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I crossed Kazakhstan by rail+bus in 2013, I wrote a few blogposts: https://blog.hboeck.de/plugin/tag/kazakhstan https://blog.hboeck.de/plugin/tag/kazakhstan

• vbezhenar 5y ago
  Thanks for your blog, it's always fascinating to read about my city. I'd like to comment to "Astana is quite the opposite. Nothing here is old, large parts of Astana were build within the last two decades. Dirt or waste in the streets was almost zero and the traffic seems pretty civilized. Until 1997, Almaty was the capital of Kazakhstan, due to some complicated political compromises, it was moved to Astana and there began the growth of this boom town." Actually Astana was that average town just 20 years ago. And of course there's plenty of old buildings in Astana. And some areas are outright poor. Here's link to street view of one example, you can move around, and that's the same Astana: https://yandex.kz/maps/-/CCUqnJEh0C https://yandex.kz/maps/-/CCUqnJEh0C There's "old city" (or "right coast", contrary to "new city"/"left coast") where ordinary buildings are everywhere. It's not poor, it's just usual. Of course capital status means much more money for everyone, so people generally are more wealthy compared to other cities. There's no point for tourists to go to other city parts, though.
  • noduerme 5y ago
    If that street view is the poor part, it looks pretty wealthy based on the cars and houses. Much nicer than a lot of places. It could be somewhere in Argentina. The only giveaway that something is weird is the mess of electrical lines in one place and the absence of them somewhere else.