Nursultan Nazarbayev, dictator of the former Soviet republic, has commissioned Lord Foster, architect of the new Wembley stadium, to build a leisure complex inspired by the nomadic tent of Genghis Khan.

It will defy the bitter Kazakh winter with tropical gardens, beaches and a nine-hole golf course and, as the president declared last week, provide “everything that a man needs for his life”.

The vast transparent tent, rising three times the height of Nelson’s column in London, will draw comparisons with the Eden project in Cornwall. However, it will also house 225 shops and a concert venue for 5,000.

Terraced gardens will stretch the area of two football pitches, gondolas will ply an artificial river and artificial wave pools and beaches will replicate the nearest sea, more than 1,000 miles to the west.

Since 1994, when Nazarbayev moved his capital from the cosmopolitan Almaty, close to the Chinese border, to Astana, he has overseen a series of ostentatious buildings along a mile-long 300ft wide boulevard.

The president hired Kisho Kurokawa, Japan’s leading architect, to design the city’s masterplan, reportedly conceived in a single day in 2001. Kurokawa took a sheet of tracing paper and drew roads, buildings and waterways with felt-tip pens like “a conductor wielding a baton”.

Five years on, the national archives resemble a giant Easter egg, the transport ministry is shaped like a cigarette lighter and a circus is yet to be constructed. According to the city’s website it will “reminds the look of saucer men’s spacecrafts”.

Foster has already completed a pyramidal palace of peace and reconciliation, which combines an opera house with a meeting chamber for leaders of the world’s religions. Nazarbayev flew in Monserrat Caballé, the soprano, for an inaugural concert. In another monument, a gold block carries an oversized imprint of his hand so visitors can put their hand in his.

Nazarbayev secured 91% of the vote in last year’s general election, branded undemocratic by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and leaves equally little to chance in the construction of his capital.

He describes himself as “the architect of Astana” and is known to overrule his designers, regardless of their reputations. He vetted the Khan Shatyry — or tent of the descendants of Genghis Khan — by “our friend, great architect Norman Foster”.

The attraction is Nazarbayev’s attempt to offer his citizens relief from the six month-long winter and uses the slogan “What do you feel like doing every day at Astana? It’s -30C outside”.

Its foundations are still under construction, but already locals have dubbed it “the giant yurt” and hope that it will improve the limited social life in the city.

“A good night out might include a drink in a cafe — horse milk or brandy are popular — before heading to a disco to dance to Russian pop music,” said Takashi Tsubokura, a Japanese architect who works in Kazakhstan.

The diplomatic quarter is only belatedly taking shape as embassies are still decamping from the historic capital. Paul Brummell, the British ambassador, said weekends can be quiet and a trip across the frozen steppe to lakes several hours away is one of the few options.

The prospect 15C in the Khan Shatyry in winter would be a welcome break. “The imagination being used here is quite amazing and the Kazakhs have an astonishing vision,” he said.

The authorities are so determined to protect the capital’s shiny image that the police pull over taxis if they need a clean.

Foster has said he enjoys aspects of working for an autocrat. In a recent essay he criticised British public inquiries as “bureaucratic charades”.

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