Almaty residents are left without a square

For almost 30 years, the new Republic Square has been the main square of Almaty and pleased the eyes of Almaty citizens. The new square was created by the decision of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, DA Kunayev, as with the increase in the population of the city, the old square in the days of mass events could not accommodate all the residents of the city. They opened the New Square in 1980. The square is located between Lenin Avenue and Mira Street. The central compositional accent of the square was the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan (now the Akimat) around which the ensemble of buildings of the former Ministry of Agriculture and the Party History Institute of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, the Republican Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren, the television studio complex of Kazakh television, , "Ocean" and many others. For the architecture of the complex buildings of the square, a group of architects, builders and designers was awarded the State Prize of the USSR for 1982. The square was a masterpiece of the Soviet town-planning type. Since 1980, it has been the main square of the capital of Kazakhstan and the venue for mass demonstrations, celebrations, sports festivals, military parades, mass rallies, and folk festivals. After the collapse of the USSR, the square was renamed the Republic Square. In 1992, Nauryz was celebrated on the square for the first time, as in times of perestroika it was allowed to quietly celebrate only in the old square. Up to 1997, military parades were also held on the square. The main most important and favorite holiday of Almaty residents was Nauryz. Every year on March 22, from morning till night, thousands of Almaty residents came to the square to celebrate the national holiday of the spring equinox - Nauryz. But the joy of Almaty residents was overshadowed in independent Kazakhstan. In 2007, the construction of an underground shopping entertainment center was started on the square, the granite tribune was demolished, 60% of the area was fenced, half the Tien-Shan fir trees were cut down, and the traffic was restricted. Until 2012, the symbol of independence for all Kazakhstanis-the area of the Republic was disfigured by pits and pits. Almaty residents were extremely negative about the construction of the shopping and entertainment center and opposed the construction, since the square was a sacred memory of the victims of the tragic events of 1986. As it is known on December 16-17, 1986, the youth of Alma-Ata, which at that time was the capital of the Kazakh SSR, entered the central square (at that time it bore the name of Leonid Brezhnev) and openly declared its disagreement with the methods of CPSU rule. The rally was brutally suppressed by the power structures, and there were sacrifices. Many young people for participating in those events were subjected to repression by the Soviet regime, lost their jobs. All of them were rehabilitated in the first years of independence of Kazakhstan. In 2008, deputy akim Serik Seidumanov said that the project was revised and the shopping and entertainment center will not be here. He assured the public that the authorities themselves are interested in the soonest restoration of a historically significant facility, and either a parking lot or an underground road will be built on the site of the pit. But all that was said was just empty promises. The area was still immorally unfolding bulldozers. Many public movements advocated the restoration of the Republic Square in its original form, but their opinion was deeply spit.

All four years while the construction of the center was underway, Nauryz and other holidays were held in the old narrow square, while the population of the city today is 1.5 million. Residents as sheep were driven into a narrow square. Many concerts were held in mass hustle, as temporary perimeter fences were set up around the perimeter of the square, the police did not allow water and soft drinks to enter the perimeter. All this had a negative effect on the health of the audience, many fell into fainting. In 2012, the construction was completed, but the celebration of Nauryz was never resolved, which caused outrage among the residents of the city. April 28 was opened shopping and entertainment center Almaly, which cost about 24 billion tenge. And the authorities were instructed not to conduct any more mass events on the Republic Square. After the completion of the construction, the square lost its majestic appearance. The width of the area has decreased by 50%. Thus, Almaty citizens were deprived of a spacious, wide area. None of the initiators of the construction of the center even thought about the construction of a new area for Almaty residents, which would become an adequate replacement, compensation for the stolen area of the Republic. Today, Almaty residents were left without a square.

In general, the city of Almaty lost its face in recent years, the Almaty people were left without a square, the city turned into a flea market of services and sales of goods, a green outfit of poplars, karagachs, oaks unchecked, green sidewalks and irrigation ditches rolled into asphalt, gardens from the airport were destroyed, Cutting in the city of 80% of trees provoked a hurricane, which destroyed hundreds of thousands of Elie Shrenk in the mountains of the Trans-Ili Alatau. However, the initiators of all of the above complain about attracting tourists to the city and creating a world tourist center, but what they can show today to the world: bare mountains, built-up apple orchards, red-hot sidewalks without trees, empty clogged irrigation ditches. The city today really has nothing to show tourists. If in Soviet times, foreigners admired the city-garden, its murmuring irrigation ditches, apple orchards and mountains, today they do not recognize this city. Almaty really turned into a burned-out burning steppe of concrete and glass. If in the nearest decades everything remains at this level, the city will face a shortage of water resources, since already today almost all glaciers in the mountains have lost 50% of their ice cover.