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Whither Kazakstan? Changing Capitals: From Almaty to Aqmola/Astana*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Henry R. Huttenbach
Henry R. Huttenbach*
Affiliation:
The City College of New York, U.S.A.
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Extract

On 10 December 1997, accompanied by much pomp and fanfare, President Nursultan Nazarbaev triumphantly declared Aqmola to be the new capital of Kazakstan in accordance with a 1995 decree he had signed in Almaty. Henceforth, he ordered, all official state business would be transferred from Almaty to Aqmola as expeditiously as possible. Even more dramatic was the context in which President Nazarbaev chose to make the announcement, namely, in the company of the then Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomydrin. Clearly, the intention was, once again, to impress on Moscow Nazarbaev's determination to demonstrate specifically to Russia his personal commitment to transform Kazakstan into a genuine, independent post-Soviet state, or so one could interpret the timing of the event. But, before subjecting the long move from Almaty to Aqmola to further analysis, it might help to bring some perspective to the phenomenon of capital shifting, a practice that dates back at least to classical times.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , September 1998 , pp. 581 - 587
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

* Originally, during Russian imperial times, the town was named Akmolinsk in 1832. In 1961, the Soviets renamed it Tselinograd. With independence in 1991, it was called Agmola; and more recently, this was changed to Astana.Google Scholar

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