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Kazakhstan: Almaty Winter Escapes (1)

1 Dec

Winter is really on its way now in Almaty, with snow making on and off appearances and New Year decorations springing up. Kazaxia wants to share some of its favourite things to do in and around Almaty to help pass those frosty days and long nights.

Our first tip is the outdoor skating rink at Medeu.

Medeu, home to one of the best winter activities in Almaty – ice skating – is an immense skating rink located at an elevation of 1,691 metres and boasts a huge space for ice aficionados.

Since it opened in 1972 more than a hundred speed skating world records have been set in the ideal conditions found at Medeu. The setting is outstanding with snowy peaks and fir tree clad hillsides visible from the ice.

It’s easy to get to Medeu from the city with the number 6 bus running regularly from the bus stop opposite the Hotel Kazakhstan on the corner of Dostyk and Kurmangazy streets.

Lord Venal and friends take to the ice at Medeu


Some seasoned Medeu skaters think that it’s not so much fun since they cracked down on drinking on the ice, although this has made the experience somewhat safer as you’re less likely to crash into other drunks on the ice!

It costs 1,600 tenge ($11.00) for a session (half price for kids and students) and if you don’t have your own skates then you can hire them for 1,000 tenge ($6.75) for two hours.

Usually there’s two sessions a day from Thursday to Sunday with a morning session from 10.00 – 16.00 (09.00 at weekends) and an evening session from 18.00 – 23.00. You can check the opening times on this site or call 3869533 in Almaty.

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Kazakhstan: Monument to the Leader

21 Nov

Wedding parties and sightseers in Almaty have a new must-see on their itinerary with the recent opening of a monument to President Nursultan Nazarbayev in a park named in his honour, the First President’s Park.

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The shrine has the Leader of the Nation seated atop a granite slab with eagle wings extending behind him. The wings symbolise independence – the free-spirited eagle also features on Kazakhstan’s flag – and feature scenes from Astana and Almaty.

Almaty is represented by the Kazakhstan Hotel and the TV Tower, while Astana is represented by the Pyramid (The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation), BayterekTower and Khan Shatyr. At the centre of the wings is an image of the sun god and some yurts.

Could this be the start of a mania for building monuments in Kazakhstan to the country’s long-serving president?

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Kazakhstan: A short walk in the Ile-Alatau National Park

30 Oct

Kazaxia took advantage of some fine autumn weather last week to visit the Ile-Alatau National Nature Park to see how the people of Almaty like to commune with nature. The park is a short drive from the centre of the city and is popular with day-trippers.

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The foothills of the Tien Shan mountain range are still showing the ravages of a devastating storm in May which trashed loads of trees, providing rich pickings forKazakhstan’s lumberjacks, who are currently engaged in clearing the damage up.

The park is ostensibly a protected zone where building is not allowed, but this hasn’t stopped some bigwigs from commandeering a prime slice of the park for their own compound of four sizeable wooden mansions. The walled compound stands opposite the dilapidated housing of the Park Rangers making for a stark contrast of how the two halves live in Kazakhstan.

Sometimes, guards man the barriers at the park entrance to extort an ‘entrance fee’ to the park. Seeing the rubbish strewn all around the park, you can’t help but wonder what happens to all the park fees the guards collect.

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Kazakhstan: The vexed question of language

8 Oct

There’s not too many issues that can get the people of Kazakhstan hot under the collar – the threat of Chinese expansion is one that springs to mind, another is the use of right-hand drive cars – but one sure-fire issue that can guarantee a good turnout at a rally is the vexed question of language.

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Kazakh, the state and official language, still struggles to claim a dominant role in the country, with Russian still in widespread use in many spheres.

Last Sunday, October 2, around 1500 people turned up in warm, sunny conditions to protest in favour of the Kazakh language, with some calling for a clause in the constitution that gives Russian equal status for use in state bodies to be dropped.

The usual suspects were out in force from the world of nationalist politics and literature. Two hours of speeches ensued broken up by some poetry and performance by a boy-band. The age profile of the demo was predominantly the over 50s with a few families hanging around. Slavic features were conspicuous by their absence in the crowd.

Maybe if the organisers want to get their message to a wider audience, instead of speechifying from the stage they should try some new approaches. How about a rap competition in Kazkah or a poetry slam to appeal to young people? Piles of Kazakh language newspapers were scattered about for people to take home but what about some DVDs or books for kids – the next generation which can ensure the survival of Kazakh.

