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Best time to enjoy Kazakhstan mountains: blossoming of Alpine meadows in Ile Alatau

  • Nature

Blooming of alpine meadows is catcher for aesthetes.

Geographic exclusivity of a metropolis allows the residents of Almaty (as well as visitors) to easily afford something that residents and guests of other cities of the Earth can only dream of! (Refer to -"Almaty face" a heated desert and glaciers at a glance from a city street!) For example, we have a chance to wake up in the morning, stretch out, scratch our head, think, unhurriedly get ready, have a nice breakfast and ... go admiring the flowers. What is unusual about this? The fact that it is not about a flower bed in the nearest park but about real Alpine meadows!

1. Natural Alpinerock gardens appear quite a short distance outside the city of Almaty in the mountains of Ile Alatau (also known as Trans-Ili Alatau or Zailisky Alatau) where a line of mountain spruce forest lapses.

2. ... And disappear next to rocks, colling glaciers, and places where proud climbers are walking up with their backpacks.

3. Blooming of Alpine meadows is catcher for aesthetes because only one who had come closer can see and feel its charm as it is unavailable at a distance.

4. But once approached to them (or got out of the cableway cabin - it depends on a person) you can find an amazing, diverse, and fascinating world of blooming nature just next to you.

5. Edelweiss, saxifrage, primroses, lousewort, gentian, dragonheads, forget-me-nots, violets, tulips, poppies, onions...

6. But even if any of these plants are familiar to you on the plains, then, here in the highlands they still will surprise even the most demanding florists for its miniature grace and changed creatures.

7. The poppies, whose red steppe masses are visible from space, has acquired here yellow color and grows in scattered groups.

8. Tiny violets may not have such a strong flavor as on low lans but there are enough bright colors here to attract pollinators.

9. Miniature asters delight an eye with their ethereal elegance.

10. Gentians like trumpets of a tiny orchestra performing a solemn hymn to the glory of life prevailing here, where according to all canons, there is nothing to do with life!

11. Everything that blossoms here, at an altitude of more than 3000 meters above sea level, desperately gets closer to the ground and each other badly trying to get away from the touch of the freezing winds and protect themselves from frost.

12. It is no coincidence that many alpine flowers are wrapped up in a sort of "fur coats" of delicate cirrus.

13. Alpine King - silver-pale edelweiss is expected to have the most exquisite furry outskirts.

14. Although the Tien Shan is not the Alps, and nobody will be surprised by edelweiss at all, the royal descent makes this flower an unofficial emblem of the mountains here, too.

15. It is interesting that another living symbol of highlands - outstanding apollo butterfly flapping over Alpine meadows has similar color.

16. Another way to protect themselves from the deadly climate is to bunch tight, like this tilakosperium.

17. But, in any case, the main thing is to seed quickly, run wild, and, having scattered the seeds again, hide until next summer.

18. Snow descends the high mountains of Ile Alatau as early as in the middle of the summer and at the end of August; first frosts with serious snowfalls may set in here.

19. That is why, even us, who live in such close proximity from this whole thing, every time we have to hurry up in order to see these sky-high flowerbeds in short weeks of their apotheosis!

20. For it is the case where classic's saying about "it is too early today, and tomorrow it will be too late" is applicable, as blooming can end at any time because no two years are ever the same!

21. But the delicate aesthetes living away from Almaty and dreaming of personally admiring the Alpine meadows in all their glory, should not fall into despair - because there was not a single summer when the Highlands were left without flowers!

Concerning the photos. All photos were made in close proximity to Almaty (at the gorge of Malaya Almatinka, at the Asy Plateau and in the vicinity of Talgar mountain pass) in July and August.