Walking Almaty

15/06/2026

This Wednesday, a cool partner tour from my Uyghur friends in Chundzha, a town a couple hours east of Almaty. Tickets are limited, DM today!

05/06/2026

Learn about the rich history and vibrant culture of Kazakhstan’s Uyghur diaspora in this new tour to the majority-Uyghur villages along the Kulja Highway and the Chilik River. An exclusive offer from Walking Almaty, with our legendary guides, deep research and off-the-beaten path approach.

25/05/2026

A new Soviet bas-relief discovery while I was searching for a Kaspi ATM today…just when it seems like I’ve found every work of monumental art in Almaty, I stumble across this interesting piece entirely by accident. The logo in the top left is for KazKhimMontazh, the organization that still owns this building at 69a Satpaev. The Kazakh Chemistry Assembly organization was apparently in charge of installing technical equipment and infrastructure for the chemical industry of Kazakhstan. In the bas-relief, likely from the late 1970s or 1980, workers are seen fitting a valve on a chemical pipeline and welding parts. This labor is shown providing stability to the archetypical Soviet family in the center. Have you seen this work before? Do you know anything about the KKhM organization? Let us know!

16/03/2026

Hi everybody! I’m looking for a reels maker to help produce videos for Walking Almaty. It would be a part-time position working with me directly.

Requirements are:

1. Good knowledge of English
2. Portfolio of reels (especially educational or about travel, culture and history)
3. Interest in researching history and culture of Almaty and Kazakhstan.

If you are interested, please DM me, or if you know somebody who would be a good candidate, please share. Thanks!

16/03/2026

13/03/2026

A poem for Almatians.

From late 1945 until roughly 1950, Japanese prisoners of war were held in Soviet detention camps in Kazakhstan, including Camp 40, Branch 5 in the Big Almaty River Valley. Prison labor was used to build a hydroelectric infrastructure, and an access road that was built by the POWs is still known as the “Japanese Road.” According to the memoirs of one of the prisoners, the Japanese soldiers would often repeat a single Russian word, “Domoi”, dreaming of returning home.

11/11/2025

(Eng. below) Исторический сграффито-мурал 1970 года, созданная пионерами монументального искусства Алматы Молдахметом Кенбаевым и Николаем Цивчинским для магазина сувениров «Казахстан», была покрыта гипсом в новом помещении сети кофеен «Q Coffee Shop». Ранее сграффито сопровождалось внешней смальтовой мозаикой на фасаде здания по адресу Достык, 40, которая была сохранена и перенесена в парк на Кок-Тобе.
По словам представителя Q Coffee Shop, «наша белая стена является неотъемлемой частью дизайна интерьера и идентичности бренда. Само панно полностью сохранено и не повреждено».

С нашей точки зрения, если белая стена настолько важна для их бренда, то они ошиблись, арендовав помещение с историческим муралом. Сокрытие культурного наследия вряд ли положительно скажется на их репутации. Как члены этого сообщества, они должны сохранять общее культурное наследие Алматы в том виде, в каком оно было задумано — открытым для общественности. Мы предлагаем снять гипсовое покрытие и восстановить панно в его первоначальном виде.

05/11/2025

Our Indian guest Saravanan walked up to his tour today in a kurta with only an parasol and a light jacket to protect himself from the snow…but he didn’t mind - it was the first snow this Chennai native had ever seen in his life! We taught him to say “S pervym snegom!” - “Happy first snow day”, and this time it really meant something special 😆☃️❄️

26/10/2025

What’s Daedalus, the architect, sculptor and inventor of Greek myth, doing on the facade of the 1968 Arman Cinema? In Kazakh, “Arman” means dream, and the bas-relief now hidden behind the Starbucks is dedicated to dreams of flight. Daedalus is shown gluing together wings of beeswax and feathers, while his son Icarus is seen, arms raised, flying perilously to the sun. Icarus’ raised arms echo the triumphant gesture of Rodina-Mat, the Motherland personified , seen calling patriots to revolution on the other side of the cinema. But if the Motherland is raising a collective call to action, Icarus was denounced in Soviet terms as an arrogant individualist, his dream doomed to fail. It was Daedalus who represented the Soviet ideal: rational, foresighted, deliberate. Inside the cinema, on the second floor, you can find a second Daedalus, this time shown with tally marks near his feet. Imprisoned in the Labyrynth of his own design, Daedalus waited, dreamt, and then created the wings that would carry him to safety. Daedalus’ dream came true, but his son’s aspirations were to become the failure of legend.

22/10/2025

Fall vibes in Gorky Park