← All articles · Kazakhstan · 6 June 2016

Astana

Astana in June 2016: the Bayterek tower glowing at night, the Hazrat Sultan Mosque, Norman Foster's glass pyramid and a capital built at full volume.

We gave Astana four days in June 2016 and it spent all four of them showing off. Kazakhstan's purpose-built capital is a city mid-sprint: cranes on every horizon, and each new landmark trying to out-statement the last.

The Bayterek tower at night, its white latticed column lit turquoise beneath a golden glass sphere, lit towers of central Astana around it — Bayterek by night, June 2016. The golden orb on a tree is the national symbol, and it commits to the part.

Night is when the city performs best. A few streets on, the Hazrat Sultan Mosque floats in floodlight, minarets and all.

The white Hazrat Sultan Mosque floodlit at night, four slender minarets around a patterned central dome, a car passing in front — The Hazrat Sultan Mosque after dark. Not a bad neighbourhood mosque.

Statement architecture, all of it

Daylight does not calm things down. There is a pyramid by Norman Foster built for peace congresses, a national museum guarded by gilded warriors, and a university shaped like a blue glass ellipse.

Dileep in sunglasses in front of the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a grey stone pyramid with stained glass panels at its apex — The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, June 2016. Yes, it is a pyramid. No, nobody blinks.

Dileep giving a thumbs up beside a fountain of Saka horsemen statues in gilded armour, the white stone and glass facade of the National Museum behind — Saka horsemen in gilded armour outside the National Museum. Thumbs up thoroughly earned.

The Kazakh National University of Arts, a tilted ellipse of blue glass, with a construction crane rising behind — The arts university: a blue glass ellipse, with the obligatory crane photobombing behind.

Dileep standing in front of a giant topiary sculpture of two raised hands, glass apartment towers filling the sky behind — Even the hedges are monuments here. June 2016.

Blue and gold

The interiors keep pace with the skyline. Inside one of the city's Orthodox cathedrals, an iconostasis in deep blue and gold climbs the whole east wall, icons stacked six rows high under painted vaults.

Inga in a green headscarf looking back over her shoulder inside the cathedral, the blue and gold iconostasis glowing behind her — Inga, headscarf on, mid-gasp. June 2016.

Astana is what happens when a country decides to build a capital from scratch and never asks whether it is too much. It is too much. Go anyway. For the older Kazakhstan, start in Almaty, or head south to Turkistan.