Handpicked experience · Almaty
Almaty, Kazakhstan
Every apple in every supermarket on earth descends from wild trees on these slopes, and the wooden cathedral in the park was the thing left standing after 1911.
The mountain forest that every orchard on earth descends from
A timber building that outlived the masonry city around it
A memorial whose story is worth hearing in full
A market where tasting before buying is the norm
Mountain views from inside the city, in four hours
Four hours through central Almaty with a private guide: Panfilov Park and the wooden cathedral inside it, the Green Bazaar, and viewpoints looking up at the Tian Shan foothills that stand over the city.
The name of the city is built on the word for apple, and that is not decorative. The wild apple Malus sieversii grows in the mountain forests around Almaty, and genetic work over the past few decades established it as the ancestor of the domestic apple — every variety in every orchard and supermarket on the planet traces back to this species.
The wild trees are still up there, producing fruit of wildly varying size, colour and taste, most of it nothing like what you buy. The slopes you photograph from the viewpoints are the original orchard, and they are under real pressure from development and disease.
Zenkov Cathedral, in the middle of Panfilov Park, was finished in 1907 and built entirely of Tian Shan spruce — one of the tallest wooden buildings anywhere, and the tradition holds that it went up without nails in its structure.
In 1911 a massive earthquake struck the region and levelled most of the city, which was then largely brick and masonry. The cathedral stayed standing. A timber frame flexes where masonry cracks, and the building had been engineered for exactly this. It has since been a museum and a concert hall as well as a church, and it is still the first thing people photograph in Almaty.
Panfilov Park commemorates a rifle division formed in this city in 1941, made up largely of Kazakh and Kyrgyz recruits, which fought in the defence of Moscow and lost heavily doing it.
The version of their story that made them famous — a specific last stand by twenty-eight men — was substantially shaped by wartime newspapers, and a postwar investigation found the published account unreliable in its details. The division, the fighting and the casualties were entirely real. The memorial is enormous and unmissable, and Kazakhs will tell you both halves of this if you ask.
The Green Bazaar is a working market, not a display. The stalls worth stopping at are the ones selling things you cannot easily buy at home: kurt, dried salted cheese in hard white balls; kazy, horse sausage, which is a celebration food here rather than a curiosity; kumis, fermented mare's milk, sour and faintly fizzy.
There are also long counters of dried apricots, raisins, walnuts and honey, and traders expect you to taste before you buy. Say yes; that is how the market works.
Almaty sits at around eight hundred metres and the weather turns quickly off the mountains, so bring a layer even in summer.
The bazaar is busiest in the morning, which is when this tour reaches it — keep your bag closed and in front of you in the crowd, as in any large market. Bring small local notes, since traders rarely break large ones. The stops involve walking on paving and stairs, with short drives between them.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Yes. The wild apple Malus sieversii grows in these mountain forests, and genetic work identified it as the ancestor of every domestic apple variety.
They are, producing fruit of wildly varying size, colour and taste. The forests are under pressure from development and disease.
It was finished in 1907 entirely in Tian Shan spruce, and the tradition holds that its structure was raised without nails.
The 1911 quake levelled most of a city then built largely of brick. The timber frame flexed where masonry cracked, and the cathedral stayed up.
A rifle division raised in this city in 1941, largely Kazakh and Kyrgyz, which fought in the defence of Moscow and took heavy losses.
The specific last-stand account was shaped by wartime newspapers, and a postwar investigation found its details unreliable. The division and its casualties were entirely real.
Kurt, hard balls of dried salted cheese; kazy, horse sausage eaten here on celebrations; and kumis, fermented mare's milk. Traders expect you to taste first.
Small local notes. Market traders rarely break large ones, and the food stalls are cash.