The USSR’s first skyscraper in a magnitude-9 seismic hazard zone. This triumph of technological progress was unexpectedly - yet seamlessly - crowned with a golden tiara. From this fortunate union, Kazakh Postmodernism was born.

When Verny was founded as a city in 1867, it began developing like any self-respecting town of its era: with two-story stone buildings. However, unlike their wooden counterparts, it was precisely these stone structures that were completely destroyed by the devastating 1887 earthquake. Consequently, by special decree of the governor, all subsequent construction reverted strictly to one-story wooden buildings.

In effect, the earthquake didn't just ruin Verny - it set its architectural evolution back decades, flicking the city on the forehead much like the builders of the Tower of Babel. “Verny was afraid of heights,” wrote Vokrug Sveta magazine, processing the historical trauma. “People instinctively hugged the ground.”

By 1970, when that article was published, the whole world already knew the word Baikonur, yet in Alma-Ata, rare buildings rose higher than four stories. Overcoming this collective trauma required the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, Dinmukhamed Kunayev—who, standing at 186 cm, was fittingly the tallest man in the Politburo: “You know the seismic conditions of Alma-Ata,” Kunayev remarked. “Yet it turns out that even in such earthquake-prone zones, high-rise buildings can be constructed—if proper engineering is followed. There is a proposal to build a 25-story hotel. Shall we take the risk or not?”

Following years of approvals, design iterations, and expert reviews, AlmatyGiproGor and KazGorStroyProject began construction in the mid-1970s.

The initial answer to nature’s challenge was a solid foundation slab submerged 10 meters deep: anchored this way—rather than on traditional piles—the building would sway during a quake without breaking (a principle similar to the one engineer Andrei Zenkov used for Ascension Cathedral). The second engineering breakthrough was monolithic reinforced concrete, a technique previously honed in Kazakhstan for building massive grain silos.

Once the frame was erected, the engineers decided to put its seismic resistance to the ultimate test: vibration machines were hoisted up and mounted on the roof. “The design team was so confident in their structure,” recalls architect Anatoly Anchugov, “that we went up to the 25th floor ourselves. The building was swaying side to side, people could barely stay on their feet, but after the machine stopped, not a single crack was found.” Later, in December 1978, during a banquet celebrating the building's completion at the top-floor restaurant, “a strong quake struck in the middle of the night.” It was a magnitude 6 tremor, but the building handled it effortlessly; nevertheless, a permanent seismic monitoring station was installed right inside the hotel.

The guest rooms were kept compact—ranging from 11 to 17 m² - a size dictated by the structural design itself, as the room walls serve as transverse stiffening ribs. Only in the suites could the architects afford a bit of open space, though there were only two per floor. This interior minimalism was fully redeemed not just by sweeping views, but by rich infrastructure: a café on the top floor, a restaurant in the podium base, and a banquet hall below it. The latter two are united by an imaginary column of light piercing through all the ceilings—which can be interpreted as a modern architectural interpretation of the traditional shanyrak.

These minor constraints did not stop the hotel from becoming a brand-new symbol of the city. Its silhouette instantly appeared on commemorative pins, postcards, tea boxes, and candy wrappers. It even inspired the design of a floor lamp, and in 2011, it graced the 5,000-tenge banknote.

This triumph of engineering was unexpectedly topped off with an anodized aluminum crown. It was not in the original blueprints, but the elevator shaft protruded above the roofline, and the architects needed a way to conceal it. Architect Yuri Ratushny came up with the final shape, describing it as “ears of wheat,” representing Kazakhstan as the “breadbasket of the USSR.”

At the end of 2025, a major restoration was completed: guest rooms were updated, public spaces modernized, engineering systems reinforced, all while carefully preserving the historic facade. Today, the hotel stands as a iconic Almaty heritage landmark, celebrated for its panoramic city views and authentic Soviet Modernist aesthetic.

Booking https://www.booking.com/hotel/kz/kazakhstan.ru.html

In the 1960s, a massive initiative swept across the Soviet Union to construct standard-issue circuses. The inaugural prototype was set for Moscow, and over the next fifteen-plus years, around fifty nearly identical structures sprang up across various cities. Union republic capitals quickly turned the campaign into a subtle rivalry, competing to give their regional circuses a distinct architectural identity.

