A photo tour of Astana

Before we came to live here Astana was just a name on a map – a remote capital under the achingly beautiful blue sky in the middle of the endless Central Asian Steppe.  Remote Astana may be but it is also vibrant, modern and beautiful.

As part of the Piri-Piri Lexicon 'show me around your neighbourhood' world tour I am writing about our daily life in Astana.  

Astana  is the second coldest capital in the world – the temperature drops below freezing in November and the city is frozen until March.  Temperatures of between -20 and -32 Celsius are common and it is not unknown for the temperature to drop below -45.  Add the windchill factor from the fierce, ceaseless northern winds and the actual temperature is enough to freeze the car exhaust fumes as the cars drive.

The City freezes in November and remains frozen for five months. 
The cold temperatures mean there is no freeze thaw cycle so the
snow remains clean and beautiful.  The winter skies are often clear and blue. 

Astana is, however a dichotomy, a city of opposites.  While our winters may be brutal we bask in a beautifully warm summer.  Once the temperature warms up the flower beds bloom in a profusion of colours and walks in the park become heady with their scent.  Fountains are all over the place, providing a cooling respite from a walk through the city. 

Beautiful, fragrant flower beds are laid out in tengrist (ancient religious) patterns.

Getting around can be a challenge, particularly in the winter when the temperature drops.  Public Buses are frequent and warm but the wait can be cold.  Most people prefer to hitch-hike with a gypsy cab - a great way to practice Russian and Kazakh skills.  We bit the bullet and bought our own car which makes life much easier.

Any car can become a cab - just stick your hand out and wait for someone
to stop.  Rides cost about $2.

Our children go to British Independent school Haileybury Astana here in Kazakhstan and there are several other international schools including an American School and a Turkish School.  Local schools are found throughout the city and pupils are educated from the age of 7.  The Schools tend to be large, low buildings designed around functionality for the extreme weather.  Local schools will close if the weather gets too bad - this is to make sure that children (who often walk to school) are not out in very cold weather.  The temperature at which children must stay at home varies depending on age. 

Shopping in Astana can be has high end or as low end as you wish - all the prestigious malls have supermarkets and they make for an easy one stop shop, particularly for dry ingredients.  Supermarkets, however high end, are not, however, the best place to find fresh ingredients, particularly vegetables.  When I need to buy fresh produce  I tend to visit one of the covered bazaars in the old (right bank) part of town.  My particular favourite place is Artyum a five floor emporium.  The ground floor has a good selection of stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables, dried fruit, pulses and spices.  The shops on the upper floors sell everything from household equipment to sporting goods, coats to lingerie and dogfood to furniture.  

Stall holders in Artyum display their wares.

Produce is always artfully displayed.

Astana is being built before our eyes – go away for a month and construction will have started on a new building. The right bank of the River Ishim comprises the original town but the left bank is the bustling centre of the new metropolis.  Wide boulevards are lined with prestigious apartment complexes and statement architecture. 

New buildings spring up every few months –
the ‘Death Star’ is to be the new National Library.  

The skyline of part of the left bank of Astana – cranes are a constant presence
in the city as something is always being built.  Most buildings are commercial
on the lower floors with apartment accommodation above.

Most of the accommodation is comprised of apartments in large square buildings built around a central courtyard containing playgrounds, sports facilities and small convenience stores (although skyscrapers such as the ones in the background in the photograph above are becoming more popular. Each lobby has a concierge responsible for ensuring services to the apartments are managed and to deal with maintenance and cleaning of the common parts.  A good concierge can be a useful friend and ally - ours pays all our bills for us and keeps our plants when we are on holiday.

Typical apartment buildings as seen from the Baiterek.
School 66, a local high school, is seen in the mid distance.

The playgrounds in the apartment buildings are popular during the summer when children will stay up to play as late as 10 or 11 at night. Most of the parks in the city will have bouncy castles, plagrounds and small electric scooters for hire.  

A typical summer entertainment complex in a park -
electric cars are very popular and can be hired for five
minutes at a time.

Even in the winter intrepid children can be seen climbing and swinging on the equipment or building a small ice slide but the cold is too intense to stay out for very long.  For this reason covered playgrounds are very common and the malls will give over a large amount of space to indoor entertainment complexes.  One mall has a climbing wall and arcade, the Khan Shatyr has an animatronic dinosaur park, a monorail and a log flume not to mention dodgems and many smaller rides.  It also has an indoor beach complete with water slides and a beach volleyball court.  

