Introduction to the City of Almaty back to Heinz Homepage
Last Updated: 1/20/2009
Almaty (where we live) is in southeastern Kazakhstan. It is the largest city (by far) with over 2 million people in the metropolitan area.
Kazakhstan is oil rich and prosperous, but much work still needs to be done to replace the unreliable Soviet infrastructure.
Kazakhstan is the world's 9th largest (by area) country.
Right: Almaty's new Airport built in 2005 is already too small.
Also See: Photos Newest Buildings in Almaty and Astana
Kazakhstan has roughly 16 million people, roughly
-
7 million Kazakhs and
-
7 million Russians and
-
2 million people of various other nationalities.
Russians are European. (photo above. All of the men and the girl in white are Russian. The woman in red is Molly my wife. The other girl in maroon is Kazakh.)
Kazakhs are Asian Muslims. (photo above)
Only 1 out of 700 Kazakhs profess Christ.
Russians tend to be Russian Orthodox or Atheist.
Around 1 out of 350 Russians profess Christ.
Kazakh Mosque (above), Russian Orthodox Church (Right), Evangelical Church (Below)
Above and Left. Fully loaded soviet car in city traffic, and trucks selling building materials along the road . Air pollution is a big and growing problem in Almaty because the city lies in a bowl and there is usually little wind to blow the pollution out. We generally take our photos in the month of May which always has a few very beautiful days without the pollution cloud lying over the city.
Mountains that look much like the Rockies lie just to the
south of Almaty.
There
are high-elevation pasture lands in those mountains.
Left:
Kalkaman's main street looking north.
Right: Kalkaman's main street looking south.
We live and work in Kalkaman a district on the extreme western edge of Almaty. It is one of the first areas where people live in houses rather than apartments.
.JPG)
Shopping takes much more time here. For hard to get items like cereal, cake
mix, and chicken breast you have to "buy it when you see it".
The
western edge of the city (left) is called Kalkaman.
95% of the roads her are gravel or dirt (right) but the whole area is being upgraded to look more like the center of the city.
(below) The road we live on is paved. Hurray! Since Almaty is a highly active earthquake zone, the gas pipes are run above ground .
