Farewell, Nur-Sultan: Kazakhstanis have finally fallen out of love with their Elbasy

Events developed rapidly. The day before the vote in the republican parliament, the proposal to return the city to its former name was unanimously approved by the deputies of the Nur-Sultan maslikhat, the city representative body, and the citizens who took part in the public hearings held by the maslikhat on this issue.

The proposal itself arose in early September. The initiative was taken by the deputies of the parliament of the republic, members of the Zhana Kazakhstan (New Kazakhstan) group. The parliamentarians substantiated their proposal as follows: “We consider it wrong when a city is named after a person during his lifetime, besides, the people also did not accept the new name of the capital. Therefore, it will be historically fair to return the former name of the capital.”

And last Tuesday it turned out that the president of the country, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, was at the same time with the deputies. “The president has been informed about this initiative of the deputies,” Tokayev’s press secretary Ruslan Zheldibay said. “The proposal of the parliamentarians is included in the draft constitutional law with the consent of the head of state.”

Recall that the capital of Kazakhstan was named Nur-Sultan in March 2019. In honor of the leader of the nation, who had just left his post, the leader of the nation – such a title was officially borne by the first president of the country, Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev. Moreover, the initiative came from the same Tokayev, who so easily agreed with the parliamentarians today.

He voiced it right at his inauguration. “I consider it necessary,” Tokayev said then, “to perpetuate the name of our great contemporary, the first president of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev, as follows: our capital should bear the name of our president and be called Nur-Sultan!”

The idea was greeted with jubilation by the audience in front of which Tokayev spoke (delight was manifested by stormy prolonged applause and standing up), and other branches and branches of power – both the parliament and the city authorities. And if you believe the authorities – and the townspeople themselves.

“We are receiving letters from residents of the city, labor collectives in support of this initiative,” Bakhyt Sultanov, akim (mayor) of the capital of Kazakhstan, said in a speech to the deputies of the maslikhat in March 2019. “For example, I received a letter on social networks, one of the residents told me wrote that “the new name of the capital will be the beginning of new victories for the city. So he said that “a strong name is Nursultan.”

It should be noted that at that time the “strong name” was already quite familiar to Kazakh toponymy. For example, in the capital, the name of Elbasy has already been borne by the airport, university and school. In addition, the Museum of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan operated in Astana – and naturally continued to operate in Nur-Sultan.

The name of the first president is also immortalized in the names of streets and squares throughout the country – at least fourteen. Including, for example, in the name of the main highway of the largest city of Kazakhstan, Almaty: in 2017, Furmanov Street in Almaty became Nazarbayev Avenue.

What are the streets! The name of Elbasy is the fifth highest mountain peak in Kazakhstan (4330.9 meters above sea level), formerly called Komsomol Peak. Since 1998, it has been Nursultan Peak.

And the perpetuation was far from being limited to toponymy. The portrait of Nazarbayev adorns the banknote of 10 thousand tenge. His appearance is captured in many sculptural images – many bas-reliefs, busts and six large monuments. There were even more monuments not made by hands – books, poems and speeches praising the Elbasy.

Here, for example, were the speeches addressed to Nazarbayev six years ago at the congress of the ruling Nur-Otan party (renamed Amanat this year): “You are an activist who educates and protects all of us like chickens. You are a gift sent down to us by Allah!.. It would be possible to call each settlement after you, because it was you who breathed new life into them and poured new blood into them!.. Never before have the Kazakhs had such happiness, such a great time! “.

In general, the transformation of Astana into Nur-Sultan was by no means the first manifestation of popular love for the Elbasy, which, by all historical standards, took the form of a personality cult. Rather, on the contrary, the last such manifestation, the final act of love. The renaming of the capital became, so to speak, the swan song of the Nazarbayev cult.

What happened to the people of Kazakhstan – both with the “tops” and “bottoms”? Why did they fall out of love with their beloved Elbasy so quickly? No, nothing happened to them. In any case, nothing in the sense of national mentality. The mentality of the people does not change so quickly: what it was, it remains so. But with the object of worship there have been huge, truly fatal changes. Nazarbayev and his clan, the Nazarbayevs and Nazarbayevs, friends, countrymen and relatives, have completely lost their power in the three and a half years after the Elbasy left the presidency.

And having lost, they were convinced that that love was not at all sincere, determined solely by the “magic of power.” No power – no love. According to the same scheme, we recall, the parting of the Soviet people with the personality cult of Stalin took place.

