Bayterek is a monument and observation tower in Astana

Astana

Astana , formerly known as Akmola , Tselinograd and Akmolinsk , is the capital and second largest city of Kazakhstan, with an officially estimated population of 708,794 as of 1 August 2010...

, the capital of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

. A tourist attraction popular with foreign visitors and native Kazakhs alike, it is a common symbol of the city, epitomizing its elevation in 1997 to the status of capital of the country.

Design

The monument is meant to embody a folktale about a mythical tree of life and a magic bird of happiness: the bird, named Samruk, had laid its egg

Egg (biology)

An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...

 in the crevice between two branches of a poplar tree. The 105m structure consists of a narrow cylindrical shaft emeshed in flaring white branch-like girders, widening toward the top (the "tree"), where a gold-mirrored 22m-diameter sphere (the "egg") containing the observation deck is supported.

The altitude of the deck is 97m, symbolizing the year of the capital-transfer to Astana (1997). From its height it is possible to see much of the newly built city. The viewing platform features a gilded hand print (Alakan) of the right hand of Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Nazarbayev

Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev has served as the President of Kazakhstan since the nation received its independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union...

, the first President of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan. An accompanying plaque suggests that visitors place their own hand in the imprint and make a wish; when one does so the Kazakh national anthem plays. In addition to the observation platform, the tower contains a large aquarium and an art gallery.

Trivia

Astana citizens jokingly refer to Bayterek as "Chupa Chups

Chupa Chups

Chupa Chups is a lollipop company founded by the Catalan Enric Bernat in 1958, and currently owned by the Dutch-Italian multinational corporation Perfetti Van Melle. The name of the brand comes from the Spanish verb chupar, meaning "to suck."- History :...

" because of its similarity to the popular lollipop

See also

• Astana
  Astana
  Astana , formerly known as Akmola , Tselinograd and Akmolinsk , is the capital and second largest city of Kazakhstan, with an officially estimated population of 708,794 as of 1 August 2010...
  
  
• Kazakhstan
  Kazakhstan
  Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
  
  
• History of Kazakhstan
  History of Kazakhstan
  The history of Kazakhstan describes the human past in the Eurasia's largest segment of the steppe belt that was the home and crossroads for numerous human groups starting with extinct Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus 1 mln - 800,000 in the Karatau Mountains, Caspian and Balkhash areas; Neanderthals...