At the beginning of 2024, reports appeared on the RuNet about an experiment conducted by a blogger from Kazakhstan: he placed Russian and Ukrainian flags on the floor in a crowded place and filmed the reactions of passers-by. It is reported that, unlike the tricolor, not a single person raised the yellow and blue banner. We checked if this is true.
Dissemination of information about this experiment took place in two stages. On February 29, a 27-second video appeared on social networks, which was posted on the Telegram channel “Ukraine.ru” (151,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) was presented as follows: “In Kazakhstan, a local blogger decided to conduct a social experiment on the topic of respect for the Ukrainian flag - is there anyone who will pick it up from the floor? There were no such fools, and a couple of people also wiped their feet on a Bandera rag. Respect to the residents of Kazakhstan!” Similar posts appeared then in the channels “Angry journalist"(54,000 views), "Russia 2.0" (52,000), "Scout"(26,000) and Avia.pro (20,000), however, the video did not gain widespread popularity, receiving a total of only a few hundred thousand views on Telegram.
Two weeks later, on March 13, the story continued. “Recently there was a video of a Kazakh blogger conducting an experiment with the Ukrainian flag. No one picked it up, and they even walked over it. He did a new experiment today in the same place. With the Russian flag! — says the Telegram channel “Whisper from the front"(47,000 views). The newspaper "Arguments and Facts", recalling that the flag of Ukraine was not raised and was trampled, so described video about the tricolor: “In the 25 seconds that the video lasts, eight people rushed to raise the flag. Among them are both men and women. One of the men bent down to raise the flag, despite the fact that he was holding a child in his arms.” “Bravo, Kazakhstan! Ordinary people understand that the truth is with Russia,” added the Telegram channel “Russia now"(232,000 views).
Posts with a story about the difference in the attitude of Kazakhstanis towards the Russian and Ukrainian flags collected millions of views on Telegram. In mid-March, the channels “The world today with "Yuri Podolyak""(1.7 million views), "Uncle Slava"(184,000), Voblya (153,000), Rus_criminal (134,000), "First People's"(113,000), "Denazification of Ukraine" (72,000), "Angry journalist"(54,000), etc. The Tsargrad TV channel also wrote about the social experiment on its social networks (Telegram, "Zen", "VKontakte") and its subdivisions "Tsargrad.South" And "Tsargrad.Kazakhstan" The viral video was published in public pages on VKontakte (examples here, here And here) and in "Zene", on YouTube and some news websites.
Both viral videos were filmed in the same place, but, judging by the blogger’s different clothes, on different days. A recording of a Ukrainian flag circulating on RuNet shows how the author places a printed image of it on the floor, and then about 20 people walk past. Moreover, one woman kicked the flag to the side, and several other people, apparently, accidentally walked along it. A different situation was captured in the video with the tricolor: eight people actually raised the Russian flag, while less than a dozen walked past, and only one stepped on it without looking.
None of the resources mentioned above contain links to original publications. Moreover, not even the blogger’s nickname or the platform on which he posts his content is indicated anywhere. Using reverse search Based on the image, “Verified” found out that the author’s name is Baurzhan, and he uploads his videos to TikTok under the nickname Baurzhan. S..
Baurzhan’s page published several videos with similar social experiments: he tested whether Kazakhstanis would raise the flag of Kazakhstan, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Russia. A video about the experiment with the Ukrainian flag was published February 27 2024, and with the Russian one - March 4, they received 6.3 and 2.7 million views, respectively. The descriptions of the videos do not indicate where exactly they were filmed, but most likely the filming took place in the city of Stepnogorsk in northern Kazakhstan. This is indicated by the corresponding tags in previous videos (here And here), as well as local shopping centers included in the frame (here — shopping centerKazakhstan", here — shopping center Happy Mall).
However, the videos that went viral on RuNet turned out to be significantly shorter than the originals published on TikTok. Thus, the video about the Russian flag lasts 61 seconds, not 25. In its first half, it is shown only how people pass by the flag lying on the floor, and starting from the 30th second it is shown how passers-by stop and pick it up - “Verified” counted 15 such cases.
The situation is similar with the video about the Ukrainian flag: it also lasts a little more than a minute, not 27 seconds. In the first half of the video, people pass by, the second shows a selection of those who nevertheless raised the yellow-blue banner - we counted 17 people who did so.
In a conversation with Verified, Baurzhan said that he had already been sent cropped versions of his videos, which were distributed on social networks. “I’m simply outraged that there are such bad people who mislead and incite ethnic hatred. This social experiment carries only a patriotic and social meaning: that Kazakhstanis are for peace and clear skies above their heads. We treat everyone with respect, regardless of country or flag,” the blogger shared.
Thus, Russian pro-government media and the authors of large Telegram channels distributed only fragments of the original videos on the Internet. In fact, the original videos showed how residents of Kazakhstan repeatedly raised the flag of Ukraine. Moreover, according to two videos, in the case of the Ukrainian flag there were slightly more caring people in absolute numbers than those who raised the Russian flag - 17 versus 15. However, it is unknown what part of the material filmed by the blogger ended up in the final edit.
Cover photo: collage “Checked” / @baurzhan_89 (TikTok)
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