Nursultan Nazarbayev: Kazakhstan’s Longtime Ruler

Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev has ruled the country since before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

In the decades since, Nazarbayev has walked a fine line between leader and oligarch.

Despite having amassed a fortune from several state run companies, Kazakhs still support him.

In fact, officials are busy erecting several Soviet-style statutes of Nazarbayev to celebrate Kazakhstan’s two decades of independence from Russia.

Reporter Steve LeVine, a Schwartz fellow at the New America Foundation, says Nazarbayev was a keen student of Soviet-era politics.