IT WAS in June of 1998 that oil-rich Kazakhstan officially inaugurated its purpose-built capital, Astana. But when the 20th anniversary of the city’s founding rolled round this year, the government decided to mark the occasion a few weeks late, on July 6th, as it has in previous years. That, after all, is the birthday of a much older fixture in the country’s life: the president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has run it since it became independent in 1991.
On the day, a colourful cascade of fireworks illuminated Astana’s gleaming space-age facades. There was also a tournament of kokpar (a traditional game played on horseback with a dead goat instead of a ball) and a circus featuring elaborate shows of horsemanship. The latter ended with an acrobatics display in which the performers’ costumes fanned out to send the turquoise and yellow of the Kazakh flag rippling across the stage.
At Bayterek Tower, a...Continue reading
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