London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Get to know Kazakhstan

In this brief video you can find seven little known facts about Kazakhstan. If you ask yourself where is Kazakhstan, it is a Eurasian country, with much of its land on the Asian continent. It used to be part of the USSR, but today it’s becoming a booming oil based economy.The capital of Kazakhstan is Astana, but Almaty used to hold that title before 1997.

More information about the video content bellow:


1. Astana is one of the world’s newest and most futuristic capital cities. Astana literally means ‘capital city’ in Kazakh. And the capital is the second coldest capital city on earth, with temperatures dipping to -40 Celsius in the winter.

2. Kazakhstani people celebrate three New Year’s Eves. Two official ones, which are the 1 January by the Gregorian Calendar and the 22 March, "Nauryz" – the spring equinox or renewal of nature and 14th of January by the Julian Calendar is the legacy of the Soviet times. This day is called "the Old New Year". Old or new, they celebrate three times a year.

3. It is the largest landlocked country in the world, stretching from Siberia to the desserts of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and from China to the Caspian Sea. It is so large that distance from one end to another is about the same as London Istanbul route. Here one can find practically all climatic zones: from the torrid deserts through steppe and forest to eternal snows of the mountain heights reaching beyond the clouds.

4. The metro in Almaty (former capital until 1997) took 23 years to build and opened in December 2011. This is not because construction was slow, but because funding problems happened after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But it is finally open and expansion is constantly taking place.

5. Fifty years ago the Aral Sea was the world's fourth inland sea, after the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior and Lake Victoria. It started shrinking due to Soviet irrigation projects, its surface area declining by more than 50 percent, to 30,000 square km from 67,000 square km, between 1960 and 1996.

6. Kazakhstan is unique in that its people, the Kazakhs, did not form the majority of the population upon independence in 1991. Currently the northern part of the country is populated mostly with Ukrainian and Russian majorities while Kazakhs are more prevalent in the south.

7. Located in Kazakhstan, Lake Balkhash is the 12th largest lake in the world, but that characteristic is hardly what makes it interesting. This lake is bizarre because the western part of the lake consists of freshwater and the eastern half is saltwater. Balkhash maintains this unlikely balance in part because the two halves are joined by a narrow straight that is 3.5 kilometers wide and six meters deep.

More Info:
https://www.teachaway.com/2014/06/18/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-kazakhstan
http://www.travelandtalk.info/kazakhstan.htm
http://www.meganstarr.com/2014/03/random-facts-almaty-kazakhstan.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/06/24/idUSL23248577
http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/kazakhstan.html
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/photos/13-of-the-most-bizarre-lakes-in-the-world/lake-balkhash


Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×