Astana underwent extensive development in recent years and is a city that should attract many travelers, highlights the tour guide. "But no one is coming."

In fact, construction cranes soar into the sky everywhere in the capital of Kazakhstan, and numerous buildings remain skeletons. Many structures have been abandoned for some time because nobody wants to move there.

The guide is called Brian, although his real name is different. He chose that nickname because of his love for the United States, where he hopes to move soon to carve out a new destiny.

Brian is originally from China. "I learned English with the songs of Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue, Russian I could never learn," he explains. "Many tourists I guide around here look at me with some contempt because I am not a true Kazakh," he says.

Not only Brian seems to have some identity issues, as the same could be said for the Kazakh capital, which has so often changed its name.

It was first called Akmolinsk, from 1961 Zelinograd, in 1992 it changed its name to Akmola, in 1998 to Astana and since March 2019 it was called Nur Sultan, in honor of former president Nursultan Nasarbayev. But many locals still call it Astana.

Nur Sultan looks a bit like an architect has gone crazy here. You see pyramids, temples on the roofs of houses, shopping centers shaped like a feather duster, towers that oversized eggs.

Above this chas, a golden sphere dominates from a white steel scaffold. The Tower of Bajterek, a hundred meters high, is supposed to represent a mythological tree of life.

From above you can better see the architectural disorder, for which star architects such as Kisho Kurokawa and Norman Foster are responsible, among others.

At dizzying height, each visitor can even greet former President Nursultan Nasarbayev by placing his own right hand on the imprint of the presidential handprint, which is displayed in a gold frame on a pedestal, ensuring eternal happiness, according to a local myth.

Nur Sultan's architectural diversity, funded by the billions of dollars of this nation's oil and gas, stands in the middle of the steppe.

Despite the fact that more than a million people live in the capital, about 10 percent of the population, you hardly see people on its streets, at most in the cars that whiz by.

Even in Independence Square, where the 91-meter-high Kazakh Eli monument - a symbol of Kazakhstan's independence in 1991 - stands, the sacred bird Samruk gazes down into the void.

Biggest, biggest, biggest: that was the motto under which the Hazrat Sultan mosque was built in 2012, the largest in all of Central Asia.

Not far from there you can enjoy a bit of nature on the bank of the artificial river Ishim. Some bridges connect with the other shore, including the Atyrau Bridge, a fanciful construction with curved white walls and openwork figures, through which sunlight passes.

Yes, spending a day at Nur Sultan without a doubt shows that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. And those who do not find this city beautiful will still be certain that there is no other place like it.

Nur Sultan seems unapproachable and confusing to many, but Alma Ata or Almaty, in the southeast, represents the exact opposite.

With a population of 1.9 million, the country's largest metropolis and former capital is located near the peaks of the Tian Shan mountain range, which rise up to 4,000 meters.

"What I like about Almaty is not only its proximity to the mountains, but also that the city is so beautifully green. Nowhere else are there so many trees," says Kazakh Elvira, who grew up in this place.

The young woman explains that some of the trees found near the 1907 Ascension Cathedral, the symbol of the city, were planted by the presidents who were visiting the then capital of Kazakhstan.