9/11: A Few Hours in Almaty, Kazakhstan

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We had spent most of the previous day flying from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Almaty, the main transport hub of Kazakhstan in order to fly later that afternoon onto Kyrgyzstan where we could begin our much anticipated three-day horse trek. That would mean being in three countries in three days, something we'd never done before. We had little choice, however, as we had been advised to get to Kyrgyzstan as soon as possible before the weather got too chilly for the horse trek. Since we knew we'd be back in Almaty in about six weeks for a few days, we weren't concerned about having so little time to explore the country's former capital on September 11th. What a shame the two huge rooms at the guesthouse were wasted on us because of our one-night stay.

Almaty was founded in 1854, when the Kazakhs were still nomads, as a Russian frontier fort on the site of an old Silk Road oasis called Almatu which had been laid waste to long before by the Mongols. In 1927, it became the capital of Soviet Kazakhstan with the name Alma-Ata, the Father of Apples. When the USSR was finally pronounced dead in 1991, all five Central Asian republics gathered in Alma-Ata to join the Commonwealth of Independent States. Not long afterwards, the city's name was changed to Almaty, close to the name of the original Silk Road settlement. Though Almaty was replaced by Astana as the country's capital in 1998, the city remained the country's business, social and cultural hub.

Walking into town, we passed the Kazakh State Philharmonic Center.

Close by was what I read was one of Almaty's most popular strolling and hangout places, Panfilov Park.

Panfilov was a Soviet general who died, together with 28 of his men, defending Moscow during the WWII. 

What an innovative use for an old pop bottle! Since then, we have seen them here in Kyrgyzstan used as plant holders, bird feeders, to hold shutters open and even a slew of them used together as a drain spout!

We have been fortunate to hear the lovely sounds made by accordion players since starting our trip in Yerevan, Armenia. 

One of the reasons we wanted to stop in Panfilov Park was to see its mammoth Panfilov Heroes Monument commemorating the 28 heroes from an Almaty unit who died in a courageous effort to slow the Nazi advance towards Moscow. I read that the USSR map was represented behind the soldier in the middle.

In front of the compelling memorial was a long raised cement slab with an eternal flame at the far end. It was apparently a favorite spot for wedding photos because the monument is seen as a symbol of strength and longevity for newlyweds! 

On either side of the eternal flame on winged walls were other monuments that represented Soviet losses in both the Russian revolution and in WW II.

I felt that the surrounding trees appeared to protect the powerful and moving memorials. The whole square was a place for quiet reflection on the horrors of war, regardless of what side one may have fought or rooted for in my opinion. 

The large Soviet-era building behind the eternal flame used to be the Soviet Army Officers Club, but had become a restaurant, bar and movie theater complex.

The red star flower beds that had been in front of the memorials were also carried over to other areas of Panfilov Park.

At the heart of the park was the candy-colored Ascension Cathedral that was built entirely out of wood, including its nails, in 1904. After being used as a concert hall and museum during the Soviet era, it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1995. I understand it was restored with colorful icons and murals but, unfortunately for us, it was closed for further renovations when we were there.

Since we were in no rush, knowing we would be returning later to Almaty, we wandered through more of the park where we noticed an unusual bench with its own awning!

I loved seeing in Almaty one of the 75,000 registered Little Free Library book exchanges that are in 88 countries as I had never seen one before outside the US! Steven and I have talked about putting one up at home but haven't done so yet.

I was amused seeing the banner proclaiming Almaty as 'The city of thousand colors' as the only colors we had seen so far had been in the flower beds and in the Cathedral's domes. Perhaps we hadn't seen enough of Almaty to agree or disagree with the marketer's slogan!

From the Cathedral, a path led into a huge square where older people chatted on park benches while young families had congregated to feed the pigeons.

