Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Religion
Islam, Kazakhs' predominant faith, is at
its strongest in the deep south and has
a strong Sufic strain. Pilgrimages to the
mausoleum of Kozha Akhmed Yasaui at
Turkistan and the desert shrine of Beket-
Ata, east of Aktau, are important ways
for Kazakh Muslims to affirm their faith.
Christianity (mainly Russian Orthodox)
claims about a quarter of the population.
The government stresses Kazakhstan's tra-
dition of religious tolerance.
Environment
The Land
Except for mountain chains along its south-
eastern and eastern borders, Kazakhstan is
pretty flat. At 2.7 million sq km, it's about
the size of Western Europe. Southeast Ka-
zakhstan lies along the northern edge of the
Tian Shan, where Mt Khan Tengri (7010m)
pegs the China-Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan
border. In the northeast, some peaks in the
Altay top 4000m.
The north of the country is mostly tree-
less steppe, with much of its original grass-
land now turned over to wheat or other
agriculture. A surprising number of lakes
and scattered ranges of hills break up the
steppe. Further south and west it is increas-
ingly arid, becoming desert or semidesert.
The most important rivers are the Syr-
Darya, flowing across the south of Kaza-
khstan to the Aral Sea; the Ili, flowing out
of China into Lake Balkhash; and the Irtysh,
which flows across northeast Kazakhstan
into Siberia. Lake Balkhash in the central
east is now (following the demise of the Aral
Sea) the largest lake in Central Asia (17,000 sq
km), though nowhere more than 26m deep.
Arts
Music
Kazakh traditional music is popular and
you may well hear it in taxis or minibuses
as well as at organised concerts. The mu-
sic is largely folk tunes: short on pounding
excitement, it captures the soulful rhythms
of nomadic life on the steppe. The na-
tional instrument is the
dombra,
a small
two-stringed lute with an oval box shape.
Other instruments include the
kobyz
(a
two-stringed fiddle), whose sound is said to
have brought Chinggis Khan to tears, and
the
sybyzgy
(two flutes strapped together
like abbreviated pan pipes). Keep an eye
open for shows by the colourfully garbed
Sazgen Sazy and Otrar Sazy folk orches-
tras. Roksonaki and Ulytau are groups that
provide an interesting crossover between
indigenous sounds and imported rhythms
like rock, pop and jazz.
The most skilled singers or bards are
called
akyns,
and undoubtedly the most
important form of Kazakh traditional art
is the
aitys,
a duel between two
dombra
players who challenge each other in poetic
lyrics. You might catch one of these live
during Nauryz or other holidays.
Wildlife
Kazakhstan's mountains are rich in wild-
life, including bear, lynx, argali sheep, ibex,
wolves, wild boar, deer, and the elusive
snow leopard, of which an estimated 200
roam mountainous border areas from the
Altay to Aksu-Zhabagyly Nature Reserve.
Two types of antelope - the saiga and the
goitred gazelle (zheyran) - roam the steppe
in much smaller numbers than they used
to. The saiga's numbers fell from over a mil-
lion in the early 1990s to about 40,000 by
2002, largely due to uncontrolled hunting
for meat and horn after the Soviet collapse.
It's staging a bit of a comeback with the
help of a combined government-NGO pro-
gram to conserve steppe habitats in central
Kazakhstan. In Altyn-Emel National Park,
Przewalski's horses, extinct in Kazakhstan
since 1940, have been reintroduced from
zoos in Europe. For some encouraging
wildlife conservation news check out the
Association¨for¨the¨Conservation¨of¨Bi-
odiversity¨in¨Kazakhstan
(http://acbk.kz)
and, on the saiga specifically, www.saiga-
conservation.com.
Crafts
In pre-Soviet times the Kazakhs developed
high skills in the crafts associated with
nomadic life - brightly woven carpets,
wall hangings and ornate wooden chests
for yurts, chunky jewellery, elaborate
horse tackle and weaponry and splendid
costumes for special occasions. You can
admire these in almost any museum in
Kazakhstan.
