In February, Central Bank data showed that the amount of tenge saved in banks rose to 1.53 trillion tenge ($4.5b), up 5% from January. Significantly, too, the proportion of tenge as savings grew to 22% of the total, up from 20% in January.

Analysts said that two factors had contributed to this renewed confidence in the tenge. The first was that this year, the tenge has actually strengthened against the US dollar to around 340/$1 compared to an all- time low in mid-January of 390/$1.

In March, Kazakhstan’s Central Bank heavily intervened in the currency market, buying $1.2b on the Kazakh Stock Exchange, around 2.6 times more than it bought in February.

This, together with high liquidity ensured by capital held at the Single Pension Fund, helped to improve the tenge’s position, analysts said.

“The Central Bank now faces the problem of too much liquidity and too high interest rates,” Askar Akhmedov, senior analyst at Halyk Finance, part of one of the largest Kazakh banks, said in a report.

Secondly, analysts said the Central Bank’s policy of increasing interest rates on tenge savings in banks to 14% from 10%, in addition to dropping the interest paid on foreign currency savings to 2% from 3% was working.

On the streets of Almaty this more positive view of the tenge was, generally, reflected.

A pensioner said: “It is our national currency, and I trust it but the 50% drop in its value was unpleasant, especially for pensioners.”

Most people that the Bulletin’s correspondent in Almaty spoke to agreed, and it will be a relief to President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Kazakh government that confidence in the tenge is returning after a torrid 2015.

There were some who took a more cautious approach, though.

“Nowadays the position of the tenge is unsteady and it may weaken again. If I had to choose between tenge and dollar to put money in deposit, I’d probably choose dollar,” said Aigerim, a music teacher.