Guess we were two of the old folks as we too sat on one of the benches to read and watch these two children have fun while their father operated the remote-controlled car! We've noticed most parks and open spaces in the former Soviet Union have fleets of these pint-sized cars for children and their parents to enjoy. However, when walking through the parks, we have had to pay extra attention so as not to be hit or run over as they can go pretty quickly!

As we left the park, it was incongruous seeing two WW II naval guns in the landlocked country, but apparently many WW II Russian sailors came from Almaty! 

We almost felt like we weren't halfway around the world when we saw the KFC and Hardees chains!

We walked past an interesting looking theater hoping to find an ATM to get some Kazakh tenge, the local currency, as we hadn't been able to get any in advance in the US as we always try and do.

After getting the money situation squared away, we headed to the Green Market as we always make a beeline for markets in any new city.

Somehow we landed up in the clothing area initially where each section had a separate owner responsible for her merchandise. None of the clothes in the market would have appealed to anyone looking for the latest in fashion as they appeared more serviceable than fashion forward as our daughter, Natalie, might have said.

I couldn't help but chuckle, though, when I saw the Canadian t-shirt!

Thee were several stalls dedicated to clothes for Muslim women as the majority of the country's residents identify as being Muslim, according to recent polls.

The market's food section looked more interesting although pretty deserted. 

I had no idea what these tiny colorful, hard, berry-like items were but they would only have cost $2.40 for a kilo!

These baby-sized strawberries were only $2 a kilo so I bought half  a pound's worth to enjoy right away. It was fun watching the vendor use a mini shovel to scoop them into the bag for me!

I have never seen so much honey for sale as we have in each of the countries we've visited east of Armenia. 

Near the market was Almaty's gold-domed, white marble Central Mosque that had been built in 1999. One of the largest in the country, it could accommodate 3,000 worshippers. 

We have always felt that we don't have to be Muslims to appreciate the beauty and serenity of a mosque. When we travel overseas, we try and get a sense of how people live in other lands. For us, the best way to do that is to go to the place where many people worship their god, whether it's a mosque, church, temple or synagogue.

This was the only peak I had of the finely decorated main prayer hall before I was told it was for men only and women had a separate entrance around the corner. Oops!

Women had to cover their heads, arms and legs before entering the Central Mosque.

The women's prayer space was darker and smaller than the men's had been.

Steven wanted to look at the nearby statue of Raiymbek Batyr, a famous Kazakh warrior from the 18th century, that he'd seen listed on maps.me. The only decent pictures I could take show him from the back because the sun was facing the front.

We walked a good piece to Almaty's biggest recreational park called Central or Gorky Park, after its far more famous Moscow counterpart. We just smiled when we saw a very plastic-looking camel and other animals near the entrance!

No doubt children must love these warrior statues!

Since having helped design two new playgrounds in our neighborhood, I have paid special attention to playgrounds on our travels. The one in Almaty's Gorky Park was pretty spectacular in my opinion.

In the center of the park were a couple of lakes for boating.

Since it wasn't a weekend, the amusement park rides were mostly closed or very poorly attended.

The Aquapark looked rather bereft, too.

I know we hadn't seen a lot of Almaty in our few hours of wandering around most of its downtown, but we had noticed no high rise or modern buildings at all.  There was no vibrancy, no sense of urgency with frenetic traffic as we'd seen recently in Tbilisi or Batumi or Baku. Steven described Almaty as a big city that felt like a small city but I found the architecture to be very ho hum and unremarkable. 

We only saw the odd luxury car unlike those other cities were Mercedes Benzes and BMWs were almost the norm. That was a bit surprising because we had passed 'Dealership Row' coming in from the airport the night before with Bentley, Lamborghini and other top of the line dealerships represented. Clearly we needed more time in the city to see what made Almaty tick because I feel we hadn't discovered that yet.

Next post: After flying on to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, that early evening, we got picked up from the hotel in the morning to begin our long-awaited three day horse trek from near Kochkor! 

Posted on September 21st, 2018, from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.