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- Inside the eerily quiet streets of Kazakhstan's 20-year-old capital city, where futuristic skyscrapers tower over the grasslands of a former prison camp
Inside the eerily quiet streets of Kazakhstan's 20-year-old capital city, where futuristic skyscrapers tower over the grasslands of a former prison camp
Astana was declared Kazakhstan's capital city in 1997. Before that, it was a small provincial town named Aqmola, best known for being a former gulag prison camp for wives and children of enemies of the Soviet government.
Source: CNN, Dark Tourism
"Astana" simply means "capital" in the Kazakh language. President Nursultan Nazarbayev moved the capital there from Almaty to breathe life into northern Kazakhstan and move the heart of the country farther away from China.
Source: Science Direct
Astana's master plan was designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, who detailed the construction of skyscrapers, roads, housing units, government buildings, and man-made forests.
Source: Kisho
"You fly for an hour over a flat dry emptiness and then, suddenly, without any hint of outlying farms or suburbs, there it is," wrote The Independent.
Source: The Independent
Since becoming the capital 20 years ago, Astana's population has ballooned from around 275,000 people to almost 900,000.
Astana is filled with flashy, grandiose buildings that embody many modern post-Soviet cities.
But nothing compares to Astana's architecture. The skyline looks like something out of a science-fiction movie.
Source: CNN
Astana is dominated by a sense of order. Its streets display a "controlled cleanliness," as one journalist wrote.
Source: The Guardian
Although the city is overflowing with modern flare, signs of traditional Kazakh culture abound.
You can see it in the city's architecture, like in the design of the Astana Music Hall.
Source: Nespi
Kazakhstan's rich oil reserves have netted the country billions of dollars. "One look at Astana and you can see where much of the money has gone," the Guardian wrote.
Source: The Guardian
Meanwhile, the average Kazakh person takes home about $450 a month, according to government data.
Source: Trading Economics
One of Astana's latest futuristic marvels is the Kazakhstan Pavilion, a 328-foot sphere of black glass. It was built as part of a world's fair in 2017 that cost as much as $5 billion to put on.
Source: Foreign Policy
Much of life in Astana takes place indoors: With temperatures dipping to minus-40 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, Astana is the second-coldest capital city in the world.
Source: The Washington Post
Astana is a young city, both historically and demographically. According to The Guardian, "You don't see many over-50s out on the streets."
Source: The Guardian
Hundreds of workers are tasked with cleaning and maintaining Astana's well-manicured streets each day.
Source: Astana.gov
With its bulging population, Astana is constantly building new housing developments and apartment blocks.
Source: Expat Arrivals
The lack of life on the streets contributes to the city's eerie ambiance.
Astana's breathtaking scenery ends as soon as you approach the edge of the city, abruptly converting back to vast, empty wilderness.
Source: The Guardian
Writer Giles Frasier captured the surreal feeling of visiting the city: "Astana feels like some great existentialist parable, an attempt to overcome the terror of endless emptiness with the frantic distraction of human endeavour," he said.
Source: The Guardian
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