Events & Festivals in Almaty

The Ascension Cathedral in Panfilov Park ranks among the world's tallest wooden buildings. Thousands come each January for Orthodox Christmas services. The candlelit evening liturgy on January 6 stands out. Choral singing carries through the park. Visitors of any faith may observe from the rear. Temporary food stalls and seasonal decorations appear nearby during the holiday stretch.

Medeo sits at 1,691 meters in the Almaty foothills. The open-air rink hosts a winter festival each year. Figure skaters perform. Speed skaters demonstrate. Recreational skaters fill sessions on what many consider the highest Olympic-standard rink on Earth. Evening programs project light shows onto the mountain walls. The ice spans over 10,000 square meters. Several thousand skaters fit at once.

Galleries and independent spaces across Almaty coordinate exhibitions for this late-winter event. The Kasteyev State Museum of Arts typically leads the schedule. Kazakh contemporary artists show alongside invited Central Asian creators. Work spans painting, installation, and video art. Opening nights bring artist talks and guided tours. Regional collectors and curators attend. They measure Central Asian contemporary practice by what they see here.

Almaty's oldest market hall wakes up for spring. Produce arrives from southern Kazakhstan and the Fergana Valley. Vendors expand outdoors with dried fruits, fresh herbs, homemade preserves, and traditional dairy products like kurt and irimshik. The energy shifts as winter stock clears and early-season goods appear. Foot traffic climbs with the temperature. Vendors encourage sampling.

The Almaty Marathon ranks among Central Asia's largest road races. Thousands run full marathon, half marathon, and shorter distances through the city center. The course passes the Palace of the Republic, Panfilov Park, and the Central Mosque before finishing on Republic Square. Registration opens months ahead and fills fast for international runners. Recent editions have drawn elite athletes from East Africa and Europe.

This multiday festival screens independent and art-house cinema from Central Asia, the Caucasus, and beyond at theaters across Almaty. Competition sections cover features, documentaries, and shorts. Juries award prizes at a closing ceremony. Directors answer questions after many screenings. The festival has launched Kazakh filmmakers toward international distribution. Industry panels run alongside the public program.

Almaty's major museums and galleries stay open late for one night. Many offer free or reduced entry. The Kasteyev Museum, Central State Museum, and Museum of Folk Musical Instruments in Panfilov Park anchor the lineup. Special exhibitions, live performances, and guided tours run past midnight. Lines build early at top draws. Arrive ahead of the pack.

Kokpar comes to the Almaty Hippodrome each spring. This traditional Central Asian horseback game pits mounted riders against each other to carry a goat carcass to a scoring zone. Teams from across Kazakhstan and neighboring countries compete. The sport demands exceptional horsemanship and stamina. Spectators cheer along regional lines. The stands crackle with intensity. Concession stands serve beshbarmak and kumis.

Almaty's signature ethno-music festival draws traditional musicians, throat singers, and folk ensembles from across the Turkic world, Mongolia, and the broader Silk Road corridor. Performances develop on multiple outdoor stages with the Tian Shan mountains rising behind them. Past lineups have paired Kazakh dombra virtuosos with Tuvan throat singers and Sufi musicians from Iran and Turkey. The festival stretches across several days. It draws serious ethnomusicology enthusiasts and casual listeners alike.

Artisans and designers from across Kazakhstan set up stalls in one of Almaty's central parks, selling handmade felt goods, traditional Kazakh jewelry, ceramics, textiles, and leather work. The market runs across a weekend and often overlaps with live acoustic performances on a side stage. Vendors demonstrate traditional crafting techniques including felt-rolling for syrmak production and silver engraving. Food stalls serve Kazakh street food alongside Central Asian dishes from Uyghur and Dungan vendors.

A large-scale outdoor pop and rock festival stages mainstream Central Asian and international acts for audiences of tens of thousands. The event typically takes over a major Almaty venue or open-air stadium for one or two nights. Production values run high, with elaborate stage design and professional sound systems brought in for the occasion. The lineup mixes established Kazakh pop stars with regional and occasionally Western headliners who draw crowds from across Kazakhstan.

