Almaty travel guide: adventure and awe in Kazakhstan

Of all the things I expected to find in Kazakhstan, some 1,691m above sea level, a 7ft ice skate wasn’t one of them. Nor, granted, did I expect to find the rink it was attached to: a veritable colosseum of Soviet concrete standing stark and indestructible at the foot of the Tien Shan mountains.

If we’re being honest, I hadn’t foreseen the horse acrobats, vineyards, grand canyon, or upside-down trees. Naturally, I didn’t anticipate feeding a giant bird of prey with my teeth either. All of which understandably begs the question, what did I expect to find in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s second city?

Very little, is the honest answer. The largest country in Central Asia and ninth biggest in the world by size, Kazakhstan is vast – vast on a scale that’s hard to grasp until you fly over its flat, camel-coloured expanse waiting for any sign of something. A hill. A hillock. A small mound would do. But its steppe – a mammoth sweep of tree-free grassland – is as unforgiving on the eye as it is on Kazakh nomads living there.

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Just as you start to lose hope of ever seeing greenery or gradients again, the easternmost corner of Kazakhstan erupts with spiring mountains and heavy forests that split the sands in two. This is Almaty: the country’s former capital and its enduring centre of culture. Perched by the borders of China and Kyrgyzstan, Almaty has long been a hub for immigration and adventure.

Look at Kazakh people as you wander the city’s sunlit boulevards and you’ll find a sea of changing faces that reflect their far-reaching heritage and chequered history. It’s near impossible to identify someone from Kazakhstan by sight – but what they seemingly have in common is a love for exploring the country’s extraordinary landscapes.

Soviet skating

Head east out of the city and you’ll find yourself on a road scattered with the unexpected. The ice rink’s home, Medeu, is a strange place of alpine athletic oddities, embedded in a hillside 30 minutes from Almaty. Far below, the city dips and dims amid a haze of dust while above the world’s highest night time ski resort glimmers with snow. In summer, the ice rink – a semi-successful attempt by the Soviets to make Almaty a sporting hub – is barren, a level plane of uninspiring cement. Come winter, Medeu teems with agile skaters old and young. In Almaty, even toddlers have their own ice skates.

The mountains behind Medeu rely on no seasons; locals will tackle them whatever the weather. At Shymbulak ski resort, broad pistes have a foot-deep dusting of snow and restaurants are alive with day-trippers. From its gondolas, you can spot skiers and boarders carefully making their way down the sun-blushed slush. But there’s something more unusual making its way up, too.

Intrepid Almaty locals use their Sundays to hike uphill, on a ski run filled with snow, heavy boots parting the piste. From here, they’ll head into the boundless mountain range before us, colossal and keen-edged, its weaving basins a wild, near-private playground not just for hikers, but snow leopards and bears, too.

Sunken forests

Shymbulak isn’t the only place in Almaty to let your legs loose. Even closer to the Kyrgyz border, a beautifully lonesome drive through Uighur frontier towns and sprawling ranges, lies Kolsay Lakes National Park. Here, pillowed pine forests are broken apart by broad lakes the colour of peacock feathers. Approaching the park, it’s easy to believe you’ve taken a wrong turn into British Columbia or Switzerland. The impossible blue and endless green that paint the towering mountains are a far cry from Kazakhstan’s typically harsh steppe.

Known as the “pearl of the northern Tien Shan”, Kolsai is littered with lakes: the first looming large from the park’s entrance. A pleasant bosky stroll along root-rippled boardwalks leads you down to its vibrant waters, where you can circumnavigate the entirety in around three ambling hours. Beyond the hill-pleated horizon sits the second lake, some 2,500m in altitude, which hale hikers can reach in seven hours with a permit to hand.

Almaty’s crowning aquatic glory, however, is Kaindy. Reaching this lake is no quick feat. Depending on conditions – the quantity of road-wandering sheep, if the hired 4x4 can handle the calf-deep mud, and the number of times you demand to stop to take desolate, dramatic photos – it takes up to four hours from the city. But its unearthly aspect is worth it.

