Kazakhstan has unveiled its pavilion’s interior design, an apparently it will center its contents in the city of Astana.  The interior part of the pavilion will comprise eight zones: Territory of knowledge, 4D Cinema, Urban Matrix 2030, Interactive Entertainments, Area of Astana, Soft Tribune, Art-Zone (photo gallery) and Farewell to Kazakhstan. Its theme, as the title of this posts suggests, is “Astana – the Hearth of Eurasia.” Inside, Advanced electronic and information systems as well as virtual reproduction technologies will be used. This 1,000-square-meter pavilion has an excellent location in Zone A, neighboring the pavilions of Japan and the Republic of Korea. Hopefully it will also include a restaurant so guests can enjoy delicious Kazakh dishes.

It is a very particular strategy to center the pavilion around one city. In this case is not only being the capital, but the newly appointed capital (barely 12 years) that keeps growing and giving place to extravagant buildings from world-class architects, like Sir Norman Foster. The city can be described as a mix of planned modern capital, like in Brasilia, with Chinese-style massive growth; all this with the exquisite kazakh flair, of course. In the picture above you see a replica of Bayterek, Astana’s equivalent of the Oriental Pearl Tower.

It is understandable that Kazakhstan is looking forward to promote Astana as a city seeking its place on the global stage, but still I hope the pavilion leaves room for other Kazakh cities, like Almaty, which remains as the largest city and most important commercial center, or Atyrau, which, same as Istanbul, is a city with one Asian side and one European. Actually, an emphasis on the latter one would be accurate especially to reinforce the concept of Eurasia, which for Europeans might sound less common, but for some post-soviet nations makes sense in order to not divide their countries in two continents.

Something else I wonder is if the Bayterek’s replica at the pavilion will feature the hand print of presdient Nursultan Nazarbayev, just like the original one in Astana.