If you travel business class (and what else would you do, with business in Astana?), you'll meet about all your fellow travellers again in this hotel. In the middle of the snow desert with its kitschy Albert-Speer-meets-Thief-of-Baghdad architecture, the Okan IC is the hotel for international advisors and businessmen. This gives it an odd feeling; it is very glitzy, somehow oriental, definitely a ***** and not a **** as said here, hellishly expensive (but I think nobody here pays by himself - him, as there are hardly any women guests around, it seems). Overheated pool, weird breakfast, tight security, always state visitors staying here (which is annoying). Beware of the executive floors and get a nice room in a top one; the executive floors are low and not better than the other ones. Watch that you get a big bed; the small ones in the twins and singles are a bit narrow. The service is good for Astana and lousy by other standards (you are charged much more for a postcard stamp than it says, "service fee", and the like). Very expensive phone and internet services, but you'll need them. The feeling of a pseudo-Western island for the privileged - yet it is not a "good" crowd that stays here - is very eerie. Still, an experience, and definitely food for a novel or at least short story.