[googamooga]

Most probably the OP visited the left bank of River Ishim side of Nur-Sultan which is indeed quite dull and built for cars. OTOH the right bank, the historical city, is much better IMHO, especially the central part. I was born there in 1970 and visited it quite recently in 2019, nothing much have changed there, it is still very approachable by feet and cozy, with lots of great restaurants and shops.

[cmod]

Most likely; the thrust of the trip was Baikonur bookended by Almaty and Nur-Sultan.

Typographically I found it interesting that the country was attempting to shift away from Cyrillic to a more romanized (??) written form; i.e., "Qazaqstan."