The Alma-Ata Circus was initially slated to follow the standardized blueprint, yet it transformed into one of the most stunning and instantly recognizable circus arenas in the entire USSR. The team adapted an existing design from Ashgabat, introducing a full basement level and raising the dome height dramatically from 3.6 to 8 meters. For the roofing, they opted for custom metal shingles - a specification leverageable through the main contractor's resources and personally approved by the Republic's leader, Dinmukhamed Kunayev.

Between 2003 and 2006, the building underwent a major renovation that altered much of its interior decor. Remarkably, however, the circus preserved its authentic charm: the original foyer flooring remains intact, alongside the ceramic-tiled ticket pavilion and the iconic high-rising advertising mast. Most importantly, the dome stands exactly as architects Vladimir Katsev and Arystan Kainarbayev envisioned it—an elegantly inverted form topped with pronounced horizontal rings and clad in glittering "diamond" facets. Painted in brilliant white, its ribbed, reflective surface deflects the scorching sun, preventing the interior from overheating.

Check out the performance schedule on the official circus website https://circusalmaty.kz

An intricate white jewelry box where national motifs blend seamlessly with modernist form.

The circular layout of the Wedding Palace feels like an exceptionally creative architectural choice. In the early years following its opening, it was widely believed to represent interlocking wedding rings. Later, as national self-awareness grew, a prevailing view emerged that the architects were inspired by the round form of the traditional yurt. Yet, it likely embodies a far more universal symbolism: the circle as an enduring sign of harmony and unity.

The concept of solemnizing marriages in dedicated "palaces" was born during Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign. To counter church ceremonies—which were seen as capitalizing on people’s natural desire to celebrate major life milestones—the state introduced new Soviet rituals. The topic was formally addressed at the 12th Komsomol Congress in April 1958: “Perhaps newlyweds should take a solemn pledge to faithfully carry out their marital duties. Perhaps wearing wedding rings should be encouraged, as there is nothing inherently religious about it—it is a keepsake and a signal to others that a person is married. And marriage certificates themselves ought to be beautiful and memorable.”

On November 1, 1959, the USSR’s very first Wedding Palace opened in Leningrad, housed inside the historic von Dervis mansion on the English Embankment. Neither the facade nor the interiors were altered; the historic rooms were simply repurposed. To the sounds of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March, couples ascended the carpeted staircase to the grand hall on the second floor for registration, where a city council deputy presented their official certificate. The party then moved to the salon to toast with champagne. Shortly after, the RSFSR Ministry of Justice issued guidelines to replicate this model across the country, leading to the rapid opening of wedding palaces across the Soviet republics and a sharp drop in religious church weddings.

However, almost everywhere, these venues occupied existing historic buildings. Purpose-built structural concepts emerged much later: in Vilnius (1974), Kyiv (1980), Samara (1983), Tbilisi (1985), and Frunze (1986).

The Alma-Ata Palace remains among the most delicate of them all. Nestled among trees on a spacious plot, it resembles a filigree white box—an effect achieved through strikingly simple structural means. Composed of three stacked cylinders, the middle cylinder is the widest (34 meters in diameter) and gains lightness from a floor-to-ceiling glass wall shaded by a decorative screen whose geometry subtly evokes traditional Kazakh ornamentation. National identity merges effortlessly with modernist shapes, sleek glass, and white marble cladding.

Above the park-facing exit sits a large mosaic by Nikolai Tsivchinsky and Moldakhmet Kenbayev depicting Enlik and Kebek—the "Kazakh Romeo and Juliet." The tragic nature of their legend took a backseat to its power as a celebration of national folklore.

Originally, the interiors mirrored the exterior's airy sophistication: dominated by crisp white tones, light wood finishes, modern furniture, woven carpets, and lush greenery. The murals and bas-reliefs by Tsivchinsky and Kenbayev were understated and flat, while the emblem of the Kazakh SSR above the ceremony hall door anchored the gravity of the occasion. Today, these original interiors survive only in archival descriptions and vintage photographs.

The exterior remained remarkably faithful to its original design even through a major 2017 renovation. The marble paneling was replaced and the glass updated with a higher-sheen finish, but the iconic ornamental screen was handled with unprecedented care: it was carefully unmounted, cleared of decades of grime, and reinstalled. The most prominent new addition was a mosaic panel to the right of the entrance depicting a bride and groom in traditional Kazakh dress—created by an unknown artist to replace a original metallic embossing by Tsivchinsky and Kenbayev lost during the 1990s.

