Guide to Astana, Kazakhstan (Formerly Nur-Sultan)

Here’s a fact that trips up half the people planning this trip: the city is not called Nur-Sultan anymore. It was renamed Astana in 1998, became Nur-Sultan in March 2019 to honor outgoing president Nursultan Nazarbayev, then reverted to Astana in September 2022 after Kazakhstan’s political shakeup following the January 2022 unrest. If your map app, hotel booking, or old blog post still says Nur-Sultan, mentally file it under Astana and move on. Locals never really warmed to the interim name anyway.

What you’ll find on the ground is one of the strangest capital cities on earth, built essentially from scratch on the northern steppe starting in the late 1990s. It’s flat, wind-battered, brutally cold in winter and surprisingly hot in summer, and packed with architecture that looks like it was designed for a science fiction film because in several cases it basically was, courtesy of Norman Foster and other starchitects given a blank check.

Getting In and Around

Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport (still using the old name in its official title, confusingly) sits close enough to the center that a taxi or Yandex Go ride takes about 20 to 30 minutes and runs roughly 3,000 to 5,000 KZT, somewhere around $6 to $11. Skip the airport’s own fixed-rate desks if you can and just order through the Yandex Go app once you clear customs and connect to wifi; it’s consistently cheaper than haggling with a driver in the arrivals hall. There is no metro here despite years of talk. A light rail project has been “under development” since 2017 and, as of mid-2026, still isn’t running. Budget travelers can take a public bus into town for about 180 KZT, but it takes close to 105 minutes, so unless you enjoy scenery of empty steppe, pay for the taxi.

Once you’re in the city, taxis and Yandex remain the default way to move around. Buses cover the main routes and are dirt cheap, but timetables are loose. The city is spread out and pedestrian-unfriendly in a lot of stretches, especially in January when temperatures regularly drop below minus 20 Celsius, so don’t plan on walking between the major sights unless you’re visiting in summer.

What to Actually See

Baiterek Tower is the postcard shot everyone takes, and for good reason: the observation deck near the top gives you a full 360-degree view of the Foster-and-friends skyline against the steppe horizon. Admission is around 1,000 KZT, ticket booths are cash-only, and there’s no advance online booking, so just show up. Go right around sunset if you want the best light without the harshest wind.

Khan Shatyr is the giant transparent tent structure nearby, and it’s more interesting than it sounds: inside there’s a full indoor beach club with imported sand, plus shopping and a monorail loop, which makes it a genuinely useful escape when it’s minus 25 outside. Hazret Sultan Mosque, one of the largest in Central Asia, is worth twenty minutes even if you’re not particularly interested in religious architecture, purely for the scale of the place. Skip the National Museum unless you have a specific interest in Kazakh history; it’s fine but not essential, and your time is better spent wandering the left bank government district to see the presidential palace and parliament buildings up close.

Eating

The dish to order at least once is beshbarmak, boiled meat (traditionally horse or lamb) served over wide flat noodles and eaten partly by hand, which is literally what the name means. For a serious take on it, Daididau does an elevated modern version of Kazakh cuisine that’s earned a spot on international best-restaurant lists, and it’s not absurdly priced by Western standards, expect somewhere in the 8,000 to 15,000 KZT range per main. If you want something more atmospheric and casual, look for smaller Kazakh-Central Asian spots serving laghman (hand-pulled noodles with meat) and baursak (fried dough, usually with honey or sour cream on the side), which is the food locals actually eat day to day rather than the tourist-restaurant version. My honest opinion: skip the hotel restaurants entirely here. The city’s real food scene lives in mid-range Kazakh and Georgian spots, and Georgian food in particular is everywhere and excellent, so don’t leave without trying khinkali dumplings somewhere.

Summer, specifically July and August, is when Astana actually becomes pleasant to sit outside in, and Respublika Avenue fills with sidewalk cafes that don’t exist the other ten months of the year. If you’re visiting in winter, plan your eating around indoor venues near your hotel; nobody is strolling between restaurants at minus 20.

Where to Stay

Rixos Astana remains the standby for a proper business-hotel experience with a pool and multiple restaurants on site, and it’s central enough that you won’t need taxis for the main sights. If you want something with more character and slightly lower cost, mid-range hotels along the left bank near the government quarter put you within walking distance of Baiterek and Khan Shatyr, which matters more than people expect given how spread out everything else is.

Practical Things to Know

Tenge (KZT) is the currency, and while cards work at hotels and mid-range restaurants, carry cash for the Baiterek ticket booth, bazaars, and smaller eateries. Kazakh and Russian are the everyday languages; English gets you by at hotels and major attractions but not much beyond that, so having a translation app loaded is genuinely useful. Sockets are the European two-pin type at 220V.

Visa rules have loosened considerably. Kazakhstan runs a visa-free regime for citizens of dozens of countries including the US, UK, EU states, and others for stays up to 30 days, so check the current list before assuming you need to apply for anything. Kazakhstan is a majority-Muslim country but a notably secular one in daily life; you don’t need to dress conservatively outside of mosque visits, though it’s polite to cover shoulders and knees when you go into Hazret Sultan.

One gotcha worth flagging: because the city was built so recently and so fast, addresses and even neighborhood names have shifted multiple times along with the city’s own renames. Don’t be surprised if a hotel address on an older booking site doesn’t match what a taxi driver recognizes. Confirm with your hotel directly, or better, just share the Yandex Maps pin rather than the street address.

Bargaining is expected at bazaars but not at fixed-price shops or restaurants, so read the room before trying to talk anyone down at a mall counter. And if anyone still calls this place Nur-Sultan when you’re booking a tour or hiring a guide locally, that’s usually a small tell that the information you’re working from is a few years stale, worth double-checking everything else they tell you too.