New U.N. member of 1992
Else clues• 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