Medeu and Shymbulak
The world’s highest-altitude outdoor skating rink, connected by cable car to the Shymbulak ski resort above.
About
Medeu is a huge outdoor rink set in a mountain valley at about 1,700 metres, surrounded by spruce forest and snowy peaks. A staircase of 842 steps climbs beside it, and the skating season usually runs through winter.
A cable car runs up from Medeu to Shymbulak, a ski resort with slopes at around 2,200 to 3,200 metres. In summer the lifts take hikers and sightseers up to alpine meadows and views over Almaty.
History
The Medeu rink was built in the Soviet period, with work on the first stage completed in 1951 and the large modern rink opened in 1972. Its thin mountain air and the quality of the ice, made from pure mountain water, made it famous for speed skating, and many world records have been set here. The valley is also guarded by a large mudflow barrier. After a destructive mudflow struck Almaty in 1921, engineers built a protective dam above Medeu, using controlled explosions in 1966 and 1973 to create the barrier, which has since protected the city. Shymbulak developed as a ski area from the 1950s and was modernised in the 2010s with new lifts and hotels. Today the two places together are among the best-loved winter and summer destinations for people from Almaty.