Astana's indoor beach at the top of the Khan Shatyr
we can relax by the beach even in a -40 blizzard.

The climbing wall is a popular attraction at one of the malls.

Astana is a very young city with a high birth rate - almost
all malls will have a toddler friendly soft play where children
can let off steam over the winter.

If you get bored of using the treadmill in the winter the Khan
Shatyr has an indoor running track along the edge where
willing victims can excercise in full view of the shoppers.
N.B. we have never yet seen anyone brave enough to use it.

The main boulevard on the left bank runs from West to East.  The centre of the boulevard is a pedestrianized garden walkway allowing people to promenade from the Khan Shatyr (a Norman Foster designed gigantic tent containing a shopping centre, amusement park, beach complex and restaurants) all the way down to the Ak Orda – the Kazakh White House.  Along the way  you walk past the new Astana Opera House,  Government ministries in the shape of salt and pepper pots, a concert hall built in the shape of a Dombyra (the national instrument), or a tulip depending on who you talk to and various spectacular skyscrapers.  

Norman Foster’s giant tent the Khan Shatyr (the tent of the King) dominates the
western end of the city.  The tent houses a shopping centre, restaurant court,
supermarket, theme park, cinema and beach with swimming pools and waterslides.  

Pedestrians relax in the gardens leading to the Ak Orda (the Palace of the President). 
The golden pepper pots are government ministries.  

Designed by Manfredo Nicoletti in the shape of a Dombyra or a tulip
the beautiful concert hall on the banks of the river is one of
Astana's many cultural venues.

In the centre of the boulevard pedestrians find themselves at the Baiterek monument.  The structure is an allegory of a Kazakh myth – representing a tree in which a magic bird lays an egg to protect it from a voracious dragon.  The white ‘tree’ is topped by a huge golden egg which contains a viewing platform giving unparalleled 360 degree views of the growing city.  The bar/restaurant serves drinks and snacks and is the perfect place to relax and watch the sun set over Astana and the Steppe beyond.

The Baiterek – the monument in the centre of the left bank. The photograph shows
the Baiterek lit up for the Nauruz (Persian New Year) celebrations.  

The Baiterek is surrounded by tree lined gardens and dominates
the centre of the Left Bank.

From the observation deck it is possible to spot almost all of Astana’s statement buildings. The government complexes are a short walk away, further away towards the airport the sporting complexes stand out on the edge of the city – the football stadium with the roof that can be closed for the winter, the ice palace and the velodrome built in the shape of a bicycle helmet.  Closer in to the centre of the city is the Triumph of Astana a modern (and vast) take on the Moscow Seven Sisters, Mega, the shopping centre shaped like a doughnut, the flying saucer that houses the circus, the sombrero that houses the palace of children and the building shaped like a pot within which there is a restaurant and music hall. 

The ‘flying saucer’ houses the Astana circus – a popular place
for families to go and enjoy their weekends.  More apartment buildings
are seen behind.

From the Baiterek  it is also possible to see over to the other side of the river.  In another large and very beautiful park is another Norman Foster creation,  the Pyramid Palace of Peace and Reconciliation where Kazakhstan hosts a triennial meeting of the leaders of world religions down to the Kazakh Eli national monument and the Academy of Music that everyone calls ‘the Dog Bowl’ because it is, well, shaped exactly like a dog’s bowl. 

Norman Foster’s Pyramid of Peace and Reconciliation dominates the park
across the river from the Ak Orda.  The Pyramid houses an art gallery,
library, café, museum, souvenir shop, conference centre and concert hall.  

This giant ‘dog bowl’ houses the National Music Academy.

I love visiting the Baiterek because it allows me to enjoy the whole city.  When my feet are firmly on the ground, however, I love nothing better than to walk along the river Ishim.  In the summer wide boulevards are the favourite haunts of courting couples, fitness fanatics, skateboarding children, proud parents pushing prams and just about everyone in between.  The river is calm and heavily managed, people fish or swim along the edges while pleasure boats take tours down the centre, there is even a rowing club. 

The wide embankments are the perfect for promenading
the river gives a different perspective on Astana.

