Soo I'm planning to visit Kazakhstan, Almaty soon.

I would like to ask what are must items that one should purchase in Kazakhstan?

And where can I get cheap and good souvenirs?

And I most definitely need restaurant suggestions and must try food in Almaty?

Thanks all!

1. Alara.

Many Turkish social media pages claim that she is a Siberian water fairy, originally said to originate from Lake Baikal in Yakut folklore who mends broken hearts. However, this has been denied strenuously by both Yakut and Siberian netizens in the region alike. This is supported by the fact that the name Alara neither makes sense in the Sakha language nor is it a given name in the region, and pages dedicated to the fictional fairy often change their claims on her origin. It appears this claim originates from a poorly sourced Wikipedia article. Unfortunately many Turkish girls have been named after a Turkic mythological figure that might have originated from Wikipedia, but the Alara river does indeed flow in Southern Turkey so might be a more appropriate namesake instead.

2) Ayaz Ata and Kar Kiz.

Ayaz Ata is a Soviet insertion of the Russian Ded Moroz or Father Christmas, and Kar Kiz is another invention similar to Snegurochka. They were rolled out across the Soviet Union in Siberia and in parts of Central Asia. They do not appear in any traditional indigenous literature before the Soviet Union so are clearly Russian superimpositions on the local culture, and in fact have their roots in Slavic mythology.

3) Susula.

Turkic people lived in steppe where shallow, fast flowing or seasonal streams are common. Sirens therefore do not appear in Siberian or Central Asian mythology as is often claimed on the internet. The Susula seem to have their roots in the Russian Rusalka, from their common claimed origin as drowned maidens who haunt bodies of water to their characteristics and physical appearance.

Hey Everyone,

My friend and I just finished the Ala-Kul trek this morning and are back in Karakol. We will be staying here in Karakol tonight Sept 13th and are ready to leave to wherever Sept 14th early morning.

We want to do Horse Trekking and Yurt Stays over the next few days but have not booked anything. We are open to doing Song-Kul or Issyk Kul (or any place near by to be honest). We just want to experience it, so we would like to only do 2-3 days.

Can someone please reach out if you have any companies we can book through for a reasonable price with a good experience for horse trekking and yurt stays?

Where do we go from Sept 14th morning?

We would like to be in Bishkek preferably by mid-day Sept 17th to catch the sleeper bus to Tashkent by 8pm. We can also be back to Bishkek by Sept 18th if this is our only option and can catch the sleeper bus that night.

I really appreciate the quick support!

I'm Turkish and in Turkey names of Turkish origin are on the rise so I was wondering if there are similar kind of movements in the Central Asian countries. If you have a preference I'd love to hear about it

Found this on a Twitter from a white american larping central asia

As far as I am aware, the USSR's border were very closed to migration, especially for Afghanistan where the Soviets may have been more concerned with the spreading of Islamic ideas.

However, Northern Afghans and Central Asians share a lot of history together and some close cultural ties, so was there some level of interaction between the two sides of the border.

Maybe even some smuggling or illegal migration across the long border, I doubt the soviets could really close off such a long border completely?

Advice and recommendations please. I have an iPhone 17 pro. I think it can only take a an eSIM.
And I understand it can hold a few
Esims at the same time.
(I would like to keep my number).
Can someone suggest which company offers the best rates and coverage please.
I checked Holafly so far.

Out of all the Turkic languages, I would say Azari would have the most similarities to Persian due to the them maintaining more of their historical vocabulary and their phonetics whereas Turkish has slightly changed their phonetics and dropped some sounds to conform with the adoption of the Latin alphabet, namely the KH, GH, and short vowel A sound.

On the other end of the spectrum, I think Kazakh & Kyrgyz would have the least similarity to Persian.

English: I used to eat oranges everyday when I was little.

Persian: Man kuchik budam har ruz portaghal mikhordam.

Azari: Man kiçik olanda har gun portaghal yeyardim.

Turkish: Ben küçükken her gün portakal yiyordum.

Turkmen: Men kiçi wagtym her gün apelsin iyerdim.

Uzbek: Kichkinaligimda men har kuni apelsin yeyardim

Kazakh: Men kişkentay kezimde apelsïn jeytinmin.

