The right and left banks in Astana are split by the River Ishim, but there is also the vast expansive of City Park. It is well laid out, there are rides for kids, ice cream and all that you would expect. There is also a huge outdoor gym. Not just the odd wooden handrail for this lot. It’s fully kitted out with rowing machines, weights the lot.
There is also Atameken, I’m not quite sure if it is actually supposed to be a tourist attraction or some kind of exercise in decision making. Spread over a 1.7ha site there is, quite literally, an open-air replication of the whole of Kazakhstan in miniature. The Caspian Sea is there with flamingos and oil platforms. There are mosques and cathedrals for every city faithfully reproduced. The awfulness of Republic Square in Almaty has been created in micro-detail, although the plastic biospheres are not yet there so a little behind the times on that one. There are rock formations and uranium mines, asbestos factories and chemical plants, airports and train stations. Yurts make an appearance as does the pilgrimage site at Turkestan along with some camels. Baikonour (home of the Soviet Space Programme) has fittingly a giant space shuttle with a sputnik or two thrown in.
Strangely the site has a pa system over which loud traditional Kazak folk songs are blasted at you as you go round. On the way in you are greeted by Presidential messages outlining Kazakhstans commitment to diversity, religious tolerance and harmony for one and all. It’s all very Tito-esq. It takes a good hour to get round it all by which time all visitors should have fully grasped the PR message.
The Astana model itself is quite spectacular. At the top of the real Baiterek Tower there is an architectural model in a glass case. As architectural models go it really is a bit pathetic. I’ve seen more sophisticated ones for the building of regional primary schools. It is only when you get to Atameken do you realise that there is a model here the size of a tennis court. The towers reach my elbows and the detail is incredible. The glass lift in the Baiterek works and the fountains have water. The plaza lighting is powered and there are even plastic tourists with cameras.
For at least an hour I felt like Gulliver.
There is also Atameken, I’m not quite sure if it is actually supposed to be a tourist attraction or some kind of exercise in decision making. Spread over a 1.7ha site there is, quite literally, an open-air replication of the whole of Kazakhstan in miniature. The Caspian Sea is there with flamingos and oil platforms. There are mosques and cathedrals for every city faithfully reproduced. The awfulness of Republic Square in Almaty has been created in micro-detail, although the plastic biospheres are not yet there so a little behind the times on that one. There are rock formations and uranium mines, asbestos factories and chemical plants, airports and train stations. Yurts make an appearance as does the pilgrimage site at Turkestan along with some camels. Baikonour (home of the Soviet Space Programme) has fittingly a giant space shuttle with a sputnik or two thrown in.
Strangely the site has a pa system over which loud traditional Kazak folk songs are blasted at you as you go round. On the way in you are greeted by Presidential messages outlining Kazakhstans commitment to diversity, religious tolerance and harmony for one and all. It’s all very Tito-esq. It takes a good hour to get round it all by which time all visitors should have fully grasped the PR message.
The Astana model itself is quite spectacular. At the top of the real Baiterek Tower there is an architectural model in a glass case. As architectural models go it really is a bit pathetic. I’ve seen more sophisticated ones for the building of regional primary schools. It is only when you get to Atameken do you realise that there is a model here the size of a tennis court. The towers reach my elbows and the detail is incredible. The glass lift in the Baiterek works and the fountains have water. The plaza lighting is powered and there are even plastic tourists with cameras.
For at least an hour I felt like Gulliver.