Kazakhstan National Museum! The most beautiful thing is not the exhibits, but the building itself!

🏞✨The National Museum of Kazakhstan is not in the capital Astana, but in Almaty. However, I prefer to call the National Museum in Almaty a former site, because many of the museum's treasures have already been moved to the new capital Astana. As a building, this former museum is quite exquisite, but the collections inside are quite ordinary.

🏞✨The most worthwhile places to visit in the museum are the front square and the lobby. The various exhibitions are basically not worth visiting unless you have a lot of time in Almaty. The special exhibitions, in particular, are ridiculously expensive. The basic exhibitions are just about the things in history books. Anyone who has listened to history classes in middle or high school will find the exhibitions here a bit of a rip-off.

🏞✨The huge stone pillars make the museum look like a palace or castle. The warm yellow marble columns, combined with the hard lines and blue glass, have a retro feel. This may be the only imagination left to us by the former Soviet Union. This kind of building, like a torrent of steel, is impossible to build again. These old buildings are worth seeing while they still exist.

🏞✨Kazakhstan is a country that loves Tiffany blue. The background color of the national emblem and flag, the passport, and even the color of the entry stamp are all Tiffany blue. This color makes them feel calm. They like a quiet and peaceful life. The blue round dome, the Soviet-style Roman columns, and the hard architectural lines make the National Museum a representative of Kazakh style.

🏞✨When you enter the museum, the huge dome is not as beautiful as an old church, but the extreme lines and the skylight on the roof make this museum, which has few collections, look very beautiful. When the sunlight shines through the skylight into the room, it adds a little style to the otherwise boring museum.

🏞✨Logically, the National Museum should display some historically valuable paintings, but I didn't expect Kazakhstan to be so down-to-earth. A whole wall here is in an elementary school drawing style. The old church I saw on the street a few days ago was also sketched. However, I was shocked that this rough sketch could be displayed in the National Museum.


Tips
📍✨Address: Samal-1 microdistrict, Almaty (View Map)
📍✨How to get there: Take bus 2, 63, or 73
📍✨Opening hours: 9:30 am–5:30 pm, closed on Mondays
📍✨Tickets: KZT 5,000 for foreigners

Post by JOSIE GONZALES | Oct 24, 2024