Born: 27 March 1952 in the village of Georgiyevka in the Zharma District of Semipalatinsk Oblast

Married with two children

1974 -- completes studies at Pedagogical Institute in Semipalatinsk

1974-78 -- works as a concrete pourer, high-school teacher, serves in army, works as agent for external monitoring in KGB department in Semipalatinsk

1979-84 -- works as instructor, deputy department head, chief of Kalinin regional party committee

1985-87 -- works as chairman of Kirov regional executive committee

1987-89 -- student at leadership training structure at the Dzerzhinskii KGB higher school, then as representative in Creator cooperative in Moscow

1989-90 -- director of the Semipalatinsk kombinat on industrial works construction-decorative facade stone

1990 -- director of private company Toman

1990-92 -- general director at Semey Financial Industry Group

1991-93 -- deputy chairman of the Semipalatinsk oblast executive committee, head of oblast administration

July 1992-July 1996 -- chairman of presidential council of industrialists

December 1993-October 1994 -- first deputy prime minister

February 1993-February 1995 -- president of union of industrialists and entrepreneurs

October 1994-October 1997 -- prime minister

March 1998-October 1998 -- president SPPK, part-time adviser to Kazakh president

December 1998- present -- chairman of Republican People's Party

December 2001 -- member of political council of the Union of Democratic Forces party

1999 -- international warrant put out by Kazakh government

2001 -- tried in absentia and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment

Author of: "Kazakhstan: Economic Politics and the Period of Pressure from Inflation and the Stabilization of Production 1994-1998," 1996; "Kazakhstan: the Right of Choice" and "Conceptual Modeling of Economic Processes in the Conditions of Reform," 1998; "Kazakhstan in Conditions of Reform" and "The Modeling of Economic Processes," 1999; "Opposition for the Middle Ages," 2000.