Why Kazakhstan 🇰🇿§

Tbh, I didn't even know Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 existed. One of my dear friend Sujit discovered what Central-Asia was, when one of his co-workers moved abroad to Uzbekistan 🇺🇿. It looked beautiful judging by the photos on the internet, and we were planning to visit some place outside India 🇮🇳 for quite a long time. Sujit stumbled upon Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 while researching about Central-Asia, to our surprise it was Visa-Free. Considering how bad indian passport really is, we started looking into what Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 had to offer. We found the following things...

• ₹ 1 Indian Rupee = 〒 5.40 Kazakhstani Tenge [Feb 2024]
• Accommodation was cheap and comparable to the indian market, sometimes it was even cheaper
• Skiing in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 is cheaper than Kashmir, India 🇮🇳 by a factor of 10
• Mumbai BOM to Almaty ALA return flights are cheaper than most domestic flights within India 🇮🇳 ₹12.5k ~ $150
• Public transport is cheap in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 You pay a 100 〒 and get off wherever you want
• It is beautiful, and tourist-free
• Almaty and Astana governments are pushing for more tourist schemes like Almaty City Pass and Astana Pass

Locations§

These are few places where we had a great time.

• Shymbulak Mountain Resort
• First President's Park
• Arbat Shopping Street
• Dostyk Plaza
• Kok-Tobe Hill
• Charyn Canyon
• Uzunbulak Canyon (Moon Canyon)
• Kolsay Lake
• Kaindy Lake
• Zeleny Bazar or Green bazar
• Medeu Skating Ring and Ski resort
• 28 Panfilov Guardsmen Park
• Ascension Cathedral
• MEGA Alma-Ata Mall
• Rakhat Candy Factory

Here is the TripAdvisor link for the trip details

However I'd also like to mention a few places which were quite nice.§

Cheapest place to get rental ski gear that we could find - Free Life - Kairbekov St. 16, Almaty 050000, Kazakhstan. The staff here was super nice. We asked them if we could return the skis after their working hours. They agreed without any fuss and waited 30m past their closing time. We really appreciated this gesture and want to give them a huge shoutout.If you are in Almaty please check them out.

We also randomly found a japanese shop - Yaponskiy Magazin Японский Магазин - Seyfullin Avenue 510, Almaty 050000, Kazakhstan. Stuff here was decent and the staff was hospitable. This one seems like a retail chain shop so YMMV.

Later on we were trying to find a souvenir shop and stumbled upon SINICHKI.STORE -Almaty, Aiteke Bi Street, 53. Decent place and we were able to find few unique fridge magnets to take home (apparently Sujit collects fridge magnets from the places he visits).

Dostyk Plaza, was one of my favorite places here in Almaty. I know its just a mall but I really liked the vibe here. People seemed more friendly and talkative than the average bunch we met throughout our trip. I visited one of the clothing stores and a couple of cashiers rounded me up and had an interrogation of sorts about my clothes and where they were from, where I was from and how did I get here. They were intrigued perhaps because I was the only one who didn't follow the social norm of wearing black/grey clothes and was standing out quite a bit - and of course I didn't look like Kazakh. Clothes here in kazakhstan 🇰🇿 are almost as cheap if not cheaper than they're in India 🇮🇳

Memorable incidents§

Imagine arriving at a country you never heard about in the middle of the night, freezing cold, only to findout your host is MIA. Our host didn't respond to calls and messages when we left the airport around 00:30 in -24°C freezing cold. We checked a couple of apartments but it was quite late and no one was around, an hour passed and we couldn't find the place - so we took shelter in a closed shop. A random Glovo delivery driver spotted us and helped us find a hostel to sleep-in for the night. He was so nice and went out of his way to help us, didn't even speak english and definitely didn't have to help us but he did anyway. Such a lifesaver. The next day we found another apartment and left at 07:00 in the morning. Lessons learned - always check with your host before you leave the airport or there's a chance you will freeze to death.

People at the hostel welcomed us and gave us food. Most of them were factory workers and immigrants looking to make a living and get by. Now here is the thing, we were expecting to get ripped-off at this point because we literally had nowhere else to go, but to our surprise nothing of the sort happened. They just charged us the regular and that was it. In that moment we pretty much experienced the best and worst part of our trip. Some people are good some are bad, everyone's different.

Will continue to add more as I get some time...

