Kazakhs Worried After Putin Questions History of Country's Independence

Moscow Times ^ | Sep. 01 2014 11:50 Last edited 11:51 | Anna Dolgov

[Zhang Fei]

President Vladimir Putin has said Kazakhstan's history of independent statehood is scant and its people's desire for closer ties with Russia is profound — a rhetoric reminiscent of Moscow's stance on Ukraine — and inhabitants of Kazakhstan are worried.

Kazakhs have taken to social networks to call for supporters to "send a history textbook to Putin" in response to the Russian leader's remarks last week that the Central Asian nation had never held any independence worth speaking of until very recently.

Kazakhstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev has "created a state on a territory that never had a state," Putin told a pro-Kremlin youth camp at Lake Seliger near Moscow. "Kazakhs never had any statehood, he has created it."

One history chapter of which Kazakhs may like to remind Putin is the independent Kazakh Khanate state, which lasted from the 15th to the 19th century before it was weakened by invasions, taken over by the Russian Empire, and later became part of the Soviet Union.

[GeronL]

lol. I was talking about surrounding countries but you could be right too

[MeganC]

When one makes a deal with the Devil there’s Hell to pay. Khazakhstan just opened their bill.

[Cen-Tejas]

As Clint famously said...........”they need to arm themselves”.............

[eleni121]

Putin is right as usual...wake up so called conservatives.