Kazakhstan Museum of Arts

The Kazakhstan Museum of Arts has the best art collection in the country, including works of artists banned during the Soviet period. There are also collections of Russian and Western European art. Particularly interesting are the room of modern Kazakh handicrafts and the large collection of paintings by Abylkhan Kasteev (1904-73), to whom the museum is dedicated.

Kasteev's clear portraits, landscapes and scenes of Soviet progress (railways, hydroelectricity, collective farming) obviously toed the party line but his technique is fabulous. Marshrutkas heading west on Satpaev, including No 520, will stop here.