On Sunday, September 20, yurts, market stalls, activity areas, and stages lined Panfilov Street, extending downhill from the building that houses the Kazakh-British Technical University (KBTU). The flow of people barely thinned until evening.
Almaty celebrates City Day on the third Sunday of September. This year, concerts and festivals were held on Astana and Abai squares, Zhibek Zholy Street, outside the Alatau Theater of Traditional Art, and across all eight districts. The busiest program unfolded on Panfilov Street in the historic center.
The main stage was set up near the KBTU building. Completed in 1957, it was the seat of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and later housed the parliament of independent Kazakhstan. It was here on December 16, 1991, that the constitutional law declaring Kazakhstan’s independence was adopted.
The concert had no strict division by genre. Traditional throat singing, a vocal technique in which a singer produces a low note while bringing out higher overtones, gave way to folk dancing, followed by pop performers. The crowd remained dense as people moved between the main stage and nearby venues.
Music changed along the length of Panfilov Street as visitors moved downhill. Some performers played outside the official program, while dombra musicians could be found beyond the festival area in other parts of the city.
One of several music stages along the city streets.
At the Alma Digital area, traditional competitions were given a digital twist. In the archery event, the bow was real, but the target appeared on an LED screen, and the system displayed the arrow’s speed after each shot. In the tug-of-war challenge, a wall replaced the opposing team, while a screen measured the force applied in kilograms. Lines of children formed at both activities, regularly joined by adults.
Yurts along the street offered felt goods, textiles, jewelry, and dombras. Children played games and watched performances, while other areas featured crafts, films, environmental projects, sports, and food.
Traditional textiles.
An exhibition of archival photographs documented Almaty from the days of Verny through the postwar period. Visitors lingered over the images, trying to identify familiar streets and intersections.
A separate area was devoted to the Alma Qala festival, where apples from farms around Almaty were brought for sale. According to Kazinform, more than 200 tons of fruit were supplied for the fair, ranging from widely grown varieties to the now much rarer Almaty Aport.
The region’s connection to apples predates Aport, reaching back to Malus sieversii, the wild apple that still grows in the Tian Shan mountains and is recognized as the main progenitor of the modern cultivated apple. Genetic research traces the origins of domesticated apples to Central Asia and shows how other wild species contributed to their genetic makeup as cultivated varieties spread westward along the Silk Road.
Apples gave Almaty its name.
Aport arrived in Verny in the 19th century and flourished in the foothills around the city, where its large, aromatic fruit became one of Almaty’s symbols.
After the 1990s, many orchards around Almaty were cut down or lost to development. Aport, once widely sold, is now more often encountered at seasonal fairs than in ordinary stores. Kazakhstan is trying to revive commercial cultivation of the variety, with new orchards being planted in the Almaty region.
At Alma Qala, shoppers seemed less concerned with the variety’s origins than with its taste. By noon, customers were still lining up, while vendors with empty stalls had already begun packing up.
