Country No. 80 – Kazakhstan

At the end of May, Weltreisebär headed to Kazakhstan with my Geo colleague Ellen. She's herself a Russian-German (or at least half), and has relatives in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan has a time difference of 4 hours compared to Germany (in summer) and is the first "-stan" country the Weltreisebär has had the pleasure of visiting. By the way, he'd already travelled with Ellen once before – during the USA remake last September. Thanks to this trip, Ellen is now the 26th travel companion of the Weltreisebär. The photo was taken at the National Museum in Astana, the capital, which used to be called Astana before it was briefly renamed Nursultan.

Fun fact: From now on, Kazakhstan is replaced by Mongolia in the category "northernmost country still missing".

Fun fact 2: Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world and even lies partly in Europe (around 140,000km², which is more than the size of Austria!)

Finally, a few pictures from our stroll around Astana. The first picture shows the golden handprint of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, said to bring luck to anyone who touches it. Both the Weltreisebär and I could certainly do with some of that! 🙂