Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Is Kazakhstan a slavic state?
Slavs are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group who speak the various Slavic languages of the larger Balto-Slavic linguistic group. They are native to Eurasia, stretching from Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe all the way north and eastwards to Northeast Europe, Northern Asia (Siberia), the Caucasus, and Central Asia (especially Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) as well as historically in Western Europe (particularly in East Germany) and Western Asia (including Anatolia). From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit the majority of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Today, there is a large Slavic diaspora throughout North America, particularly in the United States and Canada as a result of immigration.
On January 2005 President of Russia Vladimir Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev signed an agreement approving an official map of the border. On May 23, 2009, the two countries placed their first boundary marker on the border between Kazakhstan’s Atyrau and Russia’s Astrakhan provinces. The demarcation is expected to take 10 to 15 years to complete.
Kajkavian is spoken in North Croatia, including the capital Zagreb, as well as in a few enclaves in Austria, Hungary, and Romania. Though its speakers are ethnic Croats and Kajkavian is thus generally considered a dialect of Serbo-Croatian, it is closer to neighboring Slovene than it is to Chakavian or Shtokavian. The Kajkavian area of Croatia is bordered on the northwest by Slovene language territory. It is bordered on the east and southeast by Shtokavian dialects roughly along a line that was the former division between Civil Croatia and the Habsburg Military Frontier; in southwest along Kupa and Dobra rivers, it persisted in ancient (medieval) contact with Chakavian dialects.
Turkic languages refer to the lake as "Khazar Sea". In Turkmen, the name is , in Azeri, it is , and in modern Turkish, it is . In all these cases, the second word simply means "sea", and the first word refers to the historical Khazars who had a large empire based to the north of the Caspian Sea between the 7th and 10th centuries. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called , "Kaspiy teñizi" (Caspian Sea).
, negotiations related to the demarcation of the Caspian Sea had been going on for nearly a decade among the states bordering the Caspian – Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. The status of the Caspian Sea is the key problem. Access to mineral resources (oil and natural gas), access for fishing, and access to international waters (through Russia's Volga river and the canals connecting it to the Black Sea and Baltic Sea) all depend upon the outcomes of negotiations. Access to the Volga River is particularly important for the landlocked states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. This concerns Russia, because the potential traffic would use its inland waterways. If a body of water is labelled as a sea, then there would be some precedents and international treaties obliging the granting of access permits to foreign vessels. If a body of water is labelled merely as a lake, then there are no such obligations. Environmental issues are also somewhat connected to the status and borders issue.
Chechen ( , ) is a Northeast Caucasian language spoken by more than 1.4 million people, mostly in the Chechen Republic and by members of the Chechen diaspora throughout Russia, Jordan, Central Asia (mainly Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan), and Georgia.
Strikingly different interpretations of the medieval state of Kievan Rus' appear in the four schools of historiography within Ukraine: Russophile, Sovietophile, Eastern Slavic, and Ukrainophile. The Sovietophile and Russophile schools have become marginalized in independent Ukraine, with the Ukrainophile school being dominant in the early 21st century. The Ukrainophile school promotes an identity that is mutually exclusive of Russia. It has come to dominate the nation's educational system, security forces, and national symbols and monuments, although it has been dismissed as nationalist by Western historians. The East Slavic school, an eclectic compromise between Ukrainophiles and Russophilism, has a weaker ideological and symbolic base, although it is preferred by Ukraine's centrist former elites.
It appears that there were various small changes to the border in the following decades. Many older maps show a slightly different boundary in the Kara-Kum desert, with a large triangular protrusion of Uzbek territory into what is now Kazakhstan’s Kyzylorda Region ("see map right").
The CIS-Election Monitoring Organisation () is an election monitoring body that was formed in October 2002, following a Commonwealth of Independent States heads of states meeting which adopted the "Convention on the Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights, and Freedoms in the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States". The CIS-EMO has been sending election observers to member countries of the CIS since this time; they approved many elections which have been heavily criticised by independent observers.Russia has been urging that the Russian language receive official status in all of the CIS member states. So far Russian is an official language in only four of these states: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Russian is also considered an official language in the region of Transnistria, and the autonomous region of Gagauzia in Moldova. Viktor Yanukovych, the Moscow-supported presidential candidate in the controversial 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, declared his intention to make Russian an official second language of Ukraine. However, the Western-supported candidate Viktor Yushchenko, the winner, did not do so. After his early 2010 election as President Yanukovych stated (on 9 March 2010) that "Ukraine will continue to promote the Ukrainian language as its only state language".
