The futurist capital on the steppe — Baiterek tower, the Khan Shatyr and a city built in 25 years
Astana (renamed from Nur-Sultan back to Astana in 2022) is Kazakhstan's capital, a city that barely existed in 1997 and now rises as a surreal skyline of Norman Foster domes, Zaha Hadid arenas, and giant geometric towers from the flat Kazakh steppe. President Nazarbayev moved the capital from Almaty to this blizzard-prone site in the centre of the country for strategic reasons; the result is one of the world's strangest capitals — wide ceremonial boulevards, the world's largest climate-controlled tent (the Khan Shatyr entertainment centre), a gold-topped presidential palace, and temperatures…
The site was a small railway junction called Akmola ('white tomb' in Kazakh) when Kazakhstan declared independence in 1991 — a minor Soviet administrative centre of 270,000 people on the cold steppe. In 1997 President Nazarbayev announced it would become the new capital, renamed it Astana, and launched one of the most ambitious planned city projects since Brasília — commissioning master plans from Kisho Kurokawa and attracting Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, and other signature architects. The city was briefly renamed Nur-Sultan in 2019 to honour Nazarbayev, then renamed back to Astana in 2022 aft…