Kazakhstan, Astana, March 1 / Trend, D. Mukhtarov /
This year, Kazakhstan marks the 80th anniversary of Holodomor (famine), which killed 40 per cent of the population, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said at a meeting with students of Nazarbayev University.
"This year we mark the 80th anniversary of the Holodomor. If you remember, in 1929 - 1932, 40 per cent of Kazakhs died due to the forced collectivisation. If there was no famine in those years, Kazakh people today would number 40-50 million, "Mr Nazarbayev said. At present, the Kazakh population stands at about 16 million.
A day earlier, Astana Mayor Imangali Tasmagambetov laid the first stone of a monument to be erected in the capital remembering the victims of famine of 1930s.
Famine in the early 1930s killed seven to eight million people. It was a result of forced collectivisation in the USSR. The grain growing regions of the USSR - Ukraine, North Caucasus, Lower and Middle Volga region, most of the Central Black Earth Region, Kazakhstan, West Siberia and Southern Urals were among the areas most affected by the famine.