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(This is a continuation of my previous post on my trip to Astana, capital city of Kazakhstan.)
We took a cab from the sparkling new city across the river to the Right Bank, where most of the city lies. Before the beginning of the current remont Tselinograd was a fairly standard Kazakh/Soviet city. From all the pictures/materials that I’ve seen (mainly the odd ‘Akmola Encyclopedia’ published in the mid-1990’s) it had the same square, theater, roads etc that you’d find elsewhere. So heading to the older neighborhoods I was very eager to find that familiarity lost in the plastic grandness of the Left Bank.
There’s an interesting article from Reuters on the Olympic construction boom in Beijing (and some great pictures). In preparation for the 2008 Games, China has concentrated on building ‘futuristic architectural statements’ to show off the state’s development. International events like the Olympics have long been used by the host nation as this type of showcase. In heavily ideological countries like the USSR and China, the importance reaches a new level. Tristram Carfrae, engineer and designer of the ‘Water Cube’ building, sees this as exactly the case:
“If you look at Beijing’s history of architecture and design as being about monumentalism, about the grand statement, then why should these sport venues be any different?”
New Opera House in Astana by the Presidential Palace
(For more on my trip to Astana, check out the second part of this post here)
On July 6th, Kazakhstan’s capital city of Astana celebrated her 10th Anniversary. (The President got Astana a new flag. I got her a Bill Cosby sweater. Hope it fits.) So this is a good time to talk about my recent (mid June) trip to the northern city. After 10 months living in Kazakhstan, and travelling exclusively around the south, it was nice to see what all the fuss about Astana was about. I also looked forward to spotting the marked differences between the heavily Russian-influenced North, and the more traditional South of the country.
Approaching Astana
Astana, previously named Akmola and Tselinograd, became capital in the mid-1990’s. Akmola was a medium sized city that grew mostly during the era of the virgin lands campaign. Since becoming the capital, the population has grown to about 600,000 people, still only about 40% of Almaty. Most of the immigrants are from the surrounding northern oblasts, or government workers forced to move from Almaty.
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