The first thing you hear is usually the wind, rushing in off the open steppe and down the wide avenues of the Left Bank. Under it come smaller sounds, like the elevator humming up the Bayterek tower toward its golden sphere, chatter along Nurzhol Boulevard, and Kazakh and Russian side by side at the bus stop.
Across the Ishim, the older right bank swaps glass towers for Soviet-era blocks, cafés and busier street life, and the Expo district keeps the giant Nur Alem sphere. Winters are long, windy and bitterly cold, and summers are warm with long evenings. A Local Friend can open the door to a family table or a courtyard café you would never have knocked on alone.
