Walking Almaty
  • Main
    • Almaty Walking Tours
    • Blog Posts >
      • "Big Bill" Builds the Turksib
      • Auezov in America
      • Nixon in Almaty
      • 7 Interactive Maps of Almaty
      • 7 Things to See on an Almaty Layover
      • One-Story Alma-Ata
      • 11 Almaty Businesses You See Over and Over
      • 9 Spiritual Cousins of Walking Almaty
      • 6 Principles of Documentary Urbanism
      • 13 Historic Maps of Verny, Alma-Ata, and Almaty
      • 10 Best Almaty Walks
      • 12 Bus Routes to the Mountains
      • 10 Almaty Sights for Fans of Kazakh Falconry
      • Travel Reports
    • Almaty Neighborhoods >
      • Alatau
      • Alma-Arasan
      • Druzhba
      • Geologostroi
      • Medeu District
      • Nurlytau
      • Pervomaiskiy
      • Plodik
      • Shangyraq
      • Tastak
      • Tatarka
      • Taugül
      • West Almalinsky
      • Yerminsai
    • Unsolved Mysteries
    • About the Project
  • Access Ramps
  • Addresses
  • Advertising Graffiti
  • Air Conditioners
  • Aluminum Facades
  • Antennas
  • Aryks
  • Balcony Panels
  • Basement Stairs
  • Brandmauers
  • Brise Soleil
  • Bus Stops
  • Canals
  • Carved Eaves
  • Carved Windowframes
  • Cast Iron Fences
  • Central Asian Brick
  • Children's Graffiti
  • Classified Ads
  • Coal Shed Windows
  • Commemorative Plaques
  • Concrete Fences
  • Convenience Stores Signs
  • Corner Pilasters
  • Corrugated Metal
  • Courtyard Sculptures
  • Dead Entryways
  • Decorative Plaster Facades
  • Decorative Sheet Metal
  • DIY Downspouts
  • Doorbells
  • Dormers
  • Duplexes
  • Ear Graffiti
  • Fire Hydrant Signs
  • Flower Planters
  • Gables
  • Gas Lines
  • Gas Signs
  • Gilted Aluminum
  • Glass Blocks
  • Graffiti
  • Granite Facades
  • Hand Pumps
  • Handpainted Signs
  • Insulation
  • Insulators
  • Kiosks
  • Lanterns
  • Limestone
  • Mailboxes
  • Manhole Covers
  • Masonry Patterns
  • Metal Gates
  • Metal Plates
  • Mosaic Bus Stops
  • Mosaics
  • Natural Elements
    • Birds
    • Creeks
    • Strays
    • Weeds
  • Painted Trees
  • Paver Blocks
  • Pedestrian Paths
  • Pedestrian Underpasses
  • Pigeon Perches
  • Remodeled Roofs
  • Romantic Graffiti
  • Scrap Metal Signs
  • Security Bars
  • Sgraffito
  • Soviet Cars
  • Stalinki
  • Stencil Graffiti
  • Telephone Poles
  • Tile Facades
  • Tires
  • Trash Cans
  • Trash Removal
  • Utility Boxes
  • Ventilated Facades
  • Vestibule Windows
  • Window Signs
  • Wooden Gates
  • Wood Slats

Soviet Cars

In Kazakhstan, the iconic Lada lives on mostly in the village, where poverty has kept them running way past their prime. Almaty, on the other hand, is crammed full of fancy modern rides, big shiny SUVs and crossovers being especially trendy. Yet most of the cars in Almaty have no sense of place - that Toyota could be just about anywhere in the world. The Soviet car, the Lada, the Moskvich, the Zhiguli, can tell you something about where you are what this place has been through, and it's the Soviet car, tires flat, windows broken, that has most often become a permanent installation of suburban street furniture, actually becoming a part of the place itself.  

The Ladas, to be honest, get old pretty fast. There are dozens of models, 401, 407, 412, that all look the same, and the only way to tell them apart is to take a magnifying glass to door handles and headlights. A more interesting find is the Beetle-like Zaporozhets, nicknamed "the Humpback" [Горбатый; Gorbaty] because of its stumpy appearance; the IZh-2715, a kind of truck/car hybrid used by confectionaries and thus nicknamed "The Little Pie" [Пирожок; Pirozhok]; or the second-generation Moskvich cars from the late 1950s, with bulbous headlights and wing-like fenders in a style called Ponton.  You can find these dinosaurs sitting up on sidewalks or stranded in dead ends, involuntarily retired but kept around for...for what? In the hope that they will one day be refurbished? Or perhaps as a reminder of a faraway time, when all cars were stamped by Soviet power and the streets were smooth and trafficless. 

Walking Tours

Picture

Blog

Picture

Neighborhoods

Picture

About

Picture
Picture