In 1992, a year after Kazakhstan gained its independence upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, President Nursultan Nazarbayev decided to move the capital from Almaty to Astana. The shift was formalized just five years later. Here a bridge, with public art of a woman striding against the city's notorious wind, in Astana's center.
Astana's center, built over the last decade and a half on the orders of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Photograph by Joshua Kucera for CREDIT: Slate.
Aerial Views
The city of Astana became the capital of Kazakhstan on Dec. 10, 1997.
Photograph by Stanislav Filippoc/AFP/Getty Images.
Northern Lights
The Northern Lights, residential buildings in Astana's newly built city center.
Photograph by Joshua Kucera for CREDIT: Slate.
Baiterek
The Baiterek independence monument and observation tower evokes a Kazakh legend of the "tree of life," in which a sacred bird laid an egg in the crown of the tree every year.
Photograph by Joshua Kucera for CREDIT: Slate.
Hit the Beach
An indoor water park and beach in the new Khan Shatyr shopping mall will provide residents of Astana, the world's second-coldest capital, respite from the frigid Siberian winters.
Photograph by Joshua Kucera for CREDIT: Slate.
Model City
A maquette of Astana's monuments along the city center promenade appears, upon close inspection, to be made up of pen-and-ink drawings backed with cardboard, like a grade-schooler's diorama. The city's top architect bluntly admitted that Astana is being built quickly and that the quality of construction is poor: “Now they just build it and leave it, not like in Soviet times, when things were maintained.”
Photograph by Joshua Kucera for CREDIT: Slate.
Make a Wish
A visitor places his hand in the handprint of President Nursultan Nazarbayev at the top of the capital city’s independence monument. Reminiscent of the independence monument in the former capital of Almaty, it is believed that making a wish with your hand in the president's will help it come true.
Photograph by Joshua Kucera for CREDIT: Slate.
Choose and Be in Bliss
Almaty, the former capital, is on an earthquake fault line. Astana, the new capital, is much closer to the center of the country, and it is in the middle of the greatest concentration of ethnic Russians. Here a handprint of President Nursultan Nazarbayev sits at the base of the statue of Golden Sakovia, the independence monument in Almaty.
Photograph by Josh Kucera for CREDIT: Slate.
Independence Monument
A statue of Golden Sakovia was erected in 1996 to celebrate five years of independence in Almaty, the country’s former capital and still its largest city.
Photograph by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images.
Style for Style
The Parisian House of Fashion in Almaty. Although Almaty is no longer the capital of Kazakhstan, it is the country’s largest city, home to an estimated 9 percent of the population.
