Secrets of the Steppe III: It’s Not Just a Desert (?!)
Photo belongs to the author.
Year Abroad student Eve Mayes shares with us the weird and the wonderful of Astana, Kazakhstan, painting a picture of Central Asia that evades Western preconceptions of the area. In her first instalment, we learn about her journey there, and her initial impressions of the bustling streets, endless offices, and a humdrum of cosmopolitan life that, in its similarity to her life near London, has taken the edge off the culture-shock.
Nine weeks into our ‘intensive’ Russian language course, our host institution finally decided that we needed a week’s break. Having been constantly told about the wonders of Almaty by my Kazakh peers, I decided I would venture there in attempt to get to know more of my homeland-for-the-year. Although my studies had really worn me out, a couple of family members decided to come too, as a holiday (and to see me, of course). My determination to give them a true ‘Kazakh experience’ ensured the week was nowhere near as restful as it was meant to be. It did, however, result in some amazing adventures.
As soon as I got off the two-hour plane to the former capital, I was struck by two things: firstly, how warm it was. It’s easy, living as a foreigner in this country, to forget its immense scale. I wasn’t quite expecting the stark change in climate facilitated by the enormous difference in the cities’ longitudes. The second thing was the population’s demographic. I couldn’t be certain whether they were Tourists or Expats but the international dimension of this city compared to Astana was immediately obvious – and not just in the peoples’ outward appearance. The city itself felt far more familiar, perhaps more European, in its construction. Filled with neo-Russian 19th century theatres, museums and places of worship, Almaty’s architecture is a far cry from the flashy modernism of Astana and its tree-lined streets seem to be from a completely different country than the wide brightly-lit boulevards of the capital. To have two such starkly contrasting, bustling hubs of life in one country is rare, and although I’d been told of the dichotomy, it was hard to truly appreciate it until I saw it.
Perhaps even more vital to the city’s identity than its construction is its geography. Now standing at the very foot of the Alatau (Tian Shan) mountain range that borders China, it’s again hard to believe this is the same Kazakhstan that boasts the vast steppe where I’ve been living. In awe of the natural landscape after two months in a steppe-stranded city, I decided to take advantage of Almaty’s developing tourism industry.
A quick note on tourism: The World Tourism Organization has encouraged Kazakhstan to embrace its niche of geographical uniqueness, but the Kazakh government has only really started encouraging international tourism over the last 10 years. In that time, they have started to encourage more visitors by increasing the visibility of their ‘National Brand’, including hosting EXPO 2017 and implementing the "Tourism Industry Development Plan 2020" that aimed to attract $4bn investment by 2020.
Trip Advisor struggles less to find opportunities in Almaty than Astana. Only there for a few days, we convinced the remarkably flexible tourism agency to book us a city tour and trip to Shymbulak ski resort (optional ice-skating in the worlds highest outdoor ice rink), and to pack a two-day trip to Kolsai Lakes and the Charyn Canyon into one. The ski resort is quite literally a 25-minute drive up a mountain from the city, and although small, it is now the preferred ‘luxury’ holiday option for most Russian-speaking winter athletes. Although I’m not quite sure I’d call the small eco-pod-hotels (modern yurts) ‘luxury’, I would definitely ascribe that word to being able to go skiing or ice skating on a half-an-hour whim.
Then we were whisked off on a 4-hour drive to the lakes. Having read the tour description “6am – drive”, “9:30am – lunch” and “11am – lake” we feared sitting in a car all day just to get out and take pictures. This was not the case. In fact, the lack of fully developed infrastructure made the trip incredibly exciting. We drove over icy mountain passes in what seemed like a particularly challenging episode of Top Gear (only one crash en-route) hiked a snowy mountain to the lakes with the option of doing so on horseback, climbed down into the Charyn Canyon and had the most amazing Kazakh lunch (at lunchtime, not 9am) at a local guesthouse in a tiny village, where we shared our table with some friendly Vietnamese airline workers. The experience was nothing like the sedentary trip advertised and, like the surprisingly inexpensive ballet that we attended the following evening, it surpassed expectation.
Only in the beginning stages of development, the tourism industry here has a certain spontaneity and flexibility that has perhaps been lost in the classic (but slightly dull) bus tours of British cities. Moreover, constantly having to travel over large distances due to the sheer size of the country means that its incredible variety of landscapes are readily accessible to the adventurous traveller. After this trip, I’m glad that the government is more widely advertising the amazing opportunity for multiplicity of cultural experience in Kazakhstan. I would recommend you to take the bait.