sofasurfers

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And so, should proof be needed, here is me in the Golden Ball (complete with gold-tinted windows) of the Baiterek Tower, some 97m off the ground, in honour of the year (1997) that Astana was crowned capital of Kazakhstan. And where is my hand, you might ask? Covering the Very Fingerprints Of The President Himself, laid in some 2kg of gold, atop some 5kg of solid silver, mounted upon a plinth of green malachite.

Please: give a big hand for...

In fact, looking out at Astana, as one is wont from this vantage point, it appears that the whole city is something of a vanity project for the president, what with the Museum of the First President of Kazakhstan, the President’s Cultural Centre, and, right at its epicentre, amply surrounded by importance-implying open space, the Presidential Palace – an Islamic take on the White House: a neoclassical glory-fest topped by a pompous turquoise dome.

There’s a pleasing calm to Astana, in contrast to Almaty’s chaos. That’s possibly because Astana is still waiting for its inhabitants to arrive (it was built to house 1.5m people; currently there are 600,000). So because there are hardly any cars, crossing the road isn’t death-defying like it is in Almaty, its gleaming city attractions are joyously deserted, and when the sun goes down, it becomes apparent that the lights never come on in all those uninhabited (gold) skyscrapers. And as our Russian couchsurfing friends point out over dinner that evening, “What’s the point of skyscrapers, when all around is as much land as you could possibly need?” Because, perhaps, skyscrapers maketh a city. Because, perhaps, like minarets and spires, skyscrapers are a stairway to heaven.