Not yet visited

I'll start this by admitting that I never made it to Astana in my trip. Therefore, I am going to attempt to write this from a variety of second-hand accounts from people I spoke to. Is that cheating? Perhaps. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes.

So, to give a little background, Astana was not a city until the 1990s. Prior to it, Almaty was the capital and only a small village with a different name stood in it's place. BUT THEN, the government came into a ton of oil money and decided to construct a major city up out of nothing and make it the country's new capital, hence the name Astana (meaning 'capital' in Kazakh). From there, it has expanded into a bizarre, yet incredibly interesting futuristic metropolis that was described to me as a mix between Dubai and Las Vegas.

The best story I have about it comes from my friend Tristan who, after visiting me in Moscow, decided to take a 2 1/2 day train to Astana because he could. On the way, he met a Kazakh family who invited him to stay with them for the duration of his stay, which he did. Over that time, google translate was used for communication, horse milk was drank (or at least attempted to on Tristan's part), and friends were made.

I still need to contact Tristan directly and find out more details of the story, and when I do, this page will be much more full. But from what I gather, the city is so unique and absolutely worth seeing for yourself. Also, the hospitality Tristan, as a complete stranger who couldn't speak the language, received wasn't just unique to Astana. I found it pretty much everywhere I went, which made the trip such an incredible experience.