Translation of mursya’s post (RUS)

Alma-ata – “the father of apples” (Kaz.).

With the arrival of “big money,” apples have disappeared in the city whose name is “the father of apples.” Apple orchards, which used to protect the city from mudslides and avalanches, and strengthened the mountainous terrain, begun to disappear. In their place came two- to four-story mansions. Expensive houses, individually designed, decorated – almost like little castles. A few years later, these gems of modern architecture began to slip, along with the soil, down the slopes, forming a huge lump together with the neighboring houses and encroaching on the city. The result: no apples for ordinary people, and no mansions for the powerful.

Instead, the city sells genetically modified, flavorless apples from China. They look great and keep for months, even after you take a bite. But they are even more expensive than in Siberia, where it is extremely difficult to grow anything other than potatoes and rennet. However, during a bad season, the supermarkets, where product placement reigns supreme, look sorry – appleless!

I had nearly become resigned to the fact that Almaty apples are a myth, when I came across a woman on the Talgar road (Almaty region), who was selling three different kinds: Aport, Amerikanka and Limonka.

Amina has been growing apples for sale for a long time, from the moment she stopped receiving her pension. Before this, she used to give them away to relatives and neighbors. Now, the times are tough, and she’s selling them to “tourists.”

The apples are something to behold – juicy, sweet and flavorful. You can still see the pollen on them. Amina tells me:

A neighbor bought two boxes of Chinese apples. Her family ate one, and the other one they asked me to keep at my place. Yes, they are nicely packaged – I can’t wrap each one in paper like that – but when you bite into them, there’s no taste. You don’t want to eat something like that; it has the taste of paraffin. I told her, “Take mine,” but she wanted to save money by buying them in the city. She regretted it later. And what are you going to do with them now? You can’t just throw them out. They’ve been sitting there for forty days now.

“My husband and I don’t receive pensions, so the cabbage and carrots we keep for ourselves, but the apples we sell. That’s how we live. It’s enough for now, although it was a pretty dry year, bad for the harvest. Last year we collected a huge one – we didn’t finish the apples until summer. This one is worse, but we definitely won’t starve,” she laughs.

Amina has her own system of preserving vegetables. If it gets cold, she fires up her stove and conducts the heat through pipes to the barn. Everything is kept at 5 C, so nothing freezes or goes bad.

While the city of apples had none to offer, I found the most delicious ones just 15 km outside.

Also published by lookatme.ru