Some meetings end with everyone simply going home. Others are where something begins. The meeting on 27 September was one of the latter.
The hall brought together graduates of fourteen classes, from the very first, the class of 2013, to the youngest, who are still cadets. On the Zoom screen, windows lit up from Astana, Karaganda, Aktau, Uralsk, Atyrau, Taldykorgan, Moscow and St Petersburg. About fifty people in the hall and up to a hundred online at once. Parents came, teachers came, and so did officers who once commanded the Lyceum’s companies. The first head of the Lyceum admitted he had expected around sixty people.
Why the meeting was an “initiative” one
The meeting was opened by Vladimir Raikhel, Chairman of the Coordination Council of the Association. First of all, the hall stood for a minute of silence in memory of fourteen Naval Forces servicemen who had died a few days before the meeting. “Anyone who studied at Arystan is always, in one way or another, connected to the life of the Armed Forces,” he said.
Then came a brief history. The Association was founded in 2014, when the Lyceum had produced its first two classes: it had become clear that graduates’ lives after the Lyceum could not be left to chance. Curators for universities and garrisons appeared, annual conferences were held at the Lyceum, and in 2020 a regulation was adopted on rewarding the best and helping those in trouble. After 2022 the work almost came to a halt: in those years the Association was able to help five graduates with serious health problems, and that used up the entire accumulated fund.
«Graduating from the Lyceum is not an end in itself. The goal is deeper: to raise a true citizen of one’s country, someone able both to solve their own problems and to strengthen the Motherland and take part in its development.»
V. A. Raikhel
Vladimir Raikhel stressed that Arystan graduates are a force capable of benefiting the country in a wide range of fields, and this applies not only to those in service but also to those working in public administration, civil society and the economy. Those gathered did not yet have the authority to hold a conference, so the meeting was an initiative one: to exchange views, to understand whether graduates are ready to work, and to set a date for the conference at which decisions will be made.
A word from the first head of the Lyceum
The main speech of the day was given by Major General (Ret.) Sabit Taulanov, who was there at Arystan’s very beginning as its first head and is an Honorary Member of the Association. On 4 October it will be exactly four years since he left the Lyceum. He spoke for almost an hour, and the hall listened without interrupting.
«My heart still aches over how our graduates have settled in life, whether everything has worked out for them, whether the knowledge they gained at Arystan has proved useful.»
S. S. Taulanov
«The Arystan family cannot vanish without a trace. It is a small life, a wonderful life, and it must live forever. I am convinced of that. And all of it will depend on us.»
S. S. Taulanov
A few thoughts from his speech worth keeping.
- On the past. Forget all the bad things that happened and keep only the good in memory. “A family flourishes only when its members know how to forgive one another.”
- On two illnesses. Envy is “a very terrible evil.” And arrogance: “If you have flown high, remember that you can also fall very low. Remember your roots, remember your own Arystan.”
- On today’s lyceum students and those who work at the Lyceum now. “They are our family, remember that. They are Arystan people just the same. Heads come and go, but the children, the Lyceum and our home are eternal.”
- On the future. “Before you know it, another decade will pass, and many of you will be at the helm of the state. I truly believe that.”
- On unity. “We speak different languages, but we share one soul.”
- On being unique. Before the meeting he asked for a check on whether similar graduates’ associations exist in Kazakhstan. None were found; the only comparison would be the West Point alumni association.
- On pride. He held in his hands the first, “zero” reference badge of Arystan, ordered back when the Lyceum was being established. “I would like everyone to wear it and be proud to be an Arystan graduate.”
He spoke with pride about graduates of the first three classes, even though they left the Lyceum quite recently: a Boeing 737 captain, a fighter flight commander with twelve pilots under him, a senior lecturer at the country’s leading technical university who in 2024 was named among the world’s best specialists in his field and coaches the Kazakhstan national team, a battalion commander, a lecturer at a specialized academy. “And that is only from three classes. Beyond that, there are plenty more.”
And straight away he turned to those whose lives have been harder. “Out of the eighty people in each class, there are some who may have ended up without work. They are shy to get in touch, shy to come here. But they are still our lyceum students. We need to find them, help them and get them back on their feet.”
«If the periphery is strong, the centre is always strong. But if the centre struggles alone, nothing will come of it.»
S. S. Taulanov
In his words, the core unit of the Association is a class of eighty people. The initiative must come from below, from the classes, not be handed down from above. The principles everything rests on are voluntary participation, equality, the law and self-governance. “But most important of all are comradeship, brotherhood and respect for one another.”
He spoke separately and directly about money. The Association needs funds: rent for premises and an office, travel, rewards for graduates, congratulations. He suggested that those who can afford it contribute between 50,000 and 100,000 tenge by mid-2027, in instalments as convenient; those who cannot should give what they can, “even five tenge, nobody will be offended.” He was the first to contribute 100,000 himself. And he promised full transparency: who contributed, when and how much, and what it was spent on will be visible on the website, under the oversight of the Audit Commission.
