Sights in Almaty
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Panfilov Park
Located between Gogol and Qazybek Bi, this large and popular rectangle of greenery, first laid out in the 1870s, is focused on the candy-coloured Zenkov Cathedral, Almaty's nearest (albeit distant) rival to St Basil's Cathedral. Designed by AP Zenkov in 1904, the cathedral is one of Almaty's few surviving tsarist-era buildings (most of the others were destroyed in the 1911 earthquake). Although at first glance it doesn't look like it, the cathedral is built entirely of wood (including the nails).
Used as a museum and concert hall in the Soviet era, then boarded up, it was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1995 and has been restored as a functioning place of worsh…
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Central State Museum
The city's best museum stands 300m up Furmanov from Respublika alanghy. The Central State Museum takes you through Kazakhstan's history from bronze-age burial mounds to telecommunications and the transfer of the capital to Astana, with many beautiful artefacts. A large replica of the Golden Man stands in the entrance hall.
The downstairs rooms cover archaeological finds and early history up to Jenghiz Khan (with models of some of Kazakhstan's major monuments); the ethnographic display upstairs features a finely kitted-out yurt and some beautifully worked weaponry and horse and camel gear, plus musical instruments and exotic costumes going back to the 18th century. The upp…
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Arasan Baths
At the Arasan Baths you can choose from Russian (Russkaya), Finnish (Finskaya) and Turkish (Vostochnaya) baths, the latter with three different temperatures of heated stone platforms plus a plunge pool. Each part has men's and women's sections. Take along soap, a towel and some thongs (flip-flops) for walking around in. Go with a friend or two and you'll find it's an enjoyable and truly relaxing experience. If you don't have any bathing gear handy, there's a shop in the lobby.
Sellers with veniki (bunches of oak and birch leaves) wait outside, if you fancy stimulating your circulation with a good thrashing. Built in the early 1980s in a modernistic Soviet style, this is t…
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Respublika Alanghy
This broad ceremonial square at the high southern end of Almaty, created in Soviet times, is a block uphill from Abay. The focal point is the attractive Monument to Independence. The stone column is surmounted with a replica of the Golden Man standing on a winged snow leopard, and is flanked at its base by fountains and two bas-relief walls depicting scenes from Kazakhstan's history.
Overlooking the square from the south is the neoclassical-style city government building and, at the southeast corner opposite the Central State Museum, a large official Presidential Residence (Furmanov 205). You can reach the square on bus No 2 or 63 or marshrutka Nos 526, 528 or 537 going u…
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Kazakhstan Museum of Arts
The Kazakhstan Museum of Arts has the best art collection in the country, including works of artists banned during the Soviet period. There are also collections of Russian and Western European art. Particularly interesting are the room of modern Kazakh handicrafts and the large collection of paintings by Abylkhan Kasteev (1904-73), to whom the museum is dedicated.
Kasteev's clear portraits, landscapes and scenes of Soviet progress (railways, hydroelectricity, collective farming) obviously toed the party line but his technique is fabulous. Marshrutkas heading west on Satpaev, including No 520, will stop here.
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St Nicholas Cathedral
The pale turquoise Nikolsky Sobor, with its gold onion domes, stands out west of the centre near the corner of Qabanbay Batyr and Baytursynuly. The cathedral was built in 1909 and later used as a stable for Bolshevik cavalry, before reopening about 1980. It's a terrifically atmospheric place, like a corner of old Russia, with icons, candles and restored frescoes inside and black-clad old supplicants outside.
For the best impression visit at festival times such as Orthodox Christmas Day (7 January) or Easter for the midnight services.
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Museum of Kazakh Musical Instruments
In a striking 1908 wooden building (also the work of cathedral architect Zenkov) at the east end of Panfilov Park is the Museum of Kazakh Musical Instruments, the city's most original museum. It has a fine collection of traditional Kazakh instruments - wooden harps and horns, bagpipes, the lutelike two-stringed dombra and the violalike qobyz. If you're there at the same time as a tour group you'll hear tapes of the instruments and see the attendant strum the dombra.
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Kök-Töbe Cable Car
The smooth, gleaming and recently renovated Kök-Töbe Cable Car runs from beside the Palace of the Republic on Dostyq up to Kök-Töbe (Green Hill) on the city's southeast edge. The hill is crowned by a 372m-high telecommunications tower. Near the top station are a viewing platform, crafts stalls and a cafeteria doing good shashlyk. If you go during the day, the walk back down to Dostyq is a pleasant one.
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Gorky Park
Almaty's biggest recreational area, at the eastern end of Gogol, is still known as Gorky Park. It has boating lakes, funfair rides, an Aquapark, a rather sad zoo, and several cafés, shashlyk and beer stands. It's busiest on Sunday and holidays. Trolleybus Nos 1 and 12 and bus Nos 65, 94 and 166 run along Gogol to the entrance.
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Hippodrome
Horse races and occasionally kökpar (see Buzkashi on), take place at the Hippodrome, several kilometres north of the centre. Get someone to call ahead and see what's on. Take a taxi, or bus No 8 northbound on Qonaev from Töle Bi.
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Geology Museum
The intriguing Geology Museum is in the bowels of a building opposite the Hotel Kazakhstan. The country's mineral wealth is on display, with relief maps and touch-screen computers to provide quick geology lessons in English.
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Fantasy World
Fantasy World is an up-to-the-minute amusement park with rides that will thrill anyone - around T200 extra for the vertiginous Cobra loop or the ultra-popular dodgems.
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Central Stadium
Club and international soccer matches are played at the Central Stadium.
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Almaty City History Museum & Museum of Repression
The combined Almaty City History Museum & Museum of Repression was closed for renovations at the time of writing but is well worth checking on. The Repression Museum goes into haunting detail about the fate of thousands who earned Stalin's ire.
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