Astana, Kazakhstan

We found a guest house online that had great reviews for being clean and well organised so we settled in there for a shower and rest before heading out to explore the neighbourhood. We knew about the  Expo 2017 "Future Energy" that was on in Astana but had not really been keen on visiting it as we thought prices would be sky high like they usually are when cities host such affairs. It was a pleasant surprise to find it was not so here. On the train many of the locals asked us if we were off to the Expo as they were so proud to be hosting it.

We are able to see the Sphere from our bedroom so are pretty near the Expo site. The Sphere looks like a giant marble and is the centre for the exhibition with several pavilions  surrounding it. It is the largest spherical building in the world - eight storeys high. We were told the site will be used to extend the university that is nearby once the Expo has ended. We were able to walk to the venue and get a map so we would be ready in the next couple of days to have a visit.

In the surrounding area there are about a dozen cranes working on high rise apartments. Contractors are flat out from sunrise to sunset building places and finishing off footpaths, roads and parking places.

The area with the guesthouse is an older established area surrounded by new apartments. The neighbours here are growing vegetables, playing in their gardens and looking after noisy dogs.

A neighbourhood house.

A closer look at some of the construction methods would put a NZ'er off living in any of these buildings. There is a lot of steel partitioning and tiles are screwed on to them with no mortar or insulation behind. Pillars of tiles are hollow inside! Businesses operate on the ground floor and the apartments are set out in communities with parks and playgrounds in the centre and supermarkets underground.

The President's palace

Astana became the capital of Kazakhstan only in 1997 and before that it was steppe. It was moved from Almaty to be further from China, closer to Russia and away from the earthquake zone. As a result it is a planned city with some amazing building designed by architects from all over the world.

We made contact with a local Couchsurfer who offered to show us around the city with her daughter. Aliya is a doctor with a PhD and studied in Moscow. Both her parents and grandparents were also doctors and it is what she sees her daughter doing too. Aliya now heads a team in the ministry of health and lives in an apartment across the road from the kilometre long ministry of health building. She said she earns the equivalent of $1000 US per month. She loves to travel and is off to Istanbul soon where a Couchsurfer has offered to host her.

We visited the Kazak History Museum and it was really wonderful. In the entry was a huge model of a golden eagle that lit up and flapped up and down.

The exhibits were a mix of old and new. The model of the development of the city was well done as it showed the different parts of the city rising up out of the steppe.

Aliya explained that the city was designed along an east -  west axis  that went from the President's Palace through the city taking in several significant buildings along the way. On another day we walked the line which is also a pedestrian route lined with fountains, seating, stalls, gardens and fountains.

We visited the oldest part of the original city where we walked beside the river and ate Kazak food at an outdoor restaurant even though Aliya was fasting for Ramadan.

We walked through the Arbat area where arts and crafts of felt were for sale.

This was a chance for Mageena to get on her e-scooter and whizz around.

Aliya and Mageena left us to explore the city and headed home to get ready for a few days away at an international gymnastics competition. They had to eat at 5am before taking a train and Aliya had to wait until 9.30pm before she could have dinner as the sun is up really late here.

 Some of the amazing buildings

Entrance to the Expo was cheaper on a week day than a weekend and it will run until September. We had to go through metal detectors to get into the site and it cost about $20NZ each. We saw contractors fitting toilet doors as we arrived and others sawing up decking planks. The Sphere was covered with a mesh that illuminated different patterns and it looked like a giant marble. There were very few people when we arrived but still only one of the 8 lifts was working to get everyone to the 8th floor to checkout the exhibits. 

Taken from inside the Sphere.

Each floor was dedicated to a form of energy with displays of each, or interactive games and videos or information screens, including kinetic, wind, solar, biomass, water,and space. All were well laid out really informative.

After the Sphere we chose a couple of pavilions hoping to learn more from the different countries displays. The Chinese one was a disappointment as we were lead to believe we would learn more about the planned beltway. 

The only mention of NZ in a section about different countries myths about wind. 

We did not have a pavilion.

 Making a plant grow through movement-one of the interactive displays.

We have an American couple staying in the guest house with us and they travel to the Expos each year and like us were disappointed with the USA pavilion which had a place for selfies with the Hollywood sign and a theme that said energy was within us all! And not much else.

John has been working on our visas for upcoming countries and some of them need a LOI-letter of introduction. That actually means you have to prepay for accommodation and tours before they will let you in.

Quite a few Kazaks have told us that their food is not as tasty as Uzbekistan food so we went to a local Uzbek restaurant a short walk from us. Mutton and beef were the most popular dishes with noodles and rice but horse was also an option.

Like Almaty, the buses are great for getting around and very cheap. One of the map apps I have has the bus numbers and routes on it so that is helpful.

Some of the buildings on 'the line'.

Lots of sculptures in the streets.

Khan Shatyr shopping centre which looks like it is going to fall over when viewed from one side.

But looks straight up and down from another angle.

Inside, there was a water slide, a sandy beach with palm trees and a monorail on the top floor. A drop tower ride went up and down in the centre with screaming participants. There were all the big brand stores here too. The material on the outside of the building was made from ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, a heat absorbing material that produces summer temperatures inside even though it is minus 30 outside.

Next stop Shymkent in the south of Kazakhstan - back to the ancient Silk Road.

Almaty to Astana, Kazakhstan

Although there are three online sites to book train tickets we still had problems doing it. For some reason the site was unable to identify our passport numbers so we had to book tickets with an agency and have them couriered to the hostel. There were not many sleepers left on the train and I did not want to sit for twenty hours in an upright seat. We later heard that scalpers buy up tickets and then sell them to travellers who arrive at the station to buy tickets. Expo 2017 is on in Astana so travel agents may also have bought up blocks of tickets but there were no return tickets available so we managed to find a reasonably priced air ticket with Air Astana and decided to head for Shymkent in the south of the country after our visit to Astana .

Almaty station of which there are two.

We had to go through metal detectors at the station before entering the platform so luckily we had left in plenty of time as there were also police attending an incident on our way but the taxi driver managed to notice it in time and chose another route.

Staff meeting before the train left.

Fruit sellers on the platform had dishes of strawberries,apples and cherries. We expected a lot more sellers than there were as stations are great places for rushed travellers to buy food.

John gave the coach attendant some sweets when she took our tickets and she later brought us some sweet tea in  a railway teapot with fancy tea glasses in holders.

               

                                                     

On her next visit she dropped off freshly starched, monogrammed bed linen and towels.. They even matched the curtains. Thick duvets and pillows were already waiting for us in the bunks.

No one joined us on the trip so we enjoyed having the four bunk compartment to ourselves. We did have a visit from a 42 year old father and his 13 year old daughter who could speak a few words of English. We mostly conversed using Google translator and they had already been told that the only westerners on the train were from NZ.

The journey took us through the steppes where there were not many villages and lots of sky and grass. We saw very few animals and people. Some of the plantations of what looked like birch and beech trees were thick with black crows.The small settlements we passed looked quite basic and the residents would have a lonely hard life especially in the winter trying to make an income. 

Outside the small towns were cemeteries where the Muslim graves were separated from non-Muslim ones.

In the morning we passed a few towns that had trucks loaded up with earth or minerals. Kazakhstan has 99 of all the elements on the periodic table. Lots of trains carrying cement products thundered past us in the night.

The snow drift fences were a reminder of the harsh winters they get here.

We rolled into Astana on time to be greeted by hordes of unofficial taxi drivers and lines of official ones.