Déjà vu in Astana

John Henzell

• Last Updated: November 11. 2009 11:09PM UAE / November 11. 2009 7:09PM GMT

A modern replica of Moscow State University, donated by the mayor of Moscow, is one of the new constructions in Astana. John Henzell for The National

We were midway through our tour of Astana, the shiny new capital of Kazakhstan, and our guide was convinced we had taken leave of our senses.

Our group had just been to the top of the Bayterek Monument, a strikingly modern tower that offered views over the attractively designed new buildings aligned along the capital district’s Avenue of the Republic, and it was clear this was our cue to make admiring comments about this city created on the otherwise featureless and treeless plains of the Central Asian steppe.

But for anyone coming from the UAE, that scenario – of the lesser-known capital city of a young but tolerant Islamic nation using its oil wealth to create a modern metropolis in a bleak and unforgiving environment – was a little too familiar to be impressive.

“We’re from Abu Dhabi,” we told our guide. “We don’t want to see new buildings. We want to see nature. We want to see the essence of Central Asia!”

The guide looked at us with blank incomprehension. With the help of the translator, we were told: “There is no nature – only steppe.”

The Astana people we had met so far had all been inestimably proud of this modern new city, basking in the proof they were just like Europe or America and not the Central Asian backwater of popular imagination. It was no wonder the authorities hated the film Borat so much.

So it took a degree of duress to convince our guide to abandon her standard route through the city’s modern architectural marvels and drive us out into the steppe that makes up most of Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth biggest nation.

We eventually found a nondescript village, prompting her to look at us with disbelief, as if to say: “Why on earth would they want to come here?” Instead of mirrored glass, there were sod roofs that traditionally helped the residents cope with temperatures that range from up to 40°C in summer down to -40°C in the depths of winter. Some of the homes had no roofs at all, suggesting a slow depopulation over many years.

But there were also some brand new homes, hinting at an influx of wealth that dated from 12 years ago when the government announced it was moving the capital from the nation’s biggest city, Almaty, in the far south of Kazakhstan, to the outskirts of this hitherto little-known provincial town in the north.

Had we been coming from somewhere other than the UAE, we probably would have been more impressed by how much had been achieved since 1997.

Sited on what had been fields across the river from the historic downtown, nearly everything in the capital district was complete, ranging from the parliament, the presidential palace, government ministries and landmark buildings such as the 77m-high glass pyramid of the multidenominational Palace of Peace and Harmony.

Although there were many international architects brought in (Norman Foster designed three of the buildings) there had also been attempts to incorporate Kazakh themes into the mix, such as the design of the Bayterek Monument, which has a gold-hued transparent orb where the viewing platform is located that is inspired by the ancient Kazakh legend of the samruk bird laying a golden egg containing the secrets to human desires and happiness.

But it was almost by chance that we learned of some of the rich human history of the area. It was while chatting with Snezhana, our blue-eyed and blonde-haired translator, that we learned she was not of Russian ethnicity, as we’d thought, but German.

She was devoutly and proudly a citizen of Kazakhstan but her maternal great grandparents had been deported by Stalin to a town near Astana because they had the misfortune to be Germans living in the Soviet Union at the outbreak of World War II.

Her father’s parents were German and Polish but living in Poland and suffered a similar fate of internal exile. Her parents were both born in Kazakhstan and even though she had spent time in Berlin on a scholarship, this, she said with pride, was her homeland.

We asked Snezhana where we could see traditional Kazakh culture, knowing that until a few generations ago, the Kazakhs had been nomads with proud traditions of hospitality and resourcefulness similar to the Bedu.

“If you want a traditional experience,” she replied, “you should go to the south of Kazakhstan.”

So we did.

As we emerged from Almaty airport after a 90-minute flight early the next day, it was clear we were in a completely different type of city.

We had a new tour guide, a retired teacher, who showed us around Almaty’s parks, cathedrals, museums and monuments, only briefly taking us past Almaty’s quota of shiny new buildings.

Although the government ministries all headed north to Astana, Almaty remained the country’s financial centre and the heart of this is an enormous mirrored-glass edifice that took its architectural cues, we were told, from the Alatau Range against which the city nestles.

Despite the katabatic effect of the snow-fringed range making Almaty a couple of degrees cooler than Astana, the biggest difference between the two cities was that the streets and parks here were full of people in a way they conspicuously had not been in the capital.

This time when we asked to see traditional Kazakh culture, the perplexed and affronted looks were absent and our guide drove us up into the mountains to a restaurant that had been set up in a series of yurts, the transportable felt-roofed circular dwellings traditionally used throughout Central Asia.

Above us, the first snows of winter clung to the craggy peaks, while down here in the tree-lined valley the colours of autumn were in full force. In between the two was Chimbulak ski resort, where Kazakhstan had unsuccessfully bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics.

The yurts were clearly touristy – we suspected traditional yurts did not feature chandeliers or have anterooms with bar service – but it gave a hint at what life for a Kazakh nomad would once have been like.

Among the items we were served was shuzhuk (horse meat sausage) which we washed down with kumys, fermented mare’s milk. Both reflected Kazakhstan’s status as the place horses were first domesticated by humans some 4,500 years ago.

The experience whetted my appetite for an even more authentic encounter for my final night in Kazakhstan.

I tracked down the Ecotourism Information Resource Centre in Almaty, which put me in touch with Ruslan and Nina, who for about US$26 (Dh97) host visitors in their home located in a remote gorge in a wildlife reserve about two hours from Almaty.

It would be hard to imagine a more different experience than Astana. Instead of mirrored-glass skyscrapers, a long drive along progressively deteriorating and potholed roads brought me to a spartan bungalow that lacked electricity and running water.

But Ruslan and Nina’s welcome was huge and genuine. Between their modest ability at English, my own Russian vocabulary remembered from a month spent in Georgia and Armenia in 1995, and some elaborate miming, we managed to communicate well enough. That was probably aided by what Ruslan dubbed his “vinaigrette”, an unsophisticated but quaffable home-made concoction which helped us overcome the linguistic distance between us.

It was clear they had mastered a tough existence. For four months each year, avalanches block the access road so they have to ski cross country down the valley to get their supplies. But we dined exceptionally well and finished the meal with tea sweetened with spoonfuls of Nina’s homemade cherry jam.

When I arrived soon after dusk, the temperatures were hovering around freezing outside but Nina cooked in an unheated kitchen with the door open, ladling water from a bucket into the pot, while Ruslan would continually refill my glass and toast to international friendship, to Abu Dhabi, to Kazakhstan, to Nina, to us and so on.

The next morning the ground was white with frost and I went for a walk into the hills just behind the house. Snow leopards are still occasionally seen in this area, although their population is estimated to be down to a few hundred throughout this mountain range several hundred kilometres long. Unsurprisingly, none made an appearance and I had to be satisfied with several large pheasants that exploded into flight within a few metres of where I was walking.

Then Ruslan fired up his 1976 Soviet-made four-wheel-drive and took me to Talgar, the nearest big town, an hour away, where I left with a “bolshoe spaseba” (thank you very much) and took a bus to Almaty for my flight back to Abu Dhabi.

jhenzell@thenational.ae