For almost all of her history, the territory of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan was a part of the various Iranian/Persian empires or Persianate empires, specifically during the reign of dynasties such as Median, Achaemenid, Parthians, Sassanid, the Shirvanshah, various dynasties of the Iranian Intermezzo, the Kara Koyunlu, the Ak Koyunlu, the Safavids, the Afsharids, the Zands, and the Qajars. The South Caucasus, in general, has been influenced by Iranian culture for thousands of years. In the course of the 19th century, following the occupation of the Caucasus by Russian troops during the Russo-Persian War (1804-1813) and Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), Qajar Iran was forced to cede what is now Azerbaijan, alongside Georgia, Dagestan, and Armenia to Imperial Russia under the terms of the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay. Due to historical, cultural, ethnical, and religious ties, the Republic of Azerbaijan is considered as a part of Greater Iran.
The Christianisation of the Slavic peoples was, however, a slow and—in many cases—superficial phenomenon, especially in what is today Russia. Christianisation was vigorous in western and central parts of what is today Ukraine, as they were closer to the capital Kiev, but even there, popular resistance led by "volkhv"s, pagan priests or shamans, recurred periodically for centuries. Even though the Byzantine Christianization firstly has slowed down the Eastern Slavic traditions in Rus', it has preserved the Slavic traditions in the long term. While local Slavic figures and myths, such as Baba Roga in Croatia were forgotten, Slavic culture continued to exist and even flourish in the Eastern Slavic countries. In the case of a Christian Latinization of the Eastern Slavic countries, this may not have been the case.
Kosovo is a secular state with no state religion. The freedom of belief, conscience and religion is explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution of Kosovo. Pristina has always been considered as a city where tolerance and coexistence in terms of religion and culture has been part of the society in the last centuries.
Kosovo does not have an official religion. Like the rest of the country, the majority of Pristina's population consider themselves to be Muslim. However, most do not actively practice Islam, nor do they attend mosques or the religious services required by their religion. Many, however, do fast for Ramadan. and praying is widely practiced.
It is considered that the Czech-Polish Croatian tribes were related to the Croatian tribes from Zakarpattia and Prykarpattia in Ukraine. They became separated during the migration period and seemingly formed one large Proto-Slavic tribe. It is theorized that the migration of those (White) Croatian tribes in the 7th century was the second and final Slavic migratory wave to the Balkans, which is related to the thesis by Bogo Grafenauer about the double migration of Slavs. According to this thesis, although it is possible that some Croatian tribes were present among Slavs in the first Slavic-Avar wave in the 6th century, it is argued that the Croatian migration in the second wave probably was not equally numerous to make a significant common-linguistical influence, while others considered they arrived in a significantly larger number. Zdenko Vinski and argued that the double migration thesis is supported by the rare findings of objects and ceramics of Prague-Korchak culture on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia which were dated to the end of 6th and beginning of the 7th century (indicating first wave Slavs), and did not make a continuity with Slavic archaeological findings from the 8th-9th century, indicating assimilation. The Croatian tribes are also seen as a warrior group who assimilated into already present Slavs. In the territory of present-day Croatia they also gradually assimilated with the Pre-Slavic population because archaeology indicates a significant continuity of late antiquity population which have partially withdrawn to the mountains, coastal cities and islands.
The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS; ), also sometimes called the Russian Commonwealth in order to distinguish it from the Commonwealth of Nations, is a regional intergovernmental organization of 10 post-Soviet republics in Eurasia formed following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has an area of 20,368,759 km² (8,097,484 sq mi) and has an estimated population of 239,796,010. The CIS encourages cooperation over economical, political and military aspects and has certain powers possessing coordinating in trade, finance, lawmaking and security. It has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention.
Belarus–Ukraine relations (, "Byelaruska-ŭkrainskiya adnosiny", , "Ukrains'ko-Bilorus'ki vidnosyny", , "Belorussko-ukrainskiye otnosheniya") are foreign relations between Belarus and Ukraine. Both countries were successively ruled by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Second Polish Republic, and ultimately, the Russian Empire. Prior to the 1991 breakup, both countries were part of the Soviet Union as the Belarusian SSR and Ukrainian SSR when they were the founding members of the United Nations in 1945. Being Slavic nations, both Belarus and Ukraine share closely related cultures and are predominantly inhabited by the East Slavic ethnic groups of Belarusians and Ukrainians respectively, along with a few Russians. Today, the two countries share an 891–km border.
Before 1918, both countries were part of Austria–Hungary. However, after the Ausgleich of 1867 Czechia belonged to the Austrian Empire while Slovakia belonged to the administratively separate Kingdom of Hungary, and between 1918 and December 31, 1992, both countries were part of Czechoslovakia. 
Both countries established diplomatic relations on January 1, 1993. These international relations are usually referred to or described as "very good", "cordial", and "above standard" in the media. When a Czech or Slovak president is inaugurated, very often his first international visit is to the former part of the common country. The same custom applies to newly elected prime ministers of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Slovakia is a landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava.
