Introducing Astana

The country's new capital has risen fast from the northern steppe and is already a showpiece for 21st-century Kazakhstan. It is scheduled to go on rising and spreading into a city of over 1 million people by 2030. Its skyline grows more fantastical by the year as landmark buildings, many of them by leading international architects, sprout in a variety of Asian, Western, Soviet and wacky futuristic styles. Several spectacular structures are open to visitors and it's hard not be impressed by the very concept of the place.

Astana was just a medium-sized provincial city known for its bitter winters when President Nazarbaev named it out of the blue in 1994 as Kazakhstan’s future capital. It formally took over from Almaty in 1997. The old centre north of the Ishim (Yesil) River, known as the 'pravy bereg', right bank, lives on as a commercial and services centre. South of the river (the 'levy bereg', left bank), governmental and business buildings are going up, and also cultural, sports, leisure and shopping centres, hotels, a university and eye-catching residential developments. Some have dubbed Astana the ‘Dubai of the steppe’.

The city began life in 1830 as a Russian fortress called Akmola (Kazakh for ‘white tomb’). In the 1950s Akmola became the headquarters of the Virgin Lands scheme and in 1961 it was renamed Tselinograd (Virgin Lands City). After the USSR collapsed, Akmola got back its old name. In 1998 it was renamed again, as Astana – Kazakh for ‘capital’. Reasons cited by Nazarbaev for the change were Astana’s more central and less earthquake-prone location than Almaty, and better transport links with Russia. He may also have wanted to head off secessionist sentiments among northern Kazakhstan's large ethnic Russian population.

Some find Astana an impersonal place, but Kazakhstan's ambitious and talented are increasingly drawn here. It’s easy to question the spending of billions on prestige architecture, but many citizens are clearly proud of their new capital.