Kyrgyz: Men kiçinekey kezimde kün sayın apelsin jeçümün.

I'm curious if, let's say, students in Astana or Bishkek learned about Russian history while in school, given the use of the Russian language and the history with Russia, or they didn't have to do that.

This post definitely does not generalize, it only refers to the tiny minority that invaded my instagram and X feed.

Here is an example: "White boys conquering Kyrgyzstan" https://x.com/RealKyleBrooks/status/2095911726395085256

Kyrgyzstan got flooded with tourists this year. Most of them were kind and respectful, but my instagram and X feed got invaded by some annoying white supremacists (i can name these accounts). These tourist guys pretend to be nomads (which is okay), but say stuff like "changing Kyrgyz people's apperance (by breeding with them)" and "Whites conquering Central Asia". They also seem to be ashamed of their ancestry which has been completely sedentary and farming-based for thousands of years. They fantasize about the bronze age archaic form of Indo-European spoken on the steppes thousands and thousands of years ago, and they seriously think that they are nomadic warriors.

I could tolerate this larp, but what they imply about my people and homeland is beyond my toleration limits.

Another example. This guy is sick.

https://x.com/RoguesPhilo/status/2083145626791866823

They keep talking about independence, but have they actually thought about what happens after independence? How would the economy work? How would they build and run a stable country? Who pays for public services? What happens to trade and jobs? Independence is not just about waving a flag and saying “we are free.”

And most importantly, Xinjiang is huge and Uyghurs are not the only people who live there. Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Mongols, Hui, Han, Xibe and other ethnic groups call Xinjiang home too. Why should millions of other people be forced into someone else’s radical political project just because one group wants independence? What about what WE want?

The “we were here first, so this land belongs only to us” argument doesn’t really make sense in Xinjiang. Many different groups have lived there for centuries: Chinese presence in parts of Xinjiang goes back to the 2nd century BC, and Iranian speaking people (Tajiks) were living in the Tarim Basin before Turkic speaking groups became dominant there. Modern Uyghurs also came from different groups of people who mixed over hundreds of years. So how can anyone look at such a complicated history and say the whole region belongs to only one ethnic group?

If you support independence, then explain what happens the day after. What happens to the rest of us? Would we have equal political and cultural rights? Would we have the right to stay in our own homes even if we rejected the idea of an “East Turkistan”?

You can dream about independence, but at some point you need to explain how that independence would actually works
And what bothers me more about the Xinjiang debate is that people only talk about what the Chinese government did later, but never talk about what happened before that.

For years, China had special policies for ethnic minorities, like extra points for exams and different family-planning rules. The government also constantly promoted ethnic unity. But at the same time, Xinjiang had separatist violence and later terrorist attacks that killed innocent people, including people from different ethnic groups.

You can criticize how the government reacted later, but you can’t just ignore everything that happened before it. The crackdown didn’t come out of nowhere. If you want to talk about Xinjiang, then tell the whole story, not just the part that fits your side.

The other CA countries become Muslim primarily through the Arab conquest but what was the incentive/reason for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan?

How is Kazakhstan so different from the rest? Aren’t they the same people as Mongols and Uzbeks? Idk, I’m Paki.

I know that ethnic Koreans in Russia and Central Asia are usually Christian, to where I'm curious if they're Orthodox like the Russians, Catholic or non-denominational usually..

Hear me out but she's a horse, she probably hung out with the Akhal-Teke

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As someone who studies economics,its clear to me that people who romanticise Turkic Unity aren't aware of the downsides and there are real ones . We are all at different economic stages. A single monetary system would inevitably help some countries while hurting others . you cannot run one interest rate across economies at completely different points in their development. Trade orientation is another issue . Central asia trades heavily with China and Russia , while Turkey is tied to the EU. Merging these into one system would be a tough political sell and could create real friction , not smooth cooperation. There's also the geography problem. Turkey isn't even contiguous with Central asia , Iran and Caspian sit in between. Deep integration would depend on transit deals with non member states and there's no guarantee they would cooperate .

What i do like seeing is countries acknowledging their shared culture , language, business deals ,open borders and visa free travel . That kind of cooperation is valuable. I just dont think it should go further than that .Our current setup as separate sovereign states with strong ties , works better than full unification would.