Mashenzia, a blogger and an Almaty-based reporter of the international news service, tells a funny story that has happened to her lately in Astana, the capital city. It’s amazing how people that live in Old Town of Astana - the Soviet-type provincial cityscape - sometimes do not have any idea of what is happening on the river’s Left Bank, where the Shining New City is rapidly growing. Here is her dialogue with a taxi driver in Old Town.

- Ak-Orda [the presidential palace], please.
- What’s that? - a man asks distrustfully.
- Ak-Orda. Left Bank.
- Don’t know what it is.
- Presidential administration. His residence, - I explain patiently.
- No, I don’t know such, - he shaked his head.