This is not English

          “Those are English words—but this is not English.” The phrase, which I dutifully attribute to my wife, Stephanie Hysmith, seemed apt when I opened a book presented to me by Eurasian National University (ENU) in Kazakhstan's capital Astana on my first visit. It was a hefty tome titled Nursultan Nazarbayev and the Eurasian Education Space, published to mark the country’s advances and investments in higher education in the post-Soviet era and a higher education conference at ENU.

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers. Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube

           The introduction claims that Kazakhstan’s trilingual policy in higher education (teaching in Kazakh, Russian, and English) has helped the country advance economically and promoted peace. There’s some truth to that. However, if this book is any guide, the English part of trilingualism has still some way to go. Let’s start with the title. Russian speakers often translate prostranstvo as space, but in this context it sounds silly; “sphere” is better. Not as silly, however, as the captions to the photos, most of which featured conference speakers, signing ceremonies, and group shots of participants. There are the “orderly rows of professors of natural sciences faculty,” some of whom look as if they are quietly snoozing. A picture of four unidentified delegates is bizarrely captioned “In the cycle of supporters of the Eurasian integration.” The group shot of university rectors is modestly titled “The memorable photograph.” Then there’s “The Eurasian vector of intercultural dialogue” (the ENU rector with delegates in national dress at the Palace of Peace and Accord). I don’t know about the after-conference parties, but the daily activities apparently got pretty lively. A picture of a mildly enthusiastic standing ovation is titled “The wild audience applauds.” And then there are “the wild discussions behind the scenes of the forum.” I can imagine the conversation. “You know, Erlan, I’m just crazy about this Eurasian integration idea.” “Me too. Another cup of tea?”

            Of course, it’s all too easy to poke fun. This was a significant conference, and the participants discussed serious issues. But if you’re going to avoid the Borat make-benefit-glorious-nation-of-Kazakhstan tag and present the country (and university) as players on the world stage, the least you can do is hire a good English copy editor. This was a costly publication, with high-quality printing and glossy color photos, but the budget apparently did not include a close review of the text, which was probably translated word for word, the editor sometimes opting for the second or third dictionary meaning.

            Unfortunately, literal translations are all too common in official communications. My friend Irina Velska, who has excellent English, told me that she once offered to correct the numerous errors in a coffee-table history book produced in her home city of Karaganda. Her offer was refused. The book, she was told, was translated by a “leading professor of English language and literature.” Who was she to think she could improve the text?

University Dreamland

Most universities in Central Asia I’ve visited since the mid-1990s are in some state of disrepair—from the curriculum and academic management to the facilities and classrooms. But there’s one where no expense has been spared—Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. 

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers. Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube         

I’d read about the heavy investment in construction and the contracts with leading universities in the United States, the UK, and Asia, but nothing prepared me for the view from the entrance portico. A long, wide mall, with fountains, palm trees, and carefully manicured shrubs, all enclosed under a huge atrium (palm trees don’t do too well in an Astana winter). Lining the atrium are five-story blocks, each reserved for one of the international partners. When one researcher showed pictures of the university’s interior to focus groups in Almaty, most participants thought it was a shopping mall.

Photo by Natalie Koch

Why did Kazakhstan spend millions on Nazarbayev University when facilities and conditions at other universities are lacking, when teachers have to take two or three jobs to make ends meet, when there’s no paper for the printer in the dean’s office and sometimes no chalk for the chalkboard? It’s about creating world-class education, of course, to provide the workforce for business and government. But it’s also about Kazakhstan’s image on the world stage.

            Location is everything, and Nazarbayev University is the first complex you pass when you drive in on the airport road. I approached the university from the other direction on the Number 10 bus. Workers were planting flats of flowers in the newly cultivated beds. Vehicles rolled up for the start of the workday, disgorging well-dressed administrators. A luxury bus arrived with what I assumed (by their more casual dress, balding heads, and laptops) were foreign faculty, bused in from apartment complexes in the new city.

            Will the investment succeed? Of course it will. The university has the president’s name on it, so anything short of success is unthinkable.  But how well Nazarbayev University creates the “international education on the steppe” experience remains to be seen. Although instruction is in English, most students are from Kazakhstan so they are not exposed to students from other countries and cultures. And the moment they leave the classroom and get on the bus back into the city they’ll be speaking Kazakh and Russian again. Graduates will certainly have a competitive edge in the job market, but creating an elite group at the expense of improving general standards in higher education leaves other talented students, especially in the regions, at a disadvantage.

The President's Dream City--Ak Orda

The left bank of the River Ishim in Astana is bisected by a broad pedestrian mall. At one end, close to the Pyramid of Peace and Accord, is the presidential palace—the Ak Orda (White House), its blue-and-gold dome topped with a golden spire.

