The Republic of Kazakhstan⁽²⁾ is second-largest of the countries that emerged from the demise of the U.S.S.R. (the Russian Federation, a/k/a "Russia" is the largest). Kazakhstan is more than five times the size of France, and more than one-third the size of the United States, but has a population of around 17 million. It includes the majority of what is called Central Asia in the United States. (See map) The majority of the country is steppe and desert, similar to the high plains and desert along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. The western deserts and Caspian Sea basin have large reserves of oil and natural gas. In the north and east are significant deposits of other natural resources, including coal, iron, silver, gold and many other metals, not to mention gemstones.

For at least three thousand years (and probably longer), portions of the overland trade route between China and the Mediteranean, known as "The Silk Road," crossed southern and western Kazakhstan, then swinging north or south around the Caspian Sea, or even further south into Iran or Afganistan.⁽³⁾ (See maps). During the same period, what is now Kazakhstan was in the path of great migrations of peoples and armies from north and west China and Mongolia toward the west, including the Huns who sacked Rome, the Mongols who conquered Russian and terrorized Europe during the Middle Ages, the Turks, Tatars, Alans, and many others. As a result, the Kazakh people have a mixed heritage, neither wholly asian nor caucasian. Most Kazakhs would not look out of place among Native American tribes such as the Navajo and those along the North American West Coast.

Before 1850, the Mongols of Gengis Khan were the most-recent conquerors-transients of Central Asia (see map) and, as Mongol power waned, the Kazakh people developed their own culture⁽⁴⁾ but retained the organizational structure of the Mongol "ordas"⁽⁵⁾. Until at least 1875, the Kazakh people were nomads divided into three ordas from east to west. During the Spring, groups and families would move slowly north to summer pasture lands. As Winter approached, they returned south toward the mountains that run along the southern edge of the steppe.⁽⁶⁾ The few cities in the area (Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara) were to the southwest of the nomad's range.

During the second quarter of the 19th Century, Central Asia was the scene of a struggle (generally not involving declared warfare) between the British Empire moving north from India and the expanding Russian Empire moving south and east from Eastern Europe.⁽⁷⁾ For the most part, the struggle was not so much to gain control of Central Asia for its own value as it was to deny it to the other. In the 1850s, the Russian armies moved across Central Asia, taking military control of the area; some Kazakh leaders cooperated with Russia while some mounted military opposition. The border that was the final result of the Great Game lies along the northern border of what is now Afganistan and Iran. (See map) The Soviet Union's more-recent interest in Afganistan was more or less a continuation of the Great Game. During the turmoil of the Communist Revolution, many local leaders in Central Asia attempted to establish independent countries but were ultimately unsuccessful. The area was incorporated into the Soviet Union in the early 1920s. Until the demise of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian countries were "semi-autonomous" republics of the U.S.S.R.

The wars of the early 20th Century and forced collectivization decimated the Kazakh population. Central Soviet policy encouraged ethnic Russians and other eastern European peoples to settle in the more-fertile areas of Central Asia. During World War II,⁽⁸⁾ entire industries and their workers were moved east, many into Central Asia, creating substantial heavy industry in Kazakhstan, particularly in the northeast near natural resources and around Almaty (then known as Alma-Ata). Significant portions of the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons development and testing took place in northeastern Kazakhstan, resulting in large areas of radioactive contamination.

Other Soviet policies had substantial ecological impacts. The "Virgin Lands Policy" of the Khrushev era (an effort to become self-sufficient in grain crops) resulted in further migration of ethnic Russian, Ukrainian and German peoples into the northern steppe. The farmers plowed under the steppe grasses that held the topsoil -- with much the same result as in the U.S. western plains, i.e. a "dust bowl" that blew away most of the topsoil. Another Soviet Union program was to become self-sufficient in cotton. A "cotton monoculture" was developed in parts of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Since the area is very arid, large amounts of irrigation water was/is needed to support the crops. The two rivers emptying into the Aral Sea (the primary rivers of Central Asia) were almost entirely diverted to irrigation. As a result, the Aral Sea is many meters lower than it was 100 years ago and may effectively dissappear within the next 20 years. A thriving fishing industry died. The land exposed as the sea retreated is covered with salt from the evaporation process. Areas lying east of the Aral Sea (in the path of prevailing winds) are becoming so salty that they will no longer support crops or native grasses. An international ecological organization is attempting to halt and reverse the process, but is having little success since the economy of Uzbekistan relies heavily on cotton production and export.

Kazakhstan's inheritance from the Soviet Union was not all negative. Cities, railroads, industry were established, and the space program at Baikanur (in west-central Kazakhstan) remains active. Of course the Soviet Union's administrative structure was also inherited, and the new republic's bureaucracy was staffed by substantially the same people as under the Soviet Union. The current President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazerbaev, was the head of the Republic's government when the Soviet Union collapsed and a multi-party political scene has yet to develop.

