- Kazakhstan’s parliament Mazhilis on March 20, 2019 voted to rename the country’s capital Astana as Nursultan in honour of the former president Nursultan Nazarbayev.
- As per the Kazakh news agency, after a parliamentary vote Astana is now officially renamed Nursultan.
- Kazakhstan’s new interim president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed renaming the capital.
- Astana replaced Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty as the capital in 1997.
- The name of capital Astana literally means “capital” in Kazakh and there has long been speculation it could, at some point, be renamed after the leader who shaped it.
- Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev had resigned on March 19, 2019,
- He was the only man to lead the country since it emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s,
- 89 Years old Mr Nazarbayev had been largely unchallenged as leader of the oil-rich nation since 1989.
