Astana

Astana is a capital that was decided: in 1997 the government left Almaty and its earthquakes and its border with China for a windy provincial town on the Esil river, in the middle of the steppe, and built a city there on a master plan by Kisho Kurokawa — an axis on the left bank that runs from Khan Shatyr, Norman Foster's translucent tent with a beach of Maldivian sand inside, past Bayterek, the white tree that holds a golden egg ninety-seven metres up, to Ak Orda, the presidential palace with its blue dome on the river, and across the water to the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, Foster's pyramid, the National Museum, the Kazakh Eli column and the turquoise domes of Hazrat Sultan. The right bank keeps the old Soviet town of Tselinograd, its markets and its apartment blocks; to the south, the sphere of Nur-Alem left over from Expo 2017 and the enormous Grand Mosque of 2022 close the catalogue. Twice renamed and renamed back, it is the country's showcase and its modern face, in the second-coldest capital on Earth.

The traveller walks the axis once from end to end — the tent, the golden towers, Bayterek at sunset with the city going gold below, Ak Orda from the river, the bridge, the pyramid — and then does it again inside: the view from Bayterek's egg, the concert hall in the pyramid, the National Museum for the Golden Man and the steppe, the mosque at prayer time; crosses to the right bank for the bazaar, the Soviet blocks and lunch that costs half; takes the Nur-Alem sphere for its eight floors of the future; eats beshbarmak and drinks kumis somewhere warm; and leaves by the Talgo night train to Almaty, twelve hours across the steppe, which is the country's other face and the better half of the trip.

The Guide's honesty: Astana is a showcase built from nothing in twenty-five years and it feels like it — the avenues are wide, the distances long, the wind constant and the buildings large and sometimes empty; it is a city for cars and taxis are cheap through the apps, so use them; the winter is savage, minus thirty with wind, and the summer is hot and bright; the architecture is a catalogue — Foster, Kurokawa, the gold towers, the pyramid — and either you enjoy the catalogue or you give it a day and go; the old right bank has the life the left bank lacks; names change here — the city itself was renamed twice — so do not be surprised by the street signs; and the steppe capital is not the Silk Road: for that, take the train south to Turkistan and Almaty, and let Astana be what it is, the state's front room, seen once and remembered.