Kazakhstan OVERVIEW
Kazakhstan comes as a shocker to those who've prematurely thrown it into the "post-communist" bin with a "stan" label on it. It just takes a swing past Almaty or the capital Astana, with their sky-rise architecture, staggering choice of hotels, and blooming commercial offer, to find out that the country stands out decidedly among its immediate neighbors from economic, social and cultural points of view, and is shaping up to be a fully-fledged destination of international note.
For the time being, this ninth largest country is relatively unknown to larger audiences. There is definitely a growing tourist trail in Kazakhstan but the wilderness away from the cities hasn't seen crowds so far. Perhaps for the better. You can still gallop across the endless Kazakh Steppe unaccompanied, snap images of pink flamingos wading unstartled in the Kurgaldjino Nature Reserve, have your and only your voice echoed off the walls of the gorgeous Charyn Canyon, and discover the underground mosques of Mangystau Oblast east of the Caspian Sea unassisted. Yet if you look for the human factor while on the road, it's the community-based trekking that will get you closest to 'old Kazakhstan' with a village home stay and a cup of
kumis
shared with the gentle-mannered families, for whom a tourist is still a God-sent gift to take good care of rather than a nuisance.
There just one 'but'. While you're still able to catch a glimpse of folklore during certain ceremonies, the nomadic lifestyle the Kazakh people have been known for is now just a mirage of the past artificially brought about for the sake of tourists. Suspended between the status of once-paradise for hardcore backpackers and the ambitions to be counted among the progressive Eastern European states rather than Asian post-Soviet leftovers, Kazakhstan might in a way prove... nondescript and dull if you're looking for undisturbed genuineness. But if you have time and money on you, it's still well worth dropping in, if only with the sole purpose of seeing how much it has distanced itself from its neighbors.
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