One of the ten largest countries on earth, an energy superpower and the most influential country in Central Asia: Kazakhstan is all this and much more besides and yet most people would not even be able to find it on a map. The enormous changes that have played out here in the former Soviet republic are evident in both its towns and countryside. Powered by the huge gas and oil fields in the south of the country, it has become an important energy location in the last few years. The country’s president has created a new capital city in the desert, where people cruise around in their Bugattis and Bentleys. On the Caspian Sea, caviar production has started up again. But other projects too are profiting from the sudden influx of cash: water is again flowing in the once dry Aral Sea. Despite this, most Kazakhs still live as they have for centuries, in ancient metropolises or in tent towns in the steppes. A “world journey” between poor and rich, between yurts and multi-storeys, between hot deserts and icy mountains: this is a journey of 3000 km through the enormous Kazakhstan.
Crossing Kazakhstan
Foreign Cultures / Travel
- Title: Crossing Kazakhstan
- Original title: Einmal quer durch Kasachstan
- Film by: Stephan Stuchlik
- Format: 30´
- Long running series: Human Encounters
- Production: WDR
- Year of production: 2009
- Language / subtitle version: German
