Father of the Nation of Kazakhstan: Nazarbayev
The son of a poor herder who controlled the country for 28 years changed the name of the capital to commemorate his exploits
He took the initiative to destroy more than a thousand nuclear warheads, only to seek better cooperation between countries, free from sanctions by major powers, so as to get the greatest help for national development in the international community.
He has maintained more than 90% of the vote for four consecutive times, and has been able to successfully run for president.
During his administration, he led the people through many crises, greatly improved the lives of ordinary people, and led the country's economy to a new peak.
Of the Central Asian countries that emerged independent from the Soviet Union, his country was the most stable and had the best economic development, creating a national legend. Therefore, it was highly respected among the people, and the new capital of the country was named after him.
Today, let us step into the legendary world of the former President of Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan Abisevich Nazarbayev.
A herdsman's children are turned away from college
On July 6, 1940, shortly after the end of the Battle of France, and less than a year before the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union, Nazarbayev was born in a rural area of kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. This is the border region of Kazakhstan, next to China's Xinjiang.
The family lives in the village of Chemorgan at the foot of the mountain, but the whole village goes up the mountain to graze their cattle in the summer. In order to support the family's many children, Nazarbayev's father, as a herder, would also go out to work in his spare time, but his father's meager income was just enough to meet the family's living needs.
After the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, the German army invaded the Soviet Union on a large scale, and Stalin called for the whole Soviet Union to resist, so although the war did not burn to Nazarbayev's hometown, the Great Patriotic War also had a serious impact on Kazakhstan.
While everyone was serving the war, Nazarbayev's father faced even harder work to raise his son. It was such a difficult childhood that laid the foundation for Nazarbayev's character, that is, not afraid of hardships, not afraid of difficulties.
When he was 14 years old, his parents, who were living in poverty, had a vision to send their children, who had liked to learn from childhood, to receive cultural education in Russia at that time.
After graduating from high school, Nazarbayev's grades were excellent, and it was entirely possible to enter the Kazakh State University based on his grades alone. At that time, Nazarbayev, who was poor and had no background, faced with a very limited number of university places, he had no capital and no backstage to compete, and finally fell behind. But the poor boy, who had suffered so much since childhood, was not discouraged, he accepted this reality and chose another way out.
Two Steelworkers first entered the political arena
Due to the rout at the beginning of World War II, the Soviet Union urgently relocated factories in the western industrial belt, many of which settled in Kazakhstan, where the industrial base was extremely weak, and Temiritti in Karaganda Oblast, as a new industrial city, needed to build a large steel plant to meet the growing demand in the country.
Nazarbayev saw a recruitment message for a steel plant in the newspaper and could train the technology for free. Like his contemporaries, Nazarbayev had a passion and dedication to the country, and after graduation, he devoted himself to the work of a steel factory and became a steelmaker.
This seemingly glorious job, the working environment is extremely harsh, workers need to wear heavy protective clothing in the 40-degree high temperature workshop, in order to replenish the constant sweating salt, but also have to constantly replenish salt water. He remembered the hardships described in "How Steel is Made", and at this moment it was even more of a tribulation and tempering for him. It is because of this strong belief that he always believes that he is the best he can, and his position has undergone a rapid upgrade within a year.
In 1960, he became the secretary of the Youth League Committee of the whole factory, and with the promotion of the position, the salary was also rising, and in 1961 he already had a monthly salary of 400 rubles, which was a high income in Moscow. The abundance of goods in the factory stores is far above the national average, and this benefit can be regarded as the central government's compensation for the unfortunate events of 1959.
In 1962, he spoke at the 10th congress of the Kazakh Communist Youth League, where he dared to criticize the living conditions of steelworkers and raised a series of issues such as the shortage of resources for housing, vehicles, and hospitals. This allowed the public to see his appearance and eloquence. It was also in this year that Nazarbayev met his future wife, Sarah, and the two met at the steel mill, after which they married, and Sarah raised three daughters for Nazarbayev.
If nothing else, Nazarbayev, who was already a metallurgical engineer and had a ph.D. in economics, would continue to shine in the steelmaking industry.
However, his superiors had already discovered his political talent and asked him to serve as the secretary of the Youth League Committee of Themirtau City, a position he was reluctant to take at first became an excellent springboard for his political career.
Three Poor boys become president
In 1979, Nazarbayev was appointed secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, and since then, Nazarbayev has been active in Kazakh politics.
In 1989, Nazarbayev became First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan.
In 1990, as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and President, Nazarbayev successfully took over the party, government and military power in Kazakhstan.
However, the following year's "August 19 Incident" directly led to the downfall of Gorbachev and Yeltsin became the supreme leader of the Soviet Union. In the same year, the Allies, under the leadership and impetus of Tsar Ye, voted to withdraw from the Soviet Union, leading to the dissolution of the world's most powerful socialist country.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was no doubt a nightmare for the republics, with the ruble rapidly depreciating, the economy collapsing, extreme scarcity of materials, a brain drain, and a sudden chaos in the country. Kazakhstan, as a member of it, is also facing crises, even more serious. Although Nazarbayev traveled four times during this period, hoping to change the fate of the collapse of the Soviet Union, he finally had to accept this reality.
