The Soviet Union’s forgotten ‘golden city’ is now the gem of Central Asia

I was standing outside the grand Stalin-era Science Academy when I saw it. A flicker of the past, beautifully forged into the pastel yellow that surrounds it: a giant hammer and sickle.

“The caretaker tells me that he gets calls from locals every day to remove it,” Dennis Keen told me in his Californian drawl. He cut an odd figure as an American, but as the authority on Kazakhstan, his knowledge knew no bounds.

Together, we took a brisk walk through the history of Almaty, the former capital, from the ancient shells embedded in almost every building – transported, along with granite, from an extinct sea in the west – to the streets lined by Russian imperial structures and brutalist architecture.

From the off, Almaty’s long and tragic story was evident – though in strange contradiction to its upbeat modern energy; its clean, leafy avenues lined with chic cafés, bakeries, and restaurants, a far cry from the dictatorship that ruled for the 55 years that Kazakhstan was a part of the USSR, invaded and given status as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic by its hungry neighbour.

You could be forgiven for thinking, then, that locals might despair at the presence of Soviet symbolism – a constant reminder of their former oppressor. On the whole, this is true, “but the science academy is a real anomaly,” said Keen. “People in this city are for the most part passionate about preserving such history, good or bad.”

Strolling along the quiet thoroughfares of the Golden Quarter – once reserved for the Soviet elite – we passed more reminders of the past: Kunaev Street, where communist artists, musicians, politicians and decorated war veterans lived; a monument to Mukhtar Auezov, a famed and committed Soviet writer who we now know, through Keen’s translations of his diaries, secretly loved capitalist America; not to mention the many unbelievably detailed mosaics that depict stunning stories of Kazakh history and Soviet comradeship.

Not far away were the city’s world-beating museums, from the yurt-shaped National History museum to the 20th-century quirky wooden house that hosts the Museum of Musical Instruments of Kazakhstan. “Almaty is a city of art, of culture, of history” said Keen. “It is truly a unique space in Central Asia.”

His words were echoed by local Alexandra Stepnika, who took me for dinner on Panfilov Street, somewhere she described as having turned the city into the “gastronomic capital of Central Asia”. She wasn’t wrong: the street wouldn’t have looked out of place in Central or Eastern Europe. We skirted around the bright Ascension Cathedral, the tallest wooden Orthodox Church in the world, then ducked into the warmth of Bitanga, a Ukrainian restaurant opened by former London trader Ermek Smailov.

It might seem an odd place to find such a restaurant, but dishes like borscht are as local to Kazakhs as beshparmek (the national dish of horse-meat stew) – a legacy of Stalin’s grim mass deportations that transported both cultures and cuisines across the Soviet Union. I watched the chefs move with a chaotic grace in the open-view kitchen, until a delicious bowl of aromatic beetroot borscht and an organic berry drink appeared in front of me, followed a moment later by owner Smailov himself.

After hearing I hadn’t tried Salo, a dish made from cured pork fatback or belly, he quickly went about rectifying the situation. I made positive noises as I chewed through the fatty, salty blob – helped down by lashings of vodka.

The next day – slightly the worse for wear – I headed for the ancient Kolsai Lake and Charyn Canyon, accompanied by guide Mauletkazy Miras, an expert on Almaty’s natural history and a PhD student in aviation maintenance. “Kazakhstan is a young country,” he said, with sage-like wisdom, as we arrived at Kolsai. “We’ve only had independence for 33 years. People are still learning how to function in a democracy, so they don’t follow traditional routes into certain types of work. I love planes, but I also love nature. Why can’t I do both?”

We were surrounded on all sides by enormous mountains, covered by foliage in a shade of green I didn’t think possible, while giant eagles circled overhead. It was a scene plucked from a Bob Ross painting, and immediately clear why it is known as the “Pearl of the Tian Shan” (Heavenly Mountain in Mandarin). As we cast off across the lower of the three lakes in a small boat, the air was pure and the water crystal clear.

These immense bodies of water were created by powerful earthquakes in the late 19th-century, and afforded national park status in 2007 – now a vital lifeline in the preservation of Kazakhstan’s wildlife. More than 50 species of mammals – and 704 plants, including 12 rare ones – call it home, and though Miras winked when he said we might spot a snow leopard, the fact is that we really might have.

A staggering 72 per cent of Kolsai is under strict protection, with a smattering – 13 per cent – allocated to tourism. A Unesco World Network Biosphere Reserves park, fewer than 2 million visitors explore its wild paths each year, most of them hailing from India and China.

Departing the lakes, we set out next for Charyn Canyon, the second largest in the world. Within an hour, the landscape changed from spruce and alpine meadows to total desolation, a lifeless plain pockmarked by ground-up rock and dusty steppe. The only giveaway that we were still on Earth was a radiant speck of water that periodically came into view – the Charyn river.

“It is ancient,” said Miras. “It snakes along the Kyrgyz border for miles. It was once considered holy, and held all sorts of mythology. My ancestors believed the water and the mountains here held magical properties, and that the mountaintops themselves were the gates to heaven.”

Soon enough, we arrived at the canyon, a huge gulf of jagged red rock, 12 million years old, created by the gushing waters which rise in the Tian Shan. Coupled with biting winds, their power set into motion a process of erosion that carved today’s gravity-defying drops and giant ashen rocks that sit atop each other like delicate towers.

The temperature dropped 10C in as many minutes, and the sky dulled to a moody grey. “The problem with this landscape is that the weather can change at a moment’s notice,” said Miras – words which proved prophetic, when we walked to the end of the ridge and Miras pointed to a bell that rings if winds exceed 21km/h, serving as a warning for visitors to retreat. Barely five minutes later, it began to ring frantically, and we hastily withdrew.

Back in the city, I spent my final evening wandering solo, then musing over the unorthodox artwork at Dala – a restaurant where the walls retell Kazakhstan’s nomadic story, including one covered entirely in a reimagining of Charyn Canyon – while eating thinly sliced horse-meat salad and beshparmek, washed down with a glass of sour horse milk accompanied by even sourer camel milk.

Walking back to my hotel, as the sun’s dying rays danced along the mountains above Almaty, I took in the city one last time. Its depth and duality had astounded me – a place brimming with life and refusing to be defined by its past. At eight hours’ flight from the UK, it may be too far for a city break, but this is a place that makes up in lasting impressions what it lacks in proximity. Truly, it is a city which leaves its imprint, and one that is unlike anywhere else on Earth.

Essentials

Air Astana flies direct from London to Almaty from £518 return. The Soviet-era four-star Kazakhstan Hotel (007 7272 91 91 01) has doubles from £52 per night, with breakfast.