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Article: Vegas of the East: Kazakhstan.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- March 7, 1992
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BY MOST of the usual measures, Kazakhstan ought to be one of the world's great powers. Its territory is five times the size of France. It has perhaps 2,000 deliverable nuclear warheads, 1,500 of them mounted on strategic missiles or long-range bombers. Beneath its vast deserts and stony plateaus are rich deposits of uranium, diamonds, gold, coal, oil and gas. Wheat and meat are produced in the more fertile virgin lands" to the north.
Before the Bolshevik revolution the tsarist conquerors of Alma Ata, the capital, called it Verny, which translates as loyal or faithful. Loyalty has remained the motto of Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, who has been the ...