Buoyed by oil revenues, Kazakhstan’s economy had by 2019 grown almost eightfold since 2000. Nazarbayev has been an adroit balancer among the great powers—Russia and China and the United States. He also sought balance at home. A majority of the country is ethnic Kazakh, but 25 percent are ethnically Russian and Ukrainian, largely in the north of the country; and he worked to maintain the domestic balance, including establishing in the middle of the country the new capital city.
