Aktobe, Kazakhstan (Part III)

This is the third and final entry into my blog about Aktobe, Kazakhstan. The section will be fairly brief and will cover my general overall impressions from my trip. As always, these are my personal opinions, so feel free to agree or object to anything I have written. Enjoy!

Me with a traditional Kazakh lute and hat

Overall Impressions:

I really enjoyed my experience in Kazakhstan. Even though I saw only one city, I was quite impressed with it's cleanliness and the general demeanor of the people. There are a lot of new buildings and everything was fairly westernized. I have read and seen a lot about the capital city of Kazakhstan, Astana, and it is a place I would like to visit and recommend to any first time travelers to the country. I am embedding a video about  Astana, which shows a lot of cool stuff (for anyone interested in watching). The commentary is in Russian, but the pictures are in English ;)

Other notes that I have: I really enjoyed how people like to be outside and active. The attitude of the people was much more open than I expected. From all of my travels, I have come to realize that the attitude of the local population can really affect the overall impression of a city (in good and bad ways), so it was important to me how I was treated. Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed Kazakhstan quite a bit, especially the culture and food. For any reader, I would suggest that you throw away any stereotypes about the country or the people until you make the trip there yourself and formulate your own opinions!

Nazarbayev Park at dusk