Friday Photo: The Central State Museum of The Republic of Kazakhstan

The Central State Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan is located on Furmanova just above Satpayeva street.  The main hall in the museum is worth seeing even if you don't go into any of the exhibit rooms.  The hall is enormous and grandiose impressing the visitor with the scale alone.  It, like many buildings in Kazakh Architecture, is modeled after the inside of a yurt right down to the central skylight.  This hall often plays host to the semiannual Central Asian Craft Fair (pictured below).

Admission to the four exhibit rooms costs only 100 Tenge.  The exhibit room downstairs features a geological exhibit and an exhibit of the early history of Kazakhstan.  This section includes archaeological artifacts and some impressive recreations of various ancient sites around Kazakhstan. Many of the captions and explanations in this section of the museum are also in English.

In the upper part of the museum are exhibits that chronicle the actions of Khazakh soldiers during the "Great Patriotic War" (the Second World War), a series of exhibits that celebrate the many ethnicities that call Kazakhstan home (including an impressive display of traditional clothing) and the  achievements of the Independent State of Kazakhstan.  There is also a fantastic collection of Abay's original manuscripts and personal effects.

 For anyone planning a visit, the museum is open from 9:30am - 5:30 pm everyday except for Tuesday.