The night Jennifer Lopez came to Astana, the city was different. The streets were crowded with people from all of Kazakhstan and much farther, cell phone in hand and everyone buzzing that she was here, on our stage, not another’s. A month later, I found myself watching FC Kairat playing with FC Real Madrid on TV when my social media was full of videos at the stadium in Almaty. I am not a big fan of football, but I had the feeling that Kazakhstan was not only observing world culture but it was hosting it.
Zarina Zhumanova.
These are not spontaneous outbursts of glamour. They belong to a trend: Kazakhstan is slowly coming to light through music, film, sport and events, not only through oil or geopolitics. Local authorities predicted billions of tenge in economic impact and hundreds of millions of tax collections, when Lopez added Astana and Almaty to her short list of destinations. The tourism authorities of Astana now openly discuss ‘event tourism’ as a major factor in visitor attraction and hotel booking.
The cameras are also turning towards us. In “Alter” (marketed in other countries as “Altered”), a Hollywood sci-fi film, Astana was filmed with our skyline left to act as an already existing cyberpunk city, with practically no digital movie trickery required. Moreover, Jackie Chan and his crew have now decided to shoot “Armour of God: Ultimatum,” the fourth instalment of his action epic franchise, in Kazakhstan in collaboration with a local company. To the audience, who will one day watch these movies on big screens and streaming services, Kazakhstan will not be a joke or blank space – it will be a place with look and feel to it.
At the same time, the traffic is not one-direction. We have our own artists who are bringing the name of Kazakhstan to the international playlists and arenas.
In 2021, Imanbek was the first CIS and the first Kazakh artist to win a Grammy award in the category of remix of a song titled “Roses,” which became viral all over the world and changed the understanding of what a bedroom producer in a small town in Kazakhstan can do. Singer Dimash Qudaibergen describes that his mission is to popularize Kazakh music and culture internationally; his initiatives today attract foreign singers and film crews to Almaty, Aktau, and Astana.
All these combined allow us to see that Kazakhstan is in the midst of a cultural moment. According to the Ministry of Tourism, the foreign tourists who arrived in Kazakhstan in 2023 almost 9.6 million (about twice as many as the year before) and over 10 million visited the country in 2024.
However, behind the money and the number of visitors, there is a more profound layer. The international perception of Kazakhstan was constructed by others over years, in an unflattering way. With the release of the “Borat” film, a lot of people learned about Kazakhstan through a caricature. In the present cultural boom, we have the opportunity in many years to take the jokes and make it a truer account of a contemporary and creative and hospitable culture at the intersection of Eurasia.
Turning to reality, as usual, critics will argue that concerts and movies are cosmetic, they are not focused on fundamental problems such as inequality, environmental dangers or governance reforms. This is a fact – culture cannot replace policy. Nonetheless, it may influence the environment of policy making. Such nations as South Korea demonstrated how pop culture can change the image of the country and open new vistas in terms of business, tourism and diplomatic relations. One of the ways will be to rely on the nomadic tradition, Soviet and post-Soviet history, and the multi-national society of Kazakhstan.
Moreover, what is really dangerous to Kazakhstan is that we consider this cultural moment as an accident, rather than a deliberate effort. Strategy, not merely serendipity, is required in order to enjoy long-term benefits. That is putting money into the ecosystem behind the headlines: film commissions to make it easy to shoot here; grants and training to the local writers, musicians and technicians; universities where creative industries are studied and cared for rather than as a hobby.
Lastly, we ought to be truthful on inclusion. Cultural visibility concentrated in Astana and Almaty alone will increase regional divides. When big projects are planned to rely on such places as Turkistan, Mangystau, East Kazakhstan, or even the smaller cities where the large number of artists was born, the benefits of jobs, pride, and opportunity will be distributed further.
The steppe in Kazakhstan has always been a crossroad. It is becoming a stage for the first time. In case we support our artists, open our borders and present the world our version of the story, the light that now shines on Kazakhstan will not be a short burst. It may be turned into a stable light that can provide the way to the future of the country.
The author is Zarina Zhumanova, a graduate student of the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Public Policy.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Astana Times.