Restaurants, street food vendors, and home cooks from across Central Asia gather at an Almaty park to serve regional dishes. Expect Kazakh beshbarmak and baursak alongside Uzbek plov, Kyrgyz ashlyam-fu, and Tajik qurutob. Cooking demonstrations and competitive cook-offs run throughout the event. The festival illustrates how Central Asian cuisines share core techniques around lamb, fermented dairy, and flatbreads while maintaining distinct regional identities shaped by local ingredients and geography.

An annual fixture on the Central Asian jazz calendar, this festival programs several nights of performances at indoor venues and open-air stages across Almaty. The lineup typically spans classic jazz, fusion, and experimental acts, with a strong showing from Kazakh and Uzbek jazz musicians alongside invited international performers. Late-night jam sessions at clubs in the city center often continue well after the main stage sets wrap up. They create an informal second layer to the festival.

A multiday cultural celebration featuring traditional Kazakh arts, crafts, and performances held on open grounds near the city. Yurt construction demonstrations, eagle hunting displays, horseback archery, and textile workshops give visitors direct contact with nomadic Kazakh traditions that are still practiced in rural areas. Akyn competitions, where poets improvise verses in a call-and-response format, and dombra concerts run on a central stage. Food areas serve kumis, shubat, and freshly prepared beshbarmak.

Almaty's name derives from the Kazakh word for apple, and the city sits near the ancestral forests of Malus sieversii, the wild ancestor of all domestic apples. The Apple Festival celebrates this heritage with tastings of rare local apple varieties, orchard tours in the foothills south of the city, and food stalls built around apple-based dishes and beverages. Apple cider, dried apple products, and heritage seedlings are sold by local growers who maintain orchards in the surrounding valleys.

A competitive road cycling race that routes through Almaty's streets and into the surrounding mountain foothills, drawing professional and amateur cyclists from across Central Asia. The course typically includes a demanding mountain stage with significant elevation gain toward Medeo or the Big Almaty Lake road. Spectators line the city-center portions of the course, and the finish area has a festival atmosphere with food vendors and cycling-gear exhibitors set up nearby.

Publishers, authors, and literary organizations from Kazakhstan and neighboring countries converge on one of Almaty's exhibition halls for this annual book fair. Kazakh, Russian, and English-language titles are all represented, with author readings, panel discussions, and book signings running throughout. Independent Kazakh publishers use the event to launch new titles to a concentrated audience. The children's literature section draws families, and secondhand book dealers occupy adjacent areas with older and out-of-print editions.

Vendors from the agricultural regions south of Almaty bring the final harvest to an evening market as the growing season winds down. The market stretches along one of the city's pedestrian streets. Late-season fruits, walnuts, honey, dried meats, and homemade preserves dominate the stalls. String lights and portable heating create an intimate atmosphere as autumn temperatures drop. The market runs into the evening. Live acoustic music from local performers accompanies the shopping.

Almaty's restaurant scene puts itself on display during this late-autumn food festival. Participating restaurants offer special tasting menus and collaborative pop-up dinners. The event features both established Almaty restaurants and newer arrivals. Kazakh fine dining appears alongside Korean, Dungan, Uyghur, and European kitchens that reflect the city's ethnic makeup. Cooking masterclasses led by local chefs are open to the public at partnering venues throughout the event.

Shymbulak ski resort marks the official opening of ski season with a festival. The resort sits between 2,200 and 3,200 meters elevation. It is reached by gondola from the Medeo valley above Almaty. The festival combines the first runs of the year with live music, equipment demonstrations, and avalanche safety workshops. Reliable snowfall arrives by early December. Opening day traditionally draws the largest single-day crowd of the winter season. Skiers and snowboarders arrive eager to test fresh conditions.

Outdoor and covered markets across central Almaty set up seasonal stalls as temperatures drop. Vendors sell handmade gifts, warm felt goods, dried fruits and nuts, and traditional sweets. The area around Panfilov Park and the pedestrian section of Zhibek Zholy concentrates the most activity. Hot drinks and freshly prepared baursak and samsa keep shoppers warm as they browse. The market atmosphere builds through December. The city prepares for the new year celebrations.