Walking Almaty

Name: Walking Almaty
Address: 130b Tole bi, Almaty, 050000, KZ
Telephone: +7 778 574 1524
Rating: 5

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Walking Almaty

Walking Almaty is a guide to the visual landscape of Kazakhstan's "southern capital." Read about everything from mosaics to manholes at WalkingAlmaty.com!
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When I moved to Almaty to study Kazakh in the summer of 2013, I became a voracious walker. I was living with a host family on Seifullin and Mametova, one corner of the downtown core, and my university was a long diagonal away, on the opposite side of the center. Every day I walked bаck and forth to school, three miles each way, and every day I found a new route, a different way to zig and zag acro

ss town. As I tried to make my new home familiar, there were patterns in the public space that baffled me: What is this ragged stone, full of fossils, that is used on the faces of all the buildings? What’s the story with all the little canals lining the streets, and why are some full of water and some full of trash? Why are there so many pharmacies? I spoke Russian and Kazakh, but urban Almaty seemed to be written in a language I couldn’t understand. Walking Almaty is a project that emerged from all these wonderings. It’s a project about learning to read a city’s visual landscape, and my tool is systematic classification. I’ve taken the forms around me and filed them into dozens of folders, taking thousands of photos to document everything I deem a phenomenon. I’ve now been in Almaty for more than a year, and if you look at the map on my site you can see that I’ve obsessively walked hundreds of miles, in every corner of the city. On all my walks, I’ve had a lot of time to think, and I’ve decided that this all will become a book some day. For now, you can explore my albums and articles, and I will add explanatory information as I write it.

07/03/2023

Scrubbing the Shokan Walikhanov statue after a rainy night.

29/01/2023

The death of a Cossack cabin. These logs of Tien-Shan spruce were worked into walls over a century ago - check out those joints of wooden pegs, not a nail in sight! This “five-walled” log home stood in Malaya Stanitsa for decades, witnessing the birth and death of the Soviet empire. The babushka who lived there must have passed away, and it’s clear that the wood was eaten through by termites. The house was torn down, and now these century-old logs lay on the street while the lot is prepared for a new mansion. In Malaya Stanitsa, change comes slow, but it comes nonetheless.

06/12/2022

Don’t forget to wash your nuts! 😅

02/12/2022

Tapestry in progress on a loom at the studio of Almaty artist Malik Floberuly Mukanov. Tapestries are one of the few forms of monumental art that have survived from the Soviet era into the period of Kazakhstan’s independence, perhaps because the textile’s roots in traditional culture have allowed it to remain relevant. They’re also commercially viable - they make great gifts!

29/11/2022

Introducing a new little project of mine, . The goal of the project is to document Kazakhstan’s kurgans, or ancient burial mounds. When you see kurgans at ground level, they can seem like insignificant little hills. But when you see them from above, you realize that they’re truly a wonder. Everybody in Kazakhstan knows about kurgans, but I don’t think people realize just how many they are - I’ve mapped thousands of them - and just how beautiful they can be. If you like the project, please follow and share!

25/11/2022

On the Walking Almaty site, I’ve got a whole collection of these gate paintings. I’ve seen the Lion King, SpongeBob, but more than any else - the dog from the Soviet-Ukrainian cartoon “Once Upon a Dog” («Жил-был пёс») with his immortal phrase “Well, I guess, come in if you’d like” («Ну ты, это, заходи если что!»). Those who grew up watching Soviet cartoons will know exactly who I’m talking about 😅

19/11/2022

Why does this mosaic have a pagoda in it? Because this is Masanchi, a remarkable village near the border with Kyrgyzstan that’s home to the Dungans, a Muslim people from China (where they’re known as Hui) who fled to Central Asia in the 19th century after a tumultuous uprising. I’m looking to organize tours to Masanchi because it represents everything I love about Kazakhstan: its diversity, its hospitality and its unpredictability.

17/11/2022

Nowadays, sometimes the only time I can Walk Almaty is in the evenings with my wife and kids. It’s great that more buildings have nice exterior lighting. What are your favorite nighttime sights in Almaty?

14/11/2022

I’ll be speaking this Wednesday on the legacy of the late great Vladimir Tverdokhlebov. Find a link in my stories!

13/11/2022

On one hand, it’s a shame that Sairan Bus Station is the first impression many visitors to Almaty have. It’s creepy and dated and it’s parking lot is a mess. But I can’t deny that it has some modernist charm, if you look past the general air of dereliction.

12/11/2022

“They’re local, right?” I asked with a wink. “Nope, they’re from Shymkent!” he said and laughed 😂

11/11/2022

An honor and a pleasure to walk today with our new US Ambassador Dan Rosenblum , who will be certified at Ak Orda on Monday. I shared my popular Golden Quarter tour, including this stop at the bust of Mukhtar Auezov, whose book “Impressions of America” I translated with the support of the US Consulate. Ambassador Rosenblum is just the kind of diplomat we should have representing US interests in Kazakhstan, and I wish him the best!

09/11/2022

Ancient meets modern: Petroglyphs from the UNESCO World Heritage Site Tanbaly on Almaty’s largest office building, Nurly Tau.

08/11/2022

At the Baisar Bazaar in the Druzhba neighborhood, I met a Uighur healer named Gulnara. She was selling a powder of dried snake and a collection of dried nuggets she called “medicinal roots.” I did some research and it turns out they’re three different seeds that collectively are used to make something called triphala, a medicinal treatment in Ayurvedic medicine. Have you ever encountered dried snake or triphala before?