Couples can schedule a wedding ceremony at the venue by submitting an application via the official state service portal at egov.kz.

While the interior of the Wedding Palace is currently undergoing restoration, its delicate latticed facade can be admired from the outside at any time.

A military commission provided the spark for one of Alma-Ata’s earliest examples of Postmodernism—a movement unfolding in full force across its extravagant interiors.

The District Officers' House stands as one of the most imposing structures in Almaty.

In 1971, the USSR Ministry of Defense approved a project for a Central Asian Military District Officers' House equipped with a versatile theater complex. The city designated a plot along the edge of 28 Panfilov Guardsmen Park, on the site of the former officers' house and an earlier, far more modest war memorial.

The grand, three-story-high foyer was designed to serve the theater while seamlessly doubling as a ballroom when required. The section nearest the theater housed a music school, choral and orchestral classrooms, as well as ballet and drama rehearsal halls. The left wing—viewed from the park—contained a cinema with its own foyer and refreshment bar, alongside a recreational wing with billiard rooms, spaces for chess, checkers, and board games, and an art studio. The right wing, positioned between the arch and the main foyer, was dedicated to education: a large library with a reading room, classrooms, a political education study, and a meeting hall for the Military-Scientific Society. (From the latter, the present-day World War II Museum inherited ornate wooden display cases and unique artifacts, including a relief portrait of Lenin sculpted in sugar, presented by workers of the Karaganda Sugar Refinery). The upper floor, bridging the archway and extending into the left wing, housed the Evening University of Marxism-Leninism, while the fifth floor was reserved for a restaurant, dance hall, and a lecture-screening hall.

Receiving no state funding today, the Officers' House leases out roughly three-quarters of its 11,600 square meters. Yet, from the outside, there are no signs of decline; the interiors remaining under administrative care are kept in pristine order. The military band rehearses and performs in the lecture hall, children take dance classes in the ballet studio, and though the restaurant has long been closed, the vast foyer lives on: officers practice target shooting along the upper galleries, while the central hall hosts wedding celebrations.

While this vast ensemble of spaces is impressive, the true impact lies in its exterior architecture and ceremonial interiors. It is a hyper-masculine, emphatically militaristic design statement.

The facade layout hints at classical order, yet in place of traditional engaged columns stand triangular stone piers clad in rough-cut, unpolished masonry—evoking genuine defensive fortifications. Moreover, these piers are dark, while the walls behind them break classical convention by taking on light tones: polished marble alternating with light gray granite and raised square projections, a motif echoing Italian architecture of the Mussolini era. Above, this classical cadence is abruptly sliced by the white ribbon of a balcony, while the white attic cornice, rather than receding, juts forward aggressively—giving the impression that a heavy-caliber barrel might slide out at any moment from the heraldic crest mounted over the central arch.

Inside, the architects' imagination ran even freer. The marble pillars of the main foyer bear cross-shaped horizontal brackets resembling anti-tank "caltrops" or Czech hedgehogs. The suspended ceiling appears built from riveted armor plates, while the chandeliers resemble aerial bombs or ballistic missiles. Even the frosted glass of the light fixtures appears textured, as though pitted by shrapnel from nearby detonations.

The museum and exhibition halls inside the House of the Army (Officers' House) can be visited free of charge during special events and public exhibitions, or during regular working hours by contacting the administration in advance at +7 727 291 06 19.

A marvel of engineering—a high-altitude ice stadium embedded in its natural surroundings as effortlessly as only ancient architecture managed to achieve.

In 1975, the creative team behind the Medeo Ice Stadium—architects, structural engineers, and refrigeration systems designers—was awarded the USSR State Prize in Science and Technology. And it was truly an engineering wonder. Custom-designed refrigeration units and a complex distribution grid were engineered to maintain 10,500 square meters of artificial ice for eight to nine months of the year. The ice surface was extraordinarily smooth thanks to deep water filtration, an impeccably level base made of an innovative non-cracking concrete formulation, an insulating "sandwich" sub-layer, and a degree of precision practically unheard of in Soviet construction: 148 kilometers of Freon-filled cooling pipes were laid with a tolerance of under one millimeter. All of this, situated in an active seismic hazard zone exceeding magnitude 9.

