4. Read the text “Astana – the new capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan».
On the 10th of December 1997, the city of Akmola has declared the capital of the sovereign Republic of Kazakhstan.
Akmolinsk was founded in 1830 as a military fortress. In 1862, it became the city of Akmolinsk because of its ever-growing importance as it was on the trading way from Tashkent to the Urals. During the October Socialist Revolution in 1917, Akmolinsk was a revolutionary center.
The famous Kazakh writer and poet Saken Seifullin lived and worked here. For a long time Akmolinsk was a small provintional town. Only in the period of virgin lands development Akmolinsk became to know all over the world. The whole Soviet Union helped our republic to build Akmolinsk became was renamed into Tselinograd. From 1962 to 1965 Tselinograd was the administrative center to Tselinnyi Region, which consisted of five Northern provinces of Kazakhstan. The wheat grown in the fields of these provinces was highly valued on the London stock exchange. In the Soviet time Kazakhstan produced I milliard pood of high quality wheat due to the virgin lands development.
At present many different branches of industry such as machine – buildings, food, consumer goods production and building materials industries are well developed and are further developing here. Wheat and cattle breading are also well developed. There are five universities in the city, among them the State Euro-Asian University named after N. Gumilev. There are two theatres – the Russian Drama Theatre named after Stanislavsky and the Kazakh Music Theatre.
Astana is a big center of automobile, railroad and air transport communication. It connects the Central Kazakhstan with its southern and western regions, with Siberia, Urals and Volga and other regions, Astana is on the banks of the Ishim River and its population is about 500 thousand people.
In 1997-1998 the Government House, the Parliament House, the Palace of Congress was reconstructed in Astana. The new President`s Residence and may new social buildings and dwellings were and are built here too. The Government of Kazakhstan started removing to the new capital in 1997. Astana is 1200 km away from Almaty. Akmola was formally renamed as Astana in May 1988. On the 10th of June 1998 the international presentation of the new capital – Astana took place. Astana will become the center, of business contacts, as it is situated in the center of the Asian Continent.
Nowadays Astana – is a big construction site and soon it will become one of the biggest and beautiful cities of the XXI century.