KAZAKH TOWN TO FALL UNDER RUSSIAN JURISDICTION.

Russian deputy premier Aleksei Bolshakov and Kazakh vice premier Nigmatzhan Isingarin have initialed an agreement transferring the central Kazakhstan town of Leninsk to Russian jurisdiction for a minimum of 20 years, Kommersant-Dailyreported June 17. The town is near the Baikonur space center which Russia has leased for that period. Under the new arrangement, Leninsk will be financed entirely out of Russia’s state budget and will regain its Soviet-era “closed city” status. The language of administration “as before” will be Russian, Bolshakov said, and the Russian ruble will become legal tender alongside the Kazakh tenge. Leninsk thus becomes the CIS’s first dual-currency town.

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