07/11/2022

I miss walking Almaty. Walking the quiet streets of the chastny sektor, looking for treasures. I have a lot more responsibilities now, two children, than when I first moved here and had hours of free time to get on buses and explore the city. Still, when I do get a chance to go for a walk, it always puts me in a special, calm state of mind. Almaty zen.

05/11/2022

Today was a very special tour for the patron club of . Starting at .coffeehouse, we visited the oldest mosaic and stained glass window in Almaty, explored Arman Cinema and the Academy of Sciences, and finished at the Hotel Almaty. A great adventure with some terrific supporters of the arts.

02/11/2022

Colored plasterwork, or ganch, on the Muzzammil Mosque in the neighborhood of Druzhba, known as a center of Almaty’s Uighur community.

01/11/2022

My first ever Soviet monumental art tour, believe it or not! I’ve wanted to do it for years, but couldn’t find a way to make it work as a walking tour - the sights are too far apart. Thanks to James , a Scottish teacher living in Almaty, for asking about the tour and suggesting we hire a Soviet car to drive us around! Igor from .kz let us cruise around town in his 1952 Pobeda. It was a special tour, and I’d love to do it again, if anybody is interested!

25/10/2022

The talented local graffiti artist Dima .dmn from the Repas Crew updating his mural of the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol on the bookstore Meloman. It occurs to me that if now, I’m writing the history of Soviet monumental art, in a generation or two, some devoted Almatian will write a book about Repas and the founders of Almaty street art.

23/10/2022

Why are Russian petroglyphs on Kazakhstan’s Monument of Independence? 🧐

I was studying the monument for an upcoming walking tour when I noticed these two strange engravings, on a little-noticed granite panel west of the main monument.

The engravings depict two mask-like petroglyphs. Sources online suggest that they are from Airakty in Mangystau, and the artists who designed the Independence Monument in the 1990s must have been working from the same information.

But this information is false! I discovered that these petroglyphs are in fact from the Lower Amur region in Russia. One mask petroglyph is from a site called Sikachi-Alyan, and the other is from a site called Kiya.

The complex opened in 1996, and all these years it seems nobody noticed that famous artifacts from the far east of Russia had found their way into one of Kazakhstan's most famous monuments. Can you believe it?

20/10/2022

Almaty’s pre-fab apartment blocks look so much lovelier when they’re graced by beautiful vines, especially with these fall colors. Seems like a good idea for urban beautification - build tresses, plant vines and encourage them to grow on buildings around the city. What do you think?

17/10/2022

My guest today, Ricardo, is Brazilian of Japanese descent, but he said Shaken Aimanov (an icon of Kazakh cinema) looks like he could be his relative! It was fun having Brazilian travelers on my Golden Quarter tour - Brasileiros, venham para o Cazaquistão!

17/10/2022

A carpet in concrete! Always liked this beautiful sun shield (bride soleil) on an apartment block behind the historic Kyzyl Tan building on Zhibek Zholy and Kunaev.

26/09/2022

This is the view from the room where my daughter Maya was born on Wednesday last week. We looked at a few hospitals, but when I realized my baby girl would come into this world with a view of the Alatau, I was sold. Қазақ еліне +1 алматинка!

19/09/2022

Viktor Tsoi, the late great Soviet rock icon, with some flowers on Tölebaev Street. Tsoi started in the ultimate Almaty cult classic film, The Needle. If you haven’t seen it, you have to! If you have, what’s your favorite part?

18/09/2022

Yesterday was Almaty Day, the city’s annual celebration of city pride and nostalgia. We walked Panfilov Street and spotted Alpamys Batyr, a Kazakh folk orchestra, and a retro Soviet car show (a favorite of Walking Almaty Jr.). What did you do on Almaty Day?

17/09/2022

What a strange coincidence. Today, Adisa suggested we go for a walk, and usually we would go to Terrenkur or a place near our house like Panfilov Street. The trees have started to change color, though, and I remembered that Baum’s Grove is especially beautiful in the fall, so we go there. We have a nice walk, enjoying the silence, when we come to the gravesite of the famous Bishop Pimen, the local Russian Orthodox religious leader who was killed by militant atheist Bolsheviks here in 1918. It turns out that it was the anniversary of his death, and the devout had gathered to leave flowers at his grave.

11/09/2022

That’s me drinking Tajik tea at Kurban’s cafe, while my 20 guests wait for the start of the concert at the Green Bazaar, hosted by . The performance enraptured the entire bazaar, guests and vendors brought together by the beauty of performance. Thank you Edmond and for making this happen!

09/09/2022

How many of these food items from the Green Bazaar can you identify? Join me this Sunday to explore the stranger side of Almaty’s famous market, with an amazing violin concert at as an added bonus! DM for more info about the tour, or some tips on what the hell you’re looking at here 😂

07/09/2022

From our friends at : “An extraordinary event will be taking place at the Green Bazar on the 11th of September 2022. This will be part of the celebration of the relationship between The Republic of Qazaqstan and The Kingdom of the Netherlands. A spontanious pop-up violin concert will be given by Dutch virtuoso Edmond Fokker van Crayestein!” We’ve reserved front-row seats at the Kurban-Aga’s Tajik tea house across from Bowler Coffee. Come for the concert and stay for my famous walking tour of the Green Bazaar 🇵🇼🇳🇱🇵🇼🇳🇱 .bazar .bazar.almaty

Address

130b Tole Bi
Almaty
050000

Telephone

+7 778 574 1524

Website

http://walkingalmaty.com/

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Videos

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