City Day

Two Sundays ago there was a big celebration closing off one of the streets and we decided we would go check things out (just walking through) that afternoon but fell asleep instead. I was disappointed that we missed seeing the festivities, but as luck would have it there was another celebration last Sunday! We were given a ride from church to one of the major crossroads, which also happened to be where the road was partitioned off for the celebration. We decided to walk through and see the party (for my sake of course).

For all of you that can't read Russian, the sign says: Happy City Day, Dear Almaty-ites (Almaty Residents)!

The chalk drawing was actually quite a bit bigger than it looks, and there was more to the scene than is pictured here. here you can see a building on the left and a man (ok so it's a woman...) on the right.

This guy was riding this bike around selling cotton candy. Later we saw him pull out balloons and start blowing them up to make something for a child.

I thought this was cool... a tree made of balloons...
I loved the little buggy and especially the little pony to the side of it!

Do you see the woman in blue and white? She was one of a few dancers in traditional Kazakh garb.

I took this picture of the stage when it was cleared between the presentations of the dancers and the Uzbek performers. If you will notice, the backdrop is an apple tree and the main part is an apple cut open, the stage being a portion of that apple. "Alma" in Kazakh means "apple". Alma-Ata is the old name for Almaty and it means grandfather apple. It is believed that apples come from Kazakhstan--the oldest genetic strain of apples was traced here and they grow wild in the mountains.

There were apple depictions everywhere. The big round circle is an apple... and then the gold with red balls is a depiction of an apple tree. I realized a few days later, when walking by a government building, that they have flowers/plants landscaped in this same form.

These were the Uzbek performers. The video is a little shakey, but if you watch the whole thing you get an idea of some pop/rap music out here. It was actually a lot of fun to watch for a few minutes.