Category: Alma-Ata

Friday Mystery Photo

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500

Today marks a small milestone on my blog – it should be post # 500 under the Around the World category. It means that there should be 500+ photos for you to explorer. I’ll have to make a toast when I get back from work to another 500+ posts.

Most Important Day in Their Life

Their marriage ceremony is in progress. It is probably one of the most important days in their lives. In such a pretty place too. The couple you see is actually not the one getting married, these two are holding special hats over the couple who is getting married. If you’d look from the side you’d see what I’m talking about.

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It is highly unlikely that anyone would be able to tell where it is, so here is another photo, from outside. The story goes that this church was built without a single iron nail. Not sure how true it is, but I kind of like it.

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Friday Photo Mystery

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Before the Storm

I actually do not expect people to know where it is, but this is the only photo I had for sharing and since probably no one will know where it is, a good candidate for Friday.

We were doing very light hiking up the slope from that ski resort when wind suddenly picked up and those huge black clouds started to roll in. We decided to turn around and head back down. But first I took couple shots. For memories.

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Chimbulak murals #3 and #4

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Here is two more murals from the Chimbulak Ski Resort in Almaty Kazakhstan. I shared first two in the past, here is #1 and #2. All of them are on the same mountain road that leads you from mountain skating stadium Medeo to the ski resort.

Chimbulak Mural #3

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Chimbulak Mural #4

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Chimbulak Murals #2

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Today I’m taking a short trip back to Kazakhstan, Almaty. Actually a bit south of it in the mountains. You might already seen the first mural from this series in Chimbulak Murals #1. I took these photos right between the Medeo ice skating ring and Chimbulak ski resort. We hired a driver to take us from the ring to the ski resort and then hiked there at the alpine altitude. On the way back there were no cars for higher so we decided  not to wait and took off by feet down the road. I think it is only about three, maybe four miles so not a big deal.  Somewhere midway I saw a few murals and decided to record it. I bet they were painted during Soviet times and this one look to me more like a Russian influenced art than Kazakh. There is a bit of Kazakh ornamental style showing as snow on mountain peaks. Other elements are not very Asian looking.

As far as I know Kazakh government is blocking entire wordpress.com, so no one in Kazakhstan will be able to see this post and tell me if those murals are still there or they are gone as part of road clean up for last year Asian winter games.

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Back in Central Asia

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Mentally, not physically. I had this photo seating on my drive for some time, just never felt like posting it. We were on a little hike around Chimbulak Ski Resort near Almaty Kazakhstan. This is almost as high you can get without special climbing gear. Alpine flowers are really cool, they are small but they are bright and they know how to survive in not the most friendly environments.

If you can see, on the left side of the photo, right in the middle, there is a black whole in the rock. It is actually a cave. About 3-4 meters high. I don’t know how deep it is, I didn’t hike over there.

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