One of the most favorite holidays for the Kazakh people is considered New Year. This holiday was celebrated in the territory of Kazakhstan beginning from mid-XIX century when Russian migrants settled there.
Kazakhstan, officially known as the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a country located in Central Asia, with a small part of its territory in Eastern Europe.
Until the 1950s Astana (Aqmola), was a tiny mining town. Then Nikita Khruschev announced his Virgin Lands scheme to turn 250,000 sq km of Kazakhstan steppe into wheat fields.