Almaty · Architecture · Society
One of the centres of the tragic events in Kazakhstan has been the republic's former capital, the city of Alma-Ata. The footage from the world news agencies illustrating the destructive nature of the disorders shows Republic Square. It is the very place where the December uprising of
Almaty · Observations · Society
Today one of the most beautiful cities in the world, the lovely Almaty, is gripped by alarming and terrible events. Kazakhstan, which I had always thought the safest place on earth, is shaken by disorder: public and government buildings are being seized, and there is gunfire, banditry, looting and violence
Almaty · Art · Cinema · Observations · People
There is a film called “Sergei Kalmykov: A Man Visible from the Stars”. It is about an incredible Soviet artist and mystic who lived in Alma-Ata. Kalmykov moved to Kazakhstan in the late 1930s, when storm clouds began to gather over the circle of mystics, and in Alma-Ata
Almaty · Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Heritage · People
Today Itkind's sculptures are displayed in many museums around the world and held in private collections, while a considerable part of the master's legacy is in Kazakhstan, where the most productive decades of his life were spent. Unfortunately, for a time some of the wooden sculptures
Almaty · Archive · Art · Society · People
The brief biography of the truly extraordinary sculptor Isaac Itkind runs as follows: he was born in 1871 in the small town of Smorgon in the Vilna Governorate, into a family of Hasidic rabbis. He led a fairly ordinary life until he discovered a desire to practise sculpture. The remarkable
Almaty · Art · People
The Jew who died twice. The rabbi who became an artist. The eccentric old man, a half-wild sorcerer-elder who lived on roots and gathered old tree stumps, dwelling in a dugout on the outskirts of Alma-Ata. The best-known Soviet sculptor of the 1930s, who vanished into
NB! · Almaty · Heritage · Society
A monument to the polutorka in Alma-Ata. Caption: the GAZ-AA lorry, a symbol of the labour and martial glory of veteran motorists. The vehicle was erected by Akan Kamelbekov, Honoured Innovator of Kazakhstan
NB! · Almaty · The East · Art · Cinema · Observations · Ethnography
Remember how in "Kavkazskaya plennitsa" [Kidnapping, Caucasian Style] they called bride abduction a beautiful custom? I stand before Kasteev's 1937 painting "Bride Abduction" and cannot see what is beautiful here; it is simply dreadful!
NB! · Almaty · Archaeology · Observations · Humour
I dropped into the numismatic shop at the Green Bazaar, where I have been buying for 15 years, and added ducats from the Semirechye hoard to my collection. If you don't know how to spend a million, ask me
Almaty · Books · Society · People · Saint Petersburg
Jambyl Jabayev Leningraders, my children! Leningraders, my pride! In the current of the steppe stream I see a glint of the Neva's current. If along the snowy ridges I glide my aged gaze, I see the arches of your bridges, The blueness of the Baltic dawns, The swarms
Almaty · Books · Moscow · Observations · Society · People
The Kazakh poet Dzhambul won fame very late: he became known only in 1936, when he was already very old. It cannot be said that nothing had been heard of him before. Dzhambul Dzhabayev was surrounded by a large family and was, by all accounts, a distinguished akyn, the victor