Almaty travel guide

Top 10 sights in Almaty

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1© Nikolai Bulykin · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Ascension Cathedral

   A Russian Orthodox cathedral of 1907 in Panfilov Park, fifty-six metres high and built entirely of Tien Shan spruce without nails. The 1911 earthquake that flattened much of Verny left it standing, which is cited locally as proof of the engineering rather than the faith.

   TiqetsKlook
2. 

   2© Michael Grau · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Almaty Tower

   A television tower of 371 metres built between 1975 and 1983 on the Kok Tobe ridge above the city, and designed to stand through a major earthquake. It is closed to visitors; the hill it stands on is reached by cable car and has the view.

   TiqetsKlook
3. 

   3© Tisoiso · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Central State Museum of Kazakhstan

   The largest museum in Central Asia, founded in 1931 and moved into this domed building in 1985. Its centrepiece is the Golden Man, the gold-plated armour of a Saka warrior from the Issyk kurgan of the fifth century BC, which has become the national emblem.

   TiqetsKlook
4. 

   4© Gulsana Battakova · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Central Mosque (Almaty)

   The main mosque of Almaty, finished in 1999 with a sky-blue dome, room for around seven thousand worshippers and a minaret of forty-seven metres. It stands at the edge of the Green Bazaar, so Friday prayers and the vegetable trade run into each other.

   TiqetsKlook
5. 

   5© Nikolai Bulykin · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Kok Tobe

   A hill of eleven hundred metres on the southern edge of the city, reached by cable car from Dostyk Avenue, with the television tower on top. The view takes in the whole grid against the Trans-Ili Alatau, and there is a Beatles monument that nobody can quite explain.

   TiqetsKlook
6. 

   6© Davide Mauro · CC BY-SA 4.0

   A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts

   The largest art museum in Kazakhstan, named after Abylkhan Kasteyev, the first Kazakh painter to train in the European manner. It runs from nomadic carpets and silver to Russian and Soviet painting, and is the best single introduction to the country's art.

   TiqetsKlook
7. 

   7

   Kazakhstan National Museum of Instruments

   A museum of Kazakh folk instruments in Panfilov Park, in a wooden building of 1908 raised at the same time as the cathedral beside it. Its dombras and horsehair kobyz include instruments attributed to nineteenth-century masters.

   TiqetsKlook
8. 

   8© www.kalpak-travel.com/ · CC BY 2.0

   Abai Square

   A square on Almaty's main north-south axis named after Abai Qunanbaiuly, the nineteenth-century poet who is treated as the founder of written Kazakh literature. His statue stands in the middle, with the Palace of the Republic behind it.

   TiqetsKlook
9. 

   9© Vano111ru · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Almaty Zoo

   The city zoo, opened in 1937 and one of the oldest in Central Asia, with around five thousand animals. It breeds snow leopards, which live in the mountains directly above the city and are almost never seen there.

   TiqetsKlook
10. 

    10© Ken and Nyetta User:DarkCorsar · CC BY 2.0

    Saint Nicholas Orthodox church in Almaty

    A Russian Orthodox cathedral built in Almaty in 1908, closed under Soviet rule and used for years as a stable and barracks before being returned to the church. It serves the Astana and Almaty diocese.

    TiqetsKlook

Popular tickets & tours in Almaty

Live products and prices are provided directly by Klook.

KlookOpen Almaty activitiesBrowse tickets & toursKKdayOpen Almaty activitiesBrowse tickets & tours

Trending now

Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

1. 

   1© Roman Plischke · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Park of 28 Panfilov Guardsmen, Almaty

   A park in the middle of Almaty named after twenty-eight soldiers of a division raised here, who died stopping German tanks outside Moscow in 1941. It holds the war memorial, an eternal flame and the wooden Ascension Cathedral.

   TiqetsKlook
2. 

   2© Меридианец · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Republic Square

   The main square of Almaty, laid out in 1980 and the site of the Zheltoqsan protests of December 1986, when Kazakh students were beaten off it by troops. The Independence Monument of 1996 stands at one end, the Golden Man on a column above a bronze frieze of Kazakh history.

   TiqetsKlook
3. 

   3© Dan Lundberg · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Golden Warrior Monument

   The Golden Warrior monument, which raises the Golden Man of the Issyk kurgan onto a winged snow leopard as the emblem of independence. It is the centrepiece of Republic Square, and the burial it copies was excavated in 1969 fifty kilometres from the city.

   TiqetsKlook
4. 

   4© Alancordova · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Memorial of Glory

   A war memorial unveiled in Panfilov Park in 1975 for the thirtieth anniversary of victory, its central relief showing soldiers breaking out of a map of the Soviet Union. An eternal flame burns in front of it.

   TiqetsKlook
5. 

   5© Anton Yefimov · CC BY 3.0

   Park named after the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan

   A terraced park in the south of Almaty, laid out with fountains, avenues of spruce and an amphitheatre, and aligned so that the Tien Shan closes the view up every path.

   TiqetsKlook
6. 

   6© Luqeran · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Central Park

   The city's main recreation park, Soviet in layout and still working as one — a big wheel, boats on the lake and an aquapark, busy on summer evenings with families rather than visitors.

   TiqetsKlook
7. 

   7© KaZoria · CC BY-SA 4.0

   The Beatles Monument (Almaty)

   A bronze of the Beatles on the Kok Tobe hill, John Lennon seated on a bench with the other three standing behind. Unveiled in 2007, it is said to be the first monument to the band in the former Soviet Union, where their records were once contraband.

   TiqetsKlook
8. 

   8

   Almaty Museum of Arts

   A private museum of modern and contemporary art in Almaty, built on a collection a businessman spent thirty years assembling and opened in September 2025. It is the largest institution of its kind in Central Asia.

   TiqetsKlook
9. 

   9© Алексей Тараканов · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Astana Square, Almaty

   The old central square, called Red Square and then Lenin Square before it took its present name, and the second largest in Kazakhstan. Concerts and public events still use it, and the surrounding blocks are the best Soviet modernism in the city.

   TiqetsKlook
10. 

    10© Nikolai Bulykin · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Almaty Botanical Garden

    The city's botanical garden, laid out in the 1930s on the slope below the mountains and covering about a hundred hectares. Its lilac collection flowers in May and the maples turn in October; it is the quietest green space in Almaty.

    TiqetsKlook