Visit to Almaty.

“The city's full of people who you just see around” 

Terry Pratchett.

Tour - travel to Kazakhstan Short description of tours.

Foundation of Vernyi town, as Almaty was named before, was the final stage of the process of joining Kazakhstan to Russia that lasted for two centuries. The choice of a place for the fortress foundation was charged to the police officer of the Big Horde - major M. D.Peremyshlski.
The high hill place eight kilometers from a little but rough mountain river coming from the gorge, at crossing with a big road leading to the Central Asia, attracted the commander. It was decided to found a military fort.
The construction of the Zailiskiy fortress, which the following year was already given the name of Vierney, was started after the approval from the West-Siberian general-governor Gasfort in the spring of 1854.
In his official report major Peremyshelski informed, that the territory between the Large and Little Almaty rivers represented "a plenty of the arable land, haying meadows which is surely good for constructing the military fortress."
The construction was done according to existing rules of military fortress arts. By the plan it represented as an irregular pentagon, one side of which went parallel to the bank of the Little Almaty river. The fortress was surrounded by a moat. Inside of the fortress behind the strong walls, an infirmary and weapon warehouses, powder cellars, house for officers and the chief of the district, marchingfield and a church were placed.
Originally the population of a fortress consisted of 470 soldiers and officers. Though the fortress was rather primitive construction, its position on the high hill and the reasonable placing of the bastions considerably raised it defense qualities.
Construction was conducted on the basis of «the Project of the fortress on the He river, on natural boundary of Almaty, that is in the Big Kirghiz horde», approved by His Majesty on March, 7th, 1854. The leading sappers of Russia A.Teljakovsky and E.Totleben participated in the development of the general plan. 
By the way, the last was the chief of the Sevastopol fortress construction, which resisted the enemies during the Crimean war. K.Marx named E.Totleben as the best sapper of the Europe. Engineers L.Aleksandrovsky and T.Gumnitsky, topographer E.Voronin, carried out the location of a fortress in the district.
«I approve the city by monarchical power. But the exiled should not settle there» - these words were written on the manuscript by the Russian Emperor Nikolay The First. Under the imperial pressure the Russians came to the blessed lands to put the first stones in the basis of the future city.
Continue moving from the remains of a rampart on Tatibekova Street, we come to the Little village founded in I860. Originally it was a settlement of families of the Siberian and Ural Cossack armies. In the summer of 1855 when the first party of immigrants arrived - Cossacks and the peasants ranked as the Cossacks, the construction of the Cossack village named the big Almaty started southwest to the fortress.
Later, due to military reasons refusing-ing to expand it (1855 - 1927), the authorities provided the immigrants with another site in the same region. Later the fortress was transformed into a city; it consisted of the fortress. Large Almaty village, Little Almaty village and Tatar village.
Vernyi was a big, green, but at the same time a dusty and dirty Cossack village. From archived documents it follows, that at the beginning of the XX-century in Zhetysu there were 30 Cossack villages and many farms where the Cossack families lived.
Cossacks followed the general principle when arranging their villages. Distances between them were equal one hour of a horse run. In the center of the villages there was always an orthodox temple. Gold domes of the Saint-Kazan Cathedral - the oldest one in the city are visible where the Tatibekov Street passes into Haliullin Street on the right side of our route.
In 1998 its 100th jubilee celebrated, but according to some data it was constructed in 1871. In 1579 after a terrible fire, which destroyed half of Kazan city, there were rumours that the Russian God is not so strong and does not help the orthodox. "The faith, - marks a historical writer - became a parable and desecration".
That was when "God's favor and the Cover of God's Mother were stretched over Russia". One shooter decided to make some constructions on a place where the big fire had occurred. His daughter Matrona had a dream that God's Mother had asked for to dig out her icon from the earth.
On July 8 Matrona took a shovel and found the icon. For many centuries the Kazan icon protects the Russian troops. Before great battles the armies of Pozharski, Peter the Great, Kutuzov bent their knees in front of the icon. Cossacks from the Zhetysu also consider Kazan's God Mother as their patroness. The temple has her icon done in distemper techniques in the XVIII-th century.
Often the townspeople confuse the Saint-Kazan Cathedral with the Sofia Cathedral, constructed in 1858. But, first, unfortunately, there was only a base left from that cathedral on which the new walls are now erected. Secondly, the Sofia Cathedral - the composite center of the Large Almaty village (it had already dissapeared), almost precisely copied from the layout of Rome cities-camps.
The rectangular system of blocks created the best conditions for defenders of the fortress. Thus the streets were not only well looked through, but also well exposed to the shooting. The value of Vierney as of the military-administrative center of Alatau district quickly increased.
By 1867 about 10000 people lived there and it became the largest settlement in Zhetysu. Therefore on April 11th, 1867 the decision was taken to make Vierney a city, which became the center of the region of the Turkestani general-governorship. The news about this reached many Russian cities and villages.
People rushed from their settlements, whole families strived to the fertile Country of Seven Rivers where as assured, usual watermelons grew ripe a size of a front cartwheel. People traveled on the steppe roads and Turkestan with their simple house belongings. 
