Kazakhstan - Central Asia - page 51

o Kok-Tobe¨ HILL
(green Hill; http://kok-tobe.kz) This 1100m hill
on the city's southeast edge is crowned by
a 372m-high TV tower visible from far and
wide, and affords great views over the city
and the mountains, plus an assortment of
attractions at the top. The easy way up is
by the smooth cable¨car (one-way/return
1000/2000T; h every 15min 11am-midnight mon,
Wed & Thu, 6pm-midnight Tue, 11am-1am Fri-Sun) ,
which glides up in six minutes from beside
the Palace¨of¨the¨Republic ( % 291 35 61;
Dostyk 56) .
At the top you'll find assorted cafes and
restaurants, craft shops, a roller-coaster,
a minizoo, a children's playground - and
life-sized bronze statues of the four Beatles,
placed here on the initiative of local fans in
2007. The work of Almaty sculptor Eduard
Kazaryan, this is claimed to be the world's
only monument showing all the Fab Four
together. You can sit beside a guitar-strum-
ming John on the bench.
The cable car and other facilities may
close early, or not open at all, in poor weath-
er. The cheaper way up Kok-Tobe is by bus
95 (opposite Ramstor on Furmanov) or 99
(south up Abylay Khan, east on Abay, south
on Dostyk) to their terminus on Omarova,
where a shuttle¨ minibus (one-way/return
300/500T, every few minutes from 10am to 1am) ,
runs the final 1.25km up the hill.
Panfilov¨Park¨ PARK
(btwn gogol & Qazybek Bi) This large and attrac-
tive rectangle of greenery is one of central
Almaty's most popular strolling and hangout
places for all ages. At its heart stands the
candy-coloured Zenkov¨Cathedral , Kaza-
khstan's nearest (albeit distant) relative to
St Basil's Cathedral and one of Almaty's few

surviving tsarist-era buildings. Designed by
AP Zenkov in 1904, the cathedral is built en-
tirely of wood (including the nails).
Used as a museum and concert hall in
Soviet times, it was returned to the Rus-
sian Orthodox Church in 1995 and has been
restored with colourful icons and murals.
Services are held at 8am and 5pm.
The park is named for the Panfilov He-
roes, 28 soldiers of an Almaty infantry unit
who died fighting off Nazi tanks in a village
outside Moscow in 1941. They are commem-
orated at the fearsome war¨memorial east
of the cathedral, which depicts soldiers from
all 15 Soviet republics bursting out of a map
of the USSR. An eternal flame honouring the
fallen of 1917-20 (the Civil War) and 1941-45
(WWII) flickers in front of the giant black
monument.
Kazakh¨Museum¨
of¨Folk¨Musical¨Instruments¨ mUSEUm
( % 291 69 17; Zenkov 24; h 9am-5pm Tue-Sun)
In a striking 1908 wooden building (an-
other work of cathedral architect Zenkov)
at the east end of Panfilov Park, the city's
most original museum reopened in mid-
2013 after a full revamp. As well as seeing
and hearing its fine collection of traditional
Kazakh instruments - wooden harps and
horns, bagpipes, the lutelike two-stringed
dombra and the violalike kobyz - there is
now the chance to take classes in playing
some of them.
Kazakhstan¨Museum¨of¨Arts¨ mUSEUm
( % 394 57 18; www.gmirk.kz; mikrorayon Koktem-3,
No 22/1; admission 100T; h 10am-6pm Tue-Sun)
This is the best art collection in the country,
with Kazakh, Russian and some Western Eu-
ropean art and a room of top-class modern
Kazakh handicrafts, with much explanatory

CITY¨&¨STREET¨NAMES
Kazakh names replaced the Soviet-era Russian names of mot Kazakhtan cities in the
1990s (Almaty for Alma-Ata, Taraz for Dzhambul, Semey for Semipalatinsk, Aktau for
Shevchenko). In a few cases, motly in the heavily ethnic-Russian north, the old names
are till more commonly used: more people talk of Uralsk rather than Oral, and of Ut-
Kamenogorsk than Oskemen.
Many treet names too were changed after independence, but two decades later
many locals are till more familiar with the old Soviet names. In central Almaty, the main
north-south treets are Dotyk (formerly Lenina), Konaev (Karla Marxa), Furmanov,
Abylay Khan (Kommunitichesky), Zheltoksan (Mira) and Seyfullin. The key eat-wet
treets are Zhibek Zholy (Gorkogo), Gogol, Tole Bi (Komsomolskaya), Abay and Satpaev.
When telling taxi drivers where you want to go, it's often easiet to give the nearet
treet corner ( ugol in Russian), and you'll sound less like an Almaty novice if you use the
Soviet treet names (eg 'ugol Lenina i Komosomolskaya' ).