Christoph, a photographer-friend of mine, accompanied me to Kazakhstan a few weeks back. Here are some of his impressions from Astana:

The new Independence Monument (91m high)

Our friend Chris Schuepp of Unicef dropped a note telling us about a workshop he held in Astana two weeks ago. Chris is the guy behind OneMinutesJr:
They are sixty-second videos made by young people (between the ages of 12 and 20) from all over the world. Time may be limited in a […]

I wrote about this before on blogistan.asia, but I am still interested in the topic and therefore I will write here again.
Astana is something like a city of myth for many German newspapers and therefore often described as one of those unbelievable new cities built on oil and gas like Dubai and
Abu Dhabi. […]

Via a friend, my attention is drawn to this video here. It shows the concept study of a massive lightshow for Astana’s 10-year anniversary. It really is worth watching despite the fact that it is what it is: a concept that is not going to be realised. The music is also […]

Last week former Defense Minister and incumbent MP Sat Tokpakbaev came out with the proposal to rename Astana, the capital city, to Nursultan in honor of the president. A clear majority of the one-party Legislature was fast to voice support to this idea - apparently, they were not sure of the president’s reaction, and placed […]

Granted, Capital isn’t the most original name for a nation’s capital. When the Kazakh government (many believe it has been president Nazarbaev’s rather risky initiative) decided to move the country’s administration from leafy Almaty to the rather dusty Akmola ten years ago, they thought that White Grave, Akmola’s literal translation wasn’t the perfect […]

As we reported earlier, the Astana’s 10th anniversary celebration plan included a certain amount of money to be spent for PR in the international media. Perhaps, today we can see it in action on the Voice of America, formerly known as the outpost of free speech in Soviet times. Now Valer Gergely picturesquely praises […]