Tien-Shan mountain range within Kazakhstan.

"These seven rivers gave the new region its name. Initially, only the part northeast of the Ili River was called Semirechye, while the territory southwest of this river was called the Trans-Ili region. Hence the current name of one of the Tien Shan ranges - the Trans-Ili Alatau. Today's Dzungarian Alatau was then called the Semirechye Alatau."

"From the Memories of a Naturalist." V.N. Shnitnikov. 1943.

How should name Zailiskiy Alatau be understood?

The Tien-Shan mountain range, stretching for several hundred thousand kilometers, is cut into numerous chains and spurs. One of its outlying ranges, rising above the plain of the southern Kazakh steppe, is called the "Zailiysky Alatau." This name was given in the last century, when geographers and explorers penetrated the Tien-Shan from Western Siberia.

Here, the Tien-Shan mountain system was divided by the Ili River into two parts: one lay on the right side of the river, immediately adjacent to the regions from which movement to the south originated, and the other rose beyond the wide river valley.
This latter part received the name "Zailiysky," applied to the general name "Alatau," which means "Motley Mountains." At the foot of this mountain range, stretching picturesquely from west to east, the capital of Kazakhstan, Alma-Ata, is growing with extraordinary speed.
(The name "Alma-Ata" is a corruption of the original. Translated, it means "apple grandfather" (in Kazakh) or "apple father" (in Uzbek). The native Kazakh population calls the city "Almaty," which means "apple" (abundant in apples). Immersed in greenery, its beautiful streets exude an unprecedented cultural flourishing.
Located at the junction of Siberia and Turkestan, it embodies both the harsh, cold north and the sultry, sun-drenched south. Alma-Ata is remarkable not only as the capital of the Union Republic. The city is equally famous for its surroundings. Majestic mountains, Surpassing the Alps, these mountains have created colorful landscapes here.
On a clear summer day, the stone masses stand out clearly against the bluish distance of the clear air. Their first steps begin right there, beyond the edge of the last streets of the city. Rounded green hills, which locals call "counters," they encircle the main range, like surging waves frozen in stillness.
The "counters" are composed of loess loam and have smooth outlines. They resemble giant hills arranged haphazardly on a common pedestal. The edges of some of them are cut off the entire height of the slope, and steep clay cliffs fold from the very peaks to the foothills.
These are landslides from the earthquakes of 1887 and 1911. Beyond the "counters," the mountains are encircled by a wide ribbon of spruce forest. The forest wraps itself around the slopes and fills the gorges. Its lower boundary is located at an altitude of approximately 1.5 km above sea level.
The sea, and the upper part – at an altitude of 2,700 meters or more. But the mountains still stretch far upward from the forest belt. Beyond it, they are covered with rich alpine meadows, where the summer months bring a wet spring with moderately warm days.
The alpine meadows do not conceal the landforms, and the mountains within them enchant with the diversity of their surfaces. Here, smooth slopes alternate with deep ravines. The meadows end, but the rock massifs rise even higher. They enter a zone of frost weathering, where even in the height of summer, water freezes at night and, turning into ice, widens cracks, splitting the hardest rocks.
Here, the mountains are strewn with cliffs and covered with millions of fragments. These are the wildest and most dangerous heights. Many peaks are covered in snow, and winter and summer they rest in a white shroud, on which crystal snowflakes sparkle on sunny days, and on cloudy days, heavy clouds lie in swirling clouds.
There is no land on earth that has not at one time been under the sea. The Zailiskiy Alatau was once covered by seawater. This was during the most ancient periods of the Earth's history, when neither Asia, nor Europe, nor any of the other continents known today existed.
Land and sea were distributed differently, repeatedly changing their contours. Far from the shores, waves shimmered, covering the flat seabed of the future Trans-Ili Alatau. The sea depths teemed with strange animals -the prehistoric ancestors of some modern species.
During this era of early organic life, 300-400 million years removed from our own, the first phases of Alatau's formation began. They are associated with the widespread Caledonian period of mountain building. With the general compression of the earth's crust, the seafloor, pushed up by molten magma from deep within the earth, began to bulge into broad ridges.