Cost§

It cost me ₹ 32,539 or $ 390 all-inclusive even the return flights, some souvenirs and 2 kilograms of chocolate - ❤️ Rakhat

For Sujit it was ₹ 31,396 or $ 376 and for another friend Sharad it was ₹ 32,083 or $ 385.

I am pretty sure we would have spent more if we had travelled domestically to Jammu and Kashmir

You can download the below detailed cost-sheet here

Things to look out for§

Do not get a private taxi from the airport no matter what. It is a scam. Always book taxis through YandexGo.

Only convert fractional of your USD $ to KZT 〒 for getting your SIM and taxi to your accomodation. Please use something like MiG exchange when you get to downtown - iirc there is one near the airport as well - ask your taxi driver to stop by the nearest MiG.

Kazakhs love meat, I mean they REALLY love meat - if you are vegan/vegetarian goodluck. I could only eat fruits and few shops had very limited vegetarian options, which frankly I am not sure were actually vegetarian because in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 there are no labels or distinction on food products. We just ended up using Google Translate on the ingredients list for the entirety of our trip. If you want to order food online, use Glovo its the Kazakh DoorDash/Swiggy.

People here don't speak english. Google Translate is indispensable, most people speak Russian and Kazakh. The only people we found who spoke english were the immigration agents at the airport and luckily our landlord. Because of this travelling alone is an adventure in itself.

Fashion. Apparently dressing colorful is not the norm - maybe its more of a european thing. People here don't usually smile - it is considered a sign of stupidity. I personally don't have an opinion on this, it's a cultural thing and smiling didn't get us into trouble and we were smiliing 24x7 while we were in Kazakhstan 🇰🇿. Of course you get the foreigner-pass so don't fret about it.

I'd usually tell people to be beware about shady areas but in Almaty even those areas were quite ok, they didn't feel as bad or scary. It was mostly people over-staying their visas and living in old apartments trying to earn a living. We couldn't find any homeless people there.

Please do not take Ski equipment on public transport if possible, if you do - there is apparently an extra charge for it. But once you go to Shymbulak - you as a tourist can rarely find a way to get back to the city because cab-hailing services like YandexGo don't support cash payments when you are out of city limits so we had to use the trolley-bus to get off the mountain. While booking a cab always choose a Mini-Van on YandexGo because others won't be able to fit your equipment. Get your equipment from stores like Free Life, they offer amazing rental prices with no deposit needed (however you do need some sort of id which can be used as a collateral).

Be careful of booking your stay via any aggregator. I mentioned what happened to us in the Memorable incidents section. Just have a backup plan. Try to not get stranded in -24°C at 01:00 am after a 6 hr flight and a 3.5 hr train journey like we did.

Suprisingly we didn't come across any tourist traps except the private taxis, I guess because there are not a lot of tourists and even those are mostly russian tourists.

Things we did not expect§

Lots of koreans in Almaty. We saw a decent amount of koreans - maybe even upwards of 30% of people we saw were of korean decent. They are the next generation of Koryo-saram.

Koryo-saram 고려사람 are ethnic Koreans in the post-Soviet states that descend from Koreans who were living in the Russian Far East.

In 1937, the Korean population in the Russian Far East was forced to migrate to Central-Asia. A number of early Koryo-saram were significant Korean independence activists during the Japanese colonial period, such as Hong Beom-do and Chŏng Sang-chin. They have since dispersed throughout the former Soviet Union, with populations in Siberia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine - read more

Roads are slippery, you will fall atleast once in your trip if you come here during the winter.

Water - It's a problem. You need to buy drinking water to get by.

I might be generalizing a bit here but we geniunely felt people were reserved, unenthusiatic and a little depressed even. Although every single person helped us. I guess its more of the european culture of minding your own business. One incident that comes to mind is when we saw a 6 year old spill his drink in the mall and his mom gazed at him as if she would disown him immediately - which felt like an over-reaction to an outsider like me and the look on the kids face was priceless.

Almost everyone had an iPhone Pro Max, financed off-course. Казах без понтов, беспонтовый казах is a saying which translates to - Kazakh without bragging, is a bad Kazakh

Kazakhstan 🇰🇿 has digital payments almost everywhere thanks to Kaspi

Kazakh songs are amazing! To name a few...

• Рахымжан Жақайым - 18-25
• RaiM & Artur feat. Zhenis - Дискотека из 90 (2018)
• Рахымжан Жақайым - Достарым менің золотой