"Astana has been renamed as Nur-Sultan, as a tribute to former leader Nursultan Nazarbayev, who recently resigned. Astana replaced Almaty as the capital in 1997 and boomed from a minor provincial steppe town into a futuristic city. The name 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."

Source: www.aljazeera.com

St. Petersburg was the classic example of a forward capital that was renamed after the visionary leader responsible for that change.  The world now has another example of this phenomenon. 

 

GeoEd Tags: political, Central Asia, Kazakhstan.

Scoop.it Tags: political, Central Asia, Kazakhstan.

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