The City of Apple-tree Dawns

Almaty - the City of Apple-tree Dawns

Almaty is located in the southeast of Kazakhstan. Its population is 1.5 million. Although it has lost the status of capital, Almaty remains the largest financial, economic and cultural center of Central Asia. It accommodates numerous business centers, theaters, museums, art galleries, exhibition halls and countless modern entertainment complexes (ultra modern movie theaters, casinos, nightclubs, parks, restaurants, cafes and others.)

Almaty was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1997. It is one of the most beautiful cities of Kazakhstan with the population of 1200 000, situated in foothills of Zailisky Alatau. In the medieval it was the Almatu locality, in 1854 the Zailiiskoe fortification, from 1921 to 1993 – Alma-Ata. After the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan from October 20 of 1997 "About the declaration of Akmola the capital of the RK" Almaty got the status of the city of the republican submission and to be the southern capital of the state, the largest republican financial, scientific and cultural center. The Residence of the Head of the State and Government remain here. The branches of food and light industries dominate the economy of the city and give over 70% products of industrial enterprise. Some machine-building and repair-mechanical plants represent the heavy industry of Almaty.
Residents and guests of the southern capital have at their dis posal 5 stadiums, a hippodrome, and a high-altitude Medeo sport complex featuring a unique ice skating-rink located at 1700 m above sea level. This is where world records have been set many times by world's top skaters. On weekends Medeo is a popular skating place for residents and guests of Almaty. Almaty Central Stadium accommodates 32.000 people. Nearby is the build ing for track and field athletes and a perfectly equipped winter swimming pool.

Mountains area the visiting card of Almaty. You can start your acquaintance of them with a ride by cable car to the city's highest point - Kok-Tyube (Blue Hill). It is 1130 m above sea level. From here you can view a splendid panorama of the moun tain ranges and the city. It is especially beautiful at nights when Almaty is illuminated with glimmering lights. The cableway runs over the old part of the city buried in gardens called Com pote by locals. This area is called so because of the fruit names of streets located here: Cherry, Pear, Grapes, etc. While riding the cable up the hill you can watch the life style of local people almost like an ethnographic museum. The Kok-Tyube hill side is topped with a 350 m TV tower. If counted from sea level, this tower is the world's tallest one; moreover, it's built in a seismic area.
If you have a ride across the dike by a comfortable highway, you will reach another pearl of Almaty - the Chimbulak ski resort situated at a height of 2230 m. Near the resort hotel there is a 1500-m cableway which takes skiers to the Talgar Pass (3.163 m above sea level). From here starts a 3000 m downhill ski trail.

From Chimbulak the road continues up to the spots popular with mountain climbers and hikers due to its technical alpine routes and beauty of opening views.
The scenic mountain Butakovka Gorge contains a lovely waterfall located at 1860 meters above the sea level. It's a good place to plunge into the world of unexplored wilderness an to enjoy watching wild animals and birds. Nearby is an alpine sports and tourist center.
The Bolshaya Almatinka Gorge is far from the city and therefore is less crowded. If you happen to be there, go up to Big Almaty Lake situated at a height of 2510 m above sea level (30-40 m deep and 1.6 km wide). Fresh alpine air, constantly changing color of the lake and a splendid mountain vista attract hundreds of tourists on weekends. There is an astronomical observatory near the lake, with a hotel where you can relax and enjoy watching stars through telescope.
From the Big Almaty Lake the shortest highway will take you în the beaches of Issyk-Kul Lake in Kyrgyzstan. Those who love exotic and secluded places can plunge in wildlife. Passing the Tuyuksu Gates you will find yourself in the Mynzhylki Gorge (3040 m) beyond which small moraine lakes are scattered. Their waters reflect peaks of Tuyuksu and Iglu Tuyuksu glaciers.
Almaty can vie with the mountain cities of Dushanbe, Karakol, or Erevan. It is on the same parallel with the well-known cities of Gagry and Vladivostok.
The city occupies an area of over 170 square kilometres. It stands on old and young deposit driftovers from the rivers Bolshaya and Malaya Almatinka and their tributaries running down from the Trans-Ili Alatau glaciers and ravines to the Ili Valley (Balkhash Lake Basin). Mountain rivers and lakes are the main source of water supply to the city. In the mountain gorges, there are a lot of waterfalls, and thermal radon and sulphuric sources used as the basis for balneological spas.