Relatively young, Kaindy lake was formed in 1911, when an earthquake ruptured the ground. The resultant crater filled with icy water, half submerging its Schenk spruce trees. As the elements stripped the trees’ upper half, the water – which reaches maximum temperatures of 6C in summer – perfectly preserved the pine needles. The result is mystifying; from a vantage point an hour’s walk up into the forest, you look upon an upside-down, underwater woodland. Bare silver trunks plunge down into bubblegum blue waters, where the tree branches seem to hauntingly rebloom. Extreme adventurers scuba dive Kaindy, braving its near-freezing depths for a close look at these long-dead, yet-living trees.

Grandiose canyons

I had just got used to the prospect of the cool palette of Kazakhstan’s alpine scenery when the country shifted gears again – gears belonging to a mud-splattered, river-logged 4x4. A day trip from the city sits Charyn Canyon, Kazakhstan’s answer to its more famous, larger US cousin.

Charyn’s rift of red and ochre thunders through the steppe like lightning, leaving sheer walls and stacks up to 300m high. Its Valley of Castles, the most visited and easily accessible of the region’s canyons, is like parts of Arizona and the Atacama got syphoned off to Almaty.

Formed by wind and its eponymous rushing river eroding the soft sandstone, Charyn has an astonishing 12 million-year geological history. Its silent Martian landscape abounds with hikes, from day walks to multi-day treks, but even its short 2km Castle wander is enough to leave you agog, mouth open as eagles soar overhead. There’s camping, overnight yurts and river rafting too, if you’re feeling brave enough. Gazing at the speeding green rapids, our guide explains that “some parts of the river are so strong, people can just disappear”, and a predictably safe picnic among the striated sandscapes seems a far better idea.

Nomads and raptors

On the road back towards Almaty, with its distant bustle and buzz of people, is the Huns ethno village: a heritage site built to preserve the nomadic Kazakh way of life. It’s filled with in-depth cultural information on ancient nomadic music, child-rearing, family life, fabrics, agriculture, food and, of course, sport.

My prowess and pride in nomadic archery quickly withered watching nubile young nomads do traditional horse acrobatics – a feat so physically intimidating that I could almost hear my core muscles weep. It’s the only aspect of the day that has an element of tourist cheesiness; the music booming from the tinny speakers is far from the sweet string dombra we had earlier been serenaded by, in the carpet-clad warmth of a yurt.

Nearby is another Almaty treasure, the Sunkar Bird Refuge. The sanctuary began as a family effort to protect the Saker falcon from export to Arabian markets, and today looks after hundreds of birds across 15 species. You can meet their more friendly residents in a daily show, where guests are genuinely asked to keep a firm hold on their smaller children. Depending on where you sit, you may even get picked to feed them from your mouth (or indeed, from shaky fingers holding the chicken leg in front of your teeth).

The city

Then there’s Almaty itself, a city of glittering new skyscrapers and centuries’ old markets, where brutalist Soviet statues and candy-coloured cathedrals share the same green and merry spaces.

Food thrives here, with traditional restaurants pushing out piled-high plates of horse, beef, lamb, steaming bowls of meat broth and deliciously soft baursak doughnuts. Elsewhere, late-night galleries and wine bars clink and twinkle into the evening dark, spotlighting the country’s re-emerging viticulture, once thought entirely lost under Soviet strictures.

I may have had few expectations of Almaty, but it managed to exceed them. The city feels young, fun, and – despite its age and hard-earned wisdom – it has barely begun. Its time as a tourist destination is certainly in its infancy, but there’s enough surprises up its sleeve to storm the world stage.

How to get there

Air Astana has increased its flights from London Heathrow to Almaty, now flying five times a week. The near 10-hour flight briefly stops in Aktau before landing in Almaty. Return flights from London Heathrow to Almaty start from £540.

Jo Davey was a guest of Air Astana and Kazakh Tourism. See airastana.com, qaztourism.kz and kazakhstan.travel