Simple directory > Regional > Kazakstan

Country : Kazakstan Official name: Kazakstan Respublikasy (Republic of Kazakhstan) Head of State: President Nursultan Äbishuly Nazarbayev Head of government: Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov (appointed Jun 2003) Ruling party: Otan (Fatherland) party (since Oct 1999; re-elected 19 Sep 2004) Area: 2,717,300 square km Population: 13.89 million (2004) Capital: Astana (seat of government) (renamed May 1998; formerly called Akmola; inaugurated as the new capital Dec 1997); Almaty (formerly Alma Ata, commercial capital) Official language: Kazakh Currency: Tenge (T) = 100 tein (introduced Nov 1993) Exchange rate: T130.92 per US$ (Nov 2004) (currency was floated Apr 1999) GDP per capita: US$1,948 (2003) GDP real growth: 9.50% (2003) Labour force: 8.40 million (2003) Unemployment: 8.60% (2003) Inflation: 6.10% (2003) Oil production: 1.11 million bpd (2003) Balance of trade: -US$78.21 billion (2003) Foreign debt: US$6.60 billion (2003)

Historical profile

For centuries Kazakh nomads, a Turkic people ethnically close to the Uighurs of Xinjiang in China, dominated the vast steppe between Russia and northern China.

In the eighth century, Arabs invaded the region and introduced Islam.

In the thirteenth century, Mongol tribes led by Genghis Khan invaded Central Asia and became assimilated by the Turkic tribes that made up the majority in their empire.

From the eighteenth century, the khans of the three main Kazakhi Zhuzes, or Hordes, increasingly sought Russian protection against Oryat raiders from Xinjiang.

1854 The Russian garrison town of Verny, now Almaty, was established.

1916 A major anti-Russian rebellion was suppressed, with about 150,000 people killed and more than 300,000 fleeing abroad.

1917 Central Asian peoples were granted the right of self-determination by Lenin after the October revolution.

1920 Kazakhstan was granted autonomous status as part of the USSR.

1920s Soviet nationalities policy under the direction of Joseph Stalin saw Soviet rule enforced from Moscow by Red Army troops who put down Muslim revolts throughout Central Asia after the Russian civil war. Industrialisation and collectivisation of agriculture began. One million mainly nomadic Kazakhs died of starvation in the central government's campaign to enforce permanent settlements and build collective farms.

1936 Kazakhstan was granted full Soviet Socialist Republic status.

1954 Russian President Nikita Khruschev's 'Virgin Lands' scheme began. It brought agriculture to much of the Kazakh steppe and made the Kazakhs a minority in their own republic as Russian and Ukrainian settlers were sent to run the collective farms.

1961 The first manned spacecraft took off from Baykonur cosmodrome in central Kazakhstan.

1986 Riots in Almaty over the replacement of Dinmukhamed Kunayev (a Kazakh) with Gennady Kolbin (a Russian) as head of the Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Kazakhstana (KPK) (Communist Party of Kazakhstan) were the first signs of ethnic and nationalist unrest in Central Asia.

1989 Nursultan Nazarbayev, a Kazakh, was appointed leader of the KPK. Kazakh was declared an official language.

1990 Kazakhstan's Supreme Soviet appointed Nazarbayev as the country's first president.

1991 President Nazarbayev, who supported Gorbachev's efforts to keep the Soviet Union intact, was the last Soviet Republic to declare full independence. Kazakhstan joined the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), an association which grew out of the remnants of the Soviet Union.

1992 Kazakhstan became a member of the UN.

1993 A programme of privatisation began.

1994 The first multi-party parliamentary elections were held for a full-time professional legislature, the Kenges (parliament). Results returned a predominantly pro-Nazarbayev assembly.

1995 President Nazarbayev dissolved parliament following a ruling by the Constitutional Court that the 1994 parliamentary elections were invalid. A referendum endorsed the introduction of a new constitution.

1997 Kazakhstan's capital was moved from Almaty to Akmola, formerly known as Tselinograd.

1998 The new capital was renamed Astana. The constitution was amended to extend the presidential term from five to seven years and to remove the upper age limit for a president.

1999 Nazarbayev easily won the presidential election, brought forward from 2000. Parliamentary elections were criticised by international observers, who claimed there were serious irregularities. An attempt by ethnic Russians in north-east Kazakhstan to form a separate state failed.

2000 A law was passed granting Nazarbayev life-long powers and privileges. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan (formerly the Customs Five) established the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC). Internal security and border controls were increased following incursions by Islamic militants from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

2001 The country's first major pipeline running from the large Tengiz oil field to the Black Sea was opened. The government faced a political crisis when members of the cabinet resigned, claiming that not enough was being done to tackle corruption and promote democracy.

2002 Prime Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev resigned. Imangali Tasmagambetov, former leader of the Young Communists, was appointed prime minister.

2003 On 11 June, Tasmagambetov resigned as prime minister; the President appointed Daniyal Akhmetov to replace him. In September, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus signed an economic union treaty.

2004 Mangistau region, one of the most arid parts of Kazakhstan, was, most unusually, hit by a storm in the spring. President Nursultan Nazarbayev's Otan (Fatherland) party was re-elected in the 19 September Majlis elections.

2005 In January, Democratic Choice, one of the main opposition parties, was ordered by the court to be dissolved because it had encouraged protests against the parliamentary election results.

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