The turning point was his appointment in 1972 to the post of secretary of the party committee of his native Karaganda Metallurgical Plant. In fact, he became the second person after director of the plant on a gigantic scale enterprise in Kazakhstan, where 30,000 people worked
It was a huge responsibility, the severity of which he soon felt in full. It was necessary to deal not only with party affairs, but also with production, production plans, issues of repair and construction, supply of the enterprise, household, housing, cultural and family affairs of many people.
Nursultan Nazarbayev worked for the good of the people, so he was always sure that they would support him. Together with the metallurgists, he climbed to the furnace, together with the miners descended into the tunnel. Therefore, Nazarbayev, without fear, entered into high offices and seeking justice there also "spoke straight from the shoulder". He was not a rabid critic, he always offered reasonable ways to solve problems, he persuaded with his arguments. Therefore, everybody listens to him carefully and agreed with him. The authority of the leader N. Nazarbayev was high primarily because he himself rose from the workers of the lower classes and was familiar with all the problems from the inside.
At the same time, he had a strategic sense, an interest in the future and everything new. The need for such an experienced and energetic staff in the country was enormous. That is why already in 1977, he became the secretary, then the second secretary of the Karaganda regional party committee.
He did not hide the flaws at the plant, and fought with them. As a result, at the plant things got better, Temirtau was rebuilt and ennobled.
In 1979, Nursultan Nazarbayev became the secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan. In 1984, he became the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR - the youngest, 44-year-old prime minister of a union republic in the USSR. But, despite the comparative youth, he was quite a mature statesman and politician.
From the height of his new position, he was fully able to realize the scale and tragedy of the distortions made in the development of his native republic. He sees that Kazakhstan has turned into a huge raw-material appendage of the Union economy.
That sixty percent of consumer goods are imported to Kazakhstan from other republics and the most urgent needs of the people of Kazakhstan were sacrificed in favour of the commodity nature of the development.
He saw that along with him the consciousness of other people was becoming clearer, the whole country was awakening. December of 1986 turned into the first Kazakhstan “spring”, which was roughly “frozen” by the Union center in the short years of G. Kolbin's leadership of the republic. But it was impossible to stop the passage of time. Changes were ripening. Events developed faster and faster.
In the spring of 1989, for the first time, alternative elections to the highest state authority were held in the USSR. In June 1989, the first congress of people's deputies of the USSR was held in Moscow, at which the need for reforms, problems of ideology and economics were vigorously discussed. Immediately after the completion of the Congress of People's Deputies, Gennady Kolbin was transferred to work in Moscow. On June 22, 1989, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR elects Nursultan Nazarbayev to the post of the first secretary: 154 among 158 participants of the plenum votes in his favour.
1984 Nursultan Nazarbayev became the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR
In July 1989, a miners' strike began in Karaganda, where, apart from economic demands, political demands were put forward - to close the Semipalatinsk testing ground. Nazarbayev actually supported the demands of the strikers - he was well aware of people's dissatisfaction with the monopoly of the central departments. He also passionately, like them, wanted the economic independence of Kazakhstan, the prohibition of harmful tests.
Democratic processes led to the creation of mass associations of working people in the republics of the USSR. One of the first and most popular movements in Kazakhstan was the environmental movement "Nevada-Semipalatinsk", created in the spring of 1989 and setting as its ultimate goal the closure of the Semipalatinsk and other polygons in Kazakhstan. This movement also received strong support from Nursultan Nazarbayev. His efforts, with the mass support of all Kazakhstanis, were crowned with unprecedented success — the final closure of the deadly Semipalatinsk testing ground.
On April 24, 1990, the Supreme Council of the Kazakh SSR establishes the position of the President of the Kazakh SSR.
At the session of the Supreme Council of the republic Nursultan Nazarbayev was elected as the first president in the history of Kazakhstan.
On December 1, 1991, the first nationwide presidential elections were held, during which Nazarbayev received the absolute support of his voters.
On December 10, 1991, the Supreme Council of the Kazakh SSR adopts a law on renaming the Kazakh SSR into the Republic of Kazakhstan and conducts the inauguration of the President of Kazakhstan.
On December 16, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR declared the state independence of the republic. Nursultan Nazarbayev becomes the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
A new era of independent Kazakhstan began.
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Our task was not to list in detail all the events and dates of the 25-year history of Independence of Kazakhstan and the corresponding period in the life of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the first President of the Republic.
About this difficult, hard and at the same time remarkable and in many respects fateful stage of his life, merged together with the 25-year history of the sovereign Republic of Kazakhstan, a great number of articles, books, monographs were written, it was reproduced on kilometres of film, now in gigabytes and terabytes on digital storage media. The most interesting of these sources are presented on our website.
We also present an extensive list of Nursultan Nazarbayev's works, his state awards and high titles on the pages of our site
1.12.1991
The First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan was elected