September 8, 2026 · 4 min read
Why a language center in a village, and not in Shymkent
The obvious move was a room in the city. Here is the reasoning for Koksayek instead, including the parts that are inconvenient.
Koksayek has around fifteen thousand people. Roughly four thousand of them are school age, which is a lot of children for a place with no English center in it. Shymkent, up the road, has dozens.
That is the whole argument, and it is worth being honest that it is an argument about supply rather than about virtue. A family here who wants their child to learn English properly has been travelling to the city twice a week, or not doing it at all. Most were not doing it at all.
The inconvenient parts are real. A village center has a smaller pool to hire from, so for now Airim teaches every lesson herself. It has fewer families who can pay city prices, which is why the price is quoted per student rather than printed. And it will never have the walk in traffic a city center gets, which is why half of what we do is online.
The online half is not a compromise. It is what makes the room viable: the same teacher and the same syllabus reach a student in Shymkent, in Almaty or abroad, and those lessons are part of what keeps a village classroom open. A student at the table and a student on the screen are in the same lesson, not two tiers of one.
The other reason is simpler and harder to put in a business plan. Airim grew up around here. The children she is teaching are from families she knows. A center in the city would have been an easier business, and a different one.