ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the interaction between the emerging transnational practice of city branding and Kazakh nation branding as a nation building process. It presents a case study of Almaty, critically interpreting contested visions of stakeholders and intermediaries of nation and city branding and analyzing the discursive space created by institutional and individual actors performing branding in Kazakhstan. The chapter examines the major initiatives affecting the Almaty landscape and the respective strands of data. Street and district name changes in Almaty are indeed a telling case of how regimes manipulate symbols to reorient themselves historically, legitimize the regime, and forge a new city identity/brand. For Almaty residents, constructing links to “international” and especially “Western” identities, places, and practices is seen as an important part of realizing the vision of Almaty as a cosmopolitan urban space; something “beyond” just Kazakhstan.
