Nazarbayev

Personal life

Nazarbayev is married to Sara Alpysqyzy Nazarbayeva. They have three daughters: Dariga, Dinara and Aliya. Aliya's first marriage was notably to Aidar Akayev, the eldest son of former president of KyrgyzstanAskar Akayev, which for a short period made the two Central Asian leaders related. Having grown up in the Soviet Union, Nazarbayev is fluent in Kazakh as well as Russian and understands English. He has two brothers, Satybaldy (1947–1980) and Bolat (1953–2023), as well as one sister named Anip. On 16 August 2020, Nazarbayev's grandson, Aisultan, reportedly died from cardiac arrest in London. Prior to that, Aisultan made several public statements on social media that Nazarbayev was his biological father and that his life was constantly threatened. He also accused his grandfather's associates of plotting and scheming. In response, Nazarbayev described Aisultan as being very similar to himself, expressing his regrets by telling that "one could not have sent him anywhere, but it was impossible to keep him. He was already a slave to this work and could not stop. We treated him in Moscow, and we treated him in London. It seems that I went out and came back to it again."