If there’s one thing that Kazakhstan’s second city does well it’s lounging around in cafes taking in the summer’s afternoon – with the cool breezes coming in off the snow-capped mountain range to the South, and a gentle slope running South to North the city it feels like a sister-in-law of both Geneva and Tehran. Whilst Wi-Fi can be found for free in the city where a waiter will slip a note with the password on it to the customer, many of the hotels and some high end cafes provide paid-for Wi-Fi – with a unique username and password printed on a receipt and added to the final bill.

~800 Tenge (~4.5 Euro) buys you an hour of slow broadband.