Refreshments were also absent from the proceedings – another missed opportunity – the crowd could have been fed with baursaki – fried dough balls – swilled down with kymys – fermented mares’ milk – provided it was ordered in Kazakh!

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Kazakhstan: Aliya Nazarbayeva launches ‘Alsara’ in Almaty

20 Sep

Aliya Nazarbayeva joined forces with Forbes magazine at a lavish bash in downtown Almaty recently to present her top-end jewellery collection on home soil.

Nazarbayeva was presenting her Alsara  collection, created in cooperation with Italy’s  Damiani, at the launch of Forbes’ Kazakhstan edition on 8 September.

Almaty’s glitterati were out in force, including prominent opposition leader Bulat Abilov. That should go down well with the voters: seeing the wannabe politician hobnobbing with Kazakhstan’s rich and famous.

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Kazakhstan after Nazarbayev: 3. Changing of the Guard

3 Aug

With rumours whirling around in the last few weeks about the health of Kazakhstan’s long-time president, the focus has once again turned to succession scenarios in Astana.

Kazaxia has decided to gaze into its crystal ball and look at some of the possible frontrunners should the Leader of the Nation decide to call it a day – here’s the third instalment:

The Leader may feel its time to make sweeping changes in Kazakhstan with a changing of the guard by handing the reins of power to a younger figure to represent a break with the past. Two candidates spring to mind here – Imangali Tasmagambetov and Kairat Kelimbetov.

Imangali Tasmagambetov (image taken from http://www.astana.kz website)

Imangali Tasmagambetov, the current Mayor of Astana, is a former Prime Minister and Mayor of Almaty. He’s a popular figure, having served both Astana and Almaty well as Mayor. According to some reports, he may even have political principles – he reportedly resigned as PM in 2003 over a rigged vote of confidence in his government.

He cuts a more youthful and urbane figure than many of the grey men of Kazakh politics and has shown a willingness to embrace new technologies by holding Internet conferences and running an interactive page on his mayoral website. Born in 1956, he represents a younger generation in Kazakh politics and has the personality that would be able to push the country forward, if his track record in Almaty and Astnan is anything to go by.

A negative factor could be his perceived aloofness from the electorate. He’s a Kazakh speaker, but comes from a tradition of Kazakh intellectuals and does not come across as a man of the people. He lists as his hobby ‘the problems of history, ethnography and archaeology of Kazakhstan’.

Kazakh nationalists may not forgive him for labelling people protesting the destruction of their homes ‘social outsiders‘ in the 2006 property and land disputes in the Bakay and Shanyrak areas on the outskirts of Almaty. The protestors were in the main Kazakh speakers so were Tasmagambetov to become president, he should not expect as easy a ride as Nazarbayev has had at the hands of the ever more vocal nationalists.

Kairat Kelimbetov

Kairat Kelimbetov (image taken from http://www.weforum.org website)

Kairat Kelimbetov is a dark horse for the top job. Despite being only 42, he has held a number of key positions in Kazakhstan. He is currently the Minster of Economic Development and Trade and prior to that he was head of the state’s Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kaznya.

Kelimbetov studied at Georgetown University and is often wheeled out to represent Kazakhstan at big economic forums around the world. His strong background in economics and his fluency in English combined with his relative youthfulness makes him an attractive proposition for foreign governments and investors.

He would be the ideal candidate to make a clean break with the past as he is not seen to be too tainted by the Soviet era. However, his not entirely fluent Kazakh language skills may be a disadvantage – but he does have  the charisma to appeal to the electorate. Keep him in mind as a dark horse, though, biding his time while the other candidates fall to political in-fighting.


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Kazakhstan after Nazarbayev: 2. The Old Guard

1 Aug

With rumours whirling around in the last few weeks about the health of Kazakhstan’s long-time president, the focus has once again turned to succession scenarios in Astana.

Kazaxia has decided to gaze into its crystal ball and look at some of the possible frontrunners should the Leader of the Nation decide to call it a day – here’s the second instalment:

2. The Old Guard

President Nazarbayev has some long-term lieutenants from the old days who can be trusted to carry out orders and get things done the way the president likes. Under consideration today are two members of the old guard: Nurtay Abykayev and Akhmetzhan Yesimov.

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Nurtay Abykayev (image taken from http://www.wok.kz website)

Abykayev has served Nazarbayev faithfully over the years and has been at various times Ambassador to the Russian Federation and the UK and chairman of the Senate of Kazakhstan. He has had a chequered political career but has always managed to bounce back into power.  He is seen as a safe pair of hands and is currently head of the KNB, the national security agency.

