Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Nazarbayev served as the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan from its independence in 1991 until his voluntary resignation in 2019. Born into a nomadic family in the foothills of the Alatau Mountains, he began is working life as a blast furnace steelworker before rising through the ranks to become a senior member of the Soviet Politburo and Leader of the Kazakh SSR.

As the founding father of modern Kazakhstan, he is recognised globally for his decision to renounce the world's fourth-largest nuclear arsenal and for closing the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. A visionary architect of his nation, he oversaw the construction of the new capital city, Astana, and the transition from a Soviet planned economy to a free market system.