Arriving in Almaty, Kazakhstan

We are in Central Asia! Our Road Scholar trip leader, Abdu, and local city guide, Anna, are so personable and have already been sharing a wealth of information. Kazakhstan is the ninth largest country in the world, by land area. It is more than four times larger than Texas. The country is the biological homeland of both the modern apple and the tulip (so not Turkey, after all). All domestic apples and over 30 tulip species originate from the mountains of Kazakhstan.

From the 7th century, the people led a nomadic lifestyle, until it began to decline in the late 1800s under the Russian empire. Nomadic life ended altogether in the 1930s under Stalin’s Soviet policies—specifically through forced land collectivization and resettlement campaigns. Because nomads were forced to surrender their livestock and take up agricultural practices they were unsuited for, it triggered a devastating famine. The region lost roughly 1.5 million people (nearly 40% of the ethnic Kazakh population).

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the former Soviet states had to start from scratch. Kazakhstan is fairly resource-rich (oil, uranium, gold and rare earth minerals), and has been navigating a trading and political balance between the superpowers it is physically wedged between (Russia and China), while establishing trade relations with the European Union and recently the United States.

We are staying in Almaty, an immaculately clean and modern city of over 2 million people. It lies in an arid climate, but thanks to the natural runoff from nearby mountains, a well-planned irrigation system and a deliberate urban forestry policy, the city is full of green spaces.

We had a packed day: a walking tour of Panfilov Park, with its war memorials; a visit to a wooden Orthodox church built at the turn of the century; a tour of a museum on the history of Kazakhstan and its people from the Bronze Age onward; lunch and a Kazakh folk music performance in a large yurt; a demonstration of the nomadic practice of using hunting birds at a sanctuary for birds of prey; and finally, a cable car ride up Kok-Tobe, a 3,800 ft hill, with a great view and recreation area (alpine coaster!).Read more