Almaty - Charyn National Park

The Charyn State National Park in the Almaty region was established to preserve natural landscapes of special ecological, historical and aesthetic value. Due to the favourable combination of various functional purposes of the areas included in the park, they can be used for scientific, educational, pedagogical, cultural and recreational purposes. The territory of the national park includes the valley of the Charyn River.

The Charyn State National Park extends from the Kurytogai Bridge in the south to the beginning of the delta in the north. It is a strip of foothill plains and intermountain hollows on both sides of the river. The Charyn National Park is located in three districts of Almaty Region – Uigur, Raiymbek and Enbekshikazakh.

The valley of the Charyn River is a unique place with remains of prehistoric flora and fauna. With a length of 393 km, the Charyn River is the largest tributary of the Ili River within the borders of Kazakhstan. The Charyn River is a mountain river. The national park is rich not only in unique natural objects and complexes, but also in historical and cultural heritage. The burial mounds and kurgans are of great interest in this respect.

Tumuli are burials above ground or underground with a superstructure in the form of a mound, i.e. a hill. The National Park is charming at any time of the year: in spring there is the scent of flowering herbs and shrubs, in summer you can shelter from the sun in the shade of an old ash tree, in autumn you can admire the bright, rich colours of the ripe barberry, in winter you can calmly watch the ice floes drifting across the blue water like majestic snow peaks of the “Valley of Castles”, and the birds of prey are magnificent and stubborn.

A folk saying goes: “Seeing once is better than hearing seven times”.