Tag Archives: EXPO 2017

Astana’s Death Star Heading for London?

26 Jan

26 January 2018

It looks like Lord Venal’s lobbying is finally paying off as bigwigs in London have agreed to his ambitious scheme to bring Astana’s Death Star to the UK capital’s skyline.

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Astana’s Nur Alem, aka The Death Star, which London wants to ape

Plans were unveiled on Wednesday for the Golf Ball, a daring declaration of intent for post-Brexit Britain. According to the plans seen by kazaxia, a huge glass orb, dwarfing St Paul’s Cathedral, may be constructed by east London’s Olympic Park.
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London’s proposed riposte to Astana’s Death Star – the Golf Ball

Lord Venal was so impressed with Expo 2017’s Nur Alem pavillion, dubbed the Death Star by one hack, that he started hassling his London contacts to bring a similar Star Wars-themed glass globe to London.
“In these Brexitian times it is vital that London match Astana in its global ambition if it wants to remain a key financial centre after Britain crashes out of the EU,” the good Lord told kazaxia.
“That’s why London needs its very own Death Star to show the world that, like Astana -the fruit of Elbasi’s great vision, it is open for business.”
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Kazakhstan: EXPO 2017 Hits and Misses

11 Sep

11 September 2017

With Astana’s EXPO 2017 done and dusted, kazaxia is having a look at some of the hits and misses at Kazakhstan’s window to the world, which was on the theme of Future Energy.

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Crowds heading to Nur-Alem aka the Death Star

Top prize, of course, goes to Kazakhstan’s pavilion Nur-Alem, unflatteringly dubbed the Death Star by Foreign Policy. This was the biggest draw of the event with crowds queuing for hours to check out the eight floors of interactive displays on the green energy theme.

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Queueing to enter Nur-Alem at EXPO 2017

kazaxia’s particular favourite was the pedal-powered  race which saw two teams face off to pedal as fast as they could and generate energy.

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Pedal power face off in Nur-Alem

Special mention goes to Uzbekistan, which fully embraced the Future Energy concept with its Chevrolet (formerly Uz-Daewoo) Matiz adapted to run on a hydrogen-powered fuel cell.

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Uzbekistan’s fuel-cell powered Matiz

Turkmenistan seemed more intent on pushing President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov’s books and the upcoming Asian indoor martial arts fest in Ashgabat.

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A warm welcome to Turkmenistan’s pavilion

Georgia’s pavilion predictably focused on wine production, ignoring the Future Energy message, but the kazaxia special prize was reserved for Russia  with its novel take on the theme – it proposed using nuclear-powered ice breakers to crash through the ice cap to get at the fossil fuel deposits lurking in the depths of the Arctic Ocean.

The EXPO circus now moves on to the UAE leaving Astana with the task of transforming the site into a regional financial centre. Nur-Alem will remain as a museum for the general public to keep riffing on the green energy vibe.