Wednesday 5 March 2008

Second Astana - Virtual Kazakhstan Part 2

Following on from my post about Kazakhstan I thought I should see if I could track down Second Astana. As you will see from the picture show below, I was successful. In fact, it spans two sims: Astana and Astana City.

It still looks to be early days to me. Sure enough, the advertised Bayterek and Palace of Peace and Reconciliation are there, together with a domed palace (or is it a goverment building?) and a couple of pseudo-Stalinist concrete polit-buildings. By way of contrast, to show the Kazakhs' humble but proud beginnings, there is also a yurt and some horses. The pictures of rugs in the set below, come from inside the yurt.

In terms of interest and interactivity, the Bayterek tower offers the most. You can teleport to the top and experience a 360degree photo-panorama as seen from the building in the atomic world. Probably the closest I am likely to come to "being there". A rather unusual feature of the real building is a handprint of President Nazarbayev. Visitors to the tower are encouraged to place their palm against this handprint, as a metaphor for friendship and a sense of commonly shared humanity. Well... you can do the same here, if you climb the stairs to the top of the tower. The other buildings are just shells - with no access inside and, indeed, no insides to access.

But enough of such bagatelles - here's the photostream:

At the moment the site is more of a curiosity than anything else - but it will be interesting to see how it develops. I noticed that there is also a teleport to a range of Russian islands from here.

2 comments:

Centralasian said...

A nice story, informative and wit (as always, though), and also having a direct relevance to the person with a nick-name as mine. I just happened to be from this part of the world, and of course I feel a bit ashamed that it was not me, but you who told it first in blogosphere. But well, you've done it wonderfully.

In my own post I refer - clearly and unambiguously - to your entry as an information, and inspiration for my own amblings.

Timbo said...

centralasian
I thought you'd enjoy the site - and sorry for beating you to it. I just wish I could understand your post... being unilingual (monolingual?) is a distinct disadvantage at times.

Have you tried the Google Earth 3D Astana too? It really is there... amazing!