The ridges slowly grew higher and higher. They gradually accumulated thick layers of various sediments, and were subjected to lateral pressure from the mass compressed by cooling. As they rose, they were subjected to numerous deep ruptures.
Magma flowed through these ruptures, further increasing the power of the growing uplifts. Finally, the sea was no longer able to conceal the occupied territory; it became shallow and retreated, and mountains emerged on the earth's surface. However, they were short-lived.
After a few million or tens of millions of years (in geology, this is not considered a very long time), they disintegrated, the land beneath them sank, and their remains were inundated by a new sea. The Variscan orogeny brought the mountains back to light.
This is the name given to a period of mountain building that occurred approximately 250 million years ago. During this period, magma intruding into the mountain strata formed numerous granite intrusions. Most of the granites that make up the Zailiskiy Alatau are Variscan in age.
However, the mountains of that time were completely different. They, like the original ones, subsequently underwent destructive and restorative processes. Water, wind, heat, and cold all sought to level them with the surrounding lowlands. The earth's mountain-building forces occasionally drew them into their orbit.
The last time they raised the land surface, already almost hilly, to great heights was during the Alpine orogeny. This occurred several tens of millions of years ago. But the growth phase of the modern Zailiskiy Alatau range continued even later. Thus, it took shape in its present form shortly before the appearance of humans on earth.
Geologically, the Zailiskiy Alatau are young mountains. Their youth is evident in many ways. First and foremost, in their susceptibility to earthquakes. This testifies to the ongoing mountain-building processes within them. Perhaps they continue to rise, perhaps they are sinking, perhaps different parts of them are experiencing vertical displacements.
But they are not in a state of rest, as is typical of old mountains, such as the Urals. They are still far from decrepitude... Another sign of youth is their altitude. The highest peak of the Trans-Ili Alatau is over 5,000 meters high. This is the snow-covered Talgar Peak, located east of Almaty. 
It is part of a cycle of peaks whose successful ascent testifies to the skill and endurance of the climbers. A third sign of the mountains' youth is their low degree of erosion. Flowing waters have carved many gorges in the Zailiskiy Alatau. They have eroded the once-smooth mountain slopes into troughs and gullies.
They have snatched huge chunks from the bodies of these stone giants and cut deep into them. However, the peaks and ridges of the mountains remain beyond the snow line. More. An immeasurable amount of time must pass before they lose their height due to erosion and weathering.
Streams flow from beneath the very peaks, merge into rivers, and carve gorges. Their beds are steep and rocky. Stumbling over rocks, roaring and splashing with foam, the river waters rush at a speed of ten kilometers per hour. The gorges are narrow and cramped in their upper reaches, but further down, the erosive forces of the rivers, multiplied by incoming tributaries, widen the gorges.
The rivers had to cut through many different types of rock along their way. The core of the mountains is composed of granite and porphyry, crystallized from the magma that rose during mountain building. The mountain slopes are composed of rocks of sedimentary origin, that is, those deposited in the same sea.
These are various shales, sandstones, and limestones. Mountain-building processes dislodged all of them from their original, tranquil positions. They crumpled them into folds, tilted them in different directions, overturned them, and in places moved them.
Rivers, flowing through these diverse rocks, carved out their gorges according to the hardness of the strata they crossed. In granite and porphyry, their channels are compressed between tight, steep banks, with mountains towering over them in dizzying cliffs; in sedimentary rocks, the banks spread out wider, offering more space and light.
From the rivers' headwaters to the foothills of the mountains is a distance of 20-30 kilometers. The water flow, having carved this path, descends 2-3 kilometers further. The rivers carried masses of boulders, pebbles, and silt to the foothills, where the current's force weakens.

