1993: the first Constitution, national currency and "Bolashak"

The year 1993 became one of the most economically important in the history of Kazakhstan. At first, the government decided to turn the people into a potential shareholder: to do this, people are given coupon books so that they can exchange them for shares, then the national currency is introduced in the country – tenge, which opens a new page in the history of the republic. Tengrinews.kz I remembered what else I remembered about 1993.

The first Constitution was adopted

The first basic law of sovereign Kazakhstan was adopted on January 28 at the IX session of the Supreme Council. According to the Constitution, Kazakhstan is a parliamentary republic: the powers of the president are limited, and the government reports only to people's deputies. The Kazakh language is now officially considered the state language. It had four sections, 21 chapters and 131 articles.

312 deputies of the Supreme Council participated in the adoption of the first Constitution, 309 deputies voted in favor, three abstained.

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev speaks in the Supreme Council.

In the evening of the same day, a solemn ceremony dedicated to the adoption of the first Constitution was held in the Supreme Council. Opening the ceremony, Chairman of the Supreme Council Serikbolsin Abdildin presented Nursultan Nazarbayev with the original of the new Constitution, and the director of the Central Museum - the original of the Constitution of the Kazakh SSR of 1978.

The issue of the newspaper "Egemen Kazakhstan", which reports on the adoption of the first Constitution of Kazakhstan. Photo by Asylkhan Mamashula.

January 28 became a state holiday — Constitution Day.

The main task is borders

One of the main events of this year was the adoption of the Law "On the State Border".

"There is no task more important than preserving the territorial integrity and independence of Kazakhstan," the First President of Kazakhstan said in his speech.

The state border of Kazakhstan was created almost from scratch, since neither the Kazakh Khanate nor the Kazakh SSR had legally formed state borders. The integrity of Kazakhstan has not been recognized by any international law. That is why it was very important to fix the Kazakh state border as "a line and a vertical plane passing through it, defining the limits of the territory - land, waters, subsoil and airspace."

This is the main message of the adopted Law "On the State Border", which entered into force on February 26, 1993.

The national currency appeared

The history of the tenge - the national currency of the Republic of Kazakhstan - began on November 15, 1993, according to the Decree of the President of the Republic "On the introduction of the national currency of the Republic of Kazakhstan" dated November 12, 1993. On November 15, 1993, new money was put into circulation in the ratio of 1 tenge - 500 rubles of the USSR.

The first batch of tenge was printed abroad, in England. The first change money - tiyn (1/100 part of tenge) - was made in the form of banknotes in face value 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 tiyn. The first coins were minted in Germany.

A big blow to the economy of the young Kazakhstan republic was the implementation of its own monetary reform in Russia: in August 1993, banknotes of the 1961-1992 model were withdrawn from circulation, new Russian rubles came into use.

Emergency measures were needed to revive the Kazakh economy, and on November 3, 1993, Nursultan Nazarbayev issued a decree on the establishment of a state commission for the introduction of the national currency.

As soon as they did not offer to name the future Kazakh currency. A suggestion was made – "altyn". Someone suggested using the name "som" for the designation – the Kazakh name of the Soviet ruble. Many approved it, but refused when the Kyrgyz used this name for their national currency in 1993. It was then that they remembered the idea of Sauk Takezhanov, who insisted that the Kazakh currency should be called "tenge". This word has Turkic roots originally from the Middle Ages. In wide use then there was a coin - "dengue", or "tanga", from which the Russian word "money" later came.

The "contract of the century" has been signed

One of the world's supergiant deposits, Tengiz, was discovered in 1979, and negotiations on attracting foreign investors to its development were conducted back in Soviet times. As a result, the choice fell on the American company Chevron, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the right to accept the terms of the contract completely passed to Kazakhstan. The negotiations were successful.

On April 6, 1993, an agreement on the establishment of the joint venture Tengizchevroil was signed in Almaty with the participation of the Managing Director of Chevron Corporation Kenneth Derr. On the same day, the President of Kazakhstan signed a decree "On the activities of the joint venture Tengizchevroil". The deal was called the "contract of the century."

