Porcelain Panels

Behold Almaty's most abhorrent architectural trend - the ventilated facade [вентилируемый фасад; ventiliruemy fasad]. Sometimes called "rainscreen cladding" in English, these facades are made by drilling a grid of fasteners [кронштейны; kronshteiny] into a building's concrete skeleton, then hanging faux-marble [керамогранит; keramogranit] panels that are held tight by flimsy fasteners. These facades use materials that strive to project glamor, but their cheap construction screams "tacky" instead. 

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The fad's staying power may be explained by the obsession with remont [ремонт; "renovation"] in a town that is held back by its Soviet-era infrastructure. Old Soviet apartment blocks that were previously covered in greying limestone or crumbly concrete can, with the application of a ventilated facade, have at least a superficial sheen of newness. Elsewhere, they're used as an easily assembled cover-up for ugly construction. You can find rows of shipping containers at the main bazaar, Barakholka, obscured by hilariously unconvincing walls of panels. The owners may think they are adding a hint of class, but their technique is just what it sounds like - a facade. 

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The siding isn't just used for renovation and dress-up, though. It's just as frequently seen in Almaty's newest highrises, the city's novostroiki [новостройки; lit. "new constructions"].   Here, I can only suspect that they have become popular with budget-wary project managers (perhaps, a cynic would suggest, the same builders who get big-time investments and then pocket a cut for themselves while scrimping on materials). From the look at online building material markets, it seems that ventilated facades are a bona fide phenomenon throughout the CIS sphere, so perhaps a select few Russian building companies are promoting their cheap "technology" to construction companies throughout the bloc.