Yet beyond technical prowess and superior ice quality—which saw 112 world speed skating records broken here, more than anywhere else on the planet—there was a profound aesthetic dimension. Designed to seat 10,000 spectators, the stadium was tucked into its dramatic mountain backdrop with the organic grace of an ancient amphitheater. Best of all, outside of major competitions and official training sessions, the rink was opened for public leisure.

The history of the site traces back to 1949, when a high plateau in the Medeo tract—1,691 meters above sea level—was chosen for a training base for Soviet speed skaters. The decision followed the disappointing performance of the Soviet men's team at the 1948 World Championship, where Konstantin Kudryavtsev was the sole athlete to win an individual race. Highly displeased by the blow to state prestige, Joseph Stalin appointed Kudryavtsev as head coach of the national team with orders to rectify the situation. The veteran skater realized that the key lay in shifting the team's training from Siberian rinks to high-altitude mountain ice: in thin mountain air and reduced atmospheric resistance, skaters could achieve far higher speeds than at sea level.

Equipped with only bare essentials, the open-air rink launched on February 4, 1951, and by the very next day, two world records and six national records had been shattered. It relied on natural ice and could only operate 2.5 months a year, but that window proved sufficient to launch Soviet skater Oleg Goncharenko to victory at the 1953 World Championship in Helsinki.

Given such attributes, the venue was destined for immense popularity, but developing full-scale infrastructure remained unwise while the threat of mudslides down the Malaya Almatinka gorge persisted. As soon as preliminary engineering began on a massive protective dam, plans were greenlit to replace the temporary track with a permanent artificial ice arena. The State Construction Committee of the Kazakh SSR authorized custom architectural planning in July 1965. By 1967, the design brief was finalized, featuring dual operational tracks: one tailored for elite competitions—with locker rooms, a medical clinic, and a television broadcasting suite—and another for mass public skating, equipped with a rental shop stocked with 2,500 pairs of skates and a spacious refreshment hall.

While dam construction proceeded, engineers developed refrigeration systems while architects laid out the master plan. The Malaya Almatinka River was rerouted, partially directed underground. The stadium itself, aligned along the canyon floor, was pinned against the western slope to catch early evening shade. Further up the gorge, a water purification reservoir was built; downstream, an open-air swimming pool was heated using waste thermal energy from the refrigeration plant. An electric boiler house was placed on the northern side—a novelty at the time that kept smoke from polluting the mountain air. Space was also reserved for a hotel and athlete dormitories.

Over time, the miracle rink lost some of its competitive significance as major international championships moved indoors, yet it remains one of Almaty’s most beloved recreational hubs and top tourist landmarks.

No chronicle of Medeo is complete without the story of Leonid Brezhnev’s visit in August 1973. The General Secretary of the Communist Party traveled to Alma-Ata under the official pretense of celebrating a record grain harvest, but primarily to assess the aftermath of a massive debris flow that had filled most of the dam's reservoir. Reinforcing the dam required substantial funding from the central Soviet budget, and Brezhnev, accompanied by technical experts, came to inspect the proposals on site. To elevate Brezhnev's mood after visiting the site of the near-catastrophe, local authorities decided to entertain him with a performance by figure skaters Irina Rodnina and Alexander Zaitsev, who had won their first World Championship title earlier that year.

The fact that the high-altitude rink was never engineered to operate in the heat of August was brushed aside. The refrigeration plant worked overtime to freeze the track, and by 9:00 AM, the ice surface was in pristine condition. The skaters were suited up and waiting on ice, but Brezhnev and his entourage did not arrive until 3:00 PM—by which time the midday sun had heavily thawed the rink. Rodnina and Zaitsev essentially skated over a layer of standing water on top of bumpy, softening ice; only their extraordinary technique prevented a fall. Brezhnev was thoroughly delighted, and the necessary funding was secured without further delay. Leadership in Soviet Kazakhstan proved as adept at handling political bosses as they were at taming natural elements.

In 2022, marking the rink's 50th anniversary, public interest in Medeo surged once again. In 2024, a major revitalization project was launched to transform the surrounding complex into a year-round world-class tourist destination, with completion anticipated by late 2027.

Check out the official Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/medeu_official

Source:

Alma-Ata: Architecture of Soviet Modernism 1955–1991
A Guidebook
uthors: Anna Bronovitskaya, Nikolay Malinin, Yuri Palmin