Kazakhstan makes its pitch to D.C. commuters at bus shelters, this one at 16th St. and U St. N.W. (Credit: David Gauvey Herbert)

Only in D.C., kids.

In advance of next week's nuclear nonproliferation summit, Kazakhstan has plastered advertisements touting its own disarmament on 50 bus shelters around the city.

The ads, topped with a photo of an optimistic-looking President Nursultan Nazarbayev, bemoans the 500 or so nuclear weapons Moscow tested in Kazakhstan during the Cold War and highlights the country's disarmament efforts. Kazakhstan is one of 47 countries attending the April 12-13 summit, which will focus on securing loose nuclear material.

Kazakhstan inherited 1,410 nuclear warheads after the collapse of the Soviet Union, making it the fourth-largest stockpile in the world at the time. But Astana turned those warheads over to Moscow by 1995. The government also destroyed the major Soviet testing facility at Semipalatinsk in 2000.

"It's a fairly modest campaign to support this summit coming up," said Thomas Cromwell, president of East-West Communications, which helped place the ads. "The Kazakhs are very into nuclear disarmament."

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon lauded that disarmament as recently as Tuesday during a visit to Kazakhstan and praised Nazarbayev's "extraordinary leadership" on the issue.

The ads, which will run for four weeks, cost Astana roughly $50,000, according to Steve Ginsburg, general manager for the Washington/Baltimore branch of Clear Channel Outdoor, which owns and operates the shelters. Kazakhstan made a general market buy, he said, but the ads are more concentrated in Northwest D.C.

Foreign governments buying ad space on bus shelters isn't unheard of, Ginsburg said, but it is rare.

"It's not a frequent thing, no," he said "A couple times a year."

Kazakhstan will also purchase ad pages in the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico and Washington Times on April 13, the second day of the conference, Cromwell said.

The ad's full text reads: "Kazakhstan, where 1.5 million people suffered from the effects of 500 nuclear explosions, knows the human cost of the nuclear threat better than anyone. That's why we got rid of our nuclear arsenal, the world's fourth largest. And that is why we call on the world to follow our example. There is no other way to build a safer world, free from the nuclear threat."