Why Two Pages? 

Now, I'm not an "authority" such as people here claim to be. I don't hold any PhDs, nor do I feel I posses a "body of knowledge" that "is very likely to dismiss...innocent guesses, or fractal knowledge."  I have, however, spent some time in Russia and in Kazakhstan, specifically Almaty. That is the name I always hear people use - Almaty. The Russians, however, still call it Alma-Ata. For example, I was living in Nizhny Novgorod for awhile, and no one there knew what I was talking about when I said Almaty. All the people I met in Almaty, however, say Almaty. When I see the name written on signs and billboards in the city, it is also written as "Алматы" (Almaty). 

From my experience, only the Russians continue the use of Alma-Ata. As another example, the train station in Moscow says Алма-Ата (Alma-Ata). However, it also says Gorki instead of Nizhny Novgorod (most everyone there says Nizhny Novgorod, or "Nizhny" for short - I can't recall actually hearing "Gorki" used beyond the train station).

Also, It's not just the Kazakh government who uses that name - it's a lot of people. Many books about the region published nowadays also use Almaty (they sometimes mention "the Soviet Alma-Ata", much like Bishkek is the "Soviet Frunze". 

As for using the scientific/scholarly-approved approach for naming, Wikipedia doesn't do that (as mentioned above). See, the "scientific" or "academic" method for writing the offical name of the country - Қазақстан - is actually Qazaqstan (the letter Қ being offically transliterated as Q in English). There area few academic books do that (look at works from Indiana University, for example), but outside of these small circles, people by and large write Kazakhstan with a "K"  - including Wikipedia. If people say we should use "Alma-Ata" because it's the correct name as dictated by academics, why no Qazaqstan?  

Anyway, my point is that I found it surprising there are two different articles (Almaty and Alma-Ata). I think there should only be one, since regardless of the name it is still the same place. All the pictures and information should be seen together, on one page. They should be merged. 

Oh, one more thing. I just went to Google and looked up "Алматы" (Almaty) - 4,270,000 hits. I then looked up "Алма–Ата" (Alma-Ata) - only 1,160,000.