During the 1930s, there were significant numbers of ethnic minorities living within the Ukrainian SSR. National Districts were formed as separate territorial-administrative units within higher-level provincial authorities. Districts were established for the republic's three largest minority groups, which were the Jews, Russians, and Poles. Other ethnic groups, however, were allowed to petition the government for their own national autonomy. In 1924 on the territory of Ukrainian SSR was formed the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Upon the 1940 conquest of Bessarabia and Bukovina by Soviet troops the Moldavian ASSR was passed to the newly formed Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, while Budzhak and Bukovina were secured by the Ukrainian SSR. Following the creation of the Ukrainian SSR significant numbers of ethnic Ukrainians found themselves living outside the Ukrainian SSR. In 1920s the Ukrainian SSR was forced to cede several territories to Russia in Severia, Sloboda Ukraine and Azov littoral including such cities like Belgorod, Taganrog and Starodub. In the 1920s the administration of the Ukrainian SSR insisted in vain on reviewing the border between the Ukrainian Soviet Republics and the Russian Soviet Republic based on the 1926 First All-Union Census of the Soviet Union that showed that 4.5 millions of Ukrainians were living on Russian territories bordering Ukraine. A forced end to Ukrainisation in southern Russian Soviet Republic led to a massive decline of reported Ukrainians in these regions in the 1937 Soviet Census.
The primary and official language of Azerbaijan is Azerbaijani, Azeri, a Turkic language closely related to and partially mutually intelligible with Modern Turkish. Together with Turkish, Turkmen and Gagauz, Azerbaijani is a member of Oghuz branch of southwestern group Turkic language family. Although Azerbaijani is used in the Republic of Azerbaijan, South Russia (Dagestan) and Northern Iran, the dialects are different. Furthermore, Azerbaijan is recognized as an official medium of instruction in Dagestan and in the Republic of Azerbaijan, however, it is not an official language in Northern Iran where the number of Azerbaijanis exceed the ones in the Republic of Azerbaijan itself. The Azerbaijani language spoken in Iranian Azerbaijan is quite different than the one spoken in North Azerbaijan and instead of promoting the use of language, the Iranian government has discouraged and even banned it for several decades.
Chakavian or Čakavian , , ( , proper name: "čakavica" or "čakavština" , own name: "čokovski, čakavski, čekavski") is a dialect of the Serbo-Croatian language spoken by a minority of Croats. It has a low mutual intelligibility with Shtokavian. There is much internal diversity, to the point where intelligibility between the northern and southern varieties of Chakavian is low. All three main Serbo-Croatian dialects are named after their most common word for "what?", which in Čakavian is "ča" or "ca". Chakavian is spoken mainly in the northeastern Adriatic: in Istria, Kvarner Gulf, in most Adriatic islands, and in the interior valley of Gacka, more sporadically in the Dalmatian littoral and central Croatia.
Kazakhstan has vehemently opposed the independence of Kosovo and has taken Serbia's position on the issue since 2008. In December 2008, Kazakh prime minister Karim Masimov stated that "We have an official position. Kazakhstan did not recognize Kosovo and does not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia. We consider that borders are defined and Kazakhstan will not recognize any new states".
On June 28, 2016, at a vote at UN headquarters in New York, Kazakhstan, having won 138 votes out of 193 UN member states, for the first time was elected as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for 2017–2018. Kazakhstan's work in the UN Security Council began on January 1, 2017. Kazakhstan is the first state of Central Asia region that was elected to UN Security Council. As a non-permanent member of UN Security Council Kazakhstan pays a great attention to the regional challenges and the issue of Afghanistan, in particular such threats like terrorism growth, illegal drugs production, human trafficking, and also the presence of "Islamic State" and Al-Qaida.
The UN Security Council is a standing body of the United Nations, which is entrusted with the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Security Council consists of 15 members, 5 of which are permanent (United Kingdom, China, Russia, United States, France), and 10 are non-permanent, elected by the UN General Assembly for a two-year period for 5 countries each year. In 2017, non-permanent members of the UN Security Council include Bolivia, Egypt, Italy, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Ukraine, Uruguay, Sweden, Ethiopia, Japan.
Kazakhstan became a member of the UN on March 2, 1992. On April 15, 1992 Ms Akmaral Arystanbekova was appointed as the first Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations by the decree of the President of Kazakhstan. On June 5, 1992 was signed the Presidential Decree on the establishment of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the UN. On February 16, 1993, the UN Office in Kazakhstan was opened. Mr Norimasa Shimamura is the UN Resident Coordinator in the Republic of Kazakhstan since December 2015, and Mr Kairat Umarov is a Permanent Representative of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations.
As explained above, the Slavic groups have been declining ever since the 1960s, due to low birth rates and high death rates. Germans are characterized by very high birth rates, but it is mostly due to the high proportion of rural population and the presence of conservative religious factions like Mennonites and Evangelical Lutherans among them.
Most of the inter-ethnic marriages in Kazakhstan has been between various Slavic or Germanic groups (Russian - Ukrainian, German - Ukrainian, Russian - Polish or German - Russian). Inter-marriages between Turkic and European ethnic groups are increasing, but still quite rare.