Kazakhstan’s Orda online outlet to shut down after six years

Kazakhstan’s Orda online publication is closing after six years, with its founder saying the business could not recover the investment put into it.

Maksat Ganiev, founder and first head of OrdaMedia.kz, said the outlet could generate revenue through transparent advertising contracts. But he said it only barely covered its own costs, making a return on years of investment unrealistic.

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Orda.kz, operating honestly without various “gray cash funds” and “blocks on negative coverage,” can make money through transparent advertising contracts, but it barely pays for itself. What kind of return on many years of investment could there be?

Ganiev said he had treated Orda as a business project from the beginning. He added that he did not intend to use the publication for “political games, spreading fake news or blackmail.”

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Political games, spreading fake news or blackmail

He thanked current editor-in-chief Anna Platonova and the editorial staff, and promised that the publication would fulfill its existing obligations and pay all employees in full. “And I will return to my work. And I will definitely never invest in media again,” Ganiev said.

The closure comes after the former editor-in-chief, Gulnar, also known as Gulshat, Bazhkenova, was convicted of misappropriating entrusted property, illegal entrepreneurship and spreading knowingly false information.

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And I will return to my work. And I will definitely never invest in media again.