Stan's the Man II: Central Asian Geography by Abhi

On March 20, 2019, longtime President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev surprisingly resigned. On March 21, the Kazakh legislature voted to rename the capital Nur-Sultan in his honor. Provide any of the other official names the city has held since it was founded in 1830.

The capital was moved to now-Nur-Sultan in the early 1990s, partly to ensure the northern parts of Kazakhstan wouldn't choose to leave the new country and rejoin Russia. One part of Kazakhstan is already arguably geographically part of Eastern Europe, as it sits west of what natural border? (edited at 5:18 am, April 12, 2020 (CST))

Traveling due north of that border would get one to the Republic of Tatarstan, named for a Turkic people who once occupied most of Russia and now are an ethnic minority in the country. Their cultural influence is visible thanks to a massive Turkic mosque built within what type of structure?

A late Russian political figure rests near another such structure, who was attempting to crush the Basmachi movement (which seeked in multiple forms to liberate parts of Central Asia). To do so he recruited which Ottoman military leader and Young Turk, who immediately defected?

That recruitment backfired, as the defector attempted to unite the Turkic peoples under one banner. His fight didn't last much longer however, as the Red Army ambushed his force and killed him outside Dushanbe. The leader of that Red Army unit (Yakov Melkumov, ne Hakub Melkumian) wasn't part of Operation Nemesis, but nevertheless his role could be called poetic justice, as he was of what ethnicity?

Dushanbe is the starting point of the M41, a road that goes through Tajikistan's high mountains to Osh, Kyrgyzstan. As suggested by its more popular name the road crosses what immense mountain range?

Osh might be able to market itself as a food destination for many reasons, but specifically because "osh" is coincidentally another name for what ubiquitous rice dish, for which there may well be a recipe in every Central Asian household?

A green harvest version of that dish is made in the autumn for what New Year's holiday? Though its originators developed the recipe in their part of Bukhara, Uzbekistan, you'll have an easier time finding it in Queens, New York.

Uzbekistan continues to be multicultural today--in part due to the many peoples deported to Central Asia under Stalin. Which cultural group is now the largest non-Russian and non-Turkic in Uzbekistan, known as Choson-saram in the Uzbek language?

The biggest rock star in Soviet history (who also happens to be of that descent) also acted in Kazakh action movies and still has many devoted fans across the region--including murals on Almaty's central Arbat. Name him.

Almaty is the endpoint of what was once the chief commercial rival to the Trans-Siberian Railroad. By what name was this major rail network known? Your smith maintains that it makes for just as good of a trip.

Speaking of rail, next year the Uzbek government aims to extend a spur into Afghanistan--ending in what city, the first to fall to coalition forces and the Northern Alliance in 2001?