There was a small foreign press corps in Almaty, but I soon realised I was the only western journalist in Astana, though there were reporters for the Russian and Chinese media.
This was confirmed at the first press conference of the government’s new Central Communications Service, launched in 2012.
At first, I was a bit dubious about what the point of the CCS was, but over time it became increasingly active and useful.
They had regular briefings; there was almost always one on Monday at 11 when they gave a summary of the week’s events (French foreign minister visiting, president to attend opening of factory, etc), then more during the week if something big happened or they managed to get an interesting speaker (we had several of the ministers and other people like the head of the space agency giving briefings). It was actually a really good system.
The events took place at the Kazakh media centre on Nurzhol prospect, which was about a 20 minute walk from my house, or 30-40 minutes if there was a lot of snow and ice on the pavements.
I didn’t always go; it was a fairly large chunk out of the day so it depended on how much work I had — more and more these days — and they also started sending out transcripts by email. However, I went as often as I could to get the news first hand.
The building was distinctive. The first few stories were a wide building, with four huge television screens – several storeys high – mounted on the front of the plate glass building. A glass tower emerging from the centre was 22 storeys high.
Inside on the capacious ground floor was an enormous lobby, several conference rooms and a concert hall. The upper floors housed television and radio studios.
Astana has changed massively over the last few years, but expats continue to prefer Almaty. The only time other journalists descended on the capital en masse was when there was a big conference, which often involved foreign journalists being flown in from Europe, the US and elsewhere to attend.
Steppe in Style 
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