Everyone knows that girl’s favorite pastime is taking pictures of themselves with pouting lips. This trend is already so firmly established in everyday life that the inflated lips are popularly known as duckface. At the beginning of “fools” month, we asked the fairer gender to pucker their lips and consider which way is better – with the duck or without?

Within the home of Kostanai resident Eduard Knyaginin’s home live 50 dogs. He calls them his fur balls and spends all of his remaining money on food for the dogs. And Eduard is looking for other like-minded people. He dreams to create a nursery and raise hunting dogs.

Aktobe resident Ilya Tsbulskiy looks like your average guy. Spends time on the internet, talks to friends, goes to clubs. The only thing is that he always hides his hands in his pockets or wears gloves. Two years ago, a tragedy happened in Ilya’s life which changed him forever and forced him to start life anew.

The Vox Populi editors often receive requests to help raise money for this or that child. Usually, we gently turn them away because charity is our specialty and we can usually only help to special funds that are fully focused on such issues. But sometimes we make an exception as in the case of two-year old Liza Gracheva, who has acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

In order to raise the funds for a bone marrow transplant, on March 31 in Astana and April 6 in Karaganda will be a Liza Day concert with the slogan “Take the Armor off your Heart.” Already, more than 500 people have shown they aren’t afraid to take off their armor. Take the Armor off your Heart is just one more story of love and those for whom it is a guiding light. This story is told by Oleg Grachev, a simple citizen of the capital and a loving father.

Sex shops in our country are still perceived as something indecent or at the very least as unusual. Some people walk past such stores, lowering their heads. Others, on the contrary, go in without the slightest bit of shame and have fun looking around. But mostly people can’t allow themselves to go in, imagining that the shelves are stocked up with artificial body parts and devices that would help one to diversify or prolong pleasure.

To show and better understand the workings of a sex shop, Vox Populi offered two well-known Kazakh bloggers – Kairat Hurmagambetov (@iKairat) and Saniya Serikova (@serikava) the chance to work as sales associates for a day in one of Almaty’s largest sex shops.

The happiest part of Nauryz is watching changes in nature take place, like when winter, which recedes with difficulty, finally gives in to spring. And there’s nothing more pleasant than seeing the Steppe gradually begin to bloom while the sun shining brighter and the air becomes filled with scents of the awakening earth. In this collection of pictures you will see one of the best nature photographers, Konstantin Kikvidze, who has gathered pictures from several of his trips around the Karaganda and East-Kazakhstan regions and though they are taken throughout the year, you will never tire of admiring the beauty of our country.

Human trafficking is a billion-dollar industry and a global problem in the 21st century, still existing in practically every country around the world. Sexual exploitation and human trafficking in Kazakhstan have grown to appalling levels in recent years. Cases of slavery don’t happen just in the far off corners of our country, but also close to home, even in trouble-free Astana. For three years, the Komek Rehabilitation Center has been helping victims of labor and commercial slavery, protecting their rights and providing medical and psychological care.

In reality, Son Pascal isn’t an Englishman, but a 25-year old Italian who became fairly famous in his homeland and is trying to make it in the UK and, oddly enough, in Kazakhstan as well.

Who among us as a child didn’t dream about travels and adventures? But for most of us, they remained just that – children’s dreams. But there are people who have been able to make their dreams reality and go beyond everyday life and accomplish feats worthy of even Jules Vern’s pen.

Karaganda’s Sary-Arka airport is the biggest and perhaps the most beautiful of all the airports in Kazakhstan. But for all its modern technology and performance specs, Sary-Arka has one problem – it has almost no passengers. Vox Populi tried to figure out why the best regional airport is only used at 10% capacity.