Shine of Astana. Baiterek National Museum and Monument

Being heard about some incredible architectural experiments in the new capital of Kazakhstan, the question of its obligatory visit has naturally matured. However, almost the whole of 2014 was somehow not up to it, then work, then other trips ... In the end, I decided to take a chance and go in the winter. The risk here is associated exclusively with the sharply continental climate of the Capital (the word "astana" in Kazakh means "capital"), it is very hot in summer and very cold in winter. But, on the other hand, most of the photo reports from Astana are summer, so I think it will be interesting to see how the city looks in winter. Yes, and the "winter" view, looking ahead, surpassed all the wildest expectations.

It remains only to choose the date and transport of the trip. With the date, the issue was resolved very quickly, but the transport issue stalled a little when solving it “on the forehead”: it turned out that direct flights from Moscow to Astana are relatively expensive, and it was necessary to use ingenuity. What took as much as 10 minutes: it turned out that Aeroflot had been flying to neighboring (about 210 km) Karaganda for some time, which, moreover, is a large railway station with a large selection of trains to the capital. Well, if so, then you can pay for the flight not with money, but with miles, as a result, the Moscow-Karaganda-Moscow flight cost me 426 (four hundred and twenty-six) rubles, and I had to pay about 1300 more for the railway.

На линии Караганда-Астана существуют три типа поездов: скоростные («Тулпары», т.е. испанские «Тальго»), ускоренные (новые электрички российского производства типа «экспресс», которые у нас по глупости заменили «Ласточками») и обычные скорые и пассажирские. Третий вид поездов отпадал сразу — 200 километров они проползали часов за 4-5, потому туда ехал на «экспрессе» (цена билета около 300 рублей, время в пути 2 ч 55 мин), а обратно — на «Тулпаре» 2-ым классом (2 ч 10 мин, около 1000 рублей). В общем, как только где-то с востока безбрежной степи взошло Солнце, поезд приехал в Capital.

01. I will break the tradition a little and make the first report not a general report about the city, but about the city museums that struck me the most (in a good way). Sitting in the room and warming up from the Siberian frost on the street (it was about -25), I flipped through the TV channels and found some Kazakh channel broadcasting in Russian. There, between the music videos of Kazakh performers unknown to me (a significant part of the songs were performed in Russian), I ran into a report about someNational Museum of Kazakhstan, which opened only in the summer and became , as the presenter put it, “a new milestone in the revival and development of the Kazakh people” (yes, flowery compliments are loved in Asia). The video is interesting. We have to go, although he was at the other end of the city, on Independence Avenue, a stone's throw from the Kazakh Eli monument. The building of the museum, if not a masterpiece, but a fine example of modern architecture.

02. Near the building there is a fountain with allegorical figures of ancient Kazakh cavalrymen.

03. I go inside. The first good thing is that admission is free. The first trouble is that you can’t just go into the museum, you have to wait for the formation of the excursion group, which took about 40 minutes. When 50 people gathered in the lobby, they were allowed to go through. By the way, photographers! Backpacks, photo bags and the like need to be taken to the cloakroom, because the camera will have to be held in the hand or around the neck, so it can be difficult to change the optics. We rise to the second floor, and there a huge golden eagle is suspended from the ceiling!

04. Museum employees are in no hurry to distract visitors from the most important task: to take a selfie and photograph everything around as soon as possible.

05. In addition to the eagle, you can photograph a lot of things here. And a bunch of tactile screens with information about Kazakhstan in three languages ​​(the third is English) and a huge map of the country on the wall (which is used as a projector screen in the final show) and much more.

06. When the vigilant guides realized that the duty selfies and mandatory photos had been taken, they began to invite them on a tour. The tour is conducted by different guides in different languages, Russian and Kazakh, and you can choose for yourself which language to listen to the guide. In my group, 3/4 of the people went to "Russian" groups, although there were actually about 1/3 of the entire contingent Russian. The first small hall consists of sculptural compositions and a huge stone with ... as it seemed to me, runes! What is written on them, as the guide said, is not yet known, but if there are experts in runic writing among my readers, I can send hirez.

