The weirdest capital that I have ever been to

Originally written on 23/11/2017

Some of my fellow travel friends often tell me I am too focused on visiting capitals of places and miss the “real deal” of a country.  I forgot the memo that the hundreds of thousands that live in capitals don’t account for real people. I’ll live up to this accusation and write about a capital city that I visited in 2017.

Nursultan, ( Previously Astana, Kazakhstan)

I have to say of all the capital cities I have been to, this one wins for the most bizarre capital city. Actually, scratch that, this is one of the most bizarre places I’ve seen on this planet.

Astana has only been the capital of Kazakhstan since 1997. The original capital is Almaty. Most Kazakhs or others that go to Kazakhstan will tell you that Almaty is the real capital and definitely the capital of culture. Strangely, I am probably the first visitor to Kazakhstan that might have found Astana to be more interesting than Almaty and actually preferred it in the long run.

Astana is like Brasilia, Washington DC, Islamabad, and Canberra. It is an entirely planned city. Before it was the capital, it was just a small city in the middle of the Kazakh Steppe. It had a few Soviet plants and small communities of Russians that were deported there for being bad during Soviet times. Since the shift of the capitals, the city has since been reconstructed to add a lot of funky and eccentric buildings.  Here are just a few for your viewing pleasure.

These are just a few of them in the central area. There are many more obscure buildings. The city is often compared to Dubai,Las Vegas and sometimes even Washington DC. I think it is simply its own deal. I have not been to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, but I would probably compare it closer to that judging from what I’ve researched about that city.  I think the prime motive for the eccentric buildings is to show off the wealth that Kazakhstan has gained from its oil and mineral industries. Of all the countries in Central Asia, Kazakhstan is by far the richest and has a higher standard of living. The average salary in Kazakhstan is more than twice of the other “CIS stans” put together if you exclude Turkmenistan. The average salary in Turkmenistan is still only about half of Kazakhstan.

Why did I choose to go Astana?  My honest answer is that I have a fascination with two things. The first being, I like to go to places that are less visited. Before this year, it was very seldom that most people a doing a Central Asia trip would bother with Astana. Almaty is much more frequented. Nearly every person I know that had been to Kazakhstan told me not to bother much with Astana and go directly to Almaty.  Astana held the World Expo this year and received more visitors, but still pales in comparison to those that go to Almaty. I hardly saw any foreigners with the exception of Russians. The Russians I met were even there to visit relatives there that were ethnic Russians, so I only count them as half tourists I met a Czech guy in my hostel that happened to be on the same flight and a couple more from Europe (also on my flight) at the weekly Couchsurfing meetings. That was it. The second reason is I am fascinated by dictatorships and authoritarian countries.

Kazakhstan is a weird case. It is technically a dictatorship. They have had the same president from 1991 to 2019 , Nursultan Nazarbayev  He wins every election by something like 97%. Their freedom of the press is nearly non existent. Everything in the city is named after him from the university to the airport. I still have yet to discover if there is an airport in any city that is named for an active president/head of state. They ended up changing the name of the damn city after him when he stepped down in 2019.

These are definitely some defining features as one. However, unlike Turkmenistan or North Korea, it is more or less open to the rest of the world. It is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union with Russia and other CIS countries. Kazakhstan partnered with the US and many EU nations on various initiatives combating terrorism. The country recently gave visa free access to many different passport holders for  2016 and 2017. The country is actively looking for foreign investors all over the globe. It is constantly marketing itself to the rest of the world. There doesn’t seem to be as much ethnic conflict between the Russian minority and the ethnic Kazakhs on the surface of things at least. The people live rather well . They aren’t closed off and isolated near as much as other places. A lot of them are very well educated and have studied abroad. Despite the reports of corruption, a fair amount of the money does go into the country. The country did not suffer as severe an economic crisis as other central Asian countries. The crime rate is low. The street of Astana are quite clean. There are many numbers you can call to complain if you feel you have been cheated or ripped off. There are security detectors to get into absolutely anything remotely important.

The majority of the museums and attractions of Astana have this man painted up to be like the second coming or something.

The tower from the first picture for example. It’s called the Bayterek Tour. It is supposed to symbolize a folktale with a magical tree or something. You can read the Wikipedia article on it for more information on the symbolism You can pay a couple of euros to go to the top. On the top has a mold of Nazarbayev’s hand. You can hold yours up and ” high five” the president.

Of course, I had to take part in this opportunity and compare my short stubby baby hands to the leader

Of course in the lobby, you can find Mr. Nursultan as well on these screen projectors

In fact, he makes appearances in the national museum and there is even a museum dedicated to him!

That aside, it is interesting to see a president that is so popular. In the US or Europe, it doesn’t matter who is in office. The guys will constantly have a third or half the country hating him or her.  Even Putin or Lukashenko are not as popular among their citizens.

The majority seem to be satisfied with the system and the president. While I believe 97% don’t vote for Nazarbayev, he would still receive a large majority of the votes. However, the media is strictly controlled and any type of opposition is taken out immediately. They constantly score very low on any freedom of the press rating. There have been a few incidents where a journalist was thrown in jail or had a decapitated dog thrown on their doorstep. There was a strike by some oil workers in 2011 taken out with deadly force. The government makes it nearly impossible to pose any type of dissidence

In short, if you follow the rules and stay inside the lines in Kazakhstan, you can live well. If you have any grievances, good luck.

Some of you may find this post to be bashing and biased. Perhaps the second one is true, but everyone is biased to some level whether they realize it or not. I’ve heard the argument that western democracy is not for everyone. Some countries are better off as authoritarian. Maybe this is the case, after the election of Trump and rise of other right wing parties in Europe, I’ve seen the shit side of democracy.  They have a system and it works for many. That said, I still prize freedom of the press and pretty sure I would not fair too well living under any country where it is severely repressed.

However, I know the difference between government and people.  Despite the weird politics of Kazakhstan, I found a lot of the people to be quite kind and hospitable. Everyone was fascinated to talk to me and interested why I chose to visit. I really enjoyed reuniting with a friend from this summer school I attended in Budapest. She showed me the national museum and took me out to a very nice restaurant overlooking Astana. Thanks Alua! She was very eager to share parts of her culture that were not at all related to politics and overall enjoyable. She offered to help me with whatever I needed throughout the rest of my trip. I found the couch surfing community of Astana to be super friendly.  I am forever grateful to them for sharing their culture with me. It is this type of cultural exchange and international friendships that help promote dialogue and understanding of the world we live in. If more people went out to learn about others that are from different sets on values and norms, there would be fewer problems. On that hippy sounding statement, I’ll sign off on this entry.

Come back later to see how the rest of Central Asia went for me!