Married with three children

Born: 6 July 1940 in the village of Chemolgan, Kaskelen District of Almaty Province

1960 -- finishes studies at Dneprodzerzhinsk Technical Institute

1960 -- starts work as unskilled laborer at Kazmetallurgstroi in the city of Temirtau, Karaganda Province, then works casting iron for machines before becoming furnace man at blast furnaces at the Karaganda Metallurgical Plant

1965-69 -- dispatcher, then gas fitter, then senior gas fitter of furnace system at the Karaganda Metallurgical Kombinat

1969-73 -- first secretary of the Temirtau City Committee Komsomol, second secretary of the Communist Party's Temirtau City Committee

1973-77 -- secretary of the Communist Party Committee of the Karaganda Metallurgical Kombinat

1977-79 -- secretary, second secretary of the Karaganda Oblast Party Committee

1979-84 -- secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakh SSR

1984-89 -- chairman of the Council of Ministers of Kazakh SSR

1989-91 -- first secretary of Communist Party of Kazakh SSR

1990-91 -- member of the Central Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

22 February 1990-23 April 1990 -- chairman of Supreme Soviet of Kazakh SSR

24 April 1990 -- elected president of Kazakh SSR

1 December 1991 -- elected president of Republic of Kazakhstan in first national presidential elections; running unopposed, receives 98.7 percent of votes cast

30 April 1995 -- referendum approves extension of Nazarbaev's term in office until 2000; 91.3 percent of eligible voters take part; 95.4 percent vote "for" extension

10 January 1999 -- wins 81.7 percent of the vote in presidential elections


Miscellaneous:

October 1997- May 2001 -- chairman of CIS Customs Union of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia, and Belarus

Since May 2001 -- chairman of Eurasian Economic Community (formerly the CIS Customs Union)

1972 -- Order of Honor (Russian, "Znak Pochyota")

1980 -- Order of the Red Banner of Labor (Russian, Trudovogo Krasnogo Znameni")

1996 -- Golden Eagle (Kazakh, "Altyn Kyran")

2001 -- Peoples Hero (Kazakh, "Khalyk Kakharmani"; Russian, "Narodniy Geroi")


Author of books:
"The Conditions of Intensification Are Most Important," 1983; "A Steel Profile of Kazakhstan," 1985; "The Economy of Kazakhstan: Realities and Perspectives of Formation," 1988; "Without the Right and Left," 1991; "The Strategy of the Formation and Development of Kazakhstan as a Sovereign State" and "The Strategy of Resource Conservation and Transition to Kazakhstan's Progress," 1992; "The Ideal Consolidation of Society as a Condition for Kazakhstan's Progress," 1993; "The Market and Socio-Economic Development," 1994; "On the Threshold of the 21st Century" and "Five Years of Independence," 1996; "Lessons of History and Contemporary Times," "Kazakh-Russian Relations," "Kazakhstan 2030: Prosperity, Security, and the Improvement of the Well-Being of All Kazakhstanis," and "The Eurasian Union: Goals, Practices and Perspectives," 1997; "A Word About Native People" and "About Time, About Fate, About Myself," 1998; "In the Stream of History," 1999; "The President and the Parliament," "We Are Building a New State. Works and Speeches," and "The Strategy of the Transformation of Society and Rebirth of Eurasian Civilization," 2000; "My Home Country Is My Support," "Epicenter of the World," and "Ten Years Is Equal to a Century," 2001.