I’m now in a place with very slow wifi, so I will not say much about the day and a half I spent in Almaty. Which is okay, since there’s not much to say about a place when there’s so little time to explore it.
There were a few highlights, so I’ll touch on those.
Aidos
I haven’t seen Aidos in seven years. We were together for a year in Seattle before I moved to Mexico. He moved to Chicago about the time I left Seattle, and then he went back to Kazakhstan. He lives in Taraz. We haven’t done a great job of staying in touch, but we’ve cyberchatted from time to time. So when I planned this trip, I sent him a message, and he was able to travel from Taraz to Almaty (a seven-hour train ride) to meet me.
We visited First President’s Park, took a walk in the Arbat pedestrian street, and had a nice dinner. Then the next day he caught up with our tour group and joined us on a cable car ride up to Kök Töbe before making the long journey back home. (The photo up top is the view of Almaty from Kök Töbe.)
Cathedral
There’s a beautiful cathedral in Almaty. We visited it.
Museums
We also visited a couple of museums. The Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan would be a good museum for those who like seeing historical displays behind glass. The highlight of that museum was the gold artifacts, which we were not allowed to photograph. These are something like 850 mostly very small ornaments discovered in burial mounds (or, in one case, found by a group of school children).
Though the gold was worth a “wow!” the rest of the museum didn’t thrill me.
Nor did the Museum of Folk Musical Instruments. I much prefer to see musical instruments when they are being played. They aren’t that interesting to me when they are sitting in glass cases.
Music
Happily, though, I got my wish. That night at dinner, we had a marvelous performance by a local folk music ensemble, Qurmanagay Orkestr.
I wish we’d had more time in Almaty. I would have liked to see more of the city, to walk around and explore neighborhoods. It was great that Aidos and I had a little time to do that, but I think there is more to see in Almaty.
If you want to see more, check out my photo album.
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