Zhibek Zholy (Almaty Arbat)

About this place

Zhibek Zholy, Kazakh for Silk Road, is a 4.2 km street through central Almaty, and its car-free core, about 700 m from Abylai Khan Avenue east to Kunaev Street, is what locals call the Arbat, after Moscow's famous pedestrian street. Shops and cafés line it, with the TsUM department store at its western end. Originally Torgovaya, or Trade Street, it has been a commercial street since the 19th century, when Almaty was the town of Verny; the Green Bazaar still trades where its merchants' arcade stood. Renamed after Maxim Gorky in 1936, the street was closed to cars along this stretch in the late 1980s and took its present name in the early 1990s, when young rockers, poets and painters made it their meeting place. A 2017 renovation brought granite paving, dry fountains, lighting, benches and playgrounds. Start at TsUM, opened in 1961 behind a Stalinist-style facade, and walk east past painters selling canvases or sketching portraits, musicians drawing small crowds, souvenir stalls and cafés; at weekends craft stalls often join them, per visitor guides. Partway along, Panfilov Street, a wide promenade beside a car lane since 2017, branches off about 1.4 km south to the Abay Opera House. From the Kunaev end, the Ascension Cathedral in Panfilov Park and the Green Bazaar each lie about 500 m away as the crow flies; on the way to the bazaar stands Kyzyl-Tan, an old domed trading house, now fenced off for restoration. Zhibek Zholy metro station is a block south of the Panfilov crossing. Allow 30 to 90 minutes.