A garden city at the foot of the Tian Shan

Almaty lies on a slope at the foot of the Trans-Ili Alatau, a range of the northern Tian Shan, and snow peaks close the view at the end of many streets. Founded as the Russian fort of Verny in 1854 and rebuilt after earthquakes in 1887 and 1911, it was the capital of Kazakhstan until 1997 and remains the country’s largest city. Its name comes from alma, the Kazakh word for apple: the wild apples of these foothills are thought to be ancestors of the fruit we eat today.

The Soviet planners left a city of wide avenues in long rows of trees, watered by open irrigation channels, the aryks, that run beside the pavements. Some of their buildings are worth seeking out, among them the Hotel Kazakhstan with its crown-shaped top and the Arasan bathhouse of 1982, with Russian, Finnish and Turkish baths under one roof. Between them, cafés, galleries and small restaurants fill the side streets of the centre.

Kazakh food is built on meat, dough and milk. Beshbarmak, the national dish, is boiled horse or mutton served over broad sheets of noodle, and baursak, puffs of fried dough, arrive with every pot of tea. Uyghur cooks add hand-pulled laghman noodles and steamed manty dumplings, and plov is found everywhere. Try kumys, fermented mare’s milk, at least once; it is sharp, faintly fizzy and an acquired taste.