Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called on the people of Kazakhstan to remember their “traditional customs” and said that men should not hug and kiss each other in public. The same, he said, applies to women.

“It’s not right when men start hugging and kissing each other, women kiss men, and men kiss women,” Tokayev told journalists. “This has never been part of our traditions,” he emphasized.

According to Tokayev, the people of Kazakhstan “need to remember their traditional customs.”

“Men should shake hands with each other and shake them firmly, rather than offering a hand like a warm cutlet or a twig, and greet each other with a smile, but no more than that,” he emphasized.

Tokayev also said that he had initiated the development of a “new code of conduct,” without going into further details.

Tokayev made his remarks about the need to return to “traditional customs” after voting in the parliamentary elections.