Museum of Musical Instruments — Attraction in Almaty

My first time in Almaty and to this great museum! I was lucky enough to witness an interschool competition of students playing the traditional instruments while I was in the museum, on a Sunday afternoon – the competition was held in the museum’s auditorium, located just in front of the main door and near the main museum counter or frontdesk. Witnessing the students’ talents (who also wore full-on traditional Kazakh dresses and costumes) was a great delight. Before that, while I was roaming around the museum, several students were practicing their routine for the competition or the programme, playing the Kazakh traditional instruments. What I saw and witnessed elevated my spirits and made me appreciate more the uniqueness of the instruments which were on display at the museum. And it also made me admire how special the Kazakh musical arts are, its traditions as well as its rich heritage that is closely related to the Central Asian culture.

The pictures shared speak for themselves. Recommended to visit as a first time tourist? Yes, definitely! This is one of the highlights of my Almaty city solo tour.

PS. Before my trip, I’ve heard and read in the online forums that Kazakh people are very beautiful people. And after the museum visit, I...

I honestly want to give it 5 stars, but its modest scope and lack of materials to supplement skimp descriptions do not allow me.

You can fully cover all within in hour if you pay generous attention to all exhibits, which consist of a wide range of local instruments as well as medley from around the globe. With this, I'm hopeful that eventually it can expand and live up to much higher degree of anthological value.

To the support materials shortage (imo) - there's just one screen which displays on the loop the actual playing of a number of instruments, but I believe it can be expanded to side stories in chambers dedicated to particular instruments, and of course the world collection can benefit from video aspect too.

With this nitpicking of mine out of the way, I can applaud to this well-put-together gallery, and wholeheartedly recommend to visit.

Entrance fee is currently 500kzt (about a dollar).

p.s. on the second picture one can see an Indonesian musical instrument, which I saw for the first time here, in Kazakhstan, despite my having had spent many days in museums around Nusantara in my time. So there's some hidden...

This is wonderful museum housed in a beautiful wooden house in the center of Almaty. Everything is very well presented in this small but exquisite museum.

The exposition on the right wing is dedicated to instruments from Kasachstan, from prehistoric timed to now. There is a focus on plucked and bowed string instruments.

One room is dedicated to 2-stringed Dombras which belonged to ustads (Masters) of the last two century. Every Instrument is unique has it's own personality and character.

The left wing also presents instruments from other Central Asian cultures. So in one room you can compare Uzbek, Kyrgiz, Tajik, Mongol and Turkish instruments. This had high scholarly value. In the last room instruments from all cultures are presented. Marvellous exponats from Indonesia, Korea and Japan.

In less than 1 hour anyone can get great insights in folk music intruments especially from Central Asia in a very well curated and...