Apple

Almaty, city, southeastern Kazakhstan. It was formerly the capital of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (1929–91) and of independent Kazakhstan (1991–97).

In 1921 the city was renamed Alma-Ata, for its Kazakh name, Almaty (literally “Father of Apples”), alluding to the many apple trees in the locality. The transfer of the Kazakh capital from Kzyl-Orda (Kazakh: Qyzylorda) to Alma-Ata in 1929 and the completion of the Turk-Sib Railway in 1930 brought rapid growth, and the population rose from 46,000 in 1926 to 221,000 in 1939. A number of food and light-industrial factories were built, and heavy industry, particularly machine building, developed later on the basis of plants evacuated from European Russia during World War II.

After Kazakhstan obtained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the city’s name was changed from its Russian form, Alma-Ata, to its Kazakh form, Almaty. In 1994 the government decided to gradually transfer the national capital from Almaty to Aqmola (now Astana) in the following years. The capital was officially moved to Aqmola in 1997.

Almaty is now a major industrial centre, with the food industry accounting for about one-third of its industrial output and light industry accounting for about one-fourth. There are a number of institutions of higher education, including Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (founded 1934), and teacher-training, economics, polytechnic, agricultural, and medical institutes. The city houses Kazakhstan’s Academy of Sciences and its many subordinate research institutes, numerous museums, an opera house, theatres producing in Russian, Kazakh, and Uyghur, and the Pushkin State Public Library. Almaty also has a botanical garden, a zoo, and several stadiums.