What is Kazakhstan like?

It's difficult for me to say, as this is the only foreign country I've spent any significant amount of time in outside of North America. It's generally much less developed than the so-called "first world" countries, and less developed than Russia. Still, there are several major cities. I live in the largest, Almaty, which is the former capital. It's not completely unfamiliar: there are cars and trains and big apartment buildings (although the style-- or rather lack thereof-- of most of the architecture is quite strikingly Soviet, meaning plain, utilitarian, and uninteresting).

UPDATE, November 2007

Much of the characteristic regional architecture is either falling into disrepair or being actively bulldozed to construct modern monstrosities, either apartment buildings or commercial centers. The view from our balcony, just below the mountain panorama, is a collection of construction cranes.