City tour in Astana

City tour in Astana

Astana city tour:
• Old part of city: KGB office, theater of russian drama, Karl Marx and Lenin streets, catolic church, sinagogue, russian orthodox church, Matthew Kubrin's district.
• New part of city: Sultan Khazret mosque, Pyramid by Normann Foster, Baiterek tower, World EXPO site, Khan Shatyr, presidential square.

I am going to make Old-To-New conceptual tour.

We will start at 9AM at Duman aquarium parking and go to old part of city. Depending on number of people we go either by car (up to 3 persons) or by minibus (up to 10).

There we learn about medieval, Soviet and post-Soviet developments of Kazakhstan in general and Astana in particular. In old part we can see former Delegatskaya street, monument to Kerei and Zhanibek khans, first office of President, former office of KGB, Ishim river, monument to Tomiris queen, catholic church, sinagogue. Lunch is not included, so we are free to choose, where to have it. Up to your taste, kazakh, russian, ukrainian, korean, georgian, uzbek cookery are available with cost/person $6-35.

Following ahead, we will see russian orthodox church, palace for schoolchildren, new mosque, Pyramid by Norman Foster and National museum. Depending on weekday, we may visit Presidential square. Of course, it is absolutely new part of the city that never existed before relocation of capital to Astana. Whatever you'll see in the new part of city, didn't exist 14 years ago, all of it was literally empthy space, flat ground. Here we will see Baiterek tower, World EXPO 2017 site, Asiada 2011 site, new opera hall and another creature of Norman Foster, Khan Shatyr. This will be our last point.

Please, prepare good questions. Being journalist I used to write about finance, economy, international politics, history, I love history of Soviet period.

See you in Astana!

Yerlan.