07. I still don't understand the purpose of the next donut-shaped hall, they show small videos and moving pictures similar to the Winamp visualizer, but ... They look incredibly cool, all visitors are pleasantly shocked by what they see.

08. Then the inspection of the “golden hall” begins, where ancient gold items found on the territory of modern Kazakhstan (including some kind of “Golden Man”, which the Kazakhs are justly proud of) are exhibited. The museum staff assured that they were all genuine, but photography was strictly forbidden. However, while everyone was distracted by a reprimand to some young lady for a photo of a button on a mobile phone, I was not at a loss and took the largest gold item from those presented. Especially for you, my dear readers 🙂

09. Then the archaeological hall begins, in which types of clothing and large-scale models of excavations and ancient ruins are presented, where they were also not allowed to take pictures, they only managed to shoot a showcase that was not yet filled with exhibits, the light was already playing very beautifully in it

10. This is a different room and seems to be modern art, it was not forbidden to shoot it.

11. The next room belonged to the life of nomads, it was packed with exhibits and interesting technological gadgets that enhance perception, but they didn’t take their eyes off me, because the secretly taken photos turned out to be of poor quality ... By the way, there are a lot of halls in the museum, not all of them lead standard tours, because I'm only talking about what I saw myself. In continuation of the inspection - the Soviet era and the time of gaining and becoming an independent Kazakhstan. Then I noticed one amusing passage, which, to a person brought up in a Soviet school, seems somewhat ... uh ... unusual. In the expositions dedicated to the Soviet period of the history of the KSSR, there is the themeHolodomor famine in the 30s, and the NKVD-Gulag-repressions, and the victorious participation of the Kazakhs in the Second World War - that's all served neutrally and even somewhat abstractly. A huge part is devoted to space and Baikonur, and in it ... there are almost no Russians. That is, not that the participation of Russians and other Soviet peoples in space exploration is somehow hidden, no, but the main motive is Space and Kazakhstan. That is why the photograph of Gagarin is one and small, and there are many ethnic Kazakh cosmonauts and large ones.

12. The museum is full of modern projection equipment, in almost all halls there are huge screens with complex and very decent animation, the control panels for these projectors are tactile. It all looks cool, of course.

13. In the next hall, there is nothing at all except models and monitors, it tells about the future of Astana and Kazakhstan. LCD panels and a huge movie screen show pictures from the near future of the Capital, which will host EXPO-2017. The exhibition will look healthy, how futuristic, and the construction seems to have already begun.

14. Well, at the end of the tour, already below, they showed the very “final show”, where the eagle had already begun to flap its wings, and beautifully captured views of the country, its main attractions and pictures from the near future, when by 2017 will be built in the steppe by 2017, were projected onto the map of Kazakhstan. garden city.

15. But Astana is not the only one interesting for the National Museum. The main attraction of the city was and remainsBaiterek. In order not to distort the symbolism of Baiterek, I will send the curious toGoogle orYandex, and I will tell you only what I saw.

16. But Baiterek is not just a monument, it is also a museum, a small gallery, a cafe and an observation deck. The entrance to it is paid, but the price is divine, like 500 tenge (170 rubles). Upstairs there is a three-level platform with a small cafe, a model of Astana of the future and many other interesting things.

17. And yet the main thing in Baiterek is an observation deck. From here a beautiful view from above opens on the central part of Astana.

18. View of the city from a high-speed elevator that takes tourists and locals to the observation deck.

19. Baiterek is so important for Kazakhstan that they do not hesitate to draw it on money.

20. At the end of the story about Baiterek, I will note that the famous architectNorman Foster cost it, and this is far from the only building of his bureau in the city. In general, not a monument, but in every sense the center of the new capital. Which is beautiful from any angle.

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That's enough for now 🙂 centerKhan Shatyr

to be continued...