kazakhstan Glorious Nation for Golf

What’s the first image that pops into your mind when someone says Kazakhstan?

No doubt, it’s the clueless TV journalist in the hit movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. But these days Kazakhstan is a lot more than the butt of Sacha Baron Cohen’s jokes. Thanks to the rising price of oil, the nation’s economy is relatively strong and its people have money to spend on Western-style comforts –- including vacations at seaside resorts.


Kazakhstan, which is nearly as big as India, has more than 1,000 miles of coastline along the Caspian Sea, with many potential sites for such destinations. Since 2007, a Syrian development group has targeted one of them –- a 4,200-acre spread along Kinderli Bay near the Turkmenistan border, between the coastal towns of Fetisovo and Akau -– for a resort community that will include roughly 500 villas and cottages, 23 hotels, a theme park, a water park, an amusement park, various sports venues, a campsite, a 27- or 36-hole golf complex, and other attractions.

The developers, a group called Syrian International Business Centre Group, call it the Kinderli Sun & Beach Holiday Resort, or simply Kinderli Beach. SIBC has signed a development agreement with Kazakhstan’s government, which plans to build an airport on 825 acres of nearby property. The parties believe the resort will attract 300,000 visitors a year, mostly people from Kazakhstan and Russia.

SIBC’s executive chairman, Eng Bashar S. S. Al-Atassi, has said that he hopes to make Kinderli Beach “the first sustainable holiday destination of the 21st century.”

Unfortunately, he’s not yet been able to secure financing for the construction -- Kazakhstan's banks have taken a pounding on their real estate loans -- and he spent some time earlier this year wooing potential investors in Malaysia, where SIBC has a subsidiary company.

If you think the golf complex at Kinderli Beach will be a novelty in Kazakhstan, you’re way off. The nation has a half-dozen golf properties, the best-known of which is an Arnold Palmer-designed track at Zhailjau Golf Resort in Almaty. The course hosts the Kazakhstan Open, a stop on the European Tour.