There’s more gold inside in the majestic halls used for state and ceremonial events, including the pessimistically named Hall of Extended Negotiations. Twenty-one types of marble were used for the floor patterns. According to the palace website, “Metaphorically, it reflects a steppe civilization in the mirror of the European culture, a synthesis of arts of the planet’s largest continent—Eurasia.” I have no idea what that means, but it’s typical of the lyrical descriptions of most of Astana’s new buildings. 

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers. Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube

The President's Dream City--Khan Shatyr

Astana’s monument to consumerism, Khan Shatyr, stands at the opposite end of the pedestrian mall from the Ak Orda (White House) and Palace of Peace and Accord.  Like the Palace, it was designed by the British architect Sir Norman Foster. 

Khan Shatyr has been described as “the largest tent in the world” but to compare it to something you can buy from an upscale outfitter or even to a large marquee is a gross understatement. The needle-tipped structure, 500 feet tall and with a floor area the size of ten football stadiums, is designed to evoke the traditional nomadic dwelling, the yurt. It leans sideways, as if blown by the wind from the steppe. Khan Shatyr is constructed from three translucent layers of a fabric called ethylene tetrafluoroethylene suspended on a network of cables strung from a central spire. The transparent material allows sunlight through, which, in conjunction with air heating and cooling systems, is designed to maintain an internal temperature of 15–30 Celsius (59–86 Fahrenheit) in the main space and 19–24 Celsius (66–75 Fahrenheit) in the retail units.

Khan Shatyr roughly translates as the tent of the khan, or king, but it’s all about business and entertainment, not politics. Underneath the tent is a huge shopping mall with squares and cobbled streets, movie theaters, a botanical garden, boating river, mini-golf, roller coaster, water park, and indoor beach resort, with sand, palm trees, and tropical plants shipped in from the Maldives. If Dubai can have its indoor ski slope, then Astana deserves its tropical beach.

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers. Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs and Articles) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube

The President's Dream City--Nur Astana Mosque

The Nur Astana mosque in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, on the left bank of the River Ishim is the largest in Central Asia, with room for five thousand worshippers inside and another two thousand outside (presumably only in summer).

The glass, concrete and granite structure is 40 meters (131 feet) high, symbolizing the age of the Prophet Muhammad when he received the revelations; the minarets are 63 meters (207 feet) high, the age of Muhammad when he died. Unlike other left-bank buildings, the government did not pay for construction. The mosque was a gift from the Emir of Qatar.

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers. Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube

The President's Dream City--the Palace of Peace and Accord

Planet Astana

For many visitors, the capital of Kazakhstan is an astonishing sight—unlike any other city they’ve seen. My first impressions—from the air and then from the airport highway—evoked otherworldly metaphors. Strange shapes rose out of the steppe—spires, domes, globes, ovals, and pyramids in gold, silver, blue, and turquoise. The taxi passed the gleaming facade of Nazarbayev University, then sports stadiums and arenas built for the 2011 Asian Winter Games, with their massive, curved metal and concrete spans. Then triumphal arches, monumental public buildings, upscale apartment blocks, the huge Nur Astana mosque, shopping malls, and manicured parks, most of which on a chilly Saturday afternoon in September were almost deserted.

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers. Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube

Photo by Natalie Koch

Whatever you think about futuristic architecture (or what it cost to build it, and whether the money could have been better invested in Kazakhstan’s social needs), Astana is unlike any other capital city in Central Asia. Almaty (the former capital) and Tashkent look like other Soviet-era cities with their colonnaded public buildings and monotonous apartment blocks. Bishkek and Dushanbe have similar architecture, but are rougher around the edges. Astana looks more like Dubai. It is growing fast, but even by the latest (2012) population estimate of 775,000, it is still less than half the size of Almaty or Tashkent (each of which has about two million inhabitants). However, the futuristic architecture makes Astana look and feel bigger. Which is exactly what its chief conceptual architect, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, intended.

Photo by Natalie Koch

Like other capital cities throughout human history, Astana is designed to impress visitors. Just as medieval travelers returned home with tales of the fabulous cities of the East, modern travelers to Astana are treated to a visual spectacle. Astana is a twenty-first-century version of Karakorum, the thirteenth-century capital city of the Mongol Empire.  Contemporary visitors to Karakorum were suitably awed, perhaps because they thought the Mongols were too busy rampaging and pillaging their way across Asia and Eastern Europe to actually build anything more than siege fortifications and campfires.

            In 1253, the Flemish Franciscan William of Rubruck, who had accompanied the French king Louis IX on the Seventh Crusade, set out from Constantinople for Karakorum. Louis had given the monk the medieval version of mission impossible—convert the Mongols to Christianity. Whether or not William knew the futility of his assignment, he set out to record his party’s journey in detail, producing one of the great travel narratives of the age, comparable to that of Marco Polo.

