Tselinograd / Astana is the capital and second largest city (behind Almaty) of Kazakhstan, with an estimated population (2007) of 577,300. It is located in the north-central portion of Kazakhstan, within Akmola Province, although it is politically separate from the rest of the province, which has its own capital.
The current mayor of Astana is Askar Mamin, formerly Minister for Transportation. He was appointed mayor on 25 September 2006.
The name "Astana", which means "Capital city" in Kazakh, was allegedly chosen because it is easily pronounced in many languages. In Kazakh and Russian, it is pronounced "As-ta-na", while in English and many other languages, the common pronunciation is "As-ta-na".
Early history
A unit of Siberian cossacks from Omsk founded a huge fortress on the upper Ishim in 1824, which later became the town of "Akmolinsk". During the early 20th Century, the town became a major railway junction, causing a major economic boom that lasted until the Russian Civil War.
The Gulags once spread over the Kazakhstan steppe like a thick wreath. Eleven camps housed hundreds of thousands of prisoners and their families. Outside Astana, there once stood the ALZHIR camp, a Russian acronym for the Akmolinskii Camp for Wives of Traitors of the Motherland, one of the most notorious in the Gulag archipelago, which was reserved for the wives of men considered "enemies of the people" by Joseph Stalin.
In 1961, it was renamed "Tselinograd" and made capital of the Soviet Virgin Lands Territory (Tselinny Krai). The city was at the centre of the Virgin Lands Campaign led by Nikita Khrushchev in the 1950s, in order to turn the state into a second grain producer for the Soviet Union. The high portion of Russian immigrants in this area, which later led to ethnic tension, can be traced to the influx of agricultural workers at this time. Additionally, many Russian-Germans were resettled here after being deported under Joseph Stalin at the beginning of World War II, when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
After Kazakhstan gained its independence in 1991, the city and the region were renamed "Akmola". The name was often translated as "White Tombstone," but actually means "Holy Place". The "White Tombstone" literal translation was too appropriate for many visitors to escape notice in almost all guide books and travel accounts.
As Kazakhstan’s new capital
In 1994, the city was designated as the future capital of the newly-independent country, and again renamed to the present "Astana" after the capital was officially moved from Almaty in 1997. Despite the isolated location of the new capital in the centre of the Kazakh Steppe and the forbidding climate in winter, Kazakhstan simply needed a more central location than its former location of Almaty, which lies on the far southeastern border with Kyrgyzstan. Some speculate that it was a move to impose more control over the Russian-dominated north of the country. Other reasons include the belief that the new city project is a strategic move to position the capital further from the borders with China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, or that Almaty was limited in its development by mountains (which is objectively not the case), or that President Nursultan Nazarbayev created a "Potemkin village", either to present an image of a modern, clean Kazakhstan to entice foreign investment. Internal political concerns may have played a part: Nazarbayev, like most of the Kazakh political establishment, belongs to the Great Horde (Kazakh, ulı jüz) in whose territory Almaty lies. The move to the traditional territory of the Middle Horde may have been a gesture to the Middle and Little Hordes' political sensibilities.
To some Kazakhs, the move remains controversial. Critics resent the massive expenditure of public funds to build the new government complexes, as well as the continuing cost of airfare and hotel expenses for the many government workers who still live in Almaty. The lucrative development contracts handed out to companies owned by President Nazarbayev's family members also remain highly suspect.
Geography
The city is located in central Kazakhstan on the Ishim River in a very flat, semi-desert steppe region which covers most of the country's territory. The elevation of Astana is at 347 meters above sea level. Astana is in a spacious steppe landscape, in the transient area between the north of Kazakhstan and the extremely thinly settled national center, because of the river Ishim. The older boroughs lie north of the river, whilst the new boroughs were located south of the Ishim.
Climate
Climatically Astana is one of the coldest capitals in the world, with temperatures of -35 to -40 °C common in the late autumn. The new city is also known to regularly freeze for around six months every year. Overall however, Astana has a continental climate, with exceptionally cold winters and moderately hot summers, arid and semiarid.
The average annual temperature in Astana is 1 degree Celsius. January is the coldest month with an average temperature of -16 °C. July is the hottest month with an average temperature of 20 °C.
Sightseeing
Today there are many construction works under way, such as embassy buildings, representative riversides along the Ishim River, and some infrastructure for transportation and communication. In the centre of town, the Avenue of the Republic acts as the main hub of activity. It is bordered by many stores, coffee houses, restaurants, discotheques and even some casinos. Worth a visit are the:
-Modern governmental quarter
-Ishim banks
-"Oceanarium"
-Astana Central National Mosque
-Islamic Center
-Roman Catholic Cathedral
-Market hall
-Bayterek Tower |
