Kokshetau is another wheat-growing city, 300 km north of Astana. The region is optimistically known as Kazakhstan’s “Little Switzerland” owing to a few areas of lakes, trees and hills dotting the otherwise flat and treeless steppe. The best known of these is Lake Burabay. 95 km southeast of the town: the scenery’s nice and it’s popular with local but hardly a place you’d travel far for.