In the winter, however, the river freezes solid very early on and is used as another pleasure park.  Ice rinks will be set up at various points and the city builds vertiginous and very fast ice slides down the embankments.  Snow mobiles power up the centre of the river’s course while cross country skiers enjoy their exercise.  Come February there is an ice rally – the sinuous and slippery course testing the skills of even the best drivers.  

The river becomes an ice playground in the winter time.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour of Astana.  If you enjoyed it you can read more entries in the series here.

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Astana's Circus - a fabulous family treat.

The old Soviet circus tradition has proved enduringly popular in Kazakhstan and Astana has a permanent, all weather Circus building set in a park with a fountain and statues that echo the circus theme.  Some are normal statues but some are green sculptures with plants placed on a wire frame.  These green sculptures cannot last the winter so during that time they are covered with ‘coats’. The circus itself is shaped like a flying saucer with flashing lights peppering the roof it is a dramatic part of the Astana skyline.  

The Flying Saucer Circus

The statues in the park have a circus theme

Green giraffe statue still wearing his winter coat

Inside there is an outer ring complete with popcorn and cotton candy stands, when animal shows come to town many of the performers showcase the animals in this part of the building and people line up for photographs with snakes or performing dogs.  The inner part of the circus has a large ring and 2,000 seats.  The best seats face the entrance, these fill up first while the seats at the ‘back’ tend to be less well liked.  Shows typically run for a few weeks with performances at weekends and on public holidays and are always popular.  We will usually go towards the end of the run when there is a greater choice of seats for a lower price  (Tickets cost about $15).

People buy toys and sweets before a performance.

The ring is huge and the arena can seat 2,000 people - here people are just arriving for a show

There is a large permanent staff at the circus but the real treat comes from the touring circuses.  In recent years Astana has hosted a number of Russian shows as well as a Tibetan and a Ukrainian circus.  Just the other day we saw advertisements for a Vietnamese Circus – it was, apparently the first time that this particular circus had toured to Central Asia and the flyers promised a spectacular.  Most importantly for us we heard that there were no animals.

Animal acts are popular.  The Camels are favorites and give rides after shows

Animal acts remain very popular here and people are genuinely surprised when we explain that we do not enjoy watching performing animals.  Some expatriates feel so strongly that they decide not to go to the circus at all.  We feel that the quality of the acrobats is usually so high that it would be a shame to miss what is a genuinely enjoyable event.  We tend to go and enjoy the show but leave after the first act if we know that there will be a lot of animals in the second.

The animal acts range from the terribly sad to the bizarre to the downright strange.  We found the dancing yaks terribly distasteful (they were obviously in pain) and I hate to see the performing bears as they look so very unhappy.  One act displayed 12 performing domestic cats – each one had mastered just one trick and we got the impression that they had trained the trainer to give them treats rather than the other way round.  The most bizarre act we have ever seen was a dog and duck balancing spectacular.  We watched for a rather bemusing five minutes as two Dalmatians sat calmly with ducks on their noses before the dogs took hold of each end of a pole and the ducks walked between them.  All the animals looked perfectly happy and the audience loved the show – we were the only people who did not seem to ‘get it’.

Dancing Acrobats

Most shows follow a standard format and popular acts include jugglers, unicyclists and hula hoop girls.  Sometimes these acts will combine in unique ways – one act showcased some double-dutch skipping unicyclists.  Some of the circuses concentrate on showcasing their individual stars or use a gimmick (one ‘Water’ circus flooded the ring and had a lot of synchronised swimmers performing while the main stars performed on a small stage just above the water), other circuses tell a story.  The clowns are usually excellent, talented acrobats in their own right but with a great sense of comic timing.  Our children are desperate to sit in one of the front rows so they stand a chance of being chosen to ‘help’ the clowns in one of their acts but we have become wise to this danger and buy seats towards the back.

Clowns invite children to participate.

The stars of the shows are almost always the aerial artists.  It is quite something to see people somersaulting 30 meters above the ground with nothing but a wrist or ankle strap to keep them safe.  The safety equipment is there and some acts do use it, we have found that tightrope walkers usually clip on or use a net.

The Vietnamese circus lived up to the billing – from a spectacular opening to an outstanding closing with some truly wonderful acts in-between.  The aerial  artists were possibly the best we have seen, many performing the most amazing gymnastics hanging in the air and holding on with just their teeth.

