Almaty

The city began in 1854 as a Russian fort, Zailiyskoe, later renamed Vernoe; the settlement became the town of Verny in 1867. An earthquake in 1887 badly damaged it, and the Kebin earthquake of 1911 almost completely destroyed it, though the Zenkov Cathedral, completed in 1907, survived with little damage. Under Soviet rule the cathedral housed a museum and the city's first radio transmitters before returning to the Orthodox Church in 1995.

As Alma-Ata the city was capital of Soviet Kazakhstan from 1929 and remained the national capital after independence until 1997, when the government moved north to what is now Astana. It was renamed Almaty in 1993. The 1986 Jeltoqsan protest took place on what is now Republic Square. Today it is the country's financial centre and, since 2017, a UNESCO Creative City of Music.

The Green Bazaar, trading since the 1870s and rebuilt several times, sells spices, produce, meat and prepared foods alongside dairy staples such as kurt and kumys, the fermented mare's milk drink. Almaty is the commercial heart of Kazakhstan, home to the national stock exchange, and its music scene earned it UNESCO Creative City of Music status in 2017.