Come Back to Greater Kazakhstan

It’s always delightful to read about places that one has no temptation to visit and will never, ever see! So today’s travelogue of Kazakhstan and its 16-year-old capital, Astana, is fantastic, and as you are a subscriber to the New Yorker, you will have no problem reading it online or in the magazine, yes? Plus there are some excellent and blunt surprises — if, I suppose, corruption and horror and vast wealth going hand-in-hand are ever a surprise — mid-tale for those who are similarly and happily uninformed as I. Gosh, I hope I never live to see this frosty new hell-hole in person.