Kazakhstan: Soviet Union

Kazakhstan is a big and diverse country with one of the largest intact grassland ecosystems in the northern hemisphere, extensive deserts and elements of two of Asia's great mountain ranges - the Tien Shan and the Altai. With the fall of the former Soviet Union in 1991, the outside world realized that this country contained some of the most significant populations of wildlife that were rare in other parts of Europe and Asia. WCS began funding conservation-oriented research in northern Kazakhstan in 2000 beginning with Todd Katzner and Evgeny Bragin's research on eagles at the Naurzum National Nature Reserve. More recently WCS has ... funded research on Saiga antelope, whose populations are threatened with extinction due to over-hunting.

Source:

wcs.org

Stretching across Central Asia, Kazakhstan is a landlocked and mostly dry land. Flat in the west, it rises to high mountains in the east. More than a hundred ethnic groups live in Kazakhstan; 28 percent of the population is Russian—most live in the north near the Russian border. Second in size only to Russia among the former Soviet Republics, Kazakhstan contained the main Soviet test area for nuclear weapons. From 1949 to 1989 there were 456 nuclear blasts at the Semipalatinsk site, 116 in the air—this highly radioactive range was closed by the Kazakh government in 1991. Russia still uses the Baykonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the principal site for Soviet space launches and the world's oldest and largest spaceport.

Source:

nationalgeographic.com

Before the collapse of the USSR, Kazakhstan has a specialized role in its part of the Soviet Empire. Kazakhstan specialized in wheat production, metallurgy and mineral extraction. As a part of the empire, Kazakhstan could rely on a steady market of goods and energy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, this centralized plan obviously failed to continue, causing a decline in output for the Kazakhstan economy. After independence, the country faced severe recession that destroyed many industrial sectors, such as consumer goods. Industry declined from 31% of the GDP in 1992, to 21.2% of the GDP in 1996.

Source:

gocurrency.com

Kazakhstan has major reserves of copper, chromium, magnesium, titanium, zinc, and massive hydrocarbon reserves. It was a major exporter of raw materials and industrial goods during the Soviet era and these continue to be a major source of revenue. The breakup of the Soviet Union and elimination of demand for Kazakh products led to an economic collapse that persisted until 1997. Accelerated privatization and economic reform in 1995-97, supported by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, halted the slide and the Kazakh economy is now growing. In June 2003, Kazakhstan passed legislation allowing private ownership of land.

Source:

ncsj.org

In September 2002, Kazakhstan became the first country in the former Soviet Union to receive an investment-grade credit rating from a major international credit rating agency. Estimated level of external debt in 2005 was $41.66 billion. In 2004, Kazakhstan's gross foreign debt was about $26.03 billion. Kazakhstan has been successful in reducing the ratio of debt to GDP in recent years. In 2005, total governmental debt was $5 billion, which amounts to 8.9% of GDP. In 2000, total government debt equaled 21.7% of GDP.

Source:

state.gov

Subsequent to its independence, Kazakhstan found itself owner of one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals. The weapons of greatest concern were the 1,400 nuclear warheads on SS-18 ICBMs that remained in Kazakhstan when the Soviet Union disbanded. Kazakhstan ... had 40 Tu-95M long range bombers equipped with 320 cruise missiles. Although two other new states -- Ukraine and Belarus -- also possessed "stranded" nuclear weapons, the Kazakh weapons attracted particular international suspicion, and unsubstantiated rumors reported the sale of warheads to Iran. Subsequent negotiations demonstrated convincingly, however, that operational control of these weapons always had remained with Russian strategic rocket forces.

Source:

fas.org