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.

Astana strives to stand out through its architecture, and no buildings are perhaps more iconic than the Bayterek Tower and the Khan Shatyr.  The Bayterek Tower (literally, big tree tower) is the symbol of Astana, representing a Kazakh folk tale about a mythical bird of happiness laying its egg in the branches of a poplar tree.  Alas, the deck was closed for renovation, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get a lot of photos of it.

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.

Shymkent

Shymkent is Kazakhstan’s third largest city, located in the south-central part of the country about an hour drive north of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.  Officially larger than Bishkek, Shymkent feels at the same time both larger and smaller than Kyrgyzstan’s capital.  Shymkent has long been known as a hub for education, and like Osh, is home to many different universities.

Long before that, though, it was a stop on the Silk Road, a rest stop near the major trading post of Sairam… which is a short drive outside the city, so naturally we had to go there too.

Sairam is a fascinating jump from Shymkent, for it’s a mostly Uzbek town, with a feeling that evoked Uzgen, another ancient Silk Road town just outside of Osh.

Back in Shymkent, we enjoyed exploring the city’s bazaar, drinking up some fresh pomegranate juice, and also exploring the city’s Museum of Political Repression, which documents the killings of many Kazakh dissidents and those who were imprisoned at the gulag located nearby during the 1930’s and 40’s.

The museum has some fantastic and brutal artwork, including this incredible statue:

Just outside of that museum is the South Kazakhstan Great Patriotic War Memorial, known as the Alley of Glory.  It contains the names of every person who was killed from South Kazakhstan Oblast: over 140,000 (and this is one of the smaller provinces of Kazakhstan).  Remember, the Vietnam Wall has only 58,307 names – drawn from the entire country.  I wrote a post about Victory Day here, and it talks a bit about why WWII is seen so differently here than it was in the US.  It helps contextualize the sheer scale of loss in that war, which cost the Soviet Union nearly 27 million lives.

Our real reason for trekking across the steppe to Shymkent, though, was to visit nearby Turkistan, the most significant historical site in all of Kazakhstan.

Turkistan

Turkistan shares its name with the historical region of Central Asia, which was often referred to as Turkistan/Turkestan by many, including the Soviet Union.  The infamous “stan” suffix actually just means “land of” in Persian (just like -land means land of in English and German), so England is actually Engelestan in Persian, and India is Hindustan.  Thus, Turkistan means “Land of the Turks.”  Modern Turkistan is home to an important Turkish university, and the city’s demographics are about half Kazakh, half Uzbek, a testament to the city’s history as a crossroads of settled and nomadic peoples.

How did a town get named for a massive province?  Because it was the resting place of Khoja Ahmet Yassawi, an important Sufi ruler of the region.  The famous Amir Timur (Tamerlane, but don’t call him that here) built a mausoleum to him, one of the most famous pieces of Timurid architecture outside of Uzbekistan, and one that features the largest dome in all of Central Asia.  It later became the capital of the Kazakh Khanate.  So, there’s a lot of history to unpack here.

As a result, there’s a LOT of pilgrims who come to pay respects.  In fact, it is said to be such a holy site that three visits are considered equivalent to one hajj to Mecca.  In the olden days when there weren’t direct flights from rural Kyrgyzstan to Jeddah (not kidding), and it would have taken years to undertake the pilgrimmage, that was no small feat.

The mausoleum is a spectacular architectural achievement despite being left unfinished following Timur’s death in 1405.  Despite being unfinished, it actually serves as the key prototype to other buildings more strongly associated with him, including basically everything that is cool in Samarkand.

Its turquoise tiles, like other Timurid buildings, were designed to stand out against the desert, which can be seen to stunning effect in a few of the pictures from my trip to Uzbekistan.

As I was saying about pilgrims, a LOT of people come to visit the site at all times of year.  And if you’re a random foreigner, you stand out.  And if you’re a random foreigner who speaks Kazakh, you stand to make a LOT of new friends.  We met some lovely women who were visiting the site at the same time as us who, upon hearing a few broken words, immediately wanted to be our best friends and find me a good Kazakh girl to marry.  A camel was also just chilling at the same time, completely uninterested in our new friendship.

After Turkestan, it was off to Almaty, but this time we decided that we would brave Kazakhstan’s enormous network of sleeper trains, which proved to be new, comfortable, and pleasant, despite the rickety rail bed.  We decadently chose to ride in “Luxe” class (2-person sleeper compartments) because it was still only about $20 per person. Within 10 hours, we were in Almaty just before sunrise.