"The American side has assumed all the costs of the development and construction of the field. The validity period of the concluded contract is 40 years. The area of joint activity is 4000 square kilometers. Initial financial investments – $ 1.5 billion. The total investment volume is $20 billion. The bulk of the oil will be exported. Total revenues over four decades will amount to about 210 billion dollars, while expenses - about 83 billion, including taxes and royalties, 80 percent of the estimated revenues will go to Kazakhstan. Over four decades, Tengiz plans to produce 775 million tons of oil, 32 million tons of propane, 55 million tons of light hydrocarbons, and 96 million tons of sulfur." The Contract of the Century gave a positive signal to other major oil companies, which at that time were just thinking about investing in Kazakhstan," the book "Kazakhstan's Way" says.

Tengizchevroila Production Complex

Privatization continued

In 1993, the most massive - the second stage of privatization and denationalization, which began from the first days of independence, started. Whereas 6,200 were privatized in 1992, 67 percent of the total population, or about 11 million people, participated mainly formally in 1993. As a result, 6,037 objects were sold, which brought about 9.5 billion tenge to the treasury.

Complete privatization of the public housing stock. This measure made it possible to form a wide layer of private owners owning real estate, which expanded the tools for its use, from simple living to various options for civil transactions, ranging from purchase and sale and ending with collateral, which ultimately had a positive impact on the development of economic relations in society.

Privatisation investment coupons

The program provided for four main areas of privatization:

Small privatization;
Mass privatization;
Privatization on individual projects;
Privatization of agriculture.

Small-scale privatization was supposed to cover enterprises that employed up to 200 people. The privatization of individual projects concerned very large enterprises with more than 5 thousand employees. In turn, mass privatization was decided to cover enterprises that employed from 200 to 5,000 people. The privatization of agriculture has concentrated on state farms.

Diplomatic relations

During 1993, Kazakhstan conducted an active foreign policy aimed at strengthening cooperation relations in all spheres, both with neighboring states and with developed, economically strong countries.

Kazakhstan's embassies are opening in 16 countries: Germany, Belgium, Hungary, France, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Egypt. The UN representative office starts its work in Almaty.

The President of Kazakhstan paid official visits that year to Belgium, Austria, Egypt, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, China and Mongolia. In turn, the Presidents of Armenia, Turkey, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria and France, the Prime Ministers of Ukraine and India, the Federal Chancellor of Austria and the US Secretary of State were received in the republic. At the meetings, issues of cooperation were resolved and agreements important for the young republic were signed.

On April 18, the World Economic Forum was held in the capital of Kazakhstan, which brought together more than 100 heads of the largest international and national companies, firms and banks from 30 countries of the world.

Creation of the Aral Sea Rescue Fund

The problem of the Aral Sea was inherited by Kazakhstan from the Soviet past. The active use of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya for many years for watering rice and cotton fields has led to the fact that the once fourth largest lake in the world has almost dried up. By the end of the 1980s, the Aral Sea had split into two parts - the Big Aral and the Small Aral.

On the initiative of Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan established the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea in 1993 in Tashkent. Over the years of its work, with the participation of the UN, OSCE, UNESCO and many other international organizations, projects have been implemented to solve social and environmental problems of the region.

The dried-up Aral Sea

The big Aral, unfortunately, could not be saved – now in its place is a desert called Aralkum.

Dinmukhamed Kunaev died

On August 22, 1993, Dinmukhamed Akhmedovich Kunaev, who headed the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR for almost 25 years and left his post in 1986, passed away. Over the years of his work, the republic has experienced a significant economic recovery.

In his era, the main sights of Almaty were built: the Palace of the Republic, the Medeu sports complex, the Baluan Sholak Sports Palace, the Kazakhstan, Alma-Ata hotels, a circus, an air terminal, and an airport.

Kunaev became the youngest senior executive of the republic in those years. Later, he was appointed to the post of President of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR, having worked there for three years, he returned to the Council of Ministers again, this time as chairman. In 1960, Dinmukhamed Kunaev became the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR.