Kok-Tobe

This is a shot of Almaty from up on Kok-Tobe. Those are the mountains on the eastern side of the country, near the China border.

Kok-Tobe is somewhat of a tourist trap. But, it was close to my house, offered us an easy, leisurely afternoon, and we could walk down the hill and straight to my friends' flat for dinner. So off we went. Kok-Tobe, by the by, means blue hill in Kazkah (what would I do without google?).



You hop on a gondola downtown and get transported aerially to the top of the Hill (see those cables in that photo? It's like being on a ski lift, but you're floating over people's homes and a junkyard).

In addition to building a television tower on Kok-Tobe, there are also overpriced cafes ($8 for a Guiness), a small animal exhibit, and some crazy luge-cum-roller-buggy ride, some loudspeakers that some people may find annoying, the obligatory discotech, and even a yurt (see next photo).


It was a great view of the sprawling Almaty city, but we couldn't get any good photos because of the smog. So you'll have to take my word for it.

They also had a bronze statue of the Beatles, circa early 1960s. I've read that some Beatle's fan here had a dream to get a Beatles statue in his city. So he worked tirelessly to raise money and get permission to get the statue up on Kok-Tobe. And now it's in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's highest elevation Beatles statue. Sorry, we didn't feel like taking a picture of it. It was slightly disturbing, and there were swarms of young Kazakh students around it that we didn't feel like waiting for.