| walks over the city |
 |
|
|
We kindly offer to your attention the fifth issue of our Almaty Guide. This time, we have decided to take you for sightseeing in Almaty. In view of forthcoming summer, we think the best way to get familiar with our city is through walking and seeing.
Almaty is a small town and its places of interest are mainly clustered in downtown.
The three-story square building with nine domes on Furmanov Street, right opposite the President’s Palace, is visible from afar. The blue domes, biggest in the middle and the rest along the perimeter, coupled with white stone walls look impressive and magnificent. The Museum is even more beautiful at nights when illuminated with blue floodlights. People like to spend time in a small park with ponds, stone bridges, rock compositions and weeping willows in front of the Museum.
[photo album]
The Museum’s biggest collection in Kazakhstan consists of 120, 000 exhibits displayed in its four huge halls and 200, 000 in reserves. Especially popular stands hold Kazakh traditional clothes, household articles, jewelry and other pieces of art.
There are also real pictures taken during 2 severe earthquakes that almost completely wiped out the city in 1887 and 1910.
Even if you are not a lover of history, we advice you to visit the Museum as a place where you can buy good souvenirs, national jewelry, paintings and sculpture.
Going down Furmanov Street from the Museum you will finally come to the Republic Square, commonly known as the New Square (Novaya Ploshad). Founded in 1980 as Almaty’s biggest square, it is a regular place to hold parades and festivals. Locals favor it because it resembles vast Kazakh steppe enclosed with buildings like mountains. Even in hot stuffy summer evenings it is cooled by fresh breeze from the mountains and there is no better place in the whole city to have a date.
The Independence Monument in the middle of the square symbolically features crucial periods of the Kazakhstani history. Its central part, the Golden Man, is a 6 meter copy of a real gold finding from a burial mound near Almaty. In 1986, the New Square witnessed an allegedly staged rebellion against Moscow’s rule. A metal commemoration plate and the fountains stripped of marble tiles in some places remind people of that event today.
A little higher the Monument, up the cascades of steps on Baiseitov Street, there is the Tribune art gallery of modern Kazakhstani artists.
One block down from the theater is Kurmangazy Street, in the name of a famous Kazakh composer. Turn to the right and walk back to Furmanov Street. At the corner, you will see a small mansion with a spire. It dates back to the beginning of the XX-th century when Almaty was called Verny (Russian for Loyal).
Further along Kurmangazy Street is Tulebayev Street named after another Kazakh composer. Quiet and trafficless Tulebayev Street used to be primarily inhabited by the local Soviet elite and still remains one of the most expensive residential areas in Almaty. Walking up, you will bump into the Dzetysu (Kazakh for Seven Rivers) fountain system. Seven springs flowing from a pink and black granite pillar symbolize seven main rivers of the south-east Kazakhstan: the Ili, Karatal, Bien, Aksu, Lepsy, Baskan and Sarkand.
An 8-meter brass monument in front of the Academy of Sciences on Shevchenko Street is devoted to an outstanding Kazakh scientist, Chokan Valikhanov.
One more art gallery, Ular, is located in the same complex with the entrance from Kurmangazy Street.
The main decoration of the park adjacent to the Academy of Sciences from the west is a fountain featuring twelve animals in charge of every year according to the eastern calendar.
[photo album]
A little higher is a bust of Alexander Pushkin, one of the best Russian writers and poets. Almaty received the bust as a gift from neighboring Russia in connection with the 200-year birth anniversary of the writer.
Climb higher than bird’s fly and have lunch in a cafe on the twenty sixth floor of the hotel.
The Kazakhstan Hotel forms one architectural complex with Abai’s Square and the Republic Palace. The latter is the main Almaty’s concert hall. You can visit it for free in daytime to see a huge (7.5 ton) Czech chandelier made up of 50, 000 small parts and 566 crystal pendants.
On the right from the Republic Palace, there is cable way linking Almaty with the Kocktobe hill (TV Tower). A small cable car will carry you over an old area nicknamed «Compote» for its streets: Pear Street, Cherry Street, Apple Street etc. From a special site at 1070 meters above the city, you will be able to view not only all Almaty and Zailisky Alatau mountains but also a heavy smog coat. So, try to schedule to visit the Kocktobe Hill on a windy day after rain and stay there until it is dark to see the night Almaty.
On the right side of Dostyk Avenue, you will see a monument in the form of an old man sitting beside a rock with running water. Zhambyl was a highly respected music and song improviser.
Behind the monument, there are three 12-story buildings commonly referred to as Tri Bogatyrya (Three Epic Heroes). On their common ground floor there is Iskra, a cinema recently renovated in the western style. The first floor is occupied by the Archeological Museum (open 10.00 a.m. - 05.00 p.m. except weekends). Among various archaeological findings, you will see a copy the Golden Man. Its costume is made up of 4000 gold parts.
[photo album]
Its current name commemorates soldiers that gave their lives defending Moscow suburbs (Volokolamskoye Shosse) in the first year of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) against the German invasion. The soldiers were led by their division officer Panfilov. The names of the twenty eight heroes are engraved on stone boxes set up along the Memory Alley going across the Park. To remember all soldiers that shed their blood for the Soviet Union’s freedom and independence, the Glory Memorial was added in 1975. This monumental construction consists of 3 compositions arranged around the Eternal Flame. The most amazing one has the contour of the USSR map with soldiers of different nationalities shielding the Kremlin with their bodies. On the one side of the Eternal Flame is a soldier leading the horses of his dead friends, a symbol of grief and mourning, on the other side, as a symbol of revival and joy, stands a soldier victoriously blowing a trumpet. Just married couples never break the tradition to visit the Park and lay live flowers at the Memorial and the Eternal Flame.
In the eastern part of the Park, you will find the Museum of National Instruments (open from 09.00 a.m. through 06.00 p.m. except Mondays). The wooden tower designed and built in 1908 by a famous architect and construction engineer Andrei Zenkov is protected by the state. You will be able to see the instruments of such outstanding Kazakh composers as Zhambyl, Abai and Kurmangazy and to listen to tape recorded sounds of every instrument exhibited in the Museum.
A muezzin praying from the minaret, a mandatory attribute of every mosque is heard from afar.
We would like to finish our story here. You are encouraged to try the route and visit the places that we have described here. By the way, we did it ourselves several times when writing this Guide and every time it was different and exciting because Almaty, its streets and people are never the same.
© 2000 A-Business, http://ab-kz.narod.ru, abusiness@nursat.kz
