Kazakhstan, biatch!

Imgurians telling about jobs? Why not about their countries!

I know that work-stories-trend is over, but from the very first time I saw a post with stories about different jobs, I thought: "Hey! I can tell people about Kazakhstan and how awesome it is!" Yeah, that big green thingy in the middle is indeed Kazakhstan, the country where I was born and raised. I was in the US during my exchange year (the same time I found out about Imgur) and I was a little surprised, that not a lot of people know about KZ - even though it's 9th biggest country in the world by area, it would take about 3.5 Kazakhstans to fill in the entire US.

BORAT!!!

A lot of people remember this awesome movie when they hear the word "Kazakhstan" - but Kazakhstan doesn't really look like that, and is nothing like what Borat says. But - Sacha Barno Cohen did indeed a great job on making a hilarious movie. I personally liked it a lot.

BOOM!

That is Kazakhstan. This is our capital, Astana. Fun fact: Kazakh word "Astana" means "capital". So our capital's name is Capital. Fun!

BAM!

This is our Southern capital, Almaty. It doesn't mean that we have two capitals, Almaty is called "Southern capital" because it used to be the capital before 1997. Still Almaty is very important for us - it's the biggest city with the population about 1.5 million people.

But really, Kazakhstan is just a big, vast steppe.

Yep, that's what Kazakhstan looks like most of the time. We have a bunch of different stuff, but different deserts, semi-deserts and steppes make the most of KZ. (For those who don't know - steppe is another word for prairie)

"Is that Grand Canyon? You're a big fat liar, OP!!!"

Hold up, people. This is Sharyn Canyon, located semi-close (120 miles) to Almaty. Scientists claim, that this Canyon was created the same way as Grand Canyon, that's why they two are so similar

Imgur loves space, right?

This is our lake Balkhash. Its darker on the right, because it's half salty - the darker half of the lake is salty. As you can see, the lake itself is huge, 15th in the world!

Yep, still Kazakhstan!

Dzungarian Alatau is one of the many mountain ranges, located in the South of Kazakhstan. Actually, Tien Shan is right to the South of Kazakhstan, so, apparently, we have a lot of mountains in the South.

USA might like this one

Kazakhstan has a lot of oil and a huge industry around it - experts say, that our oil capacity is about 29 billion barrels - a lot. Still wondering, where's our freedom.

You see this bad boy?

That's a huge ass rotor excavator, that works with coal near my town. These things are as scary, as they look - I think it belongs to Dark Souls, as a levelboss.

And here comes the hole!

One of the biggest open-pit coal mines in the world, Bogatyr (russian for 'ancient warrior'). In 1985 it reached its maximum capacity and was added to the Guinness Book of Records.

That was not the only entry from my town

That flue-gas stack is the highest one in the world - it's even higher than Eiffel tower. For comparison - Eiffel tower is 301 meters, our gas stack is 420 meters (986 feet and 1377 feet for the 'Murica).

And this is my town!

Of course it's bigger than it appears on the picture, but yeah. Nothing really spectacular, but this is my town! There are a lot like it, but this one is mine.
Edit: A lot of you guys asked about the age of the photo. The picture was taken between 2000-2009. The thing with cars is - a lot of people just don't want to give up what they have, so you can see a lot of late-Soviet and Russian cars around.

This is my first submission after being a lurker since, like, November, so - good luck, little post! If people are interested, I can tell you more about different aspects of Kazakhstan, or even about my hometown!

FP edit: Wow, guys! This post sure was a success and I'm glad that you liked it! You sure can PM me different questions, maybe I could even do a post answering them. Feel free to also suggest topics I can tell you guys about.
And, of course, send nudes. We Kazakh appreciate such courtesy.