The Malaya Stanitsa neighbourhood, says Dennis Keen, is "the heart of Verny, Almaty's tsarist iteration". It definitely has a very different feel. There is a relaxed, country atmosphere, accentuated when we were there by the explosions of blossom and the fine views of the mountains.




Carved window frames and shutters abound here, and there's a fine array of wooden houses (many display a kind of herringbone pattern; in some of the older ones the log cabin construction is visible).





Also apparent were the rather curious gas pipes of these parts. And security fences... I'm not sure how long they've been there, or to what extent they are products of Kazakhstan's various swings of economic fortune. But they're definitely part of the scenery.



We visited the Kazakh Museum of Folk Musical Instruments by accident, but it was very enjoyable, full of instruments that I'd never encountered. It's all very personalized: "This was this person's dombra. He lived from then to then." Many items are lovely pieces of craftsmanship. And the soundtrack which plays in the background illustrates the various voices of the instruments very beautifully.






Incidentally, this museum's signage offers a good illustration of Kazakhstan's upcoming language change. Kazakh was originally written in Arabic script, before going Latin in the late 1920s, and switching to the Cyrillic alphabet in 1940. Now, following in the footsteps of ex-USSR components like Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, the government is in the throes of an ambitious Latinization plan, which is expected to be completed by 2025.



The plan is neither uncontroversial nor inexpensive.

But young people are increasingly in favour of Latinization, it is said; and although Russian is still the main vehicle of communication, the prestige of the Kazakh language is on the rise. The government's goal is "societal trilingualism (Kazakh-Russian-English), with particular support for 'the state language' what the Kazakhstan-2050 strategy calls 'the spiritual pivot'."

Kazakhstan is home to more than 100 ethnic groups and languages. (The Central State Museum of Kazakhstan offers insights into the history and culture of some of the extraordinary number of ethnicities that have called the Kazakhstan territory home over the years, voluntarily and involuntarily. They include Koreans, Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Chechens, Kurds, Turks, and Uyghurs.)


Ethnic Kazakhs now make up some two thirds of the country's population (because of outward migration of some other ethnic groups post-independence, higher birthrates, and inward migration of ethnic Kazakhs from China, Mongolia, and Russia).

The resurgence is all the more remarkable given that 2.2 million Kazakhs (52% of their population) died from famine and epidemics in the forced collectivization catastrophe of the early 1930s. Another 15% left the republic. The nomadism of Kazakhstan's herders was not deemed to be compatible with socialist ideas, which required, it was said, as collectivization required sedentarism.

Keith Rosten, in his account of Kazakhstan's early days of independence, recalls talking with an elderly Almaty resident who remembered that dire era: "According to his description... there was utter social panic on the streets... The government removed any means for the Kazakhs to support themselves... [E]very morning corpses were gathered onto carts and hauled away. It was a calamity of unparalleled proportion in the history of the Kazakh people."


And finally, following on from our early discoveries, here are a few more views that underline the way Almaty's identity has adapted over the years: