Following reports suggesting that granite slabs from the Big Almaty River embankment in Kazakhstan’s largest city were diverted to gravestone workshops, residents quickly turned the news into online humor.
Almaty resident Mukhtar Yerlan posted a satirical video titled «When I was walking along the Big Almaty River and chose a gravestone for myself.» In it, he tests slab durability, taps them, lies down and washes one before selecting his «future gravestone.» He scrawls his name and birthdate, omitting the date of death.
The video has drawn more than 235,000 views and plenty of tongue-in-cheek comments, including:
- «Choose from the top — it’s more elite.»
- «And there’s a future fence behind it.»
- «Wow, so we’ve been walking on our future slabs all this time.»
These jokes followed an earlier video by civic activist Sanzhar Bokaev. In that video, filmed at night, Bokaev documented slabs being hauled away from the river embankment and allegedly delivered to a tombstone workshop.
Authorities later confirmed the slabs had been stolen, and a criminal investigation is now underway.
