Astana, 18 October. The first phase of the Bozok open-air historical and cultural complex by Lake Buzykty in Astana is planned for completion by the end of 2027, although the whole site had earlier been promised for 2025, Zhanbolat Zhusupov, head of the construction site at Kazstroypodryad LLP, told Ulysmedia (Ulysmedia).
The first phase comprises two entrance portals, the perimeter fence, a road, utility networks, electricity and water supply; according to Zhusupov, the road, the cladding of the portals, lighting, landscaping and interior work remain (Ulysmedia). Between 20 and 50 people work on the site; the builders attribute the delays and costs to nearby groundwater and marshy terrain (Ulysmedia). The project provides for landscaping 400 hectares; for now, as the outlet's correspondent noticed, a row of dead trees planted by locals as an experiment stands in the distance.
Design and cost documentation began in 2019, when the museum was promised to open in 2022; because of the pandemic the project was frozen and construction began only in 2022. According to the outlet, the first phase will cost the budget 6 billion tenge: most of the estimate went on cladding the central sections of the fence with handmade brick, and the estimate is revised every year as material prices rise (Ulysmedia).
Background: Archaeological research at the Bozok settlement began in 1999, and in February 2003 archaeologist Kemal Akishev presented the results to Nursultan Nazarbayev. The project covers 412 hectares; the original concept with settlements of different eras was later reduced to reconstructing the 7th–9th century settlement, a visitor centre and a khan's camp, and in 2022 the museum-reserve's director, Saule Burbayeva, spoke of more than a million tourists a year (Ulysmedia).
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