Should Kazakhstan drop the 'stan'?

[Comte Arnau]

Should Kazakhstan drop the 'stan' to look richer than its neighbours? :mmmm:

[Annihilus]

What do you propose? I don't like the -stan either.

[Peyrol]

Don't know...ethnic kazakhs are inceasing fastly as ethnic group (they were under 50% in the 70s, now theire more than 70%), the state will be with turkic overwhelming majority up to 2050.

[RandoBloom]

Give it to Serbia. Serbistan sounds so economicaly viable :laugh

[Prisoner Of Ice]

Change the stan to stain.

[Comte Arnau]

What do you propose? I don't like the -stan either.

It's not me who proposes it, but their president.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A160HA20140207

[Damião de Góis]

They think that the -stan suffix is the reason foreigners show interest in Mongolia instead of their country. I would say it has to do with Mongolia's history and not the -stan, but ok.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...A160HA20140207

[Annihilus]

Don't know...ethnic kazakhs are inceasing fastly as ethnic group (they were under 50% in the 70s, now theire more than 70%), the state will be with turkic overwhelming majority up to 2050.

Yes but -stan does not stand for turkic does it? You have Pakistan Afghanistan etc, and Turks call Greece Yunanistan and Bulgaria Bulgaristan.

[Raikaswinþs]

FOSORK

Former Soviet Republic of the Kazakhs

[Vesuvian Sky]

It wanted to do this for the following reasons as discussed in another thread here:

1) Tourism - having '-stan' at the end of the your country's name these days is usually a deterrent for such.

2) Appropriate cultural context - Kazakhstan was never part of 'Bukhara' and even according to Soviet geographers is not 'Central Asia proper'. Rather Uzbek, Turkmeni- and Tajik '-stans' are actually central asia proper and ergo more deservingly should have '-stan' at the end of them since they are all tr00 Turco-Persian culture.

Since Kaz-stan really didn't have the same type of fusion between Persian and Turkic culture that the 'Bukharan' stans do, it therefore makes no sense to them now to retain the suffix - even though Koreans, Georgians, Russians, Armenians, and Pontic Greeks just to name a few were 'dumped' into that country during the Virgin land campaigns.

I've been both to Tajikistan and Kazakhstan (for work) and will say this much: they are indeed two very different cultures. So I can understand why Kazakhstan wants nothing to do with the 'Bukhara'. However, Kazakhstan isn't exactly like say Mongolia and isn't really all that 'traditional' partly due to Soviet influence.

I really don't think renaming the country is going to help tourism all that much per se. But I can understand wanting to distance itself from 'Bukhara' as it clearly doesn't belong in that cultural context at all real.