«I do not need fame. I need to do good for the children who graduated from this Lyceum. That is why our work must be as honest as possible.»
S. S. Taulanov
He closed by thanking those without whom Arystan would not exist: the Lyceum’s founders Timur and Dinara Kulibayev, the Nursultan Nazarbayev Educational Foundation headed by Svetlana Murzabekova, and Board of Trustees member Daniyar Abilgazin. “Flying off, flying away and forgetting — that is not how it works. Remember who did this and how.”
The graduates spoke
After the roll call, representatives of the classes from 2013 to 2025 took the floor, and then the microphone was opened to everyone. More than twenty proposals were made, from the hall, from the Zoom chat and through the form on the website. Some were repeated by different people independently, which means these are shared concerns.
- Groups by city and garrison, so that people can find their own. Especially for young lieutenants who arrive at a new posting and know no one there. This proposal came up four times.
- Mentorship: older graduates guiding younger ones in admissions, studies and careers, and helping current lyceum students choose a profession. Also four times.
- Telling the stories of graduates’ achievements: “There is nothing to be ashamed of in talking about this; it is an honour.”
- Finding one another not by surname but by field: aviation, IT, law, medicine.
- Job openings from graduates for graduates. “This is not a labour exchange, it is cooperation,” the Chairman agreed.
- Video lessons by graduates in their own specialties. A Lyceum teacher called this “білім садақасы”, the charity of knowledge.
- An Association office in Almaty, and young graduates immediately volunteered to run it.
- Small-scale mutual support not only in hard times but in happy ones too: the birth of children, weddings, graduations.
- Help in developing the platform. Graduates who are programmers offered their hands.
Uncomfortable things were said too, and that is valuable as well. One graduate said that in the shared chats people sometimes ask for things that border on breaking the law. Sabit Taulanov backed him firmly: “Helping is possible and necessary, but there is no need to demand the impossible. The law must come first in everything we do.”
Not only graduates spoke
The mother of a graduate from the first class recalled how, fourteen years ago, she came to the selection straight from work and heard from the hall: “Your son has been admitted to the Lyceum.” She said she would be the first to contribute fifty thousand and was ready to help graduates as a lawyer. The family of a graduate from Karaganda promised support in word and deed: “We will never forget you.” A Russian language teacher who joined online said that whenever teachers meet, the first thing they talk about is the graduates: who got in where, who became what. And she was glad that this would no longer have to be gathered bit by bit.
There was a lot of gratitude that day: to teachers, to officers, to parents, to those who stood at the origins of the Lyceum. Perhaps that is the best proof that Arystan continues long after graduation.
Giving, not waiting
In the second half of the meeting, Askhat Adkhamov, class of 2017, presented the Association’s platform, arystan.org. It was built within a few weeks after Sabit Taulanov asked at an organizational meeting who would take on the website. One part of the site is open to everyone: about the Lyceum, the Association, the blog and projects. The other is only for verified graduates: a database of all classes, profiles, a feed, proposals. Places of service are not published anywhere, and everyone decides for themselves what others can see.
«We have to stop expecting this Association to give us something. The time has come for us to stand up and start giving of ourselves.»
A. Adkhamov
He admitted that he too used to see the Association as a body that existed “just for show.” And he spoke about the work ahead: it is unpaid and possibly thankless, so it can only be done from the heart. “We received a great deal. We can never fully repay our parents, and the second such unpayable debt is the Lyceum. We can repay it to those who come after us.”
«In physics there is a concept called entropy: any system tends towards disorder by default. But if we invest the energy of our hearts, our thoughts and our time into it, something will certainly come of it.»
A. Adkhamov
During his presentation, 55 people registered on the website. In the three days after the meeting, the number of verified accounts grew from 12 to 111, and today more than 240 of the 1,107 graduates in the database are on the site.
At the very end
Sabit Taulanov suggested not rushing: gather everything that was said, reflect on it calmly and present a work programme by 1 January 2027. He recalled how, as a young officer, he attended an all-army rally in the Grand Kremlin Palace, and shared his dream of holding the first rally of Arystan graduates. “We must dream about this. And it can be done when there are people like these.”
Then everyone went up on stage for a group photo: graduates, parents, teachers, and the first head of the Lyceum in the centre.
What has been done and what comes next
- A “Support” section has opened on the website: contributions are accepted under a public offer, and a quarterly financial report shows how much came in and what it was spent on, as promised at the meeting.
- A “Help in kind” section has appeared: a short form lets you offer mentorship, help with the website, legal support, or organizing meetings in your city.
- Graduates can now be searched by interests and fields, and a Telegram bot sends reminders about Association events.
- Ahead: coordinators from each class, an agenda for the Association Conference built from all the proposals received, a work programme by 1 January 2027, and the next meeting in one to two months.
If you have not yet found yourself on the website, start there: open your class on arystan.org. And if you have an idea, suggest it on the proposals page, which is open to everyone.
A family that must live forever lives only as long as people care for it. Now it depends on each of us.