A new Kazakh magazine featuring legendary figures hit the newsstands in July, and there are no prizes for guessing who graces the inaugural issue. Yes, that’s right, it’s the Leader of the Nation himself, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, smiling down at readers from the front cover.
The picture, showing a young, handsome Nazarbayev with a jaunty air, was snapped when he was starting out in his career as a steelworker in Soviet Kazakhstan. “How did a guy who was an ordinary steelworker become president?” asks the caption.
Naturally, the magazine, which is called Legendary Person and has no online version, goes on to explain Nazarbayev’s rise to the dizzy heights of power. There are plenty of personal reminiscences, including one by his brother Bolat Nazarbayev, along with commentaries by politicians and cultural luminaries. One highlight is an article tracing Nazarbayev’s genealogy to the famous 17th-century warrior Karasay Batyr.
The Kazakh-language magazine is lavishly illustrated with photos showing the president in different lights. On a serious note, there he is being sworn in as president and shaking hands with world leaders. But he’s also a family man – a proud father at the graduation of his daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, or playing with his grandchildren in a field. He enjoys the lighter side of life, too – the pictures show him wielding a fishing rod, a tennis racket and a traditional dombyra instrument with equal skill.
The magazine highlights the president’s musical talents by publishing lyrics to songs he has penned personally, including the national anthem Menin Kazakstanim (My Kazakhstan), which he co-authored. The lyrics are splashed on a colorful page showing fireworks exploding over Astana, the capital he founded. Another song featured is an ode to Ushkonyr, written by Nazarbayev in 2001 as a tribute to the beautiful summer pastures outside Almaty, from where his family hails.
“Oh, my Ushkonyr, land of my birth, my land where the ray of mercy has settled,” goes the chorus to this song, which was recorded by the popular MuzART group and became a hit in Kazakhstan. “Oh, my Ushkonyr, my mountain cradle, your name is always in my heart.”
Future issues of the magazine will feature the 18th-century leader Abylay Khan, who united the Kazakh tribes as a precursor to statehood, living Kazakh poet Olzhas Suleymanov, Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and first leader of the modern Turkish state, Ataturk, with whom Nazarbayev’s supporters like to compare him.
Who’s been chosen as a suitable follow-up for Nazarbayev? Genghis Khan, the Mongolian conqueror who united the nomadic Asian tribes to forge a successful empire. There must be a lesson in that somewhere.
Joanna Lillis is a journalist based in Almaty and author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan.
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