Born on 6 July 1940 to poor parents in the village of Chemolgan near Almaty, Nazarbayev's childhood was spent in poverty, with his father working on a state collective farm.
In spite of his harsh upbringing, Nazarbayev did well at secondary school and left with top grades, but still failed to win entry to the Kazakh State University in Almaty, which at that time was the country's capital city.
Some