On December 16, 1991, Kazakhstan was the last Soviet state to declare independence, and Nazarbayev, the "patriarch of the five dynasties" who lived through five eras, including Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Gorbachev, became the first democratically elected president after independence with 98.7% of the vote.
This poor boy, born in the barbaric lands of the empire, finally stood at the peak of Kazakhstan's power.
Resolving the nuclear bomb issue and establishing effective diplomacy
For Nazarbayev, however, this is not the end, but a greater challenge.
Kazakhstan is located in Central Asia, is the only way to pass through the Eurasian continent, since ancient times has been a place of contention, and Kazakhstan covers an area of 2.725 million square kilometers, is the world's largest landlocked country, the importance of self-evident. In addition, the vast Kazakhstan also has rich resources, rich in minerals, oil and natural gas, only one country's GDP accounts for 60% of Central Asia, is the absolute big brother of Central Asia.
But just as the so-called tree is a big move, the importance of Kazakhstan has also attracted the attention of the United States.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, just like a large family separation, each member state will receive a share of property, and the biggest "legacy" of Saxon is the 1312 nuclear warheads stored here by the Soviet Union! This led to Kazakhstan becoming the world's fourth-largest nuclear-weapon state at the time, and that was what worried him. At that time, the current situation of the country was to have no money and no talent, the United States was looking at the tiger, and Russia stood idly by.
Weigh the pros and cons. Nazarbayev immediately contacted Yeltsin, saying that he could not afford these nuclear warheads, and very cleverly handed them over to the United States for destruction, which defused the crisis. This move by Nazarbayev has also received tens of billions of investment from the United States and has also been able to establish close relations with the United States.
With his personal friendship with Yeltsin, Nazarbayev also succeeded in establishing stable diplomatic relations with Russia.
Looking back at the 15 countries that became independent after the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of them stagnated or even fell into worse situations. In particular, Ukraine is caught in the situation of East-West division, and Russia's strong economic strength behind it needs to be improved.
But Kazakhstan, on the other hand, has developed very differently, and these are naturally inseparable from Nazarbayev's role. Diplomatically, Nazarbayev has been on the left and right, not breaking with Russia, but also not completely rejecting the West.
Nazarbayev's foreign policy is neutral, first of all, he focuses on Russia and all his Central Asian neighbors, building an economic community, and secondly establishing friendly neighborly relations with China, and vigorously developing domestic infrastructure with the help of China's strength. At the same time, the United States and other European and American countries have also maintained friendly relations and obtained the help of the United States.
In 2015, under his initiative, the Eurasian Economic Union was established, and its member countries include Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, all of which are important partners in the construction of the "Belt and Road".
The Alliance's goal is to achieve the free movement of goods, services, capital and labor within the Alliance by 2025 and to pursue a coordinated economic policy. In addition, many fields such as the military can also benefit from it. And that undoubtedly depends on diplomatic efforts.
Fifth, develop a market economy and lead the people to become rich
The economic trend of Kazakhstan since independence is roughly divided into three stages:
The period 1992-1994 was a period of sustained economic deterioration and a sharp transition of the economic system;
The period 1995-1997 was a period of economic crisis mitigation and economic stabilization; After 1998, it belonged to the recovery stage.
After solving the nuclear bomb problem, Nazarbayev focused on the development of the domestic economy, he studied and advocated a market-oriented economy, and once hired former British Prime Minister Blair as an adviser to the country's economic reform.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, post-independence Kazakhstan was built on a chaotic, depressed economic ruin.
Its economic indicators in 1993 fell by 12.9% compared to 1992, industrial output by 16.1%, agricultural output by 9.8%, and everything in the store that had some preservation value was snapped up.
Kazakhstan's economy is even worse, with GDP and industrial output only 74.8% and 71.9% last year. In 1994, Nazarbayev implemented an iron fist to gradually promote the privatization process, establish a market economy, and promulgate various policies to attract foreign investment. The privatization of small wholesalers and retailers has played a positive role in reversing commodity shortages. The implementation of foreign investment measures such as the establishment of joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned enterprises, the sale of shares in state-owned enterprises or the transfer of enterprises to foreign companies for management also have an immeasurable impact on increasing employment and revitalizing the economy.
Under the implementation of this series of policies, the macroeconomic situation in Kazakhstan has gradually improved, which is mainly reflected in the recovery of GDP and the containment of inflation.
Among them, the gross domestic product in 1996 and 1997 increased by 0.5 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively over the previous year, and the annual inflation rate fell from 11.3 per cent in 1994 to 11.2 per cent in 1997.
The cumulative GDP growth of Kazakhstan in 1999-2001 was 25.7 per cent, indicating that the Kazakh economy had survived the crisis and had turned to a period of stable recovery. Later, based on the abundant oil and metal resources, Nazarbayev identified the energy industry as the main oil and gas, as well as the mining and further processing of non-ferrous metals as the priority development direction, which promoted the further development of the Kazakh economy.