On the outskirts of the city, they constructed mountain scientific stations designed to study the Sun and cosmic rays at Bolshoi Almaty Lake and the Zhusaly-Kezen Pass, astrophysical observatories at the Kamenski Plateau and the Assy Pass, sports complexes at the skating stadium Medeu and the mountain-skiing station Shymbulak, mountaineering and tourist camps, health resorts, holiday homes, and campings.
Talgar (5017 m), Komsomol (today's Nursultan 4376 m). and Bolshoi Almatinski (3684 m) peaks prevail over the range of picturesque summits surrounding the city from the south. Some summits rising beyond the clouds are as high as European Mont Blanc, Caucasian Kazbek, and American Tajumulco.

The climate in the city is markedly continental, with considerable fluctuations in temperature not only between different seasons but also between day and night. From a height of 500 metres, the streets lead to the north, to the steppe and semi-desert, coming close to the hot Kaskelen Moyunkuins. In the southern residential areas, at an altitude of 1520-1750 metres above sea level, in the Medeu Tract and the Kamenski Plateau, you can feel the breath of glaciers of the "mountain Arctic".
Average annual wind speed is twice as little as in Moscow. Average temperature of July is the same as on the islands of Sri Lanka (Ceylon), Kalimantan (Borneo), or Java. Average temperature of January can be compared with that in the north of Norway.
The period of sunshine is long, up to 1596 hours a year; there are up to 151 frost-free days. Considerable is the level of air temperature fluctuation at different heights: at the ascent of over 1400 meters above sea level, the average annual air temperature drops by 0.66° every 100 meters. These and other favourable natural and climatic factors provide unique opportunities for promotion of sport and tourism.

Rich and diverse is the animal and vegetable kingdom of the Trans-Ili Alatau. The environs of Almaty are part of the Ili-Alatau National Park in the territory of which nature reserves and wildlife are arranged. They are the habitat of many rare birds and animals now entered in the Red Data Book of Kazakhstan. Among them is the snow leopard which at present embellishes the emblem of Almaty.
At the foothills of the mountains, grain, melon and gourd, and tobacco plantations and vineyards give place to orchards and berry fields. It was here that the celebrated Almaty aporto apple was first cultivated. Once this very apple was the symbol of the old town which gave it its name ("alma" is the Kazakh for "apple").
Higher in the foothills (locally known as "counters"), wild apples, hawthorn, and apricots grow. In the mid-mountains, deciduous trees and shrubs give place to the shapely Tien Shan firs. Still higher, the mountains are covered with sub-alpine and alpine meadows, splendid summer pastures ("jailau") turning into mountain tundra and finally into the realm of rocks and eternal ice.

Gardens and parks, public gardens and boulevards occupy over 8 hectares of the city territory. Among the green tracts, you can see exotic plants brought from North America, Crimea, Caucasus, Siberia, and the Far East.
The environs of Almaty can boast rare representatives of the local endemic flora, such as juno, anemone, hawthorn, and oxitropis. Long forgotten names of our countrymen, pioneers, and modernises of this land sound in the names of many Almaty plants: Kolpakovski Xiphion, Nedzvetski apple-tree, Fetisov onion, Kushakevich pink, Dublitski hieracium, Schrenk fir-tree, Regel Eremurus, Korolkov saffron etc.
Many names of honorary citizens have been preserved in the names of mountains and valleys of the Trans-Ili Alatau: Palgov, Bryzgalov, Dmitriev, Poyarkov, Shnitnikov and Wojcehowski glaciers; Ryskul Valley: Kolokolnikovs, Zimin and Kuderin summits; the city lexicon still has Baum Grove, Verigin Mount, Pugasov Bridge, Moiseyev Orchards etc. At present, however, the majority of the old names has been considerably changed and distorted.

