ALMATY (Reuters) – Kazakhstan’s parliament voted on Friday to rename the capital to Astana three years after it was renamed Nursultan, a move that marks a new break with the ex-president’s legacy Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Astana (“capital” in Kazakh), which became the capital of the former Soviet republic in 1997, was named the following year.
In 2019, after Nazarbayev resigned, his successor Kassim-Jomart Tokayev renamed Astana to “Nursultan” (“Light of the Sultan”) in his honor.
Kazakhstan’s new president has since distanced himself from his predecessor, particularly since violent anti-government protests last January. Noursultan Nazarbayev and his entourage have been sidelined from the political scene and the state administration.
(Report Olzhas Auyezov, French version Lina Golovnya)
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