ASTANA — From Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to rural Somerset, festivals have long shown how a temporary event can place an overlooked destination on the global map. A recent trip to Katon-Karagai convinced me Kazakhstan is beginning to experience the same effect.
The Altai Mountains came alive with Dimash Qudaibergen’s performance during the Altai – Golden Cradle of the Turkic World festival on July 10-11. Photo credit: Nagima Abuova, The East Kazakhstan Region’s communication service / Collage is created by The Astana Times Burning Man brings tens of thousands of people into the Nevada desert.
Glastonbury transforms farmland in southwest England into a global cultural landmark, while Coachella has made the name of a California valley recognizable far beyond the United States. People do not travel to these places solely because they are easily accessible or well-equipped.
They go because something is happening there. That is the power of event tourism. It gives people a reason to stop postponing a journey. I began thinking about this after attending the Altai – Golden Cradle of the Turkic World festival in Katon-Karagai, East Kazakhstan Region.
The festival brought an estimated 50,000 people to a remote part of the country for traditional sports, regional culture and a concert headlined by Dimash Qudaibergen. The Astana Times journalist Nagima Abuova in the East Kazakhstan Region. Photo credit: personal archives My colleague and I flew from Astana to Oskemen and then spent approximately six hours traveling by car.
When we received the address of our accommodation, we expected something closer to a conventional guesthouse. Instead, we arrived at a local family home, where we shared it with about 15 journalists from regional media. It took us a moment to adjust. This was not a hotel, a modern apartment or a purpose-built hostel.
It was someone’s actual home. Yet it became one of the most memorable parts of the trip. We shared rooms and meals, discussed the next day’s assignments late into the evening and gradually became a temporary family, although many of us had met only hours earlier.
Other visitors stayed in tents at a designated camping site or near a small spring close to the festival grounds. The conditions were simple, but they were not neglected. The organizers provided essential facilities, including Starlink internet access, which was particularly important for journalists sending stories, photographs and videos from a remote location.
There were inconveniences, of course. This was a gathering of tens of thousands in a village, not an international conference in a capital city. Still, the experience did not feel like a poorly prepared destination. It felt like a destination learning how to receive a crowd of an entirely new scale.
I looked at the experience not only as a visitor. As a tourism and hospitality management graduate now pursuing a master’s degree in development and international cooperation, I naturally found myself looking beyond the stage. Where did people sleep? Who transported them?