Some camels
Today I was a proper tourist. I was the only one by the look of things. No cameras, no maps, no lonely planets. Even no Americans. Whilst this makes me feel smug and travel-superior, comfortable in the knowledge I am on the road less travelled, it does mean I stand out a bit. With sunglasses on I blend in fairly reasonably, without them I look neither Russian nor Kazak. This leads to a lot of staring, but no approaches to sell me anything, which is good from my point of view, but hardly a sign of a growing tourist market.
Almaty is like nowhere else I have ever been. I can only describe it as being like a Soviet Istanbul or a Sofia with buckets of Petro-dollars. Neither of which descriptions do it justice really. The roads are huge, wide tree lined boulevards lined by concrete block apartments and ground floor retail. It’s quite colourful and edgy but it definitely is not going to win any beauty contents.
I managed to get round some of the main must sees;
1. The Green Bazaar – a massive sprawling maze of stalls including a covered food market. Unfortunately you can’t take photos as little men with walkie talkies seize on you (they are everywhere). However, I have seen isles of sheep heads, horse meat and even something described terrifyingly as Kangaroo meat. I played safe and negotiated some spicy nuts. Due to miss translation I nearly ended up with a whole kilo of the things. The same thing once happened to me in Turkey. Surely no one needs a kilo of spicy nuts. Russian revision for tonight; weights and measures.
2. Cathedral of the Holy Ascension – This is beautiful. It stands 53m tall in Panfilov Park and was constructed in 1907 entirely out of wood, apparently without the use of nails. The brackets used instead make it particularly earthquake proof. So there you go.
They do love a bit of pastel in this part of the world. Panfilov himself was a famous Soviet war general. His division defended Moscow in fierce battle in 1941 and he is a bit of a celebrity. He has his own Avenue too which has some rather nice coffee shops.
3. The Central Mosque – Vast, shiny, gold and protected to the hilt. Apparently it used to have a blue dome. It sits on Pushkin Street which has a nice central avenue (if you ignore the speeding lanes of traffic either side) with benches that the locals like loitering around on. You can buy a massive corn cob for 100 tenge from some nice old ladies.
4. The Old Square – This seems to be new ironically, or at least recently refurbished. It is quite a nice place to sit, with fountains that don’t work yet and shiny new street furniture. Stay too long though and the birds will poo on you. There is also the Kazak-British University which seems to exist solely to train the oil and gas industry. Opposite there is a tiny park with a wrought iron rose garden on a bridge. People leave padlocks on the iron roses to symbolise their ever lasting love. Aw….the saps.
5.Zhibek Zholy Avenue (The Arbat) – I think I might be missing something on the shopping front. Zhibek Zholy is a pedestrianised avenue in the middle of town given over to shopping. Well, saying that, there are a handful of shops and a department store. The snappily titled TsUM is three stories of gadgets and tourist tat. The ground floor looks like something out of a South Korean tourist advert and the rest is yurts, eagles and fur hats. I might get a fur hat, I fancy I might suit a fur hat.
Almaty is like nowhere else I have ever been. I can only describe it as being like a Soviet Istanbul or a Sofia with buckets of Petro-dollars. Neither of which descriptions do it justice really. The roads are huge, wide tree lined boulevards lined by concrete block apartments and ground floor retail. It’s quite colourful and edgy but it definitely is not going to win any beauty contents.
I managed to get round some of the main must sees;
1. The Green Bazaar – a massive sprawling maze of stalls including a covered food market. Unfortunately you can’t take photos as little men with walkie talkies seize on you (they are everywhere). However, I have seen isles of sheep heads, horse meat and even something described terrifyingly as Kangaroo meat. I played safe and negotiated some spicy nuts. Due to miss translation I nearly ended up with a whole kilo of the things. The same thing once happened to me in Turkey. Surely no one needs a kilo of spicy nuts. Russian revision for tonight; weights and measures.
2. Cathedral of the Holy Ascension – This is beautiful. It stands 53m tall in Panfilov Park and was constructed in 1907 entirely out of wood, apparently without the use of nails. The brackets used instead make it particularly earthquake proof. So there you go.
They do love a bit of pastel in this part of the world. Panfilov himself was a famous Soviet war general. His division defended Moscow in fierce battle in 1941 and he is a bit of a celebrity. He has his own Avenue too which has some rather nice coffee shops.
3. The Central Mosque – Vast, shiny, gold and protected to the hilt. Apparently it used to have a blue dome. It sits on Pushkin Street which has a nice central avenue (if you ignore the speeding lanes of traffic either side) with benches that the locals like loitering around on. You can buy a massive corn cob for 100 tenge from some nice old ladies.
4. The Old Square – This seems to be new ironically, or at least recently refurbished. It is quite a nice place to sit, with fountains that don’t work yet and shiny new street furniture. Stay too long though and the birds will poo on you. There is also the Kazak-British University which seems to exist solely to train the oil and gas industry. Opposite there is a tiny park with a wrought iron rose garden on a bridge. People leave padlocks on the iron roses to symbolise their ever lasting love. Aw….the saps.
5.Zhibek Zholy Avenue (The Arbat) – I think I might be missing something on the shopping front. Zhibek Zholy is a pedestrianised avenue in the middle of town given over to shopping. Well, saying that, there are a handful of shops and a department store. The snappily titled TsUM is three stories of gadgets and tourist tat. The ground floor looks like something out of a South Korean tourist advert and the rest is yurts, eagles and fur hats. I might get a fur hat, I fancy I might suit a fur hat.