Like Nazarbayev he is from the south of Kazakhstan and is part of the President’s intricate balancing act between the clans from different areas of the country. He is an insider who knows all the ins and outs of Astana politics so would make a good candidate from that point of view.

A negative factor could be his age – he’ll be nearing 70 in 2016 when the next election is slated for. His age and background as a long-term insider may mean he would be resistant to the reforms and changes that some establishment circles feel Kazakhstan needs to make. He would represent a definite continuation of the status quo rather then a break with the past.

Akhmetzhan Yesimov (image taken from http://www.wok.kz website)

Yesimov is another veteran loyalist from the Soviet era. He has a background in farming having worked as the director of a collective farm. He worked his way up through the ranks and was Kazakhstan’s Minister of Agriculture for many years. He is currently Mayor of Almaty, a position he has held since 2008.

During his watch in Almaty he has failed to come to grips with the city’s chronic transport problems.  A possible scenario if he were to run the country could go like this – expect to see Kazakhstan turned into one huge gridlocked road with scant tree cover and a huge cloud of smog enveloping it.

He ticks all the political boxes having served as a Deputy Prime Minister, but again he represents more of a stop-gap throwback to the past rather than the dynamic figure Kazakhstan needs to push it forwards.

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Tamgaly Petroglyphs – History Etched in Stone

26 Jul

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The Tamgaly petroglyphs, located in a gorge some 170km north-west of Almaty, are an amazing testament to the long history of human habitation in this isolated corner of Kazakhstan.

The area has been inhabited for around 5,000 years since the late Bronze Age and the thousands of rock carvings trace human development from hunter-gathers who worshipped the sun, via the domestication of horses and camels and the use of bows and arrows, to later inhabitants who led a more settled, pastoral way of life and up to more recent visitors in the twentieth century.

The site is one of three places in Kazakhstan included on the UNESCO World Heritage List – the others being the Khoja Ahmed Yaswai Mausoleum in Turkestan and the Saryarka – Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan.

To find out more about the history of these fascinating rock carvings click here.

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Kazakhstan: The Samuryk Flies Again

19 Jul

The Samuryk, a phoenix-like bird of Kazakh legend, is taking flight once again – this time in the form of the Samuryk Paragliding club, which meets in the hills above Almaty to evoke the spirit of this mythical bird.

A paraglider takes to the skies at Ush Konyr

Most weekends Almaty’s paragliding fans gather at Ush Konyr, which is located just outside the village of Shamalgan, to soar into the skies off the steep escarpment that towers above the plain that is home to Kazakhstan’s commercial hub. The site is famous across the former Soviet Union with paragliders and is home to many competitions in season.

The Samuryk and its nesting place play a key role in Kazakh mythology. One of the most famous landmarks in Astana is Bayterek, a 97m-tall observation tower built at the centre of its main drag. The glass ball at the top of the structure represents the Samuryk’s egg.

Bayterek, Astsna, Kazakhstan

According to legend, the Samuryk returned every year to lay its egg, representing the sun, in the upper branches of the tree of life known as Bayterek. This egg was then devoured by a dragon, symbolising the eternal rhythm of night replacing day and winter following summer.

Returning to the modern-day Samuryks, this summer will see various competitions taking place at Ush Konyr with it hosting stage 4 of the Russian Open Paragliding Cup 16-21 August, the Open Kazakhstan Championship 22-27 August, and the Open CIS Cup 28 August – 2 September. 

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Sweet Taste of Success

23 Jun

If you’re wandering in the area around Almaty’s Green Bazaar, chances are that you will notice the tantalising aroma of chocolate in the air.

A selection of delights from Rakhat

The area behind the sprawling market is home to the Rakhat confectionery factory, which offers chocoholics a sublime choice of products. It produces its signature milk chocolate bar ‘Kazakhstan’ which comes in packaging in the colours of the Kazakh flag and with a gold shanyrak – the circular opening that goes at the top of  a yurt and a symbol of Kazakhstan

Rakhat is always coming up with innovative products – recent new lines include a milk chocolate apple, available in red or green and a kazyna, or treasure chest, filled with gold -covered chocolate coins.  The apple, a symbol of Almaty, will remind  Brits of that perennial Christmas stocking-filler, Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

So, if chocolate titllates  your tastebuds, then Kazaxia recommends you get down to the shop that is attached to the factory and indulge your passion.

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