…Through its exhibits.
There are those for whom a museum remains mute until an official guide or an audio device fills the silence. With all due respect to the craft of docents, I must confess I am rather averse to listening to them. To my mind, they resemble those pirated VHS tapes of Hollywood blockbusters from the late Soviet era—grainy bootlegged prints accompanied by a single, monotonous voice droning over every character in the film.
I prefer a direct dialogue with the museum itself—to catch its own cadence, to perceive the contextual undercurrents that its creators may never have consciously intended.
Take, for instance, a modest exhibit in the Museum of Almaty: a writing desk dating from the turn of the twentieth century. Upon it rests a black-and-white photograph in a simple glass frame. According to the caption, the man surrounded by his family is Andrei Zenkov—the engineer revered as the pioneer of earthquake-proof construction in Almaty.
Tour guides in this hall no doubt recount far more than what is etched on the plaque. For in Almaty, the name Zenkov is not merely a surname. It is an epoch, one of the foundational cornerstones of the modern city—a legacy vividly captured in literature, where old-timers recalled how he rebuilt the entire town under the tsars, erecting its cathedral, arcades, and public assemblies.
The Forgotten Father and Museum Mysteries
In truth, the construction of Verny—as Almaty was formerly known—began with Andrei’s father. Architect Pavel Zenkov (1831–1915) arrived with his family in 1867 at the invitation of the military governor, just as the settlement attained official town status, and immediately set to work on its rectangular urban layout.
Appointed regional architect, Zenkov Sr erected the Kazan Cathedral—stylistically redolent of the Cossack-influenced south of Russia—alongside a fairytale cottage for Eduard Baum, the forester to whom Almaty owes not only the leafy grove bearing his name, but its very tradition of urban greenery and lush domestic gardens.
Indeed, as late as the mid-nineteenth century, this blossoming region presented a vastly different aspect:
I remember how, upon the bare foothills along the banks of the Almatinka, there stood a mere scattering of log cabins and felt tents. Now a magnificent city lies drowned in foliage there… I can bear witness that when I was in Verny, not a single bush grew upon the spot.
Today, Verny is indisputably the finest and most flourishing town in Central Asia, numbering 17,000 inhabitants, boasting many fine two-storey brick mansions, a spacious stone indoor market, and two churches of striking architecture.
Yet the supreme ornament of Verny consists of the glorious orchards planted around the town by Russian settlers, where previously no woody vegetation whatsoever existed.
Following the transition of the town from military to civil administration, Zenkov Sr served as its inaugural mayor. In this capacity, he was tasked with mitigating the aftermath of the devastating earthquake of 1887, which claimed the lives of 161 townspeople—including 118 children—and wrecked nearly 1,800 dwellings (modern seismological estimates suggest a magnitude of 7 to 8 on the Richter scale).
Wood vs the Earthquake
This catastrophe left an indelible mark upon Pavel Zenkov and his eldest son, Andrei, who served as the regional engineer and head of the construction department. Zenkov Jr established a seismic and meteorological station in Verny (headed by his father) and laid the foundation for systematic earthquake-proof architecture across the region. Under his supervision, numerous public edifices rose not only in Verny-Almaty, but also in Pishpek (modern-day Bishkek).
At the time, Verny had a reputation as a restless edge of the world built upon a restless volcano. Conventional wisdom dictated putting up low, heavy-walled shacks hugging the ground. Zenkov, however, defied this logic by combining concrete, iron, and timber, famously crowning his multi-storey structures and towering spires with elements that seemed designed to mock the very fury of earthquakes.
When the next catastrophic blow struck in 1911, the city was infinitely better prepared. Casualties and structural losses were drastically reduced. Even the tallest structure—the legendary Ascension Cathedral—withstood the shockwave, its windowpanes remaining entirely intact.
Timber proved its worth brilliantly. As chronicles of the era noted, Zenkov’s grand cathedral acted as a remarkably flexible organism: its tall bell tower bent and swayed like the crown of a massive tree during the tremors, absorbing the shock as a resilient beam.
And the cathedral stands to this day. The poplars still sway. The orchards bloom. The city remembers its makers and remains profoundly grateful.
P.S. If you are wondering why I speak of this era with such vivid detail, I can recommend Yury Dombrovsky’s brilliant novel The Keeper of Antiquities (magnificently translated into English by Michael Glenny). Set in this very city back when it was still Alma-Ata, it is a breathtakingly atmospheric book about history, museums, and the fragile art of surviving turbulent times. Especially for anyone who lives in Almaty or has ever visited, reading it will reveal the secret heartbeat and history of the city in an entirely new light.
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