Where in the World is Kazakhstan?

Before we began our adoption journey, we were not familiar with Kazakhstan, and have found that most Americans aren’t. This is probably due at least in part to the fact that Kazakhstan was a part of the former Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was known from 1936 to 1991 as the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.

We chose to adopt from Kazakhstan because of the quality of its orphan care, which is consistently good throughout the country, and the ability to adopt a younger child. In "Kaz", as the country is commonly referred to by adopting families, orphaned infants become available for international adoption after six months, and in our case, we will likely return home with our child when she is nine months old.





Kazakhstan is bordered by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and the Caspian Sea. A fact that may surprise you: Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world geographically, making it larger than all of Western Europe.

Here is a brief overview of more information we have summarized from Wikipedia.com:

Kazakhstan is very diverse in types of terrain: flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, mountains, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Its population is relatively small, clustered in cities, and totals 15 million.

Kazakhstan as a distinct entity actually dates back to the 1300’s when it was part of the Mongol empire. The Russian empire expanded to include what is now Kazakhstan in the early 1800’s, and Kazakhstan was ruled by the tsars until, after a brief period of “independence” after the fall of the Russian empire, Kazakhstan was taken over by the Soviet Union in the early 1900’s. After the dismantling of the USSR, Kazakhstan declared its independence in 1991.

Kazakhstan is ethnically and culturally diverse. Kazakhs are the largest group, followed by Russians. Kazakhstan allows freedom of religion, and many different beliefs are represented in the country. Islam is the primary religion, followed by Orthodox Christianity. The official language is Kazakh, though Russian is still commonly used for everyday communication.

Steve