In 1997,
Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakhstan's leader since 1989, but found in the circles of power long before the separation of the country from
Soviet Union, moved the capital from
Almaty in the southeast, in the north, to the steppe town of Akmola, to which changed also the name in
Astana. On 6 july 2012, to commemorate the 14th anniversary of this event, was opened in the city the biggest mosque not only in Kazakhstan, but even in the whole Central Asia. Kazakhstan is the largest economy in Central Asia, and is predominantly Muslim (followers of the
Hanafi school of
Sunni Islam), so nothing strange this far, but was it a coincidence that July 6th was also Nazarbaev's 72nd birthday? The mosque, called Khazret Sultan, is big enough to take 5,000 worshippers and stands on a 27 acre site, roughly the size of 18 football pitches. Each of its domes is fitted with Barrisol sheets, printed with oriental patterns. The biggest dome is 28m wide and 51 m high, and the four minarets have 77m hight.
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