One mall to rule them all

I’m not a Lord of the Rings fan so I’m not making any references here. I’m pretty neutral about the whole thing actually, it’s just that big long boring books are big long and boring. I’m less neutral about the films, they’re horrific.

Astana from the Duman: the Triumph of Astana, plus four nearby malls.

Shopping malls are rife in Astana. We’ve visited the mothership MEGA, and been down the road to Saryarka with its elegant benches, and we’ll pop along to Asia Park soon with its Sky Bar; but on the same road within just a few hundred metres of all of these beacons of capitalism is Khan Shatyr, the King’s Tent. It’s shaped like a tent but on a large scale; it’s an homage to the tents (yurts) that were only recently the homes of nomads in this region. Remember to read ‘homage’ as ‘omarzh’ and to feel like a culture critic when you do so.

Khan Shatyr: gold dust for a guide book. Norman Foster, etc.

It’s an elegant steel structure covered in polymer pockets and it is nothing short of spectacular.

They say it’s 135m high, which would make it as high as the London Eye and I expected to be awed by the size of this thing. Actually most of the 135m is a spire on the top so it’s not MASSIVE, it’s just really big. Almost everything is contained in the big pile of earth below the large stretched polymer cap which is – perhaps appropriately – just full of hot air.

Debenhams and an Addidas store are among the many Western tenants, along with Green’s supermarket.

Inside, nothing short of a fairground: a vertical
drop ride, a train, a beach (top floor), and a
small man with big eyes looking in the
Jeweller's window.

Anyway, what’s it like inside Khan Shatyr? There’s a big open area in the middle under the tent which is used for all sorts of terrible events like catwalks and opera singers with drum soaked backing tracks. I’m expecting to see the Daz people there one day – look, the stain has completely gone!

The way all the shops flow is really good here – there are no straight lines, everything is curved; and you can get everywhere via different routes, so it feels very free and not particularly oppressive like some malls do. It’s a Montessori shopping experience!

There’s floor after floor of shiny shops, and on the top floors pool tables, a log flume, and a beach. Thousands of miles from the sea, 30C below freezing, and a beach. I almost forgot to mention the train at the top that gives you a tour of the place.

A limited selection of Vodka in Green's, inside Khan Shatyr

It’s mostly naturally lit in the day, and at night there’s searchlights beaming up to the translucent tent cover. I’m not sure what they’re searching for but they seem pretty keen and it looks exciting from the outside.

A really, really impressive place.