One of the stops we made today was a football sized diorama-of-sorts depicting the various regions of Kazakhstan in a somewhat geographical layout. Outside the entry gate(with its seemingly requisite, greater than life sized, photograph of the president), were a series of stone statues. We don't know their significance, but found them interesting.

We walked from the oil fields along the Caspian, down along the Uzbek border, and viewed the snow capped Tien Shan mountains that encircle Almaty. From here we walked along the rail lines up to Astana and out a bit further to the coal fields around Karaganda. From here we could see the Soviet rockets on the launch pad just a short distance away.

Weary from the journey, we found respite in a basketball court sized pavilion under which the grand plan for Astana was laid out. The building that was under construction in the previous post here appears in the middle photo in its finished state as a large blue and white glass faced building with a sliced-off looking sloped roof line.

The bottom photo shows a great many other buildings in the foreground where at present there is very little. There is quite a vision, though there also seems to be a great deal of Vegas to it all as well. Lots of flash with little attention to detail.