You'll be fine with them, my own experiences in Kazakhstan were that the various operators keep their old Soviet stock in good order, and crew and maintenance know what they are doing with them - the personnel are commonly high time and knew the equivalent types from air force days. SCAT have been around for quite some years now on various secondary operations which either add to or compete with Air Astana (the latter owned 50-50 by the Kazakh government and British Aerospace). The pictures above are of the equivalent Antonov 26 freighter. I'm guessing you are in Kostanay and from what you describe the Antonov will be landing on the parallel former military strip alongside the main runway.

The Antonov 24 is a good old Soviet workhorse, you actually find them at places around Western Europe nowadays operating for various freight package companies. They can regularly be heard transiting over London.

I flew on the Antanov yesterday and it was fine.

What was the cabin noise like in comparison to other western counterparts ? Glad that you arrived safely after your reservations (in both senses).