KAZAKHSTAN

New U.N. member of 1992

• Country that moved its capital to Astana in 1997

• Former part of the USSR

• Nation on two continents

• Place in entertainment news, and the subject of this puzzle

• A landlocked republic south of Russia and northeast of the Caspian Sea

• The original Turkic-speaking inhabitants were overrun by Mongols in the 13th century

• An Asian Soviet from 1936 to 1991