Astana, Kazakhstan with Debbie

I had a wonderful visit with my sister, Debbie, in Astana, Kazakhstan last weekend!

Don't we look great, all dressed up for the ballet in the State Theater of Opera and Ballet? It's a beautifully decorated building, with lots of marble. We saw Spartacus, with males leaping and floating through the air.

Astana is all shiny-new. President Nazarbayev basically created Astana to be the new capital of Kazakhstan in 1997. The world's top architects designed the eclectic skyline. There are practically no rectangular buildings! Everything is curved and colored and eye-catching. Click on the link in the first line of this post and watch the video in there.

Debbie had a long weekend to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII in Europe. I got there on 6 May, and Astana had a huge military parade and flyover on the 7th. That was the day all the Europeans surrendered.

After walking a long way, we got to a security checkpoint

 I took this picture in order to prove that my camera was not a gun-in-disguise!

Big missiles - backdrop is high-rise under construction

70 years!

70 years - up in smoke!

The Kazakhs really got into V-Day. Besides everyone watching the parade, there were fireworks that night and again on the 9th. I do mean spectacular fireworks! On the 8th, Nazarbayev went to the parade in Moscow. The 8th is official V-Day, and the 9th is the date that it was in Kazakhstan's time zone when the documents were all signed.

Don't you love this kid's face?

People lined up for pictures with the CCCP displays

Astana is smack dab in the middle of the world's biggest steppe, or grass-covered flat land. Nothing stops the wind. There's no water to moderate the temperatures, either. The temperatures go from -40 (Celsius or Farenheit) to +40 C or 104 F through the year. Astana used to house a gulag prison camp for wives of Soviet traitors. Nobody was going to walk away from there! We started out watching the parade from streetside, but it was 7 layers deep in people, and hot. So we went up the steps of the mosque. Much nicer there.

Hazret Sultan Mosque

Cool inside, beautifully decorated

Debbie and I walked back from the pyramid to the leaning cone/tent - that would be from the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation to the Khan Shatyr shopping mall. Baiterek Tower is in the middle. It looks like an egg laid in a tree to renew life every year, they say. It's definitely striking!

There's a statue of Nazarbayev in the bottom of the spire.

Ishim River in front of the skyline

Lots of space here. The mosque, the Palace of Peace, and the Shabyt Palace of Art

Central Concert Hall

"The microphone"

Baiterek Tower surrounded by the City Park

Striking complex of buildings, all blue and white!

This statue is about love

Looking through the arch toward Khan Shatyr

The view from the top of Baiterek Tower, which we did the next day, is amazing.

My blue and white complex from above

Put your hand in Nazarbayev's handprint and make a wish!

This is about religious tolerance, showing many religions

The Nur-Astana Mosque and some very cool buildings.

Notice that there is nothing past the city and river. It is flat grassland. That seems to be what "steppe" means!

There are still some WWII vets walking around

I call those the Pope Hats buildings

Ice cream! And locks on the sculpture to show undying love.

They have a 2-stringed instrument, a romantic view of life, and two languages: Kazakh and Russian. This one's Kazakh.

On the 9th, we took a train out to see if there were any trees in Kazakhstan. Okay, maybe that was a little harsh. Anyway, we went to Akkol, which isn't pronounced like it's spelled. It's a small nowhere town north of Astana an hour and a half on the train. Definitely check out Debbie's blog post.

Akkol's train station, and pretty much the whole town as far as I saw

See? Trees!

Spring! Lovely!

It rained most of the afternoon, so Debbie and I visited both stores, and we played rummy in the train station. She totally owned me! I really enjoyed spending time with Debbie.

The 10th was my last day to visit. :-( We decided to visit some museums. Oops! V-Day weekend! So we just walked around. There were whitecaps on the river, the wind was so strong!

This so reminded me of Neal and Ed with the dragons in Ljubljana!

Tomyris, Scythian leader who killed Cyrus the Great in 530 BC

The Ishim River is apparently a popular fishing place

The 11th, I had to leave. I totally enjoyed the visit. Vlad, who picked me up, with Debbie, at 11 pm gave us a wonderful night-time tour. The lights everywhere are like Christmas year-round. Rose, Debbie's very nice roommate, took a trip to southern Kazakhstan over the weekend. Debbie's school, QSI, is quite modern and seems to be growing. The sunrise on the way to the airport brought out a double rainbow, so it was an awesome morning. I got home after a nice stopover in Vienna and an impossible stopover in Oslo, without my suitcase. Ah, well, the joys of travel! I got it the next day.