            After traveling for almost seven thousand miles William and his companions entered a wealthy, bustling city at the heart of a major trading network, with markets, temples, and a cosmopolitan population, including Christians. The Great Khan even staged a debate at court among adherents of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism. William’s detailed account of the journey and the six-month stay at Karakorum, and the reports of other missionaries and merchants, helped to counter popular views of the Mongols as a murderous horde.

Photo by Natalie Koch

Like Karakorum, Astana is the concrete symbol of a modern and business-friendly Kazakhstan, an emerging economic and cultural power at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. In his writings and public speeches, Nazarbayev positions Kazakhstan within Eurasia, arguing that the nation embodies the best of the West and the East in its economy, education, religion, civil society, and values. The Eurasian motif is visible in the signature architecture of Astana, where elements of Western and Eastern design are combined. Astana hosts Eurasian conferences and events; businesses claim to reach the Eurasian market; Eurasian National University is the largest institution of higher education in the capital.

Photo by Natalie Koch

For Nazarbayev, Astana was never the otherworldly, utopian fantasy that its critics have claimed.  Astana is a combination of Karakorum and Dubai, the center of a new Mongol empire built, not on military conquest, but on oil and gas revenues, authoritarian government, investments in technology and education, and soft diplomacy with the West, Russia, and China. In a commentary to mark Astana Day, the city’s fifteenth anniversary, on July 6, 2013, Nazarbayev wrote: “The fate of Astana is the fate of all Kazakhstanis who have boldly crossed the threshold between two centuries. This is the fate of independent Kazakhstan, which has walked the great path from the obscure fringe of a fallen superpower known to few in the world to a dynamic modern state which the international community knows and respects.” Astana Day was also (not coincidentally) Nazarbayev’s seventy-third birthday. For the crowds who attended the birthday celebrations and the millions who watched the spectacle on TV, the association between city, country, and president was more than metaphorical. Astana was Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev had created Astana. Ergo, Nazarbayev was Kazakhstan.

Winter Games

If you can’t change the weather, make it an asset. That’s what Kazakhstan did in its successful bid for the 2011 Asian Winter Games, although its offer to spend millions of dollars may have been more persuasive than the average daytime temperatures. It’s estimated that the government spent over $1.4 billion building new stadiums or renovating existing ones in Astana and Almaty, upgrading Astana’s airport and improving roads and transportation.

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers. Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube

         When I arrived in Astana in mid-January, preparations for the games were in full swing. A total of twenty-seven countries sent teams, and the organizing committee had scoured foreign-language departments across the country for student interpreters. The committee’s headquarters, full of red track-suited volunteers, and the hotel where most of the athletes and officials were staying were just around the corner from my apartment. On my rare ventures along the snow-covered streets, I’d often see a busload of athletes heading out for the newly built stadiums on the left bank.

            Fortunately for the organizers, Kazakhstan topped the medal table, with thirty-two gold, twenty-one silver, and seventeen bronze; Japan, South Korea, and China were the other major medal winners. Ticket prices starting at $100 deterred me (and other Astana residents) from attending events, but they were on TV every night and in seemingly endless reruns through the summer. The only live event I saw was a sideshow in a cavernous exhibition hall where organizers were showing off traditional Kazakh culture to foreign visitors.  I missed the horsemanship exhibition, in which cowboys raced around a small circus ring, performing daring acrobatics. What I did see were three traditional yurts, probably better appointed and furnished than your average out-on-the-steppe variety, and nice handicrafts (leather goods, ornaments, and carpets).

A very well-appointed yurt.  My interpreter, Diana Akizhanova, is third from the right

Shirdaks and traditional Kazakh handicrafts

The attempt to re-create the landscape was not as authentic, as I discovered when I leaned on a styrofoam rock and almost pushed over a small mountain. I drank shubat (camel’s milk) and ate traditional snacks (salty or sweet, designed to give that extra burst of energy when you’re rounding up the herd). And I listened to powerful singing from traditional musicians on a stage with a psychedelic light show going on behind. “What’s she singing about?” I asked my interpreter Diana Akizhanova, who had gamely accompanied me. “I’ve no idea. It’s in Yakut [a Siberian language],” she said. Fortunately, the next performer sang in Kazakh. “What’s she singing about?” I asked again. “Oh, about how to deal with life,” said Diana, not very helpfully. “How much do you know about traditional Kazakh culture?” I asked her later. “Not much,” she admitted. “I’m a city girl.”

