Kazakhs are the people who love holidays and celebrations very much. Therefore, there are many holidays, each of which has a great importance in the life of the people. Any tourist wants to get acquainted with the culture and traditions of a particular country where he travels. To reach that knowledge, one needs to live in that place and see all the celebrations. Almaty citizens like to relax and spend time funny celebrating the number of holidays. The southern capital is famous for its festivals that gather all the residents and visitors of the city in one place. Usually, various gastronomic experiments are conducted at festivals, good music plays and all this is the reason for an excellent hanging out with family and friends. And such celebrations are: Tasty Alma-Ata, Arba Wine, FourЭ, Almaty Film Festival, Birthday of the city, Tour of Almaty, Spirit of Tengri, Eid al-Adha, Nauryz, Almaty Marathon
Tasty Almaty
What could be better than a food festival? Everyone loves food, don’t they? And this festival unites all gourmets and just food lovers in one space. The program of this event is very interesting as it includes food photography lessons, a table tennis tournament, a crab stick eating championship, and much more. In 2019 this delicious festival turned 5 years old and it is worth mentioning that every year the event is becoming more and more popular among citizens and tourists.
Arba Wine
Arba Wine or harvest festival is the event where you can enjoy all the pleasures of life: live music, delicious food, sparkling wine and various show programs. Not everyone gets interested in the process of making wine. But if you are interested in that or just a wine lover, Arba Wine festival opens its doors every year for you and all the guests of Almaty. This event is famous for the fact that almost all the top restaurants present their food on the food court, and the most interesting things is the balloon flight. Every summer city dwellers look forward to visiting this festival and, speaking frankly, this event really deserves your time and attention.
Arba Wine or harvest festival is the event where you can enjoy all the pleasures of life: live music, delicious food, sparkling wine and various show programs. Not everyone gets interested in the process of making wine. But if you are interested in that or just a wine lover, Arba Wine festival opens its doors every year for you and all the guests of Almaty. This event is famous for the fact that almost all the top restaurants present their food on the food court, and the most interesting things is the balloon flight. Every summer city dwellers look forward to visiting this festival and, speaking frankly, this event really deserves your time and attention.
FourЭ
FourЭ is an open-air event that residents and visitors of Almaty enjoy every year. This festival is one of the best among all the events held in the city, as it is in the list of top 3 Open Air festivals throughout the CIS. The program of the event consists of open-air concerts, artisan’s fairs and spiritual development sites. In addition, visitors can stay here all days and nights, as the festival is in non-stop mode. This festival was created for those who appreciates simple human values.
Almaty Film Festival
This is international world-class film festival which was held in Almaty for the second time in 2019. Festival unites a lot of talented actors and producers not only from Kazakhstan, but from abroad. Moreover, the event program is very interesting and attracts people with the various activities like gala premieres, competitions of movies and actors. Almaty is a cultural and touristic metropolis of Kazakhstan and these kinds of festivals are very helpful for the city improvement.
City Day
Every year on the third Sunday of September, residents of the southern capital celebrate Almaty City Day (Birthday of the city). The atmosphere of the city without this holiday is cheerful and eventful, but it is precisely the month of September that pleases Almaty residents with festive programs related to beauty, art, and especially music. And if you arrived in Almaty in September, consider that you hit the jackpot, as you will see another Almaty, bright and incredibly beautiful.
Tour of Almaty
For the seventh consecutive year in the city of Almaty, a large-scale world-class tour – Tour of Almaty took place in 2019. This event gathers talented professionals of world cycling and thereby develops tourism in Almaty. The race itself lasts 2 days and consists of 2 stages. The total length of the first stage of the cycling race is 118 kilometers. And the second stage is 160 kilometers and will pass along a familiar route. This tour is very popular and significant; as such stars as Vincenzo Nibali, Jacob Fulsang, Luis Leon Sanchez, Fabio Aru, Alexey Lutsenko and many others participated in it.
Spirit of Tengri
Central Asia has a bunch of various festivals but one of the largest one among them is The Spirit of Tengri. This fest is about contemporary ethnic music which is held every year in an open air. The event unites many talented artists from more than 80 countries to make people meet and feel the special vibe of the Great Steppe. Since 2012 The Spirit of Tengri has become a «business card» of Almaty city which opens its doors to the deep philosophy of nomads. This event transfers energy not only of the Kazakh people, but also of people of different continents.
Eid al-Adha
Islam is one of the main world religions. Muslims have many holidays, but the most important ones among them are Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Eid al-Adha or, in other words, the festival of sacrifice, is a holy Muslim holiday. The holiday comes after 70 days after the month of Ramadan and it is celebrated for about 4-5 days. All those days, Muslims slaughter a ram in memory of the sacrifice of Ibrahim, who is considered a prophet in Islam. The days of celebrating Eid al-Adha differ in different countries, since the Muslim calendar contains only 354 days, 10-11 days less than the Gregorian calendar.
Nauryz
As it was mentioned above Kazakhs are very hospitable people and love celebrations very much. The number of holidays in Kazakhstan is diverse but the one which has been important for our nation since ancient times is Nauryz. It is a celebration which is held every year on March 22. Nauryz has a special power to gather all the relatives at one table to meet the upcoming New Year. On this day people congratulate each other and cook a traditional soup called “Nauryz Kozhe”. This dish is made from products such as meat, water, flour, butter, millet, salt and milk. Also, there is a traditional drink which is mostly used on this holiday — kumys. It is a dairy drink made of horse milk. Nauryz is not only Kazakhs traditional holiday but also many Central Asian countries’ celebration. Georgia, India, Iran, China, Turkey and other countries celebrate it.
Almaty Marathon
Almaty people are real sportsmen and love taking care of their health. In that case, the range of events created to keep the health of city dwellers is wide. One of them is Almaty marathon. This is the largest sport marathon in all over the Central Asia which has been held since 2012. The feature of marathon is that it is a charitable and all the income from it goes to help for sick people. Every year on May or April, racing fans of the city start to prepare physically to the marathon, gather all strength and go to run the route. Since the first organization of this event, the number of participants increased to three times. It means that the marathon is popular among citizens and well organized.
