Compendium Volume 9 Australia

9 KAZAKHSTAN OUT OF THE

9 KAZAKHSTAN OUT OF THE SHADOWS Kazakhstan is a nation of young, friendly people and extraordinary landscapes, from vast steppes to deep gorges and the snowcapped Tien Shan mountains. A major new art museum and ballet theatre is in the works in cosmopolitan Almaty, and the dining scene is also heating up, with neo-nomadic Central Asian cuisine on the menu at Auyl, and Kazakh wines and comfort food at Ogonek in a former Soviet-era ice-cream parlour. There’s also great skiing nearby, with plentiful snow. In a country this big, where distances are huge, it’s difficult to know where to start: Remote Lands’ Classic Kazakhstan tour is a great introduction, while both Wild Frontiers and Pelorus have fantastic bespoke options. PHOTO ISTOCK 32

10 IZMIR TURKISH DELIGHT PHOTO © OD URLA Reviews for Turkey’s third-largest city have, historically, been raves: Aristotle praised its climate as the best in the world (the 8,500-year-old hub enjoys 300 days of sunshine a year) and writer Victor Hugo described it as “a princess adorning a necklace” in reference to its two-kilometre coastline, populated by pretty parks, cafes and historic buildings, which frames the electric-blue waters of the Bay of Izmir. Contemporary critics – particularly, a certain French tyre company – have likewise been taken with Izmir, with three establishments in the city’s enchanting outskirts having been awarded the area’s first Michelin stars in 2023. This includes OD Urla (pictured), whose natural, rustic and hyper-locavore fare (the supply radius is about ten kilometres) is prepared over an open fire at its site in a glasshouse structure on a family-run estate. 33