Karim Massimov, Kazakhstan's Prime Minister, spent an evening dancing by himself 'animatedly' on stage at one of Astana's trendiest nightclubs, according to diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks.
Mr Massimov indulged in a 20 minute display of solo dancing on the stage of one of the trendiest nightclubs in Kazakhstan's capital Astana, the report claims.
"Massimov led his companions onto Chocolat's dance floor soon after their arrival," reports a cable sent by an Astana-based diplomat to Washington in April 2008.
"The dance floor holds approximately 100 people, and at the time perhaps 50 patrons were dancing.
"However, Masimov himself chose to dance on an empty stage above the dance floor. His companions quickly tired but Masimov remained, dancing alone and animatedly on the stage for another fifteen to twenty minutes."
The report shows a rarely-glimpsed wild side to the man known among expatriate businessmen as "the wily Uighur", because of his reputation as a inscrutable and sure-footed operator, capable of maintaining a calm, diplomatic smile under all circumstances.
Coming from the minority Uighur community, most of whom live in China, Mr Massimov lacks a tribal power base and so is not seen as a threat by President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
The mustachioed former intelligence official, is fluent in Chinese, Arabic, Russian and English, and is the man the Kazakh government most frequently puts forward to the international media and international diplomats.
Mr Massimov was accompanied by Kairat Kelimbetov, who now heads Samruk-Kazyna, the country's Sovereign Wealth fund; Astana's Mayor Askar Mamin, and three middle-aged women – "presumably their wives" – and left at 1am.
Mr Massimov is dismissed in another Wikileaks cable as a creature of Timur Kulibayev, the powerful billionaire son-in-law of President Nazarbayev.
Maksat Idenov, a senior executive at Kazmunaigas, the state oil company, allegedly told a US diplomat earlier this year that "Masimov has a degree of freedom, but never acts without permission from 'the hyphen' (Kulibayev)."
Mr Massimov's press spokesman declined to comment on the revelations.
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