The first president of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev spoke about the renaming in his honor. He spoke about his position in the documentary “Strokes for a portrait. Personal” on the air of the Khabar TV channel.
According to Nazarbayev, he was against such decisions and forbade them while in office, however, such proposals came to him on every birthday. “How can the school [of the Kazakh poet] Abai, which I graduated, be renamed to my name? This is absolutely wrong,” he said. The only exception to the rule was the university, which was opened at the initiative of Nazarbayev himself.
In particular, the first president of Kazakhstan also mentioned the renaming of the capital of the state of Astana to Nur-Sultan. “I personally do not need this at all. Here are some, especially the leaders, think:” Here after me there will be such a memory. ” – he shared. In his opinion, the monuments erected during his lifetime indicate the uncertainty that the memory of a person will remain with subsequent generations. “Therefore, I would ask not to get carried away with this,” Nazarbayev concluded.
Astana was renamed Nur-Sultan in March 2019. The initiative came from at that time the acting head of the republic, Kasym-Zhomart Tokayev. The decision caused a public outcry.