KAZAKHSTAN: A JOURNEY ACROSS THE STEPPE

Kazakhstan is fascinating to me. It is the most developed of the Central Asian countries in the cities, with prosperous jobs, one of the world’s top-rated airlines, and even several Starbucks. And yet, the rural areas hang on to beautiful manifestations of Central Asian history and culture. More than any other place in Central Asia, this push and pull is visible in Kazakhstan. And we got to see it first-hand.
My adventure to Kazakhstan started with a flight to Bishkek, which happened to be one of the clearest and most spectacular flights I’ve had in two years of living here. I got this photo of Arslanbob from the plane, which promptly went viral on Kyrgyz nature Instagram pages.

From Bishkek, I boarded Air Astana’s puddle jumper to Almaty (a flight so short that the plane doesn’t even climb to a cruising altitude). In Almaty, I had to go through customs alongside the passengers off a flight from Urumqi. A young man standing next to me went through, and then the rest of his team went through. I thought he looked very familiar, just like a famous pop singer that a friend of mine had shown me on YouTube.

Well, when I got to my gate for my flight to Astana, that young man and his entourage of 3 suddenly appeared from behind an unmarked door and walked right out to the plane, where they were the only passengers in the premium cabin. As I sat down in my seat at the back, everyone was chatting away. Sure enough, it was him: Dimash Kudaibergen, the most famous singer in Kazakhstan, currently starring on a Chinese singing show similar to American Idol or The Voice.

When we got to Astana, it took him a while to deplane, so despite sitting in row 32, I happened to be walking directly behind him and his manager as we approached baggage claim, and I finally mustered up the courage to say hello to them in Kazakh and ask if I could take a photo with him. They were so incredibly kind (and surprised that I spoke Kazakh to them), and he took a lovely (if blurry) photo with me despite being completely exhausted from his 3-plane journey back to Astana that day from Eastern China.
I had barely been in Astana for ten minutes and already it was one of the coolest trips of my life.

My wizard of a trip planning mother and our friend Jennifer arrived an hour later on a connecting flight from Seattle, and I negotiated us a taxi and we headed into Astana, Kazakhstan’s dazzling new capital city. Interestingly, while you didn’t need local language skills to navigate Kazakhstan for the most part, we found that my Kazakh and Russian greatly enhanced our experience since we were able to communicate so much more clearly and in-depth with people we met.
Kazakhstan

First of all, what is Kazakhstan? Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world, and has absolutely nothing to do with Borat. With a diverse population of 17 million from many different ethnic groups, Kazakhstan fosters both the nomadic traditions of the Kazakh people and the history of being a part of Russia for a good chunk of its history. Alongside all of that is an economic and modernization boom driven by oil wealth from the Caspian Sea and an ambitious 2050 modernization plan to place Kazakhstan in the G20 within the next 30 years. Kazakhstan is also home to Russia’s space program, magnificent mountains, stunning steppes, and important sites of Islamic history. Not at all what you expected, right?

Astana

Astana is a fascinating place. In 1994, barely 4 years after independence, the Kazakhstani government decided to move the capital to the tiny distant northern town of Tseleninograd (hence airport code TSE), which had been Akmoly until the 1960’s and then again renamed Akmola in 1991. Three years later, in 1997, the government picked up and moved to the new city, once again renamed Astana (meaning “capital” in Kazakh). Since then, it has grown into the second largest city in Kazakhstan after the former capital, Almaty (previously known as Alma-Ata and Verny), and an entire futurescape of buildings, parks, and monuments has risen from the steppe to form what many call “Dubai North.”

Since it’s basically a new city, everything is less than 20 years old, and a LOT of it comes from the same small subset of architects, meaning there’s an iconic style of Astana, but it’s on every building. For example, all the bridges look identical. I can’t find the words to describe it, but it’s very nouveau-Soviet, a style that is very similar to what we saw in the large cities of Uzbekistan and that is starting to take over the wealthier quarters of Bishkek and Almaty. And as in steamy hot Dubai, ice cold Astana is home to plenty of indoor malls where people love to congregate to pass the time.

Astana is both full and empty at the same time. Being a planned city in a country with plentiful cars, it has the same sprawling qualities as Dubai and Los Angeles. But, true to the Soviet spirit, there are also plentiful trees, parks, walking areas, and so on that add a pleasant feeling to the city as well. And, being the coldest capital city in the world, it oozes an icy, postmodern energy to it unlike any place I’ve ever been.

The Khan Shatyr (literally, the king’s tent) is the “world’s largest tent” and houses a peculiar round shopping mall that has all the major brands you might expect to see in Chicago or Los Angeles. On the top floor is Astana’s response to Ski Dubai: a water park with a hot artificial beach, perfect for weathering the -40 degrees in the heart of the winter.

Astana also surprised us with a spectacular mosque that fused architectural elements of many traditions, as well as a pyramid and many other iconic buildings. As a symbol of a country on the rise, Astana is a place to keep an eye on.

But, our time was up, and it was off to Shymkent. Kazakhstan is big, so we thought it wise to fly. In fact, unless 3-day overnight trains are your jam, you might prefer flying to get around Kazakhstan as well.