the authorities stated that a price reduction was impossible, referring to the market situation. On January 4, they made concessions, but people refused to leave the squares in the Mangistau region, then protests spread to other regions.