They thus formed alluvial fans, which, merging with one another, stretch along the mountains in a wide train. The city of Almaty stands on one of these fans. It was deposited by the Small  Almatinka River, whose waters gurgle in the street ditches that irrigate the city's gardens and alleys.
Small Almaty originates from glaciers. Its upper reaches are surrounded by snow-white peaks, one of which is called Alma-Ata Peak. The summit is clearly visible from the city, standing out sharply with its picturesque appearance. It resembles a giant tooth.
The bare stripes of steep rocky slopes darken against the dazzling whiteness of the snow. The tooth gazes majestically into the blue abyss of emptiness, where it soars 4,300 m. f. s. l. First conquered by a group of Komsomol climbers, it was given a new name – Komsomol Peak. 
Previously unattractive, it has now become a favorite spot for training and mass ascents. More than a hundred tourists have already visited it. It is scaled both summer and winter. To the west of the Malaya Almatinka, the Big Almy River flows from the Zailiyskiy Alatau mountain range, rising from a similar three-kilometer elevation.
It skirts the western outskirts of the capital and, like its neighbor, disappears into the steppe, irrigating the scorching lands. Between these two rivers, the mountains are broken by a network of ravines and gorges, along the bottom of each of which flows fresh mountain waters, shaded by high cliffs and lush vegetation.
The main ones, counting from west to east, are the Poganka, saturated with clay turbidity; the narrow and flexible Remezovka; and the Kamenka and Vesnovka, semi-silted with boulders. The terraces of these rivers, the adjacent slopes, and the watersheds are decorated with the greenery of orchards.
A strip of these orchards stretches from the foothills of the ridge to an altitude of 1,400 meters above sea level, covering thousands of hectares. It also encompasses the city. In early spring, storks and the air are filled with the delicate aroma of blooming apricots, apricots, and cherries; a little later, the cherry, apple, and pear trees blossom.
The orchards then transform into a continuous, fragrant flowerbed, where both trees and the ground are strewn with delicate white petals. From midsummer, sleepy, delicious fruits begin to arrive on the market. Summer varieties appear first: stolovka (Suislepper) and lemon (Burkhart's Ronet).
As soon as the summer season ends, autumn and winter varieties begin to appear. Among the latter, there is an extraordinary diversity... The most valuable varieties are those that can be stored for long periods. These include newcomers from warmer regions: the Kandil Sinap, the Lansberg Ronet, the Bellefleur, the locally bred Grushovka, and the most popular of all apples, the Aport. 
The latter brought fame and recognition to the Almaty orchards. This sweet and sour apple is extremely aromatic and juicy. It has a deep color, often completely covering the skin. It is the size of a good child's ball, and often much larger. There are specimens weighing up to half a kilogram.
Nowhere in the world is the Aport as found in Almaty. It was brought here 70 years ago from the Voronezh region and quickly acquired its exceptional qualities. The foothills and "counters" of the Trans-Ili Alatau offer excellent conditions for the development of horticulture.
Their past is rich in wild apple, apricot, and hawthorn thickets. Their future is solid Fruit orchards. The history of local horticulture has had its share of Michurinists and enthusiasts. In addition to the improved Aport, they bred many other wonderful varieties of a wide variety of fruits.
They are responsible for the large, juicy, soft, melt-in-your-mouth pear, "Wild Beauty," which has been acclimatized here. It is so delicate that it does not tolerate long-distance transportation. Only local residents enjoy its exquisite taste. Before the October Revolution, grapes were almost completely absent from the Alma-Ata area.
But in recent years, they have become a common crop here. Horticulture has flourished especially since collectivization. While before collectivization, orchards were limited to hundreds of hectares, now they number in the thousands. The Prigorodny district currently produces over 100,000 centners of fruits and berries per year.
Of these, approximately 90% are apples alone. In summer and autumn, the city's markets are overflowing with fruit. A huge quantity is shipped to work centers and Moscow. Almaty's horticultural industry expands, diversifies, and improves its output every year.
It is expanding into ever-new territories along the foothills. Consequently, many fruit and berry processing plants have sprung up in the city and its environs. There, a significant portion of the produce is converted into jam, preserves, dried compotes, and the like.
The last sections of the orchards, wedged high into the river gorges, already border the spruce zone. The altitude - about 1,500 m. a. s. l. - creates different climatic conditions here. The growing season here is many days shorter, there is less sunshine, and more precipitation.
Rye and barley have difficulty ripening here. The mountains, plunging steeply into the gorges, thrust their peaks high. Only along the river are narrow, level areas found, belonging to ancient terraces. The deciduous trees most adapted to high altitudes intermingle with the first trees of the coniferous forest.
But gradually they remain below, and the shaggy giants, having displaced all competitors, become the primary ornamental features of the slopes. Sometimes in small, sparse clumps, sometimes in dense, dense walls, they spread throughout the mountain range, reaching altitudes of 2,700 m.a. s. l.
