Andrey Mikhailov - Alma-Ata – discouraging charm in the Centre of Asia. The subjective guidebook

The year of 1935 survived in everyone’s memory due to other reasons, too. In Alma-Ata for the first time in the country there was founded a new public organization, the Hikers’ Club. It was a methodological (and political!) center, an assembly place, an organizer of mass mounts and difficult expeditions, and it played the important role in mountain and sports development in the republic. It is majorly thanks to this club’s activity Zailiskiy Alatau very quickly became the second after Caucasus region in the country for the mass mountain climbing.

…Interesting that the tradition of mass climbs survived up to nowadays. And the author of these lines happened to be the participant of them in his hiker’s youth in 1970s. And it stuck to my memory. As a matter of fact, such mass mounts when a few hundred people all in one walk to the summit is an unforgettable spectacle.

The first sunbeam that has slipped from behind the nearest mountain catches the alpiniad’s participants already on the move. The chain of people stretches for many hundreds of meters; they busily crisp with their heavy boots against the frozen snow, hammer stones with ice axes, intently breathe in the frosty air and together feel sorry, silently and out loud, for those who stayed below, downtown. And although not everyone who walks in this column for the first time will get to Himalayas, or become hikers, even if they never make the mount again, this proud acute feeling of the conquered peak will stay within them forever.

…This tradition keeps on living in the new Kazakhstan, too. The regular climbs to the legendary Komsomol peak (hastily renamed by the sportive org-men the more accustomed to the today’s ear Nursultan) attract in the same way both veteran hikers and newcomers

The alpine skating rink Medeo is more than the sports venue. We may surely say that there’s no other such a popular Olympic brand in Kazakhstan.

And though much time passed since that period when this alpine skating rink was rightly called “the factory of records” – memory remains. And not only with the chroniclers registering the world sports achievements, but also with all those who skated, skate and will skate on Medeo’s speedy ice.

Right after its opening Medeo became people’s favourite place for spending their time off. In those years when the chilling equipment of the rink functioned properly, it was open from September till April. Although for all comers it was open only at weekends, the annual attendance figure reached 150 thousand people!

To visit Medeo with friends, “to go skating” was a usual and common thing for us, young Alma-Ata residents of that time. (Despite the fact that it was never easy to get there by bus.) Sometimes in warm days of autumn the skating rink was fully crammed with skating people. But – so many loving hearts found each other in these crowds! So many sudden collisions led to long-lasting relationships!

As for these photos, they were taken recently. Today the second and the third generations of Medeo fans skate on its ice.

In mountains winter reigns longer than it does at their foot. And at the highest peaks, where bare rocks argue with eternal ice, its vacation is shorter than that of any civil servant in Nursultan. The sun will just warm up the tops and melt all the winter snow, but here we go again – black clouds are coming from behind the ridge, and icy rain begins to powder the slopes with the snow grains.

Middle altitude mountains with their lush forests and fir woods are another matter. We have the full-scale summer here. With hovering butterflies, fragrant raspberries and warm sun showers. Both spring and autumn are never reminiscent of bustling and hustling holidays here. That is why winter, as if understanding its soonest resignation, tries to do its best to show off. So, it presses fur boughs with piles of snow nearly down to earth, transforms rapid mountain streams into sparkling crystal, and buries strewn sharp boulders under layers of snow 1 m thick.

Our mountains are calm and quiet in winter. If you skirt few mountain cabins, shashlyk-smelling Medeo and arrogant Chimbulak, you can go deep into such forest serenity and such benchmark primevalness, which is haunted by amateurs from distant places, covering thousands kilometers, crossing many borders, and spending lots of money. Any Almaty citizen is a man of destiny in this regard. To see and feel all this bliss he just has to take a 30-minutes ride by bus and to pay 80 tenge only.

I can say nothing about the today’s capital of Kazakhstan, but the former one – Alma-Ata – is lovely at any time of the year. Including winter. Despite the languishing epithet “south”, given to the city, and that it is situated in the same latitude with Istanbul, Rome, Barcelona, and New-York, stems of thermometers once fell here below 38°С. As for the snow, there is so plenty of it here, that Winter Asian Games were already held in the city, and it claims to have Winter Olympic Games with all good reason!

As for the citizens, I won’t palter with truth: our attitude towards winters can’t be called lock, stock, and barrel positive. Predatory bills for heating from utility providers alone can easily envenom anybody’s life. But the pleasure felt by south people in winter, who have been well-warmed and tired during the summer heat, cannot be compared to feelings of inhabitants in those cities where they manage neither to warm up nor get tired during summer.

There is one thing I can declare unequivocally – our city looks so solemn, fabulous and full of light only in the morning after a snowfall, and no other moments. When the sun that has risen from behind the mountain tops in a flash of a second will decorate snow piles and snowy trees with millions of sparkles, flutter with celestial shadows under heavy branches, and shine on rosy cheeks of student girls, hastily going to their lessons. This is an incredible state of mind and soul!

This elegant building in the center of the old park is one of the main decorations of the city for more than 100 years. (Name of city was changed three times: Vernyj – Alma-Ata – Almatyduring this time).

Orthodox Saint-Ascension Cathedralwas built by the most recognizable Vernyj architect and town planner Andrei Zenkovin 1906; and it immediately became one of the attractions of Semirechye region and pride subject of parishioners and townspeople. Pride hesitet during the severe earthquake in 1911when a lot of buildings were destroyed, but a 44-meter Cathedral withstood (its predecessor, by the way, was destroyed by the disaster in 1897). Let me remind you that it was not some indistinct shocks that townspeople got used to, but the earthquake measuring 8—10 on the Richter scale!