The Soviet Union policies mentioned above also resulted in the potential for inter-ethnic problems that plague many other areas in the former Soviet Union. Until the late 1970's or early 1980s, the Kazakh people were a minority in Kazakhstan. The largest ethnic group was Russian. Due to differences in birth rates, and some migration, the Kazakh group surpassed the Russians at some point in the last 15 to 20 years. After the demise of the Soviet Union, the ethnic Kazakhs have taken control of the government apparatus. Kazakh is now the "official language" while Russian (the native tongue of most Kazakhstani citizens) is the "language of inter-ethnic communication". Large numbers of non-Kazakhs have left the country, immigrating to Russia, Europe, Israel, Canada and the United States. Kazakhstan has lost a significant portion of its more highly educated and experienced people.

Kazakhstan's immense natural resources place it in a much better position than some of the other countries of the former Soviet Union. Billions of dollars in foreign money from the U.S., Europe and southern Asia have been invested in resource-extraction, primarily in the oil and gas fields. Unfortunately, Kazakhstan is "land locked" (the Caspian Sea does not connect with the world's oceans) and therefore oil and gas must be exported by pipeline. A number routes have been proposed, each with its own problems. The least challenging go through the southern part of the Russian Federation, which has demanded significant portions of the product or revenues for the privilege. The best trans-Russia routes go through Chechnya. Other routes go through the Caucasis Mountains (also like the U.S. Rocky Mountains), through Iran (not supported by U.S. policy), and across the breadth of Kazakhstan to western China (the longest). The lowering of world prices for oil slowed development.

The Kazakhstan government (primarily through decrees of President Nazerbaev) has tried to amend the laws inherited from the U.S.S.R. to meet the needs of a market economy. These new laws include various taxes,⁽⁹⁾ land ownership laws, and a revised Civil Code. The Civil Code (exerpts are in the course text) allow and support private enterprise, investment, and other economic activities that were inconsistent with prior ideology. However, it retains many vestiges of that ideology.

One of Kazakhstan's many challenges is tax collection (the same problem plagues the other countries that emerged from the U.S.S.R., including the Russian Federation). Under the Soviet Union, most people had sufficient economic resources (pensions paid monthly, yearly paid vacations to the Black Sea, etc). Those resources largely dissappeared with the Soviet Union. The new governments provide significantly fewer services while imposing much higher taxes, which does not seem rational to taxpayers. The new governments have no experience in collecting taxes and have had to create and develop tax-enforcement agencies. Kazakhstan is probably doing better in collecting funds than most or all of the other countries of the former Soviet Union, primarily because large amounts come from the sale of natural resources. However, it is probably collecting significantly less than half of the taxes owed.⁽¹⁰⁾ A large portion of the population prefers the way things used to be, not without reason.

ENDNOTES:

For a detailed account, see The Kazakhs, Martha Brill Olcott (2nd ed. 1995). Ms. Olcott's version is not totally consistent with local recollections/oral history, but it is a comprehensive ethnic history.

Also spelled "Kazakstan," depending on whether the name is transliterated from the Kazakh or Russian language. Both languages are presently written in the Cryllic alphabet.

Routes to the south of Kazakhstan, through Kyrgyzstan into Uzbekistan, were often more heavily travelled by traders, but the northern routes were better for invading armies.

The Kazakh language is a remnant of another invasion, and is closely related to the Turkish language. Kazakhstan and portions of the other modern Central Asian countries (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyz Republic, Turkmenistan, and China's Xinjiang province) were once known as Turkistan because the native languages are all Turkic.

"Orda" is obviously the source of the English-language word "horde". The administrative structure developed by Gengis Khan (one of his many achievements) divided his people into subgroups, each ruled by a son or other close male relative. Ordas were similar to the division of the Native American Sioux nation (i.e., its "Lakota" and "Dakota" branches).

The Tien Shan ranges rise abruptly from the steppe, much like the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The largest city in Kazakhstan, Almaty ("Alma-Ata" in Russian) is in the lower foothills. The altitude at Almaty is about 1,800 feet but less than 10 miles south (horizontally) is a line of mountain peaks ranging between 11,000 and 14,000 feet. The Tien Shan are the northerly extremity of the mountainous area that includes the Himalayas, Pamirs, Hindu Kush, and other ranges with India to the south and surrounding Tibet. Much of the fighting in Afganistan was/is in the Hindu Kush and Pamir ranges, south and west from the Tien Shan.

See The Great Game, Peter Hopkirk (1992).

Much as the U.S. moved ethnic Japanese from the U.S. West Coast to internment camps, the U.S.S.R. moved ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe into Central Asia and western Siberia, usually without providing even the rudimentary facilities of internment camps.

The U.S.S.R. imposed few taxes, principally because its economic system was a purely government operation and financial support for the bureaucracy was extracted from industrial production.

It is virtually impossible (at the present time) to collect sales-type taxes. The majority of the retail market is in the "grey market". Most food items are sold in "bazaars" where individual sellers may have a 3- to 6-foot space on a wide table, which is rented by the day, week or month. Much of the sales of other products (clothing, small electronics, etc.) are made by individuals who go to China or Oman, buy items and bring them back as luggage on airplanes. They then display their wares on sidewalks around the bazaars and at other locations. None of these sellers, obviously, have cash registers or other accounting means, and few have the required retailers' licenses.