The statues of the “leader of the peoples” really began to crumble almost immediately after the “exposure of the personality cult” that happened in February 1956 at the XX Congress of the CPSU. And then it was the turn of cities named after “father and genius.” In 1961, the former names of Stalinabad (Dushanbe), Stalinsk (Novokuznetsk), Staliniri (Tskhinvali) were returned. Stalingrad and Stalino (before the renaming – Tsaritsyn and Yuzovka) received new names: Volgograd and Donetsk.

And four years before that, in 1957, a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR appeared, strictly forbidding “appropriation to territories, regions, districts, as well as cities and districts in cities, towns and other settlements, enterprises, railway stations, to collective farms, institutions, educational institutions and organizations of the names of state, socio-political figures, scientists and cultural figures during their lifetime.

From now on, naming could be done “only posthumously in order to perpetuate the memory of especially prominent statesmen, socio-political figures, defenders of the Motherland, heroes of labor, scientists and cultural figures, and only in exceptional cases at the request of state and public organizations, labor collectives and citizens.”

And until the collapse of the Soviet Union, this practice remained unchanged. The last settlement renamed in honor of the deceased Soviet leader was the city of Sharypovo (Krasnoyarsk Territory): on April 27, 1985, it became Chernenko. However, not for long. Already in 1988, its former name was returned to it.

Sharypovo was not the first city to be renamed during perestroika. The year before, in 1987, the historical names of Naberezhnye Chelny, which were christened Brezhnev in 1982, and Izhevsk (from 1984 to 1987 – Ustinov) were returned. And then the process only gained momentum.

In 1989, Rybinsk (Andropov), Mariupol (Zhdanov), Ganzha (Kirovobad) returned to the map; in 1990 – Vladikavkaz (Ordzhonikidze), Lugansk (Voroshilovgrad), Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky), Tver (Kalinin); in 1991 – St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk), Samara (Kuibyshev), Sergiev Posad (Zagorsk), Bishkek (Frunze), Khujand (Leninabad) …

But as we can see, rumors about the death of the Soviet tradition of perpetuating the names of leaders in geographical names turned out to be greatly exaggerated. After the collapse of the USSR, the tradition was revived – although not on the same scale, but in its original, original version, when cities, streets and mountain peaks are given the names of living, acting leaders of the state.

This cup has not passed and Russia: 22 streets in the country bear the name of the current head of state. The most famous of them is Vladimir Putin Avenue in Grozny. But in Central Asia this process, of course, took on a much larger scale. There the bill goes to the cities.

The undisputed leader of this post-socialist competition is Turkmenistan. During the life of the first president of the country, Saparmurat Niyazov, who bore the titles of Turkmenbashi (in translation – “head of the Turkmens”) and Serdar (“leader”), the city of Krasnovodsk (since 1993 – Turkmenbashi), the city of Kizyl-Arvat (became Serdar ), the Oktyabrsk settlement (now the city named after Saparmurat Turkmenbashi), the Tazebazar settlement (now the city of Niyazov).

In addition, two cities, Kerki and Yylanly, were named after Niyazov’s father and mother – Atamurat and Gurbansoltan-Eje, respectively. Atamurat, however, has already been renamed back to Kerki.

In Tajikistan, two villages are named Rahmonabad – in honor of President Emomali Rahmon, who has been heading the country since 1992. And the glorification of “the founder of peace and national unity – the leader of the nation” (the official title of Rakhmon) is unlikely to be limited to villages. “Requests from the working people” are multiplying to give the name of the president to one of the major cities.

However, the case of Nur-Sultan is unique even against this background. This is the first time in the post-Soviet space when the country’s capital is named after the “leader of the nation”. And the first, when both renaming and renaming, and the apotheosis of the cult of personality, and its collapse, took place in front of the one in whose honor the city was named. Nursultan Nazarbayev, like no one else, can say about himself: “I have seen everything.”

Is there a guarantee that Astana, which is already undergoing the fifth renaming in its history (Akmolinsk – Tselinograd – Akmola – Astana – Nur-Sultan – Astana) will not be renamed again – for example, to Kassym-Jomart? No, there are no guarantees yet. And there are even fewer guarantees that this tradition will not be continued in other states that have appeared on the site of the collapsed USSR.

But one can be firmly convinced that such perpetuation in any case will not last forever. No matter how great and beloved the leader may seem, sooner or later a “godfather” will come who will announce that the Father is not a father at all, but … And he orders to throw off the statues of the Father and rename the cities, avenues and mountains named after him.