Zhongar Alatau (Kazakhstan) National Park – south of Topoljevka (map)
Wednesday, 1 July 2015
There are places where something special happens. The Zhongar Alatau is one such destination. This massive 300 km-long mountain range stretches out from south-east to north-west along the Kazakhstan-China border. The range cannot come up with superlatives because its mightiest peak, the Semjonov Tienschanskij, standing south-east of Sarkand, is only 4622 metres high – a dwarf compared to the more southerly peaks of Khan Tengri (7010 m) and Peak Pobeda (7439 m). However, the vegetation in Zhongar Alatau is extraordinary, because two great ecological zones converge here: Tian Shan und Altai.
A wonder that originated here is the Asiatic wild apple (Malus seversii), mother of all the world’s cultivated apples. It was bears that were apparently responsible for the first selection, in that they picked out and ate only the sweetest apples from these trees – and spread their seeds, through their excrement, over a wide region. I saw no bears trampling through the wild fruit orchards of Zhongar Alatau but, who knows, perhaps it is butterflies that are working on a miraculous world revolution today – whosoever stands in these meadows believes suddenly that the environment is capable of producing a miracle.
First Publication: 18-7-2015
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