Astana city guide

Astana city guide
There are few cities that have changed their name as many times as Astana. The capital of Kazakhstan went by Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, Akmola and most recently Nur-Sultan. Why? It’s not very interesting. It went by names which made sense, then it didn’t and now it does again. The Nur-Sultana part is after Nursultan Nazarbayev, a man who ruled the country for almost 3 decades. Safe to say, you don’t govern a country for 30 years if elections aren’t rigged. He “resigned” and the current president changed the name back to Astana. You can change the name, but you can never change a vibe of this place. Nursultan built a monument of a city, something that really sticks out. Especially in Kazakhstan, a country that people have a particular image of. Almaty fits, Astana…not so much. I...
Astana city guide

Almaty city guide

Almaty city guide
Almaty and Kazakhstan in general, exist outside of the modern world. If the earth was actually flat then Almaty would be on the dark side of the disk. Entire Central Asia is shrouded in mystery. No one was ever interested in this city or even the country. It was invisible to the pop culture. That’s until 2006 when Sascha Baron Cohen came up with Borat and it wasn’t pretty. Hilarious, but its controversial humour caused quite a shitstorm. The main issue was that people thought it was a real documentary. Cohen depicted Kazaks as simple, impoverished people who filled their spare time with incest and awkward dancing. It took a while for the audience to realize the true satire was aimed at the USA. Truth be told, Borat did this country and its people a disservice. Almaty, the former capita...
Almaty city guide
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