3 Days in Astana

Start inside. Khan Shatyr means grand marquee, and that's what it is: a transparent tent about 150 m tall with its spire, designed by Norman Foster and opened in 2010. The roof is made of ETFE plastic cushions hung from cables, and the building is designed to keep the inside between 15 and 30°C while it's -35°C outside. It's billed as the largest tent in the world.

Under it is a shopping center, cinemas, a funfair, a boating river and, on the fifth floor, Sky Beach Club, an indoor beach with sand imported from the Maldives. The beach is a paid day pass, and you can skip it. Come for the structure and warm up. It's a mall at heart: expect scale, not culture.

Cross Turan Avenue to Arnau, a restaurant of national cuisine that the city tourist board puts on its own itineraries. Order the national dish as a sharing plate, because portions are made for two or three, with a plate of baursak and a pot of tea. If it's your first time with horse meat, try a small portion of kazy (horse sausage) first.

Everybody uses this tower as the symbol of Astana, and the story is told in its shape. Baiterek (also spelled Bayterek) is a 105 m white shaft with a gold-mirrored glass sphere about 22 m wide on top. It's modeled on a steppe folktale of a tree of life and the magic bird Samruk, who laid her egg between two branches. Architect Akmyrza Rustembekov designed it, it was built between 1996 and 2002, and it marks the 1997 move of the capital from Almaty.

Take a lift to the observation deck at 97 m for the view along the axis, with Khan Shatyr on one side and the Palace of Peace on the other. The top level has a gilded handprint of the first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Go around 15:00, before the light goes.

Ten minutes from the tower, the Kulanshi Art Space on Dostyk Street is a free gallery for contemporary art, open daily 10:00-20:00 according to the tourist board. It's a warm room without a tour group, between Baiterek and the boulevard.

Nurzhol Boulevard is the backbone of the master plan by the Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, who won the 1998 competition for the new capital. It runs from Baiterek to Ak Orda, the presidential palace on its hill by the river, and it's lined with ministries and towers. It is wide and open to the wind, so walking all of it in -20°C is a bad idea.

Do a short stretch near Baiterek and see the government buildings and Ak Orda lit up after dark. Then get in a taxi.

For dinner, Tary on Akmeshit Street, close to the boulevard, serves modern versions of Kazakh and international food in a cozy room. After heavy national dishes it's a lighter option.

The National Museum opened in 2014 in a building of blue glass and white marble, then the largest museum in Central Asia. It tells Kazakhstan from prehistory to today, and it's the best way to understand a country with no big monuments from the past: a nomadic people carried their history in horse harnesses, felt and gold, not in stone.

The museum uses the Golden Man as its emblem, the Saka warrior in a gold-covered suit found at Issyk near Almaty, and he is the figure on top of the Independence Monument in the south (see 5 days in Almaty). The Gold halls are the highlight and cost extra. Allow two to three hours, and go straight to the halls you care about.

The glass-and-stone pyramid across the avenue is the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, another Norman Foster building, finished in 2006 for the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, which meets here every few years. The pyramid is about 62 m high, and the glass apex is a stained-glass window by the British artist Brian Clarke, with 130 white doves for the nationalities of Kazakhstan.

Guided tours run daily in Kazakh, Russian and English, and they're the sensible way to see it. Walk past the Kazakh Eli monument next door, a white marble column with a golden Samruk bird on top.

Two minutes from the pyramid, the Hazrat Sultan Mosque went up between 2009 and its opening on 6 July 2012. It's named after an epithet of the Sufi sheikh Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, whose mausoleum is in Turkistan. It has a 51 m dome, four 77 m minarets and room for 5,000 worshippers, rising to 10,000 on holidays.

If you go inside, dress modestly and avoid Friday midday prayer.

On the way south along Mangilik El Avenue is Qazaq Gourmet, a restaurant of Kazakh cuisine that the city tourist board lists as open daily 12:00-23:00. It's a calm place for the second half of the national menu: manti (dumplings), kuyrdak (a fried offal dish), plov and a long tea.

If you skipped beshbarmak yesterday, order it here and share it.

The sphere is the central pavilion of Expo 2017, the world's fair that ran from 10 June to 10 September 2017 on the theme of future energy. The city chose Astana for it in 2012, and the pavilion is now the Nur-Alem museum about energy and the future.

Next door the Museum of the Singularity is an interactive museum of digital technology and artificial intelligence, per the tourist board. In winter, spend your time inside the sphere, not around it.

Back in the center, Arba Wine Boutique on Syganak Street is the tourist board's pick for an evening glass.

The board's hours run Monday-Wednesday 11:00-22:00 and Thursday-Saturday 11:00-23:00, and don't list Sunday.

The city started here. The Russian fort of Akmolinsk was first planned on the Nura river, about 30 versts to the south, but spring floods made that spot unusable, so it was moved to the Ishim in 1830 and kept the name Akmola. It's usually translated "white grave", a reading the authorities dislike and replace with "white abundance", after the dairy fairs held here. It stood on the right bank where the stadium on Kenesary Street is today, on a marshy island, with wooden walls rebuilt in brick after a fire.

In May 1838 Kazakh rebels led by Kenesary Kasymov besieged it for six days, and it was destroyed. Russia rebuilt it after the revolt was put down. Little of that remains, so follow the tourist board's old-city walk: the M. Gorky Russian Drama Theatre on Zheltoksan Street, the monument to the Khans Kerey and Zhanibek next to it, and the house of the merchant Kubrin. The buildings are modest, and the point is the layers: Cossack fort, Soviet grain town, capital.

Five minutes by car towards the river, the Military Historical Museum of the Armed Forces is built to look like a yurt with a domed roof. It's a free, warm museum, and the tourist board lists it among the places in Astana with free entry.

The displays focus on the Great Patriotic War, and the first president's memorabilia get a lot of space. Read it as one official account and compare it with yesterday's National Museum.

Fuller's is an English-style pub on the right bank, listed by the city tourist board as the place to finish a visit to this side: lots of beers, steaks and a warm room. It isn't Kazakh food, and that's fine on day three. For a local plate, order shashlik (kebabs).

The Ishim (Esil in Kazakh) divides the city into the older right bank and the new left bank. The tourist board's walk crosses the Atyrau pedestrian bridge, and the river is the one place in Astana where the old and new towns face each other.

Nearby, Atameken is an outdoor map of Kazakhstan in miniature, 1.7 hectares with more than 200 models of cities and monuments. It's best in summer; in winter it's under snow. Boat rides on the river run only in summer.

Astana Opera is the warmest way to spend your last evening, and one of the cheaper in Europe or Asia. The house runs opera and ballet, and its season has included Carmen. Spring 2026 listings showed some performances from 1,000 KZT, with the best seats costing a lot more.

Check the playbill when you arrive and book through the opera's own site, because there's no show on some days.