The only species of the local coniferous forest is the Tien-Shan spruce (more accurately, the Schrenk spruce). It is large in size and has good structural qualities. Its maximum age is up to 400 years. The Almaty Museum houses a stump of spruce from the Remezov Gorge, at an altitude of approximately 2,000 meters.
Its colossal size attracts every visitor's attention: this stump is from a 275-year-old tree. Its diameter is 186 cm. Almost all of Almaty's old buildings are constructed from Tien-Shan spruce. Its wood also provides excellent resonant material for pianos and string instruments.
Unfortunately, Tien-Shan spruce was ruthlessly harvested for fuel. By the time of the October Revolution, barely half of Almaty's forests remained. The centuries-old thickets thinned out, and in some places disappeared completely. J ust a few more decades, and the area of ​​the mountains they occupied would have been nothing but grassy slopes.
But the Soviet government put a stop to this reckless predation, establishing a careful approach to the forest and subsequently declaring the entire Almaty forest zone and the meadows beyond, right up to the snow-capped ridges, a nature reserve.
Now inaccessible to the woodcutter's axe, the spruce forest is gradually recovering. The northern slopes and deep valleys of the ridge are especially densely forested, where in places it's as wild as the taiga. Below, there's deadwood, rock, and moss; above, shaggy tree branches intertwine to form an impenetrable roof.
But most of the spruce forests have a park-like character. They are spacious, bright, and pleasant on hot days. Slender spruce trees, separated from one another by wide gaps, are surrounded by thickets of undergrowth. Here, rosehip, honeysuckle, rowan, and currant bushes grow.
In brighter areas, raspberry thickets can be found. Forest glades abound with a variety of herbs. Here, feet become entangled in a green mass of flower stems. Bellflowers, yarrow, and dozens of other steppe inhabitants have penetrated here from the low plains.
Alpine meadow plants, including many edelweiss, have descended from higher elevations. Apiaries and health resorts are located under the shade of the forests in the lower part of the spruce belt. In the gorge of the Malaya Almatinka River, at an altitude of 1,600 meters, lies the 10th Anniversary of the Kazakh SSR holiday home, famous throughout the republic.
It is located 18 km from the city, in an area called Medeo. A good route leads to the holiday home. Highway. The rest home was established in 1921 at the initiative of D. M. Furmanov. During his stay in Alma-Ata, the famous author of "Mutiny" and "Chapayev" enjoyed exploring the local area.
The Medeo area was his favorite and most visited spot. Currently, the rest home boasts a club, library, sports fields, a dance floor, a billiard room, a shooting range, a swimming pool, showers, and a solarium. Spacious flower beds with fountains are laid out between the rows of residential buildings.
The Alma-Arasan resort is also located in the same spruce forest belt. Alma-Arasan is 25 km from the city, which is connected by bus service. Alma-Arasan is a group of sulfur springs with healing properties comparable to the waters of the Caucasian Matsesta.
Patients come here not only from the capital and other parts of Kazakhstan, but also from Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Siberia, and Moscow. The springs help rheumatics, nervous disorders, and lead poisoning. To fully utilize the resort's natural resources, a large treatment center has been established.
There are sulfur baths, a physiotherapy clinic, and other treatment rooms. There is a library, radio, and a sound cinema. The upper boundary of the spruce forest is indistinct. Here and there, solitary spruce trees climb the rocky cliffs. Those that have climbed the highest have a frail, pitiful appearance.
The harsh climate has crushed them, and the trees struggle to survive. They are stunted, twisted in all directions, and half of their greenery is gone. However, where conditions are unfavorable for spruce forests, another tree thrives – juniper, or locally, archa.
In the Zailiysky Alatau, this thick-trunked shrub creeps along the ground. Its height does not exceed 1-1.5 meters (there are other, taller juniper species in the Western Tien Shan), and it grows densely, forming large patches on bare rocky areas.
Juniper thickets end at 2800-2900 meters, and from this altitude the mountains become completely devoid of shrub vegetation. A little higher, they surrender to the power of glaciers and eternal snow cover. There, at the latitude of the temperate zone, the cold, desert tundra and polar region reign supreme.
But this is not the harsh region famed for the exploits of Soviet explorers and navigators. Despite similar air temperatures, this is a completely different world, with a different flora and fauna. It contains many unexplored places, much beauty and rugged grandeur.
Its sheer cliffs, steep gorges, and fan-shaped scree slopes provide a fertile environment for mountain goats (tau-teke) and sheep (argali). Here, too, hiding in inaccessible lairs, the snow leopard, rarely seen, has found a permanent home. The forest, meadows, and cliffs, right up to the border with the Kyrgyz SSR, are part of the Almaty State Nature Reserve. 
Hunting is prohibited here. The animals live completely safe from humans in an area 120 km long, 50 km wide, and 320 km in circumference.

Authority:
"The Nature of Kazakhstan in Essays and Pictures." N.N. Palgov. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR. Alma-Ata. 1950.