By feet traveled Tula stove makers, Moscow house painters, Siberian smiths, Voronezh carpenters - working people of the liberated Russia with a hope to take a place under the sun on the new land. Gradually from Semipalatinsk, Omsk, Tyumen the Tatars started to arrive, who were mainly dealing with the trade. Military authorities allocated a separate zone to the east from the fortress for them and other non-Russian nationalities. There arised so-called Tatars village (1857 - 1962), a place where people could buy various utensils, order a boot or a gown sewed, and choose an elegant hat.
The region named Tatarka remains to the right of Haliullin Street, and now we are turning to the left from the main road to the city border. As a prove to that - a ring road, in the center of which there is a concrete ring, surrounded by the enormous letters forming a word "Almaty".
Considering, that the mountains are in the south (to the right of us on a course of the route), we without effort can define the parts of the world. On the south (upwards from a ring) the road goes to Talgar (with the population of 43 650). It is the center of the same name district where almost 92 thousand peasants work at 2 671 farms and 32 thousand house facilities. The territory of the district is 3.790 sq. km. On the north from a ring the road goes to the airport.
The era of aeronautics had begun in our city on April, 1st, 1919 when on the area of the Small Village the biplane landed. Its pilot Alexander Shavrov followed an airway Samara - Aktyubinsk - Tashkent - Vierney. In 1923 on a field of Vierney hippodrome the first Almaty airport was founded (now the central stadium is located there).
The current airport location was founded in 1936. Here a soviet supersonic plane TU-144 started flying from Almaty to Moscow. In 2003 the new passenger terminal has been constructed which does not have analogues in the CIS. The skeleton and a roof of the airport symbolize the bird with the spread wings.
The operating company repaired the runway and equipped the airport with the modern facilities. Under the project the three-level system of safety is stipulated which is very important in the contemporary world. The airport provides services to 3,5 million passengers a year.
As a kind good fellow from a fairy tale we choose a straight road, leading to the east, yet it goes parallel to the mountains and is named Almaty-Narynkol. Later on, mentioning settlements, gas stations and other sights, we shall refer to their location, considering the kilometer marks, specified on a highway. But before - that some history.
The authorities started the process of joining the Senior Hord to Russia. In 1858 close to the exit of the mountain gorges of Trans Ile Ala Tau immigrants from Western Siberia based their villages, named after martyresses of early Christianity Sofija and Nadezhda-nowadays the cities of Talgar and Esik. For communication with Vierney there was an animal-drawn road, which was named as Talgar road (in 1928 - gravel road, in 1948 the path was asphalted).
The country road, on which trading caravans passed in direction to Dubuns-kaja ferry, was named as the Kulja path. In 1870 the road was laid up to the village Shallow (Malovodnoye), by 1882 - up to the village Chilik, further - to the Ashen grove.
In 1949 construction of new roads was started, and the Kulja road reached the pass Kokpek through the settlement Novoalekseevka. Now this highway is named Almaty- Narynkol. Thus, to our first object - to the lake Esik we can get both - by the "top" and "bottom" roads. In the first case the road will creep more closely to the mountains, but it is less comfortable, than the one parallel passing below.
Unfortunately, Kazakhstan has no "auto bans", and the road cannot be called a highway in a complete sense of this word. However it is well marked, annually there are «pit» repairs done, therefore it is quite suitable for travelers. The trees on both sides of the road form a long wall.
They are poplars with ball and pyramidal crones and elms. It is interesting, that while we move to the east the landscape and plants will vary really fast. At first giants-trees will be replaced by undersized silver tree and saxaul (halo.xy-lon), then - by various bushes, and, at last, by sick bushes, the camel prickle and wormwood.
It is no wonder; in fact starting from a fertile foothill zone gradually in the end of our travel we will reach the stony semi desert. In the first half of the day the sun will constantly shine on the windshields of your car, but on some parts of the way the trees will cover you with the fertile shadow.
These are forest belts, which dismember and detain the wind streams, considerably reducing the initial speed of the wind. In the winter the forest belt increases the stability of a snow cover. Where the speed of the wind is not limited, more than half of the snow cover is blown off from the fields. In the protected fields the speed of the wind is one third less than in the opened steppes.
Forest belts preserve crops against early frosts, cool air and promote the growth of the plants. Cultivation of wood plantings in droughty areas demands significant expenses in conjunction with the necessity of care during the long-term period.
Already for 8 - 10 years old windbreak belts completely pay back the expenses spent by to the significant harvest growth. On a part of the road in 5,5 - 6,5 km it is necessary to limit the speed. We pass the village Guldala (Red field) and on the 8th km, near the gas station, it is possible to stop to try the fresh flat cakes baked here in a tandyr (a pit stove).
Between 13 and 14 km there is a turn to the right to the settlement of Alatau, and along the road - Panfilov village, which has a small market. By the way, on the way ahead there's a lot of settlements - lasting for 22 km. Novoalexeevka, then on 40 km - Kuldja, on 50 km - Birlik, after it Baltabai; therefore it is impossible to forget that it is necessary to rebuff an arrow of a speedometer in time.
Sometimes settlements are as a chain but in the past...

Authorship:
By the deserved worker of tourism of Republic Kazakhstan, The candidate of pedagogical sciences, the guide - methodologist Lyuterovich Oleg Grigorevich.