Kazakhstan: Nur-Sultan / Astana, an almost completely empty city

Ak Orda ("white horde") presidential palace, Nur-Sultan

Nur-Sultan, formerly Astana, is the capital of Kazakhstan. I spent a day visiting the city while transiting through the airport on the way between Beijing and London in July 2019. It was an interesting day, though mildly unnerving - it was almost completely devoid of people. 

There was quite a large set of people transiting between the same flights that I was taking, so when the airport staff at Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport gathered us all and funnelled us through immigration control together, we organised ourselves into smaller age-based groups to go around the city - I went with two students going the the UK to study. They were very friendly and it was nice to have company while visiting a strange, unfamiliar city, even if I'm probably never going to see them again. 

We each changed some money into Kazakh tenge (KZT) at the airport. While airport exchanges are never good value, we couldn't find any cash machines and I only changed a £5 note for the day anyway so the loss was negligible. The airport in Nur-Sultan / Astana was quite small, comparable to a UK regional airport, so everything was conveniently close together and so we went over to the bus stop to get into the city. We took bus 10 from the airport straight into the city, for the price of 60 KZT (£0.12, €0.13) each. It took around 45 minutes to get into the city centre and was quite full, but that price was incredibly cheap. 

We got off next to the Nur-Astana Mosque - built in 2008 and the second largest mosque in the country. The dome is at a height of 40 m, representing the age when the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations from God, while the minarets are 63 m tall representing his age when he died. Kazakhstan is around 70% non-denominational Muslim, with most of the remainder being Russian Orthodox. Even so, it seemed a bit empty - we didn't see anyone around. 

Nur-Astana Mosque, the second largest in the country and the third largest in Central Asia. 

We carried on walking towards the main Nurzhol Boulevard of the modern city, with a made-for-photos monument to the city's new name. 

Giant letters, designed for internet posting. 

At the head of the central pedestrianised boulevard lies the Khan Shatyr Entertainment Centre, a giant transparent tent designed by Norman Foster and opened on President Nursultan Nazarbayev's birthday in 2010. It's 150 m tall, and is the largest tensile structure in the world, containing an entire urban park, shopping streets, a boating river, and beach resort - with the tent designed to maintain room temperature despite temperatures of the desert steppe outside varying between -35 to 35 °C. But we were there around 8AM whereas it only opened at 10, so we moved on. 

Khan Shatyr, the world's largest tent. 

From the top of the steps in front of Khan Shatyr, there was a nice view of the central axis of the city with the giant "Nur-Sultan" letters in the foreground and the Baiterek Tower framed by office buildings in the background. 

Central axis of the modern city. Someone will have had the task of working out the exact dimensions of the arch to frame the exact dimensions of the tower. 

We proceeded along the central axis through the Lovers Park. While there were stalls lining the main paths, all were closed. What was more strange was that there was also almost no-one else in the park - it seemed like a completely newly built modern city, but it was almost completely empty of people. 

The unusually-shaped National Archives of Kazakhstan

Next along the boulevard was the Baiterek Tower - a symbol of independent Kazakhstan. Its 97 m height represents when Astana was made the national capital in 1997 instead of the Soviet-era Alma-Ata / Almaty. Part of the justification for the move was practical, as the old capital was in an active earthquake zone, but also symbolic - moving the country and power closer to Russia, both symbolically and literally. The design represents a traditional Kazakh folk story of a bird of happiness named Samruk laying an egg between the branches of a poplar tree of life, while the observation deck contains a golden handprint of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, which apparently has large queues such is his popularity. It was closed though, so we went on. 

Baiterek Tower, a symbolic poplar-inspired monument to the country's independence. 

Despite the fact that this was the tourist centre of the city, we saw only one other person there. The central boulevard of the capital city was still eerily quiet and empty. 

"Singing fountains", though switched off in the daytime. 

Not much seemed to be open, and we had not yet had anything to eat in the city yet - but there was at least a café open and so we stopped off for some ice cream. 

Nice, though probably overpriced by local standards. 

We carried on along the boulevard, but then we bumped into the only group of tourists we had seen all day - they were one of the other small groups of elderly and families from our same flight transfer. They had also seen no-one else around the city, and were equally spooked by how empty the city seemed. We wished them well - it was at least reassuring that we were not the only people around, even if they were doing exactly the same flight-transit-visit as us. 

