Governor's Family Takes Up Residence at Boz-Korgon

NURZHAN — Members of Governor Erlan Toktarov's family have formally occupied a residential estate inside the Boz-Korgon compound, 40 km east of Nurzhan, since 2011, according to property filings in the Chu District land register examined by the Herald. The filings record the estate as a residence within the compound and list permits issued this year for further residential and service buildings.

Boz-Korgon was begun in 1995 by the territorial administration as a continuity-of-government site, with a hardened command and communications center and a security depot for the Nurzhan oil fields and the eastern rail corridor. Underground shelters and a perimeter wall were added between 2001 and 2005, financed through territorial infrastructure bonds, and the site passed to the ISEZ government after 2007.

A spokesman for the Department of Public Information said the residence was "a security arrangement appropriate to the office of Governor" and that the compound remained state property. He declined to say how often the Governor stays there. The compound has long been the subject of rumor. In the 2000s tabloids in Talas and Nurzhan claimed that it had been built as a private retreat for the Bush family; territorial records show that construction began more than a decade before the United States withdrew from the treaty, and no document transferring title to anyone has been found.