← All articles · Kazakhstan · 7 August 2025

Almaty, Kazakhstan: The wooden cathedral, Big Almaty Lake and where to eat

Three trips to Almaty: the timber Zenkov Cathedral and its earthquake story, storm light over Big Almaty Lake, and a week of tandyr bread, pelmeni and samovar tea.

Three trips to Almaty across nine years, and it has been a different city each time. Wooden domes and a golden eagle the first time, storm light on a mountain lake the second, and a week of eating on the third that we are still thinking about.

May 2016: the first look

Our first look at Almaty came in the spring of 2016, and the city made its case straight away: wooden domes in a city-centre park, a golden eagle up a mountain road, and a bazaar that fed us before we had bought a single thing.

Up the Medeu road

The same trip sent us up the valley towards Medeu and Shymbulak, where the welcome committee was a golden eagle with excellent balance and a spotted horse with endless patience.

Dileep in a fur hat and sunglasses with a golden eagle spreading its wings above his shoulder, a spotted horse beside him and forested hills behind — One golden eagle, one borrowed fur hat, May 2016. The Medeu to Shymbulak shuttle waits behind.

Inga in orange sunglasses smiling in front of a green valley, snow-capped peaks of the Trans-Ili Alatau rising behind — Green valley, snowy peaks, one very pleased traveller. May 2016.

August 2024: back for the lake

Eight years after our first look at Almaty we finally came back, in the middle of August 2024. Same city, different season: the Trans-Ili Alatau green to the treeline, twenty minutes from the traffic, and evenings warm enough to keep walking.

Around town

Down in the city it's plane-tree avenues, Soviet-era blocks, glass malls and the occasional time traveller parked at the kerb.

Inga with her arm around an older woman in a pink Full of Love t-shirt outside the MEGA Park shopping centre in Almaty — Family photo call outside MEGA Park, August 2024.

An old beige Mercedes saloon parked on an Almaty street with Arabic calligraphy painted along its side — An old Mercedes wearing Arabic calligraphy down its flank, parked like it owns the block.

We walked past the Ascension Cathedral again too, this time after dark, and it was still showing off. It is better at night, honestly: the lighting picks out the patterned domes and the tiers of the tower in a way the daylight flattens. The daylight photographs, and the story of how a timber cathedral rode out the 1911 earthquake, are further up this page.

The cathedral lit up at night, painted domes and yellow walls glowing above wet paving and park lamps — The Zenkov Cathedral after dark, August 2024. The floodlights do it more favours than the sun does.

This visit stuck. We were back in the city a year later, and that one turned into a food story.

August 2025: the eating trip

Our third Almaty, August 2025, and by now we knew what the city does best. This was the eating trip, and it announced its intentions before we had even landed.

We flew up from India on Air Astana, and economy was genuinely good. Better than good, in fact: the Kazakh cognac came round unlimited.

A bottle of Bacchus Kazakhstan cognac with a five star label standing on an airline seat tray, a Kazakh-language seat belt notice behind it — Kazakh cognac at 30,000 feet, served on the Air Astana flight in from Delhi.

One thing worth knowing if you bring a bottle home: buy the five star. We'd recommend it to anyone. The three star isn't in the same league, and ours ended up down the sink.

What we ate

A whole grilled fish arrived under a snowdrift of chopped salad, and then the bread came out: a tandyr loaf roughly the size of the table. It was lake fish, and we've lost the name of it, but it was as fresh as it looked.

A whole grilled fish on a white platter with chopped tomato and cucumber salad and a spiced lemon wedge — Lake fish, grilled whole and charred properly, salad doing the supporting act.

Dileep holding a knife and fork behind a huge puffed tandyr flatbread, with the finished fish platter in front of him — Man versus bread. The bread put up a respectable fight.

The humbler end of the menu did just as well. Pelmeni, the traditional Russian dumplings, in a clear broth, which is exactly what a mountain day asks for.

A white bowl of dumplings in clear broth with a cube of carrot, on a pale wooden table — Pelmeni in broth, August 2025. No garnish theatrics, none needed.

The best cup of tea, though, was out of town at Inga's parents' summer cottage, where we set about making it the most traditional way there is. A wood-fired samovar smoking away, the porcelain teapot balanced on the chimney to warm, and no shortcuts anywhere.

A wood-fired metal samovar smoking on a stool in a garden at night, a white porcelain teapot warming on its chimney — Tea the slow way: samovar below, teapot on the chimney, smoke everywhere.

The summer cottage garden

The garden at the cottage earns its keep in August: grapes ripening on the vine and brambles running the full production line from pink to done.

A cluster of dusty blue-purple grapes hanging among green vine leaves — Grapes getting on with it at the summer cottage, August 2025.

Ripe blackberries and unripe red berries on a bramble cane, a hand reaching in from the left — Blackberries at every stage. Quality control was thorough.

Three visits now, and the city has never repeated itself once.

Kazakhstan kept surprising us. The capital is a different planet entirely: see Astana. And the deep south runs the other way in time: Shymkent, Otrar and Turkistan.

Zenkov Cathedral, the timber church that outlived an earthquake

The Green Bazaar, where they feed you before you buy anything

Big Almaty Lake, the turquoise reservoir an hour above the city

We stayed at the Grand Hotel Tien Shan. Dileep’s photographs from Kazakhstan, this trip and the earlier one, are collected in the Kazakhstan gallery.