Vietnamese Circus

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About Astana

When we first heard that we were going to Astana we set about researching as much as possible.  The only thing I knew was that Astana is the second coldest capital in the world, below freezing for half the year and blazing hot for the other half.  A few books and Wikipedia entries later and I was left little wiser.  I did look on Google Earth to see the city on a fly-over and I was very excited by what I saw.

Astana - Winter-wonderland

There are very few direct flights to Astana most carriers still fly to the old capital of Almaty which is a bit of a pain.  We have to fly via Istanbul, Moscow, Kiev, Frankfurt, Vienna, Minsk or Almaty adding a transit to any journey.  We arrived at 11pm on a Wednesday evening in August which meant that we got to see the city all lit up.  As we drove past a giant tent, a huge glass pyramid and many other weird and wonderful buildings our interest was piqued and we could not wait to explore.

Astana has only been the capital of the country since 1997 so it is a relatively new city.  It was previously called, at various times, Akmola, Tselinograd and Akmolinsk.  As Tselinograd it was at the center of the Soviet Virgin Lands campaign and agriculture is still very important in the surrounding countryside.  The name was changed from to Akmola at independence in 1990 and then to Astana, meaning capital, in 1998.

The Khan Shatyr, a giant tent housing a shopping center, theme park and beach

During the summer Astana is a garden city with large open parks planted with fragrant flowers.  It is a delight to walk everywhere and explore the various strange buildings and futuristic architecture.  The new city has developed on the left bank of the River Ishim.  The main axis of the new city is the long, open pedestrian Nurzhol boulevard stretching from the Khan Shatyr (a large, tented shopping and entertainment complex complete with theme park and swimming pool) to the Baiterek (Astana’s famous landmark), past the Parliament buildings to the Ak Orda (the presidential palace).

Baiterek - Landmark of Astana

View from the Baiterek to the Khan Shatyr along Nurzol Boulevard

View from the Baiterek to the Ak Orda 

Across the river along the same axis you get to the giant pyramid, the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation.  Many other buildings are close to this main axis – the beautiful concert hall, a new museum in the process of being built and the Astana Mosque which was finished only recently.  Astana changes rapidly with new buildings springing up all the time.  In the photo of the view from the Baiterek to the Khan Shatyr you can see an unfinished building.  The photo was taken in August 2011 and the building finished shortly thereafter.

The Pyramid - Palace of Peace and Reconciliation

The Pyramid with the Mosque, Concert Venues and Kaz Eli monument behind.

Away from the main boulevard there are many parks – opposite our house is the Arai Park, perfect for teaching the kids to bicycle or for walking the dog.  The river is calm, frozen for half the year; we enjoy walking along it in the winter or sledging down precipitous ice slides.  In the summer there are pleasure boats and you can see scullers from the Astana Rowing club. Many people enjoy swimming in the river in the summer and there is even a beach for sunbathing.  The river has a beautiful embankment making it a pleasure to run, cycle or even roller-blade along.

Arai Park in the Winter

The River in Summer with the Ak Orda and Parliament buildings behind.

Astana has a permanent circus building – it looks like a flying saucer particularly when it glitters with flashing lights at night.  A lot of touring circuses come through and the kids love to go and see a show.   Despite Kazakhstan being as far away from the sea as you can get in the world Astana has its own Oceanarium.  There are some displays of local fish but the showstopper is the tunnel through the main tank.  Here you can walk through a water wonderland and see sharks and fish, truly a miracle in this land-locked country. Nearby you can explore all Kazakhstan in miniature at the memorial map complex.

Astana Circus with beautiful summer flowers

The right bank of the river is the older part of the city.  It has a very different vibe to the newer part and younger expats prefer to live here close to the night life.  Respublika Prospect is the main artery of this part of the city and is vibrant and chaotic in equal measure.  Over on this bank you find the Concert and Organ halls, the bazars, some very good museums and, if you know where to look, some interesting antique shops.

Everyone who comes to live in Astana worries about the weather and this is as true for locals as it is for expats.  Winter 2011/12 was very cold with temperatures getting down to the very low -40’s at times and consistently below -20 but we found we were able to enjoy life nevertheless.  This winter has been much warmer with temperatures rarely falling below -20.  The cold in Astana is very dry so it does not penetrate the bones in the same way a wet cold does.  The biggest problem is the wind as windchill can have a big impact on the temperature. 

Nurzhol Boulevard Gardens in Winter

 Because of the extreme weather living in Astana is like living in two different cities, both are beautiful, exciting, enjoyable places to live.

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