The Panfilov Division of the Red Army took part in the Defence of Moscow and marched to Berlin. The Division was raised in Kazakhstan and the 28 Panfilov Heroes Park commemorates the 28 Soldiers of the Division who earned the honour, Heroes of the Soviet Union, and the rest of the Kazakh soldiers of the Division. Interestingly, a high percentage of the 28 were Jewish. The park is just at the bottom of the road outside the little estate where I live.
Boadicea's Chariot 
The Cathedral of the Ascension is in the park, Araminta. It is built entirely of wood, was completed in 1907, and withstood a grade 10 earthquake in 1910 with no damage while much of the rest of the city was levelled.
The large building is just outside the park. It was formerly the Almaty officers’ club and is now a touristy restaurant. I’m told that it is over-priced and you can get Kazakh food that is just as good at most of the local restaurants – I’m looking forward to trying a horsemeat steak 🙂
Thanks for the photos, Bravo.
I especially like the pictures of the bride – the outfit looks remarkably like a wedding cake!
Super images Bravo, like Boa, I love the bride. You’ve captured the buildings, and their colours, beautifully, excellent.
Yes, I loved the titfer 🙂
Thanks, Val.
More excellent pictures, Bravo! Keep them coming. You really do get to the most interesting places, don’t you?
Hello Bravo, is there any truth, do you think, in this Wikipedia article that maintains that “An investigation by Soviet authorities at 1948 revealed that the description of the events was exaggerated, and that six of the soldiers were still alive. The findings were kept secret, and the Twenty-Eight Guardsmen were considered national heroes until the collapse of the USSR.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panfilov's_Twenty-Eight_Guardsmen
On the surface it would appear that much of the legend was fabricated for Soviet propaganda purposes.
Thank you for the photos, Bravo.
I’m pleased you found the time to visit the Cathedral. Was it as impressive as the photos indicate?
Horsemeat steak, how could you?
Horsemeat steak, you say? You can get a big steak off a horse. Keep one for me Bravo, cooked just enough that a competent vet could have it up and neighing within the hour.
OZ
I had some very dark looking carpaccio in Italy a few years back. Only discovered after the event that it was horse. I do not have a problem with raw meat, in fact, I had steak tartare for lunch today, along with a couple of bottles of Constantia Sauvignon Blanc, but horse meat does make somewhat uncomfortable.
Bravo,
You are the site’s Harlem Globetrotter. This was a treat; super colourful photos.
OZ: you are a man of excellent taste. I cook my steaks just long enough so that one can still hear the animals making noises.
Sipu – Why the problem with horse when you happily consume cow, chicken and sheep and presumably goat, rabbit,, ostrich, hare, water buffalo, crocodile and a myriad of other edible goodies of hoof and claw, raw or otherwise?
OZ
😀
OZ
OZ – I’m sure Sipu can answer for himself, but my answer would be about the interaction and relationship one can have with the said animal. I am a proud father of a dog, a stallion and a yearling colt, and I had many a cat as a child. I couldn’t bear to eat any of them! But I wouldn’t ask their consumption to be banned, each to their own!
A steak tartar, yummy, I had my first in France as a young boy. Any beef steak has to come bleu or not at all! 😀
Brilliant pics.
Don’t worry about the horse we’ll soon be round to eating each other!
Sipu, haven’t got round to reading the link, yet, but, manufactured by Soviet propaganda, that would be a major surprise, wouldn’t it? Especially since the Soviets wanted to tighten the integration of the Southern Republics into the Union, (fat chance,) and Almaty didn’t have the opportunity to earn the title ‘Hero’ city.
Another little snippet; there is a German minority here in Kazakhstan, 4% of the population. They are originally Volga Germans and their descendants forcibly re-located by Stalin. There was also a large number of German POW kept here during the war – and, like other German POW, for many long years after.
On horsemeat, I drew the line at dogmeat in Korea, but who knows what I ate in China 🙂 Horse somehow doesn’t trigger the same ‘yeuk’ factor for me?
OZ, I think my link to horses is purely emotional, though it is interesting that when reflecting on my childhood, the attraction felt for them by my siblings and me is almost instinctive rather than acquired. From my earliest memories as a child I considered horses to be such beautiful and noble animals that shared an empathy with humans, something I never felt for any other animal. I am still irresistibly drawn to them when I see them, though I do not own one. I only ride very occasionally.
So, there is a psychological bar to eating them, though I grant you there is no rational reason not to do so.
Although it was not what I ordered, well not deliberately anyway, I am pretty sure that I was fed dog when I was in Seoul about 15 years ago. I forgave the hotel, The Seoul Hilton, because they provided the best coffee I have ever had.
Bravo, the people in the picture look very Asian (does one say Mongoloid?). I would have thought that the Germans must have looked very distinct and I wonder if they have integrated at all.
From what I have seen so far, there don’t seem to be very many cross-group relationships, though the different ethnic groups seem to get along with the minimum of friction. Russians are obvious Russians and Kazakhs obvious Kazakhs.* I haven’t met any ethnic Germans yet, so can’t answer that one. Met a guy of Chinese descent the other day who was embarrassed that my Chinese was better than his 🙂
A quick google shows that ‘mongoloid’ is a perfectly acceptable term for one of our major racial groupings 🙂
*Not to be confused with Cossacks, which, confusingly, is ‘Kazaki’ in Russian