HISTORY IN BRIEF

The Kazakhs are a Turkic-based, nomadic people group with a sweeping history that evokes memorable images of ancient civilizations, enduring trade routes, and a struggle to maintain an independent destinyremains steeped in mystery.

But what does it mean to be Kazakh? What exactly is the origin of this fiercely independent people, and how have they achieved their current status as one of the most attractive investment options in Asia the world today? The land was known to be occupied by Scythians ("Saks") from the fifth century, B.C.

The word "Kazakh" means a free and independent nomad in the ancient Turkic language. By the mid-sixteenth century, this word was clearly used to describe a distinct people living on the steppes of Central Asia. A significant part of Kazakhstan's engagement with the world is found on the paths formed by the Silk Road from the third century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, loose collections of clans and tribes formed political unions called Khanates. As the population and livestock holdings grew, disputes led to the formation of separate Hordes, also known as Juzes, or Hundreds.

The continuously expanding periphery of Russia's outermost boundaries brought it into constant contact with various peoples on the borderlands. A Russian intervention under Empress Anna Ioannovna, in the years following Peter the Great's rule, brought parts of Kazakhstan under Russian control. By 1848, the last of the three Hordes was subsumed under Russian control, and by 1880, Russian expansion covered all of Central Asia.

Kazakhstan was eventually brought under Soviet rule after the Bolshevik Revolution, even though its national elites had been guaranteed autonomous status by the Bolsheviks in return for shifting their alliance away from the Whites. The collectivization of agriculture under Stalin brought hardship to Kazakhstan, causing millions to die of starvation as well as other parts of the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders after Stalin pursued a variety of measures to develop Kazakhstan in science and agriculture, Under Khrushchev, the Soviets began the "virgin lands" campaign, which was designed to increase agricultural yields in Kazakhstan; built the Baikonur Cosmodrome for space launches, ; and pursued industrial development in Kazakhstan's cities. Spectacular gains were seen in education, which resulted in near-universal literacy. During the Soviet period, intermarriage between Hordes was encouraged in order to reduce clan-based distinctions, but many of these distinctions have since become significant in interpersonal and business relationships.

Kazakhstan Today: President Nursultan Nazarbayev was elected first President of Kazakhstan in December of 1991 and was most recently re-elected in January 1999 for a seven-year term of office. Kazakhstan in the 1990's improved its banking, pension, insurance, and tax laws in successive waves of post-Soviet market-oriented reform. With the veil of Soviet secrecy withdrawn, Kazakhstan worked diligently to obtain direct foreign investment in a variety of industries, but with particular emphasis on the oil and gas sector. Projects at the Tenghiz and Karachaganak oil fields, as well as the offshore field at Kashagan in the Caspian, bode well for international petroleum supplies as well as Kazakhstan's bottom line economic growth, which witnessed GDP increases of more than 10% for each of the past two years, and over $17 billion dollars in foreign investment to date. Aside from oil and gas, Kazakhstan is also rich in agriculture, precious metals, aerospace, and skilled labor. As its oil and gas sector grows, enthusiastic investors from other sectors are expected to join their colleagues in the energy sector, particularly in the development of infrastructure.

Kazakhstan's status as a market economy, granted by the U.S. Department of Commerce in March 2002 - and the first of any former Soviet state to achieve this distinction - is an important step forward. Over the next several years, Kazakhstan can look forward to a bright future in which it is expected to gain permanent normal trade relations with the United States, WTO membership, multiple Western pipeline routes, and final resolution of legal issues in the Caspian. During a December 2001 visit of President Nazarbayev to Washington, D.C., President Bush thanked Kazakhstan for its support in the war on terror. The two leaders signed an Energy Partnerships Declaration, and in a Joint Statement have declared their commitment to a "long-term, strategic partnership between our nations, and a shared vision of a peaceful, prosperous and sovereign Kazakhstan in the 21st Century".