Like a powder avalanche that has come to rest at the base of the mountain, the city spills outward from the Tien Shan. From your hotel window you can see the near ranges just outside the city limits, rising in green swaths to 12,000 feet. Behind them are snow-covered spires and glaciated summits soaring to 16,000 feet or more. First to the top and back wins. Read this amazing account of a crazed race up Khan Tengri at Kazakhstan's First International Mountain Festival.
Most people are a bit rusty on where Kazakhstan is . . .
There seem to be a lot of them, and they kind of drift in and out of the headlines from time to time, without really being around long enough for you to know exactly where they are. Kazakhstan is the big 'stan, just below Russia, in Central Asia. It' s the size of Western Europe, with a population of under 17 million. It's large and empty and beautiful and wild. The reason that Kazakhstan isn't heavily populated is obvious when you fly over it.