Protests against the increase in the price of gas grew into a revolt against the autocratic regime.
This is how revolutions begin – symbolically with the overthrow of monuments. In Kazakhstan it is no different than in Iraq or anywhere else as a beacon for an overthrow. In the economic metropolis of Almaty, demonstrators tugged a statue of Nursultan Nazarbayev with ropes in order to tip the “father of the nation” from the pedestal and thus end an era that had an impact after his departure from the Nazarbayev system and his handpicked successor Tokayev.
The potentate had shaped Kazakhstan for 30 years, from the late phase of the Soviet Union to his resignation in 2019, and ruled at will in the vast Central Asian steppe empire between Russia and China, helped himself and his clan to a fortune, left his mark everywhere with his ostentation – until towards the renaming of the capital Astana in Nursultan.