Kazakh capital

Akmola was a nondescript provincial town – until President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan moved the country's capital there in 1997, and renamed it Astana ("capital city"). A decade and many billions of dollars later, it is "possibly the world's largest construction site and perhaps its most audacious ongoing architectural project", says James Mackintosh in the Daily Telegraph.

One bank of the Ishim River is all "futuristic, gold-plated, new city extravagance", with some "breathtaking" buildings from the likes of Norman Foster. The other bank presents a "satisfying contrast", for here is what remains of the old steppe trading post, with pastel-coloured tsarist mansions and ugly Soviet-era housing blocks. Visitors who tire of the city's grandiose attractions – the oceanarium, the immense Turkish bath complex and so on – can give themselves up to its "expatriate social whirl": Astana is "at the epicentre of global oil diplomacy".

Air Astana (01293 596622) flies from Heathrow to Astana via Amsterdam. ·