Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan (Kazakh. Қазақстан) is a country situated in Central Asia which shares it's border with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

This character is not the most popular but still known in the community.

Appearance
He has a rectangular head because his flag couldn't be completely drawn on a circle, though some artists have gone around that. He's often represented with two angel's wings.

Personality
He's calm, kind, helpful and firm. He cooks well, sometimes he gets nervous too, so when he does, it's better to run away. He can pronounce a sequence of unrelated information in one breath.

Flag Meaning
One of the standout features of this nation’s flag is the sun with 32 rays that sits above an eagle. The sun is a symbol of wealth and plenitude, as well as its importance as a source of energy and life. The rays of the sun are grain-shaped because of the nation’s abundance and prosperity. The eagle has long held a place in the history of Kazakh tribes, and it is used on the national flag to symbolize power, freedom and the future of the nation. The flag also features the “Koshkar-muiz” ornamental pattern along the hoist side. The colors used symbolize ethnic and cultural unity among the people of the nation, as well as nature (the sky and water.)

History
In the first half of the 18th century the Russian Empire constructed the Irtysh line, a series of forty-six forts and ninety-six redoubts, including Omsk (1716), Semipalatinsk(1718), Pavlodar (1720), Orenburg (1743) and Petropavlovsk (1752), to prevent Kazakh and Oirat raids into Russian territory. In the late 18th century the Kazakhs took advantage of Pugachev's rebellion, which was centered on the Volga area, to raid Russian and Volga German settlements. In the 19th century, the Russian Empire began to expand its influence into Central Asia. The "Great Game" period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. The tsars effectively ruled over most of the territory belonging to what is now the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The Russian Empire introduced a system of administration and built military garrisons and barracks in its effort to establish a presence in Central Asia in the so-called "Great Game" for dominance in the area against the British Empire, which was extending its influence from the south in India and Southeast Asia. Russia built its first outpost, Orsk, in 1735. Russia introduced the Russian language in all schools and governmental organisations.

Russian efforts to impose its system aroused the resentment by the Kazakh people, and, by the 1860s, some Kazakhs resisted Russia's rule. It had disrupted the traditional nomadic lifestyle and livestock-based economy, and people were suffering from hunger and starvation, with some Kazakh tribes being decimated. The Kazakh national movement, which began in the late 19th century, sought to preserve the native language and identity by resisting the attempts of the Russian Empire to assimilate and stifle them.

Following the collapse of central government in Petrograd in November 1917, the Kazakhs (then in Russia officially referred to as "Kirghiz") experienced a brief period of autonomy (the Alash Autonomy) to eventually succumb to the Bolsheviks′ rule. On 26 August 1920, the Kirghiz Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic(RSFSR) was established. The Kirghiz ASSR included the territory of present-day Kazakhstan, but its administrative centre wer a mainly Russian-populated town of Orenburg. In June 1925, the Kirghiz ASSR was renamed the Kazakh ASSR and its administrative centre wer transferred to the town of Kyzylorda, and in April 1927 to Alma-Ata.

Soviet repression of the traditional elite, along with forced collectivisation in the late 1920s and 1930s, brought famine and high fatalities, leading to unrest (see also: Famine in Kazakhstan of 1932–33). During the 1930s, some members of the Kazakh cultured society were executed — as part of the policies of political reprisals pursued by the Soviet government in Moscow.

On 5 December 1936, the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (whose territory by then corresponded to that of modern Kazakhstan) was detached from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, a full union republic of the USSR, one of eleven such republics at the time, along with the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic.

The republic was one of the destinations for exiled and convicted persons, as well as for mass resettlements, or deportations affected by the central USSR authorities during the 1930s and 1940s, such as approximately 400,000 Volga Germans deported from the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in September–October 1941, and then later the Greeks and Crimean Tatars. Deportees and prisoners were interned in some of the biggest Soviet labour camps (the Gulag), including ALZhIR camp outside Astana, which was reserved for the wives of men considered "enemies of the people". Many moved due to the policy of population transfer in the Soviet Union and others were forced into involuntary settlements in the Soviet Union.

On 25 October 1990, Kazakhstan declared its sovereignty on its territory as a republic within the Soviet Union. Following the August 1991 aborted coup attempt in Moscow, Kazakhstan declared independence on 16 December 1991, thus becoming the last Soviet republic to declare independence. Ten days later, the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist.

Kazakhstan's communist-era leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, became the country's first President. Nazarbayev ruled in an authoritarian manner, which some believed was needed in the first years of independence. Emphasis was on converting the country's economy to a market economy while political reforms lagged behind achievements in the economy. By 2006, Kazakhstan generated 60% of the GDP of Central Asia, primarily through its oil industry.

In 1997, the government moved the capital to Astana, (Astana was renamed Nur-Sultan on March 23, 2019), from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, where it had been established under the Soviet Union.

Geography
As it extends across both sides of the Ural River, considered the dividing line with the European continent, Kazakhstan is one of only two landlocked countries in the world that has territory in two continents (the other is Azerbaijan).

With an area of 2,700,000 square kilometres (1,000,000 sq mi) – equivalent in size to Western Europe – Kazakhstan is the ninth-largest country and largest landlocked country in the world. While it was part of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan lost some of its territory to China's Xinjiang autonomous region[42] and some to Uzbekistan's Karakalpakstan autonomous republic.

It shares borders of 6,846 kilometres (4,254 mi) with Russia, 2,203 kilo-meters (1,369 mi) with Uzbekistan, 1,533 kilometers (953 mi) with China, 1,051 kilometers (653 mi) with Kyrgyzstan, and 379 kilo-meters (235 mi) with Turkmenistan. Major cities include Nur-Sultan, Almaty, Karagandy, Shymkent, Atyrau, and Oskemen. It lies between latitudes 40° and 56° N, and longitudes 46° and 88° E. While located primarily in Asia, a small portion of Kazakhstan is also located west of the Urals in Eastern Europe.

Kazakhstan's terrain extends west to east from the Caspian Sea to the Altay Mountains and north to south from the plains of Western Siberia to the oases and deserts of Central Asia. The Kazakh Steppe (plain), with an area of around 804,500 square kilometres (310,600 sq mi), occupies one-third of the country and is the world's largest dry steppe region. The steppe is characterized by large areas of grasslands and sandy regions. Major seas, lakes and rivers include the Aral Sea, Lake Balkhash, and Lake Zaysan, the Charyn River and gorge and the Ili, Irtysh, Ishim, Ural and Syr Darya rivers.

The Charyn Canyon is 80 kilometres (50 mi) long, cutting through a red sandstone plateau and stretching along the Charyn River gorge in northern Tian Shan ("Heavenly Mountains", 200 km (124 mi) east of Almaty) at 43°21′1.16″N 79°4′49.28″E. The steep canyon slopes, columns, and arches rise to heights of between 150 and 300 meters (490 and 980 feet). The inaccessibility of the canyon provided a safe haven for a rare ash tree, Fraxinus Sogdiana, that survived the Ice Age and is now also grown in some other areas. Bigach crater, at 48°30′N 82°00′E, is a Pliocene or Miocene asteroid impact crater, 8 km (5 mi) in diameter and estimated to be 5±3 million years old.

Family

 * Azerbaijan — brother/sister
 * Kyrgyzstan — brother/sister
 * Tajikistan — sister-in-law
 * Turkey — brother/sister
 * Turkmenistan — brother/sister
 * Uzbekistan — brother/sister
 * Mongolia — wife (depends on the person)

Friends

 * Russia
 * United States
 * Ukraine
 * Belarus

Neutral

 * European Union
 * Iran
 * NATO