The Dubai of the Steppe

Photo by Natalie Koch

Excerpt from Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia published by the Ohio University (Swallow) Press in March 2016

            For many visitors, the capital of Kazakhstan is an astonishing sight—unlike any other city they’ve seen. My first impressions—from the air and then from the airport highway—evoked otherworldly metaphors. Strange shapes rose out of the steppe—spires, domes, globes, ovals, and pyramids in gold, silver, blue, and turquoise. The taxi passed the gleaming facade of Nazarbayev University, then sports stadiums and arenas built for the 2011 Asian Winter Games, with their massive, curved metal and concrete spans. Then triumphal arches, monumental public buildings, upscale apartment blocks, the huge Nur Astana mosque, shopping malls, and manicured parks, most of which on a chilly Saturday afternoon in September were almost deserted.

Photo by Natalie Koch

            Whatever you think about futuristic architecture (or what it cost to build it, and whether the money could have been better invested in Kazakhstan’s social needs), Astana is unlike any other capital city in Central Asia. Almaty (the former capital) and Tashkent look like other Soviet-era cities with their colonnaded public buildings and monotonous apartment blocks. Bishkek and Dushanbe have similar architecture, but are rougher around the edges. Astana looks more like Dubai. It is growing fast, but even by the latest (2012) population estimate of 775,000, it is still less than half the size of Almaty or Tashkent (each of which has about two million inhabitants). However, the futuristic architecture makes Astana look and feel bigger. Which is exactly what its chief conceptual architect, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, intended.

Photo by Natalie Koch

        Like other capital cities throughout human history, Astana is designed to impress visitors. Just as medieval travelers returned home with tales of the fabulous cities of the East, modern travelers to Astana are treated to a visual spectacle. Astana is a twenty-first-century version of Karakorum, the thirteenth-century capital city of the Mongol Empire.  Contemporary visitors to Karakorum were suitably awed, perhaps because they thought the Mongols were too busy rampaging and pillaging their way across Asia and Eastern Europe to actually build anything more than siege fortifications and campfires.

            In 1253, the Flemish Franciscan William of Rubruck, who had accompanied the French king Louis IX on the Seventh Crusade, set out from Constantinople for Karakorum. Louis had given the monk the medieval version of mission impossible—convert the Mongols to Christianity. Whether or not William knew the futility of his assignment, he set out to record his party’s journey in detail, producing one of the great travel narratives of the age, comparable to that of Marco Polo.

            After traveling for almost seven thousand miles William and his companions entered a wealthy, bustling city at the heart of a major trading network, with markets, temples, and a cosmopolitan population, including Christians. The Great Khan even staged a debate at court among adherents of Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism. William’s detailed account of the journey and the six-month stay at Karakorum, and the reports of other missionaries and merchants, helped to counter popular views of the Mongols as a murderous horde.

Photo by Natalie Koch

           Like Karakorum, Astana is the concrete symbol of a modern and business-friendly Kazakhstan, an emerging economic and cultural power at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. In his writings and public speeches, Nazarbayev positions Kazakhstan within Eurasia, arguing that the nation embodies the best of the West and the East in its economy, education, religion, civil society, and values. The Eurasian motif is visible in the signature architecture of Astana, where elements of Western and Eastern design are combined. Astana hosts Eurasian conferences and events; businesses claim to reach the Eurasian market; Eurasian National University is the largest institution of higher education in the capital.

Photo by Natalie Koch

            For Nazarbayev, Astana was never the otherworldly, utopian fantasy that its critics have claimed.  Astana is a combination of Karakorum and Dubai, the center of a new Mongol empire built, not on military conquest, but on oil and gas revenues, authoritarian government, investments in technology and education, and soft diplomacy with the West, Russia, and China. In a commentary to mark Astana Day, the city’s fifteenth anniversary, on July 6, 2013, Nazarbayev wrote: “The fate of Astana is the fate of all Kazakhstanis who have boldly crossed the threshold between two centuries. This is the fate of independent Kazakhstan, which has walked the great path from the obscure fringe of a fallen superpower known to few in the world to a dynamic modern state which the international community knows and respects.” Astana Day was also (not coincidentally) Nazarbayev’s seventy-third birthday. For the crowds who attended the birthday celebrations and the millions who watched the spectacle on TV, the association between city, country, and president was more than metaphorical. Astana was Kazakhstan. Nazarbayev had created Astana. Ergo, Nazarbayev was Kazakhstan.

Postcards from Stanland: Journeys in Central Asia (Ohio University Press, 2016) is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million and other online retailers, or from your local bookstore.  Read excerpts at www.davidhmould.com (Travel Blogs and Articles) or Facebook /PostcardsFromStanland/ or view readings and interviews on YouTube, http://bit.ly/davidhmould

Tagged: Kazakhstan, Astana, capital, architecture, image, Karakorum,