Almaty, Kazakhstan

Winter break at school started at 5 pm on Friday December 20th, and Levi and I had big plans. We had set up a great schedule to spend Saturday in Almaty (the former capital of Kazakhstan), then fly to New York City to spend Sunday night, Monday, and Tuesday morning, then fly home to Denver just in time for Christmas. Friday night we took the short, one-hour flight to Almaty and checked into a nice bed and breakfast we discovered on Booking.com, called the Guest House on Sadovaya. I highly recommend this place if you need somewhere to stay in Almaty!

We landed in Almaty around 11:30pm, and the owner of the Guest House picked us up at the airport and whisked us to the BNB for bed time. After a HUGE breakfast in the morning we went in search of a dog crate because Lulu, our pug, would have to fly in cargo during one of the flights home. Once that was taken care of we took a stroll through Panfilov Park.

In the center of the park is a monument to The Civil War (World War  I) and to the Patriotic War (World War II). On the left side of the above picture is a statue honoring the first and on the right is the statue honoring the latter.

This eternal flame sits among the statues as a constant reminder.

This is the main statue that pays tribute to the people that took part in both wars from all 15 of the Soviet republics. Hopefully, it's easy to see the scale of this statue based on the people standing in front. That little girl in the pink coat is only about 3 feet (1 m) tall. Once you stand underneath it, the full scale is hard to believe. Unfortunately, all of the writings around the tributes were in Kazakh or Russian so it's difficult for us to discern the true meaning of everything. But overall, it's an amazing reminder.

This man was sitting in the park (on quite a chilly day) playing for money. As we approached he started playing "Let it Be" by The Beatles, this became our theme for the day as you'll see below.

At the far end of the park there was a group of people feeding the pigeons. It was fascinating to watch them fly towards whomever had the food. One little girl was repeatedly taking bits of dry bread out of a sack, stomping on them to break them into crumbs, and bending down to try to pet the birds as they ate the crumbs. Others would stand still and then a flock would fly around them towards the next group of people with food. I don't know why but we stood staring at this scene for quite some time.

 At the far end of the park is Zenkov Cathedral. It may be the only wooden cathedral in the world and was built without using any nails. Amazingly, it survived a huge earthquake in 1911, and has been used as a museum at one point. It is an active Russian Orthodox church so we were unable to take pictures inside, which contained different areas dedicated to saints. Each saint had a candle stand in front of it and candles were available for lighting. The elaborate decorations and paintings on the walls were overwhelming. Intense scenes of hell and heaven, people waiting in line to see Jesus, small scenes of Jesus with the 12 apostles, and other various scenes from the Bible were depicted throughout. The back wall and alter were covered in pictures of Jesus and various saints framed in gold. It was a solemn and beautiful place.

Our next stop in Almaty was Kok-Tobe, a mountain-top overlooking the city. You hop into a cable car from the city center and travel upwards from there, over neighborhoods and highways. 

This is the building you go into and come out of after riding the cable car. They are ready for Christmas!

Almaty from Kok-Tobe.

The famous Apple Fountain at Kok-Tobe.

We ate at a cafe at the top of Kok-Tobe. Inside was shaped like a traditional Yurt. The seating along the wall was filled with pillows and cushions, and the decor was "fancy" looking! They are ready for Christmas here too.

The main attraction, and the whole purpose I wanted to go up Kok-Tobe was to see the statue of The Beatles!!! We were so excited (I think we took at least 20 pictures of this statue with us standing around it). John Lennon is sitting with the guitar, Paul McCartney is standing behind John and to the left. Ringo Starr is standing behind the bench, while George Harrison has his leg up on the bench. It looks as if people have spent a lot of time carving their names and phrases into the bronze bench the group is hovering around.

On our walk back from the cable cars we saw this awesome Christmas tree. The city is full of lighted scenes. As we left the airport the day before we saw a whole scene consisting of a yurt, horses, and people. I would have loved to spend time touring around at night just taking pictures of their Christmas decorations!

At the end of the day we decided to eat at a popular expat hangout - The Guns & Roses Pub. It's a rock and roll themed place, so the menu has pictures of Guns 'n' Roses, Nirvana, Ozzy Osborne, and other various rock bands. We were excited to see more "western" food offered on the menu, so we tried some nachos and hamburgers. It made a great end to an interesting day.