{"id":522,"date":"2019-10-25T11:10:31","date_gmt":"2019-10-25T09:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nicolasacco.com\/website\/reportages\/west-kazakhstan\/"},"modified":"2020-03-06T15:17:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-06T14:17:27","slug":"west-kazakhstan","status":"publish","type":"reportages","link":"https:\/\/www.nicolasacco.com\/en\/reportages\/west-kazakhstan\/","title":{"rendered":"West Kazakhstan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

West Kazakhstan, a province of the world\u2019s largest landlocked country, is a place of surreal landscapes, of vast, silent, snow-covered steppes stretching back to empty horizons, in which towns and cities are separated by huge distances. It is also, contrary to appearances, a hive of industrial activity and productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aksai is situated\nroughly fifty kilometres south of  the\nborder with the Russian Federation.\n\nFollowing the discovery of the huge Karachaganak\noil and gas field in 1979, the city, which currently has in the region of\nthirty five thousand inhabitants, experienced rapid expansion, both\ndemographically and economically. In those early years, constructors from\nCzechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria built the districts which\nstill today bear their names (e.g. Czech Building, German Town and so on). The huge\napartment blocks that line the streets of Aksai  are very Soviet in style, sporting bright\ncolours that are set off by the white of the snow and the sunlight on the\npuddles in the roads, but are also reminiscent of those built by the government\nin the last century in my home country Italy.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

\n