Golden towers at the entrance to the government district

The government district lies at the end of Nurzhol Boulevard, with all its civil service buildings. The central square was surrounded by the national parliament, the civil service building, the supreme court and the presidential palace, so one would expect busy civil servants rushing between the various buildings - yet there was no-one there. Again, we were the only people in this huge city square with its grand buildings and high-maintenance flowerbeds. 

Parliament buildings for the lower and upper houses

The central government square: completely empty. 

Ukimet Uyi, the Government House

Even the presidential palace at the top of this page - with a design very much like the White House, but coloured Kazakh blue and gold - only had a few guards. They were the only other people there. 

On the side of the square was the Kazakhstan Central Concert Hall, opened in 2009. Its design represents the petals of a flower opening, while the blue glass fitted with the overall theme of the city - blue with gold highlights. All this time, we were reminded of the national flag: a wide blue sky, with a golden eagle under the radiant sun. A city isn't the place to see eagles, but the blue-and-gold theme was everywhere. The concert hall was closed, though, so we moved on around the parkland surrounding the presidential palace. 

The national concert hall's dynamic petal-unfurling design

We crossed the Yesil river to reach the Kazakh Eli monument to the country's independence on Independence Square, flanked by the toroidal Shabyt Palace of Creativity (housing the national arts university), the trapeziform Palace of Independence, the pyramid of the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, and the blue glass of the national museum. Despite all these facilities around it, it was still almost completely empty. 

Independence Square, still empty

Facing the monument is the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a non-denominational spiritual building designed by Brian Clarke and Norman Foster and completed in 2006. Every three years, the Kazakh government uses it to hold a "Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions", started by the First President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Built in granite and stained glass, the building was designed to expand and contract by as much as 30 cm in the city's extreme climate by only fixing one corner onto the ground, and then letting the other corners move on rollers - something that is more often found on large bridges. The meeting space was designed based on the UN Security Council chamber in New York, with the stained glass apex filling the room with blue and gold light. 

Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, also empty

Independence Square was flanked by giant Kazakh flags in front of the Kazakh Eli monument, with the Hazrat Sultan Mosque on the side. Opened in 2012, it's the largest mosque in all the Muslim countries of Central Asia. I wonder if it gets anywhere near its 10000 capacity of worshippers, given how few people we came across. 

Hazrat Sultan Mosque

It was now time to return to the airport, as we didn't know how long all the various airport queues would take or even how long it would take to get back there. It was unfortunate that we didn't go and visit the national museum as we were right in front of it, given that instead we ended up waiting for a couple of hours in an airport with not much to do, but it was better to be safe with an unfamiliar airport in an unfamiliar city. A nearby bus stop didn't seem to have anything going to the airport, so we flagged down a taxi back to the airport. The journey only took around 25 minutes and cost 3000 KZT (£5.92, €6.59) in total, which split between the three of us. 

The route back to the airport conveniently went past two of the city sights that we hadn't seen - the Arch of Triumph, unveiled in 2011 with the 20 m height of its central arch representing 20 years of independence...

Arch of Triumph, completely different from all other triumphal arches

...and the Expo 2017 pavilions, following the "Future Energy" theme of the expo that year. It did look a bit like the containment dome of a PWR nuclear reactor. 

Expo 2017: Future Energy. Held in a country whose economy is heavily oil-and-gas based. 

All in all, it was a very fun day out after which I still had change from the £5 that I had exchanged that morning. I can't really consider myself as having visited Kazakhstan properly, but at the very least it was a taster of this somewhat-obscure country. The main memory I took away was just of how eerily empty the city was - even the central boulevard and main city squares were completely deserted. The old (well, Soviet-era) city looks like it's mostly just ordinary Soviet-era buildings and maybe that's where the life of the city still is, but I'd still have expected at least some life in the new city where the government sits and where larger organisations might set up. Maybe that will change in years to come, but I'm glad to have visited and experienced this for now. 

Summary: 

Date: Tuesday 30th July 2019

Main experience: Modern buildings and public spaces everywhere, but none of them seemed to contain any people. Completely deserted. 

Total cost: Less than £5 for the entire day.