Rising From The Steppe: Kazakhstan’s Capital Turns 20

An overview of today's Astana with Kazakhstan's White House-like presidential palace in the center. 

Today’s Astana began life in 1830 as a Cossack fortress looming over the Ishim River. By the end of that century, the outpost had grown into a bustling trading town, spiked with the spires of three Orthodox churches.

During the Soviet era, the town (pictured in 1979) was chosen as one of the centers for an ill-fated project to transform the steppes of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic into a sea of wheat.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in a wheat field near today’s Astana in 1964. The town at the time was named Tselinograd, based on the Russian word “tselina,” meaning “virgin lands.”

Tselinograd in 1984. The banner reads “Glory to the hands that smell of bread.”

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Nursultan Nazarbaev, a top politician in the communist republic, became president of an independent Kazakhstan. His Soviet pedigree was apparent in his photo ops, as well as his “ruler-for-life” ambitions.

Workers outside the town’s new presidential palace in 1998. In the summer of that year, Nazarbaev decreed the former Tselinograd be renamed Astana, which means “capital” in the Kazakh language.

Astana became a city of cranes as the government relocated from Almaty and the population swelled from 326,000 in 1999 to over 1 million today.

The official reason to relocate the capital from Almaty (pictured) was to avoid the earthquakes that rattle the town and to help spread wealth more evenly across the country. Many noted that Nazarbaev was also able to leave his political opposition behind as his government headed north to Astana. 

The Nur-Astana Mosque. Few expenses were spared as architects from around the world were flown into Astana to raise what looked like a kind of Asian Las Vegas from the steppe.

The giant Khan Shatyr or “Royal Marquee.”

Inside the Khan Shatyr, an artificial beach stocked with sand from the Maldives awaits paying bathers. The extravagance of the new structures caused controversy in a country where the average annual household income around the time of Astana’s construction was less than $600.

The Baiterek Tower, representing a Kazakh folktale about a bird that lays a golden egg in the branches of a poplar tree.

The sphere built for the 2017 World Expo, which Astana hosted. The U.S.-based Foreign Policy magazine had its website briefly blocked in Kazakhstan after calling the building the “Death Star.”

Among the biggest challenges for people relocating to Astana were the brutal winters -- only Mongolia’s capital, Ulan Bator, is colder -- and the winds that drive in across the plains.

The answer to the city’s freezing winds was trees -- millions of them, to be planted in a “green ring” around the city.

The millions of newly planted trees have reportedly lifted the average temperature by a fraction, and significantly dampened the wind. The planting project continues today.

As Astana prepares to celebrate its 20th birthday on July 6, its inhabitants will also (perhaps somewhat unwittingly) be celebrating Nazarbaev, who timed the anniversary to coincide with his own 78th birthday.