Almaty Tower

Feel the air first. Up here on Kok-Tobe hill, it is cooler and thinner than in the streets below, and it often carries the scent of pine and dry grass. Above you, a white-and-red steel shaft rises into the sky. There is no stone and no brick, only metal tubes and open lattice. When the wind moves through the structure, you can sometimes hear a low hum. This is the Almaty television tower, and it watches over the whole city.

The name of the hill helps explain the setting. Kok-Tobe means green hill in Kazakh, the main language of Kazakhstan. In summer the slopes live up to that name, with poplars, birch and grass that soften the edge of the city. In winter the hill turns pale and quiet, and the tower stands sharp against the snow. The hill sits on the southeastern edge of Almaty, in the Medeu district, where the city starts to climb toward the mountains.

The tower comes from the late Soviet period. It was completed in the early 1980s, when Kazakhstan was still one of the republics of the Soviet Union. At that time, Moscow built tall broadcasting towers in many large cities. They carried television and radio signals across wide distances, and they also made a public statement. A tower like this showed that a city was modern, connected and important. Almaty was then the capital of the republic, so it received one of the tallest.

The height surprises most visitors. The tower rises more than three hundred metres above the hill, and the hill itself already stands high above the city centre. As a result, the antenna sits far above every office block and apartment building in Almaty. From the old streets near the centre, you can see its thin outline on clear days. Many residents use it as a compass. If you can see the tower, you know which way the mountains are.

Now look closely at how it is built. Most famous television towers are made of concrete, like the towers in Berlin or Toronto. This one is different. It is a frame of steel tubes, joined together and painted in bands of colour so that aircraft can see it. Because the frame is open, wind and light pass through it. From some angles the tower looks solid. From others it looks like a drawing made of thin lines.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. Almaty lies in one of the most active earthquake zones in Central Asia. The city has suffered strong earthquakes in the past, and builders here have always had to plan for the ground to move. Engineers designed the tower with this risk in mind. A flexible steel frame can bend and sway where rigid material might crack. So the light, open look of the tower is not only about style. It is also about survival.

Turn around and face south. Behind the tower, the land rises in steep ridges toward the peaks of the Trans-Ili Alatau, a northern range of the Tian Shan mountains. For much of the year, snow covers the highest summits. On a clear morning, the white peaks look surprisingly close. This contrast is the real character of Almaty. A city of more than a million people sits directly at the foot of high, wild mountains, and the tower stands right on the line between them.

Now face north. The city spreads out below you in a wide grid. Long avenues run straight downhill, lined with trees that were planted during the Soviet decades. In summer the streets almost disappear under green leaves. Beyond the city, the land flattens into the steppe, the dry grassland that covers much of Kazakhstan. On hazy days the horizon fades into a soft grey. On clear days you can follow the avenues for kilometres.

Most people do not come up here only for the tower. They come for the park around it. Over the years, Kok-Tobe has become a place for families, couples and friends to spend an evening. You will find walking paths, viewing terraces, cafés, small rides and souvenir stalls. Many visitors arrive by the cable car, which climbs from the city below. The ride itself is part of the experience, as the rooftops slowly drop away beneath your feet.

Keep an eye out for one unexpected sight. Somewhere in the park, you may find a monument to the Beatles, the British band, with figures that visitors like to sit beside for photographs. It may seem strange to find Liverpool musicians on a hill in Central Asia. But for many people who grew up in the Soviet Union, the Beatles were a symbol of freedom and of a wider world. Their music travelled here on smuggled records and homemade tapes.

It is worth remembering what the tower still does. It is a working broadcast structure, not a museum. Its main job has always been technical, and the upper levels are not a public attraction in the way that some towers are. You enjoy it from the ground and from the terraces around its base. That keeps the experience simple. You look up at the steel, then outward at the city, and the tower becomes a frame for the view.

The best moment here often comes at dusk. As the sun drops, the mountains turn pink and then blue. Below, the city lights switch on, street by street, until the grid glows orange and white. The tower is lit as well, and its colours shift against the dark sky. Many local couples come up for exactly this hour. If you can, stay for twenty or thirty minutes after sunset and watch the change happen.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment near the base of the tower. Tilt your head back and follow the steel tubes upward until they meet the sky. Listen to the wind, the voices from the park and, perhaps, music from a café. Then look down at the city spread across the plain. As you walk away, turn back once more. From almost anywhere in Almaty, that thin line on the green hill will be there to guide you home.