ASTANA: A Kazakh family pose in front of a sculpture of a Kazakh boy in national dress during celebrations of the Nooruz holiday in Kazakhstan's capital.
The holiday is the Persian new year, celebrated by many cultures across central Asia.
In Soviet times Astana was known as Tselinograd. The new independent republic of Kazakhstan chose Tselinograd as a place for its capital and built it in an ultra-modern style in a record time.
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