Recreational zone
Charyn Canyon is 154-kilometer-long canyon of the Charyn River, 200 kilometers east of Almaty near the Chinese border. It is part of Charyn National Park, which Kazakhstan established on February 23, 2004.
The canyon, which is in the Uyghur and Kegen Districts of Almaty Province, cuts through the northern Tien Shan mountain range. It is 150 to 300 meters deep in places.
An eye-catching part of the canyon that visitors love is known as the Valley of Castles for its unusual rock formations. The Valley of Castles is 2 kilometers long, with a width ranging from 20 to 80 meters.
The Chimbulak Ski Resort in the Almaty area is situated above Medeo, the world’s highest skating rink. Chimbulak is part of the picturesque Zailiysky Alatau gorge in the Tian Shan Mountains. It is 2,260 meters or 7,414 feet above sea level and only 25 kilometers from the center of Almaty, Kazakhstan’s biggest city. The highest point of Chimbulak, the 3,163-meter-tall Talgar Pass, takes 20 minutes to reach by chairlift. Both Chimbulak and Medeo were modernized for the 2011 Asian Winter Games that Kazakhstan hosted.
Borovoe’s stunning woods and lakes and unique plants and animals have led to it being dubbed the Pearl of Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan made the hilly pristine area more accessible to the public by building an autobahn from Astana to Borovoe in recent years.
Borovoe has some of the most stunning rock formations in the county. Some are monoliths sitting in four crystal-clear lakes – the Big Chebache, the Small Chebache, Pike Lake and Lake Borovoe.
