Kazakhstan lays claim to most of the Caspian Sea’s biggest known oil fields, and oil exports are forecasted to grow from 1 million barrels per day in 2005 to 3.5 million by 2015. The oil has created untold wealth for the country—and, like petrodollar barons everywhere, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has quickly found ostentatious uses for it. The spike in prices has helped him realize his once-quixotic dream of moving Kazakhstan’s capital from Almaty to Astana. More than $15 billion has been poured into the dusty town of 300,000 since 1997 to double the population and transform it into the shining capital of Eurasia.

Astana now boasts a five-star hotel, a promenade along the banks of River Ishim, a giant aquarium, and marble palaces. The architecture ranges from post-Soviet classical to 1980s Western postmodern, but all the new construction features president’s special touch, sometimes literally—his handprint has been set in gold at the top of the city’s observation tower.

Nazarbayev’s decision to move the capital from Almaty, near the border with Kyrgyzstan and China, was a strategic move designed to consolidate his power over Kazakhstan’s large landmass. The new capital sits at the geographic and transport center of the country’s large steppe region. But Nazarbayev hopes that Astana will do more than reshape his country’s political and economic future—he wants the new capital to be the heart of a new national identity for Kazakhstan. Last year, Nazarbayev likened the decision to Peter the Great’s moving Russia's capital to St. Petersburg and Ataturk’s relocation of Turkey's from Istanbul to Ankara. Soon, he plans to build a university at the center of the city—“an Oxford or Harvard of Central Asia,” he told The New York Times.

One piece of this vision is a Norman Foster-designed glass pyramid—the modestly named Palace of Peace and Reconciliation. The celebrated UK architect designed the pyramid to hold religious meetings, a cultural museum, and a 1,500-seat opera house. The pyramid is designed to be the new religious center of Kazakhstan—a country that is split roughly down the middle between Russian Orthodox and Muslims. The harmony Nazarbayev wants to promote is not just musical, but cultural—a difficult task considering that some of his Muslim constituents think theater runs afoul of religious law.

Now Nazarbayev would like his city upon a steppe to have a beach, so he has called on Lord Foster again. The plan is for a massive, enclosed artificial beach that may well be Lord Foster’s most ambitious project to date. Khan Shatryry’s 500-foot, translucent tent will enclose a utopian city within a city. In a region where winter temperatures often fall to 20° below, the tent is to be made of a special material, ETFE, which absorbs sunlight to create the effect of an endless summer inside. The “fluoropolymer” was previously used in panels of the Eden Project near Cornwall, and Beijing’s Olympic aquatic center will be clad with it.

In Astana, the fluoropolymer will cover a network of cables that are held in place by a central mast. Inside, cobbled streets lined with cafés will lead to botanical gardens, a multiplex movie theater, shopping centers, a spa and fitness center, golf courses, canals, and, naturally, a sand beach with a wave pool. Khan Shatyry will be an engineering challenge to say the least, but the BBC reports that Sembol Construction, a Turkish development company, expects to complete the project within a year.

As impressive as the buildings themselves is the speed in which they are being constructed. Low labor cost and the lack of meaningful political opposition to the president’s vision have allowed Astana to rise above the steppe in just ten years. Construction follows the master plan originally drawn up by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa in 1998, but architects struggle to keep up with President Nazarbayev’s ambitious vision for the city. He keeps a 3-D model of Astana in his office, and has been known to call for major changes to buildings at the last minute.

Nazarbayev’s dream to remake Kazakhstan predates the latest bull oil market, but his vision for Astana encapsulates the grandeur and the folly that the run up in oil prices has produced. Whether Nazarbayev’s new capital reshapes his country like Ankara did in Turkey or falls with its founder like Akhenaten in ancient Egypt remains to be seen. But with petrodollars pouring in, it’s no coincidence that Ataturk’s picture can be found near Nazarbayev’s in many of Astana’s new structures. 

Adam Wolfe is a Senior Analyst and Editor for Asia and Africa at the “Power and Interest News Report.”