Almaty Sights

  1. 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.

    Read more about Almaty City History Museum & Museum of Repression

  2. 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.

    Read more about Central State Museum

  3. 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.

    Read more about Geology Museum

  4. 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.

    Read more about Kazakhstan Museum of Arts

  5. 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 .

    Read more about Museum of Kazakh Musical Instruments