6. Move the capital to Astana to stabilize national unity
For a country, the two core factors that cannot be changed are the capital and the national territory. The capital is the most critical, the capital is definitely the most important political, economic and cultural collection of cities, the impact on the development of the country is huge, once the location is determined, it will not be easily changed, relocation is a considerable political measure.
In July 1994, at the initiative of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh Supreme Soviet passed a resolution on the relocation of the capital and established the Capital Relocation Committee. The capital was moved from Almaty, the largest city, and in the middle of the country, to Astana in the northern region.
In December 1997, the north-central Kazakh city of Akmola (Kazakh means "white grave", formerly known as Celinogler, restored to its old name Akmola after Kazakhstan's independence in 1991) officially replaced Almaty as the capital.
In May 1998, Nazarbayev signed an order announcing the renaming of the new capital, Akmola, to Astana (Kazakh for "capital"). Located in the Ili River Valley, Almaty is one of the few high-quality agricultural production bases in Central Asia and an extremely important industrial town in Kazakhstan, while Astana is nothing more than a small border town with a small population and insufficient facilities. Its label is the bitter cold place under the raging cold wind, the deserted place. At that time, many people did not understand and vigorously opposed it. But Nazarbayev was resolute and tried to move the capital to the house of representatives.
Judging from the results, Astana, which originally had a population of only 120,000, has now become a core city in the hinterland of Central Asia and even in the middle of Eurasia, with a population of more than one million, which can be described as a vicissitude, and it is precisely because of this decision that astana has led to this development. Looking back, Kazakhstan's greatest challenge was actually the national structure and the security of the northern territories.
First of all, Almaty is close to the border, without the geographical advantage of radiating the whole country; Secondly, the capital of Astana could strengthen the ability to control the Russian ghetto. Moreover, at the beginning of independence, the two major ethnic groups in Kazakhstan, the Kazakh and Russian ethnic groups, were roughly equal.
According to the data of the last national census of the SOVIET Union in July 1989, in the Kazakh Soviet Republic at that time, there were 6.54 million Kazakhs, the largest ethnic group, accounting for 39.7% of the total population of the country; The second largest ethnic group, ethnic Russians, has 6.22 million people, accounting for 37.8% of the total population of the country. However, north of Lake Balkhash, and especially in the three oblasts bordering Russia — Pavlodar Oblast, North Kazakhstan Oblast and Kktane Oblast – the ethnic Russian population is the majority.
The centripetal force and sense of belonging in the northern Russian-populated areas have become an urgent issue before the Government of Kazakhstan. However, the capital Almaty is located in the far southeast, and the distance from the capitals of the three northern states, Pavlodar, Kyzylzar and Kstanay, is 990 km, 1400 km and 1500 km respectively.
Nazarbayev once said: "One of the characteristics of Kazakhstan is that its main population, although it is the largest ethnic group, does not constitute an absolute majority of the population of the republic. "The ethnic structure of a country is crucial to the stability of the country, and most of the reasons why the existence of the Yuan Dynasty is only a flash in the historical torrent are also due to this." The stability of a country is the foundation of economic development, otherwise, there is no development, let alone anything else.
The change in the ethnic composition of the northern region is also a reflection of the "Kazakhization" of the entire Population of Kazakhstan. According to data published by the State Statistical Office of Kazakhstan.
As of January 2013, ethnic Kazakhs accounted for 64.6 percent of Kazakhstan's 17 million people and 22.3 percent of ethnic Russians. The proportion of the two ethnic groups in the total population of Kazakhstan has changed from basically equal at the beginning of the founding of the country to nearly three times that of kazakhs than ethnic Russians. Although there were pros and cons in the long run, it was indeed a stabilization of national unity at that time, so that the national strength could gradually strengthen in a stable environment.
On the other hand, the relocation of the capital has made the north an energy base, made the economy more coordinated, and made Astana the "Dubai of the East" and is famous all over the world.
Summary:
With his dazzling political achievements, Nazarbayev has held five elections in Kazakhstan, with the highest vote rate reaching 98% and the lowest not less than 95%. During the 28-year reign, he relied on his iron fist style to suppress the storm, greatly developed the domestic economy, stabilized national unity, and although there were "opposition" stirring up trouble in the West, with his own prestige and extensive support, the Westerners failed to make a splash in Kazakhstan.
In 2019, seeing Kazakhstan's economic prosperity and political stability, Nazarbayev resigned at the age of nearly 80. At this time, Kazakhstan's per capita GDP reached more than 9,000 US dollars, which was already upstream of middle-income countries, and he himself even put forward the future hope of entering the world's top 30.
In order to forever remember Nazarbayev's historical contribution, Kazakhstan has renamed the capital Astana to Nur-Sultan. This great leader is destined to go down in the annals of Kazakhstan's history. And his political means and governing strategies are also worth learning from.