The burnt-out akimat building of Almaty, that is, the city hall or municipal administration, formerly, before the capital was moved to Astana, the Presidential Palace

The burnt-out akimat building of Almaty, that is, the city hall or municipal administration, formerly, before the capital was moved to Astana, the Presidential Palace. Originally it was built in 1975-1980 as the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR. At the time of construction it was the most expensive building in the Kazakh SSR, costing 20 million roubles, and the largest, with an area of 35,000 square metres. A Central Committee building had not originally been planned for this site, which is partly why the square in front of it turned out so vast: some 20 hectares, that is, almost ten times the size of Red Square in Moscow. In the end the building was erected at a distance from the square itself, which even symbolically removes power from the people.