Astana has the status of the capital city of Kazakhstan from December 10, 1997. The population of Astana is about 700,000, it is the second largest city in the country after former capital Almaty.

The main reason for moving the capital was the geographical location of the city – it is much more accessible to Russia and the chance of earthquake is much smaller. The following beautiful photos of Astana were taken by Stepanov Slava.

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The Council of Heads of CIS governments proposed the chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan Grigory Marchenko to the position of Director of International Monetary Fund. It was announced by Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim Masimov. “We consider him as a single candidate from all CIS countries and will submit an application to the IMF” – he said.

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The following short film was commissioned by Majors Office of Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan, for OSCE Forum.

Astana Architecture from alexander chertok on Vimeo.

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Islam is the most common religion among the believers in the Republic of Kazakhstan. A lot of cities in the country have picturesque mosques like the following ones.

Mosque “Nur-Astana”, Astana

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Space rocket “Soyuz-U” with a cargo spacecraft “Progress M-10M” was successfully launched at 17 hours 05 minutes 21 seconds, April 27, 2011 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Baikonur city, Kazakhstan). The launch mass of the spacecraft was 7290 kg. There was more than 2,6 tones of cargo on board of the Progress M-10M, including fuel, water, containers with food rations, fresh food, medical equipment, parcels for the ISS crew, equipment for scientific experiments.

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Tags: Baikonur city · cosmodrome · launch · space rocket