Kazakhstan wants to return the former name to the capital

The proposal of a group of deputies to include in the package of amendments to the Constitution of Kazakhstan a proposal to return the capital – Nur-Sultan – the former name of Astana, was approved by the President of the Republic, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

This was announced on Tuesday by the press secretary of the President Ruslan Zheldibay.

He said that during the June referendum on previous amendments to the Constitution, there were numerous appeals from citizens of Kazakhstan, on which the authors of the legislative initiative now rely.

“The proposal of the parliamentarians is included in the draft Constitutional Law with the consent of the head of state,” Zheldibai wrote on the social network. According to him, the project is under consideration by the Constitutional Council.

Tokayev, as Zheldibay noted, “considers the decisive role of Nazarbayev in strengthening the modern statehood of Kazakhstan and the formation of the capital as a historical fact.” Therefore, “other facilities named after the first president should retain their names.”

In May, Tokayev reprimanded the Kazakh ambassador to Egypt, who suggested that the republic get rid of the controversial names from the times of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, return the name of Astana to the capital, and rename Kazakhstan to the Kazakh State.

The capital of Kazakhstan was renamed Nur-Sultan at the suggestion of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in March 2019 in honor of the first president of the republic, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Astana was named in 1997 the city of Akmola, which became the capital of Kazakhstan. In Soviet times, it was called first Akmola, and then – Tselinograd. It received the name Akmola in 1992.

This summer in Kazakhstan, as a result of a referendum, amendments to the Constitution came into force, limiting the rights and powers of Nazarbayev and his relatives. The mention of Nazarbayev as the founder of independent Kazakhstan, the first president of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Elbasy (leader of the nation) and the invariability of his status was excluded from the Constitution.

In September, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev initiated new amendments to the Constitution.