Almaty

Almaty was the capital of Kazakhstan until 1997, and has the history to show for it.  With a blend of old Soviet from many different decades and eras, and the new modern architecture, all pressed up against the backdrop of the mountains, Almaty has easily become one of my favorite cities in the world.

We were there in winter, which seems to be a very lively and pleasant time for Almaty, even though everyone told us that the city’s true soul shines through as all the flowers and trees bloom in the spring and during the apple harvest in the fall (Almaty’s name literally derives from “father apple” since it is in the hills outside of Almaty that the modern apple traces its roots).

I’ve visited Almaty before, once to explore and once for the Winter Universiade, but this time we decided to explore with proper guides, so we called up Dennis from Walking Almaty, who showed us little details that I never would have seen.  Almaty’s sights are quite spread out, so his walking tours are less about seeing specific things, and more about noticing little touches in the fabric of society that help paint a bigger picture of how life has been lived in Almaty over the course of the past century.  If you’re visiting Almaty, Walking Almaty is the single best way to experience the city, hands-down.

My first stop is one I’ve neglected on my other trips to Almaty: the Palace of the Republic, which was formerly known as the Lenin Conference Center.  Why do I care about a concert hall?  Because this stunning building was the site of one of the most significant health accords of the 20th Century.

In 1978, the International Conference on Primary Health Care was held in Almaty, which was then known as Alma-Ata.  The conference brought together nearly all the member countries of the WHO to create what became known as the Declaration of Alma-Ata, the first-ever international agreement that promoted the importance of access to primary health care and preventative medicine. I studied the Alma-Ata Declaration at Harvard, and later worked on advocacy for universal health coverage derived from this agreement, so I was very happy to get to visit the site where this historic agreement was signed.

Another new stop for me this trip was the Green Bazaar, which must be the best-organized bazaar for food products anywhere in the world, even better organized than Chorsu in Tashkent.  Every aisle has a different product category, including an entire aisle just for traditional Kazakh dairy products.

The Green Bazaar draws sellers from across Central Asia, which of course leads to some hilarious moments.  A man called out to me in Russian, imploring me to try his (admittedly delicious) figs.  I asked him in Russian if he could please speak to me in Kazakh, because my Russian is not very good.  So, he switches to Kazakh, but I can hear an accent… so I ask him where he’s from.  He says Samarkand.  So I switch to Uzbek, and mention that I was there before.  We chat a bit and have a good laugh, then I asked him if he was Uzbek or Tajik, since most people who live in Bukhara and Samarkand are actually Tajik.  Turns out he was!  So I switched to Tajik.  By this time, all his colleagues’ heads are spinning at little old me, the random kid from America who has just flipped through four Central Asian languages (not including Kyrgyz!) in the space of just a few minutes, while translating them all to English so my mom and our friend Jennifer could have some clue of what was going on.  It was hysterical.

Some other highlights of Almaty include the iconic Hotel Kazakhstan, which is one of the tallest buildings in Central Asia and defiantly built above an earthquake fault, as well as many other stunning government buildings.  The third photo in this series is now the Kazakh-British University, but was the original seat of government of the Kazakh SSR during the Soviet Era.

One of the other cant-miss stops in Almaty is the stunning Zenkov’s Cathedral, which was for a long time the world’s largest wooden building.  It’s a Russian Orthodox church built in the stunning Ukrainian style with bright pastels and dazzling designs reminiscent of St. Basil’s in Moscow.  Inside are tens of intricate icons.  This is one stop that is best to visit with Dennis from Walking Almaty, because he knows ALL the history.

Finally, no visit to Almaty is complete without a stop at the Medeo/Medeu, which is said to be the world’s highest ice rink (which it definitely isn’t, since I’ve competed on ones almost twice as high).  It’s definitely one of the largest outdoor rinks, as it’s a long-track speed skating stadium and a bandy field.  In case you’ve never heard of bandy, it’s a sport that is basically field hockey on ice skates on a field the size of a football pitch.  It’s unique and exciting!  When there aren’t sports, the Medeo is the favored activity for hundreds of Almaty residents who can ride the city bus up into the mountains for just 120 Tenge (about 40 cents) and skate and ski at the connected Shymbulak Ski Resort.  What other metropolis can you name that has a ski resort on its public bus system?

Kazakhstan treated us well.  We had a fantastic time visiting places new and old, and it was especially cool to see how this young country has been working to grow and develop.  It’s not always been smooth sailing for Kazakhstan, but I can definitely see myself back here in the not-too-distant future.