INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightGetty ImagesThe capital city of Kazakhstan has had a name change - and some people in the country are not happy
At his swearing-in, on Wednesday, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced the change, from Astana to Nursultan, "in honour of the first
President", Nursultan Nazarbayev, who served in the role for nearly 30 years
Parliament then adopted a law making the renaming official.And on Thursday, at 11:00 local time (05:00 GMT), about 20 people attended a
protest rally in the city, nearly all of whom, according to the Russian news agency Interfax, were then arrested
Meanwhile, an online petition asking the president, parliament and the ruling Nur Otan party not to rename the capital without "legitimate"
discussions with its people followed by "fair and open voting" has been signed by more than 36,000 people in the past 24 hours
You may also be interested in: The vast majority of the more than 4,000 users of news website Nur.kz's Facebook page to have voted in its
poll also oppose the idea.Bakhytnur Otarbaeva also wrote on Facebook: "Good morning everyone
I am scared of reading the news
Is our country still called Kazakhstan" Those who oppose the change have even invoked British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's fictional Kazakh
journalist, Borat.Andrei Grishin posted Borat's photo with the comment: "In Borat's Kazakhstan there was far less craziness than in the real
country."Skip Facebook post by AndreiВсе-таки в боратовском «Казахстане» маразма было куда
как меньше, чем в его прототипе
Зато наш определился со своим End of Facebook post by AndreiImage copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
Nursultan Nazarbayev (L) had a close working relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Social media
users in neighbouring Russia have also been mocking the name change, by adding "Nursultan" to popular film titles
Twitter user @1kle_ included Bohemian Nursultan and Avengers: Age of Nursultans among their suggestions
While others, after a report appeared in business newspaper RBC, suggested the story may inspire the Russian authorities to rename Moscow
after President Vladimir Putin Twitter user @velirav posted: "I somewhat anxiously expect suggestions to rename Moscow to Vladimir." While
@elzadj asked: "I wonder if St Petersburg is to be renamed as St Putinsburg" The capital of Imperial Russia, St Petersburg was renamed
Petrograd in 1914, then Leningrad after the death of Vladimir Lenin, in 1924, and back to St Petersburg after the fall of the Soviet
Union.The idea of giving the the Kazakh capital Nazarbayev's was originally proposed in 2016 to mark the 25th anniversary of Kazakhstan's
independence from the former Soviet Union.In the former Soviet Union, now Russia, authorities changed the name of Königsberg to
Kaliningrad, after Mikhail Kalinin, one of the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution
Also, Stalingrad became Volgograd after Stalin's death in 1953In Germany, Karl Marx Stadt became Chemnitz in 1990, after the country's
reunificationMore than 100 cities in India have changed their names since the end of British rule, including Madras to Chennai
Most recently, Allahabad was renamed Prayagraj, apparently to restore its ancient identity as a major Hindu pilgrimage centreThe capital of
the Democratic Republic of Congo was renamed in the 1960s from Léopoldville, named after a Belgian king, to Kinshasa, the name of a village
that existed in the same areaIn Mozambique, the capital was named Maputo following the country's independence in 1975
Until then, it was known as Lourenço Marques, after the Portuguese navigator
