AT A GLANCE
Why go?
About 55 km east of Almaty, beyond the town of Issyk, a unassuming roadside sign turns out to be the gateway to one of Central Asia's quietest surprises: the Issyk Arboretum, the Issyk State Dendrological Park better known to locals as "Lesnoy Pitomnik" (the Forest Nursery). Founded in 1959 under Kazakhstan's Academy of Sciences, it is a working botanical institution and tree nursery rolled into one — a vast, shady grove that feels like an oasis dropped into the open steppe.↗↗↗
Across some 365 hectares (of which the planted arboretum itself covers around 62), it has gathered one of the largest collections of world flora in the country: over a thousand species and hybrids of trees, shrubs and flowers brought from East Asia, the Americas, Europe, Siberia and the Mediterranean, all slowly coaxed to survive the region's sharply continental climate. It is both a place for a peaceful walk and a living library of rare trees.↗↗↗