Four armed guards accompanied us through the centre of town, in a civilian-model Humvee, as Toreali pointed out the largest aquarium in Central Asia – ‘Possibly the only aquarium in Central Asia’ – and a new ovoid national archive building under construction. I probed for insight into the political situation, but he was on sales mode and I didn’t get anything useful.

‘We call Astana city of the future, gorod budushchego, and the city of dreams, gorod-mechta.’

‘Not quite the same thing,’ I said.

‘Where does the future come from but dreams?’ He smiled. We approached the Bayterek monument, its slender tower opening out to cradle a golden orb, and I realised what it reminded me of: the sculpture in Bahrain’s Pearl Roundabout, flattened by Saudi tanks six years ago when it became a magnet for pro-democracy crowds.

‘This is the centrepiece of the city,’ Toreali said.

‘Does it do anything?’

‘It embodies a Kazakh legend, about a mythical bird that lays a golden egg in a tall tree, beyond human reach. The egg contains the secrets of happiness.’

‘And why is it here?’

‘Because the President wanted it to be here.’

‘If you go up do you discover the secrets of happiness?’

‘You discover a cast of the President’s hand, and when you put your own hand in it a recording of a choir plays.’

We lunched in the Palace of Peace and Harmony. The Palace was the pyramid I’d seen, sixty metres high, its apex formed of stained glass featuring giant doves. It had been constructed for a World Congress of Religious Leaders, Toreali explained proudly. ‘The Palace expresses the spirit of Kazakhstan. Different cultures, traditions and nationalities coexisting in peace and harmony.’ It also housed an opera house, a national museum of culture and a projected ‘university of civilisation’ about which I tried to get information but failed.

We ate in a huge dining area right at the top with sloping glass walls – myself and Toreali and two Korean businessmen with Louis Vuitton bags to whom I was introduced as a successful British investor. The Koreans wanted to build residential compounds in the style of English town houses arranged around duck ponds. They had a promotional clip which they showed on an iPad: Georgian buildings set among trees, bridges, a supermarket. They’d already built two identical villages in Moscow, one near Shanghai. When I asked if the trees were going to be real they weren’t sure but said there were some convincing artificial ones these days. I flicked through, past the images of golf courses, Western shops and high-end restaurants, and thought of Egypt in 2011, which had had places like this opening every week and was soon in the throes of a revolution.

‘It’s going to have the country’s first Tesco,’ the Korean said.

‘The Chinese must love this.’

‘They buy five or six at a time.’