Astana Days - July 6

On July 6 and 7 Astana celebrated Astana Days, and July 6 is also President Nazarbayev's birthday, so the celebrations were in full motion. There is usually a parade, concerts all over the city, dance competitions and many other things. Babushka, the girls, and I (Spencer had to do some work) decided to go look at one yurt village that they put together for display next to one of the city malls. Each region of Kazakhstan had its own yurt where they presented information about their region. It was pretty fun.

At the "village"

Babushka speaking with one of the presenters. 

I always loved the Kazakh national costumes... so festive!

Inside of one of the yurts

This one our kids loved the most because it had live animals!

Sophie with her new friend!

My girls didn't get the memo that during the picture taking it is advisable to look into the camera. Well, in their defense, there is a live snake in the spot where they are looking.

Another yurt.

This yurt from Aktobe region was pretty cool: it had different kinds of oil. Kazakhstan has a big oil industry on the Caspian Sea.

We had fun at the village!

It was a really hot day, and by the time we were done, we were really thirsty, so we decided to walk to another city mall and have some lemonade and possibly ice cream there. We ran into some interesting things along the way.

We found this exciting reptile bench.

The girls couldn't resist climbing on top of it.

This year Astana built the bike trails that go through a lot of the city. Too bad we do not  own bikes here because they are very nice! 

Enjoying the fountain mist on a very, very hot day!

Babushka

This plaza often has different art exhibits.  This time it was "Kazakhstan through pictures"

One of the pictures. It is very iconic. The two beauties Kazakhs value the most are horses and women; probably in that order :)

The twins are just unable to pass any fountain without getting wet.

We finally made it to the Keruen Mall and had some cherry lemonade and sundae ice cream.

When we got back home, Babushka and the twins were pretty tired but Nika, Lina and I thought we would go check out if anything else was going on at our own mall, and we were right... there was a a kids chess simultaneous game with one of the chess masters of Kazakhstan and a circus performance. We stayed and watch for awhile and then decided to check out the new playground. It was awesome! 

Simultaneous chess games

One of the circus performers doing a hula-hoop tricks

They must have been inspired by the circus performers.

Pretty impressive web on the playground!

As always we had a great time exploring the city and all it has to offer.