Walk along Maloalmatinskoye Gorge.

"Medeo! 
Two mountains - two giants
Protect its peace decorously.
And a little higher the third giant -
A dam lying under the sun.
Did the mind here see or become exhausted,
When they breathed with a noble goal
Those who erected the dam across
Maloalmatinskoye Gorge?"

Zhuban Moldagaliev. "Mudflow". 1978.

Nature of Small Almaty Gorge.

Mudflow protection dam in Maloalmatinsky gorge is located at an altitude of 1885 meters above sea level, in mountain valley of Malaya Almatinka River, 16.5 kilometers southeast of Almaty, in “Medeu” valley, on  northern slope of Zailiysky Alatau ridge, in Medeu district of Almaty. 
The Medeu dam is a special mudflow protection structure, erected in accordance with the measures for the comprehensive mudflow protection of Almaty. The project was developed by the Kazakh branch of the S. Ya. Zhuk Hydroproject Institute (chief engineer of the first stage, the second - Yu. N. Zinevich G. I. Shapovalov).
A significant amount of work was carried out by powerful directional explosions (Soyuzvzryvprom project). The creation of a large-scale, unique in world practice, engineering structure for protection against mudflows was widely discussed in Almaty, in scientific institutions of the country, and was approved by the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
The consultants for the construction of the dam were the Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Presidium of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Academician M.A. Lavrentyev, Director of the Institute of Earthworks, Academician M.A. Sadovsky, Academician N.V. Melnikov and L.I. Sedov.
The construction began in 1964 and was carried out using blasting operations. The first explosion took place in 1966, the second in 1967. The expert commission of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1966 again considered the issue of the explosion in Medeo and concluded:
"There will be an explosion! An active fight against the mudflow must begin!" On October 21, 1966, exactly at 11 a.m. Almaty time, seismic stations around the world registered an artificial earthquake with an epicenter near Almaty. This was one of the rare cases when stations were "tuned" to a known epicenter of the Earth's breath, and residents of the city, at the threshold of which the tremor of the earth's surface occurred, were warned about it in advance.
The first-stage rock fill dam, 107 meters high, the volume of the dam body is 5 million cubic meters, formed a mudflow reservoir with a capacity of 6.2 million cubic meters and was put into operation in 1972.
In 1973, the dam held back a powerful catastrophic mudflow with a mass volume of 5.3 million cubic meters, which significantly exceeded 2/3 of the mudflow reservoir capacity. The dam withstood the pressure of the mud and rock mass and flood waters, some of which were diverted using artificial structures (water intake, metal siphon, etc.).
A special commission headed by a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, 1st Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan D.A. Kunayev, created in connection with the mudflow threatening the city, supervised the work around the clock to mobilize the necessary human and material resources, and quickly eliminate the consequences of the disaster.
The commission approved measures to protect Almaty from mudflows, made a decision to build the 2nd stage of the dam, the completion of which in 1980 significantly increased the capacity of the mudflow storage (up to 12.6 million cubic meters), the height of the dam was raised to 150 meters, the length along the crest was 530 meters, the width at the base was 800 meters.
To discharge the liquid component of the mudflow, two water discharge tunnels were laid in the left part of the dam. The dam has a tower slot water discharge. On the slopes of the Mokhnataya mountain, "hedgehogs" are installed to hold back snow avalanches.
The dam has three successive height levels. At the site of the first, highest point of the dam, a panoramic platform was built, the so-called "Swallow's Nest". A staircase, well-known to city residents and tourists, leads to the dam, consisting of 842 concrete steps with verandas for rest and viewing.
City competitions in running, climbing this unique staircase, are regularly held. According to calculations, it can hold back a flow three times greater than the volume of the 1973 mudflow. The Kazakhfilm studio released the scientific documentary films "Explosion-Creator" in 1970 and "Medeo: Days and Nights of Courage" in 1976, dedicated to the construction of the dam and the protection of the city from the catastrophic mudflow.
The poet Dzhuban Muldagaliyev wrote the poem "Mudflow", which was awarded the State Prize of the Kazakh SSR in 1978, in which he glorified the courage and dedication of the Soviet people in the fight against the elements.
Geographic coordinates of mudflow protection dam in Maloalmatinskoye Gorge: N43°09'01 E77°03'45

Authority: 
Brief Encyclopedia of the Kazakh SSR, Volume 2 "Nature", Alma-Ata, 1990. Encyclopedia "Alma-Ata", 1983. Alma-Ata. Chief Editor M.K. Kozybayev. Guide "Alma-Ata", 1990, Planeta Publishing House, Moscow, P. Proskurin.

Copies of photographs from various publications and photographs by Alexander Petrov were used.