The Making of a City

In November 2006 the movie Borat, Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of
Kazakhstan hit the American cinemas. The film generated a controversy centered round the main
character, Borat, played by the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. In the film the actor, posing as a
fictional Kazakh journalist traveling across the United States, created the impression that Kazakhstan
was a backward country. While Borat was widely acclaimed, for Kazakhstan bearing the brunt of all the
hilarity, Borat was anything but funny. Kazakhstan hired two PR firms to counter Borat’s claims and ran
four page advertisements in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune. A 67 minute film
In the Stirrups of Time was aired in the CNN to showcase Kazakhstan, its cities, broad highways, smartly
dressed people, empowered women, modern classrooms, dams and factories as well as Kazakhstan as
the centre of Eurasian integration in an attempt to promote Kazakhstan’s image internationally. Astana,
the new Kazakh capital became an integral part of this positive image branding effort.
From being identified with steppes, yurts, apples, the Aral Sea, Baikanur and Borat, there was now a
consistent effort to endorse a new imagery centered on the promotion of Astana as a symbol of
contemporary Kazakhstan in the global arena. Each capital projects its own distinct identity and for
Astana, the capital intended to signify both a break with the Soviet legacy and the birth of a new nation
in the form of a new city built by the Kazakhs themselves, it was architectural eclecticism. The city
reflected both the style of governance of the new state in the form of the imprint of the President’s
hand on the central building, the Baiterek, but also the nomadic culture of the Kazakh people in the
shape of buildings in the form of yurts interspersed with green spaces.
The Kazakhs are a pastoral nomadic people of Turko-Mongol stock, who did not exist as a cohesive
national entity prior to organizing themselves into three loosely united hordes. Territorial domination,
however, was a relative concept given the nomadic livestock breeding economy. This complicated the
nation building processes along with the sheer numbers of non-ethic Kazakhs in the state and the fact
that traditionally Kazakhs tended to identify themselves through lineage rather than the modern
markers of identity, language and religion. The construction of a new state capital and urban
iconography was therefore critical to the emerging Kazakh state and capital relocation became an
attractive strategy.
In Astana, the emphasis on the Kazakhs as the titular nation was reflected in the implicit and explicit
references to traditions of pastoralism and nomadism and icons referring to nomadic traditions are
ubiquitous in public spaces. The official state symbol includes a shanyrak, the round aperture at the top
of the yurt, the nomad’s mobile home. Circles are also a common presence as they represent perfection,
the course of time, natural cycles, the shape of the sun and infinity. The icon of the city, the Baiterek
reflects a motif from ethnic Kazakh mythology translated into built environment that reflects the
significance of the nomadic heritage. According to legend, a bird called Samruk laid a golden egg in the
magical tree Baiterek every year which symbolized fertility and the continuation of the Kazakh peoples.
A dangerous dragon once tried to destroy the egg and therefore the whole Kazakh nation but was
defeated by the fearless warrior Jertostyk.
There were clear indications from the beginning about the architectural appearance and the symbolic
content of the city. The Mater Plan itself explained in great detail the importance of the new capital for
the nation building process in Astana. It pointed out that the planned city would be Eurasian in

character, represent national tradition and history and embody the future that the state envisaged for
itself. Astana would represent a Eurasian style capital city characterized by the harmonious coexistence
of eastern and western culture in its urban form, function and layout. This Eurasian form was also
intended as a leitmotiv of President Nazarbayev’s geopolitical viewpoint and Astana was a critical part of
this vision. Just as Kazakhstan was located in the crossroads of culture, Astana enjoyed a similar location
at the heart of Kazakhstan.
Geopolitics is certainly not geometry and a country’s geographic centre is least of all like the
geometric centre of a circle. The geopolitical centre of Kazakhstan is not just linear
measurements and dimensions, but in many ways non-linear ideas and perspectives. The
question was in fact not so much about moving the capital to the exact centre, if there is even a
geographical centre of Kazakhstan. Rather it was about moving the capital to a point, which
would become the centre of Kazakhstan in many ways…not only geographically, but also the
centre of gravity of geopolitical, social, economic and cultural ties and relationships within and
outside the state. Astana—the new capital of Kazakhstan—also being very near to the
geographical centre of the country, has become precisely this ‘generalizing’ and ‘integrating’
centre (Nursultan Nazarbayev 2005).
The ‘global’ image of the city, on the other hand, was encouraged by a state policy where well known
urban planners and architects were invited to Astana. Landmark buildings included the Palace of Peace
and Reconciliation in the shape of a pyramid and a shopping mall in the shape of a transparent tent
designed by Norman Foster, a concert hall by the Italian architect Manfredi Nicoletti and an airport by
Kisho Kurokawa who was also the author of the Master Plan for the whole city. These are buildings that
became a part of ‘postcard Astana’ in promotions locally and abroad. Astana’s experiment with
international sources of architecture and urban planning reveals the aspirations of a Kazakh state and its
people to acquire a cultural and symbolic capital that would enable them to be counted among modern
cities in the developed world.
The making of Astana is reflective of how a materially constituted locus of power became a socially
constructed label or idea in the course of the transformation of a provincial town to a capital city with
global status. Here, while a process of re-appropriation of a traditional cultural legacy was evident there
was also as Adrien Fauve argues the ‘assemblage of people, ideas, places, and things that rendered
Astana as a living object or an actor-network’ transforming it to a marker of the entire state.
Anita
23 November 2017