Early in the 20th century, the writer P.X. Krasnov wrote: "in her witty stories, Teffi noted not without humour that every city is famous for something. Dresden is famous for Madonna, New York for the Liberty Statue, and Verny for its apples and earthquakes." It was also famous for its picturesque "counters'" one of which was named after the distinguished town-dweller Verigin.
One of the brilliant projects by the architect A.P. Sokolov-Zeman. which was left unmaterialised, provided for construction of terraces of public buildings on the slopes of the famous Verigin Mount (the now Koktyube) and erection of a monumental House of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic on its top. The project was only implemented in one respect: they built the Palace of the Republic on Abai Square. There is a powerful radio and television transmission station with a 372-metre television tower constructed on the top of the mountain. Together with the mountain, the total height of the structure comes to 1402 metres above sea level. The mountain slopes are a favourite rest place for Almaty dwellers attracted by sledge and ski routes in winter, and green flowering lawns in summer.
You can easily go up to the top of Koktyube Mount by a cable car. Walking around this picturesque place which provides a panoramic view of the "southern capital", you can observe the life of the big city. In small cafes, they will offer you to taste aromatic dishes of the Kazakh national cuisine. From this place, you can also go on excursions around the neighbouring mountains and vales.

Perching themselves at sweetly smelling easels amidst different varieties of grasses, red and bluish poppies, local snowdrops, crimson peonies, which Almaty dwellers call Marja Korevna, local artists would create their small masterpieces. They were Nikolai Khludov ("On the Summit", 1886), Abylkhan Kasteyev ("View of Malaya Stanitsa", 1937), Aubakir Ismailov ("Alatau Valley", 1942), Yevgeni Sodorkin ("Queue at the Cable Railway", 1970), Dmitri Kalachev ("New TV Tower", 1982).
Verigin Mount and its environs were represented in the first films about our city. Well remembered are the films "Our Dear Doctor" (1957) produced by Sh.K. Aimanov, "Welcome to Alma-Ata" (1975) by A.G. Nugmanov, "Mountains and the City" (1976) by Ya. B. Sika, "Lights of the Evening Alma-Ata", "City of Apple-tree Dawns", "Alma-Ata" (1978-1981) by V.P. Tatenko.
It was here that, charmed by the view of the Trans-Ili Mountains and the steppe mirages of the Apple-tree Valley, the composers B. Yerzakovich and S. Shabelski in association with the poets D. Abilev and A. Lukashenko wrote wonderful songs "Alma-Ata" and "My City" in 1948. It was here that Aset Beiseuov created his waltz "Ahnaly Almatym". Poetic feelings would overwhelm the poets Dmitri Snegin in his poems "My City" (1939) and Tair Zharokov in his poem "The Torrent" (1937). Gifted Lines about Alma-Ata would also occur to Yuri Platonov and Alexei Bragin. Dmitri Furmanov and Yuri Dombrovski as they cast a bird's view glance at the city from the top of the mountain.

Almaty's unique natural and climatic conditions influenced courageous scientific ideas, engineering concepts, and projects of the century. Here the ideas of the scientist V.N. Buchman relating to utilisation of solar energy were materialised. The hehotherapeutic reflector which he invented and presented at the exhibition held to mark the 15th anniversary of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Repubic would boil water and put into action a small steam machine before the very eyes of the amazed public. The Buchman sun-dial embellished the square before the Cathedral. As regards Buchman's reflector, its salutary effect has been experienced since 1959 by patients of the first ever helioclinic in the Republic.
It was under the conditions of Almaty that Academician G.A. Tikhov originated astrobotany, a specific scientific trend concerned with studying spectrophotometric properties of the surface of Mars and terrestrial vegetation. On this occasion, poets would assert that "there will be apple-trees blooming on Mars" and not any other but Almaty aporto.
In 1906, Verny saw publication of the heritage of the Utopian thinker N.F. Fyodorov under the general title "Philosophy of the Common Cause". The book had been prepared by Fyodorov's disciple, the Verny lawyer N.P. Peterson. This work by the representative of the Russian cosmism Nikolai Fyodorov has been internationally recognised as a monument of philosophic thought. The philosopher foretold that there would come the time of immorality and a utilitarian approach to the memorable places of the human civilisation. Something similar has happened unfortunately in our city where the past failed to live in harmony with the present and many monuments and historic places have not been preserved.

Studying of the Verny earthquakes initiated formation and development of a new science of seismology and practices of earthquake-proof engineering in Kazakhstan. Two geological catastrophes are known that took place on 28 May 1887 and 22 December 1910 (old style), as well as a destructive mud-and-rock flow which fell upon the city on the night of 8 to 9 July 1921. These events had a considerable effect on development of the city planning and architectural appearance of the "southern capital".
In order to protect the city against possible mud-and-rock flows and floods, protective structures were erected on the rivers Bolshaya and Malaya Almatinka and their tributaries; in 1973, Kazglavselzashchita Construction and Operational Agency was established.