Alma-Arasan
The Valley of the Toikhanas
Almaty's mountains are its pride and joy, but within the city limits, there are actually only two roads that can you take you there. One is quite famous, Dostyk, home of the Hotel Kazakhstan, the Palace of Schoolchildren and other iconic sites, and it leads you up and up to the city's favorite alpine playground, the Medeu ice rink. The other is a road that for years was nameless, and these days has the official name of Dulati, though few locals would know it as such. Instead, the road and the region is called Alma-Arasan, after the gorge through which it runs, and Alma-Arasan is synonymous with two things: its shashlyk joints and its toikhanas, kitschy event halls for Kazakh tois, or wedding celebrations. If you want to eat a kebab or tie the knot, goes the thinking, its better to escape the smog and head for the fresh mountain air to do the deed. On the weekends, despite its elevated isolation, Alma-Arasan is swarming with those seeking rest or matrimony.
To explore the area, my route had to take an unusual shape. Usually my walks end up as some kind of closed circuit, as I take a bus somewhere, venture out, then loop back to where I started. This time, if you look at the map for this walk report, you'll see a straight arrow - there was nowhere to go but up! I gained more than a thousand feet in elevation, but the climb felt deserved because I had a goal in mind. My friend Pavel Pfander works as a falcon trainer and showman at the Sunkar Falcon Center, an Almaty gem situated in this very gorge, and though I'd taken a taxi to him before, this time I'd show up covered in hiker's sweat.
Walking a single street, I was worried, might dull the senses, but Alma-Arasan is such a destination, especially on a warm Sunday like the day I explored it, that the way was lined with distractions. Just after passing the Park of the First President, the mountain road passes some kind of well-manicured compound, and city workers were diligently planting spring flowers. Higher up, a man stood on the side of the street with a peacock, for wedding day photoshoots, I imagine. Another man sat on a plastic chair with a dozen framed family portraits arranged on a lawn - a strange place to hawk such a thing, but again, maybe it was for the future families of those brides and grooms. Traffic flowed continuously, and the sides of the street became clogged with Almaty's fanciest cars, it's Lexuses and Range Rovers and so on. This is what all those four-wheel drive trucks are needed for, apparently: the expertly-paved trek into the luxurious foothills.
To explore the area, my route had to take an unusual shape. Usually my walks end up as some kind of closed circuit, as I take a bus somewhere, venture out, then loop back to where I started. This time, if you look at the map for this walk report, you'll see a straight arrow - there was nowhere to go but up! I gained more than a thousand feet in elevation, but the climb felt deserved because I had a goal in mind. My friend Pavel Pfander works as a falcon trainer and showman at the Sunkar Falcon Center, an Almaty gem situated in this very gorge, and though I'd taken a taxi to him before, this time I'd show up covered in hiker's sweat.
Walking a single street, I was worried, might dull the senses, but Alma-Arasan is such a destination, especially on a warm Sunday like the day I explored it, that the way was lined with distractions. Just after passing the Park of the First President, the mountain road passes some kind of well-manicured compound, and city workers were diligently planting spring flowers. Higher up, a man stood on the side of the street with a peacock, for wedding day photoshoots, I imagine. Another man sat on a plastic chair with a dozen framed family portraits arranged on a lawn - a strange place to hawk such a thing, but again, maybe it was for the future families of those brides and grooms. Traffic flowed continuously, and the sides of the street became clogged with Almaty's fanciest cars, it's Lexuses and Range Rovers and so on. This is what all those four-wheel drive trucks are needed for, apparently: the expertly-paved trek into the luxurious foothills.
And luxury there was: toikhana after toikhana, each more regal than the last, each one trying to project an aura of riches that might draw a socially-mobile Kazakh couple. The target audience here is driven, above all, by ponty, a local term for gaudy shows of wealth. Thus the lawns were immaculate, the fountain gurgling, the parking spaces patrolled by obedient attendants. None of it was to my taste, but having driven by here before, I knew that the toikhana strip was relatively short, and soon I'd be up in greener, nobler realms.
The highlight of the walk was the Alma-Arasan Dam, built to control the waters of the Bolshaya Almatinka River and protect against mudslides. A steep staircase made of tires leads to a walkway that runs along the top of the structure, and the views from above are fantastic. Down below, the dam has been beautified by some of Almaty's finest graffiti artists, and their work there is probably the finest I've seen in the city. Discovering all the street art, plus a neat concrete bas-relief of Soviet mountaineers, made me feel wise for coming on foot. Most people zoom right by in those Land Cruisers, and it's too easy not to notice these kinds of things.
At the end of my walk was a man with a saker falcon on his arm, who harangued me in Russian with a mockingly thick American accent: "Where have you been, my friend?" This was Pavel, or Uncle Pasha as I call him, the raptor expert at Sunkar Falconry Center. I'd met Uncle Pasha during our trip together to the International Association for Falconry meeting in Qatar, when I was moonlighting as a falconry researcher. He was impressed by my stamina, but gave me some advice: "Next time take the bus!" He was right. During my long uphill climb, I was passed twice by city bus number 28, a route I didn't even know existed. Next time, I think, I'll take it up, and then enjoy the downhill walk instead. Harder on the knees, maybe, but with gravity on my side I can skip right past the ponty.
The highlight of the walk was the Alma-Arasan Dam, built to control the waters of the Bolshaya Almatinka River and protect against mudslides. A steep staircase made of tires leads to a walkway that runs along the top of the structure, and the views from above are fantastic. Down below, the dam has been beautified by some of Almaty's finest graffiti artists, and their work there is probably the finest I've seen in the city. Discovering all the street art, plus a neat concrete bas-relief of Soviet mountaineers, made me feel wise for coming on foot. Most people zoom right by in those Land Cruisers, and it's too easy not to notice these kinds of things.
At the end of my walk was a man with a saker falcon on his arm, who harangued me in Russian with a mockingly thick American accent: "Where have you been, my friend?" This was Pavel, or Uncle Pasha as I call him, the raptor expert at Sunkar Falconry Center. I'd met Uncle Pasha during our trip together to the International Association for Falconry meeting in Qatar, when I was moonlighting as a falconry researcher. He was impressed by my stamina, but gave me some advice: "Next time take the bus!" He was right. During my long uphill climb, I was passed twice by city bus number 28, a route I didn't even know existed. Next time, I think, I'll take it up, and then enjoy the downhill walk instead. Harder on the knees, maybe, but with gravity on my side I can skip right past the ponty.
