The best museums Kazakhstan

Learn all about Kazakh musical instruments. The museum is interesting, with a nice little concert hall. But it lacks explanations in English. Many instruments, especially dombras, once belonging to great Kazakh musicians and poets, have been recovered to enrich the museum's collection. The visit is as much worthwhile for the museum as for the wooden monument that houses it, a former cathedral erected in 1908.

The museum offers a complete panorama of the country's history since the bronze age, in a fairly well-designed timeline, although it is regrettable that no comments are made in English. Four bright halls with a beautiful setting, connected by galleries, display more than 200 000 historical pieces reminiscent of Kazakhstan through four historical periods. A beautiful hall is devoted to local ethnography, and the room on independent Kazakhstan is a fine example of political propaganda. Between the two, we will be able to dwell in the room devoted to the Soviet period, rich in many pieces today. Recently decorated, a fifth hall regularly displays the museum's funds, which have never been exposed in the other pavilions. The theme of this fifth hall is therefore periodically renewed. At the entrance you will find two souvenir stores offering a few crafts and carpets.

When you ring the museum doorbell, you feel as if you're entering a private home. But the curator, Madi Jasekenov, is always happy to have visitors, and will be invaluable to Russian-speaking visitors. The museum focuses on the history of the city of Aralsk, right up to its decline in the 1970s. The period photos are interesting, and allow you to compare them with the city's current appearance. Don't miss the section devoted to works by artists inspired by the melancholy landscapes left by the disappearance of the sea.

A few families have joined forces to create an Eagle Museum, where you can admire a number of birds, including golden eagles, and learn how to train them. Dogs also give impressive demonstrations. Tourists are welcomed in winter, between late November and early March, during the hunting season. You're free to negotiate a rate to stay a few days if you'd like to take a more in-depth introduction and follow the hunters on horseback. A truly memorable experience!

This museum traces the country's military history, with a wealth of images and propaganda posters, which are probably the most interesting elements for a foreigner. The place is radically lacking in explanations in English, and the succession of portraits of local generals leaves one a little indifferent. It's a pity, because the museum's collection of over 6,000 items - paintings, weapons, armor, uniforms - would benefit from being highlighted.

The museum dedicated to Abay Ibrahim Kunanbayouli (1845-1904), a poet born in the village of Karaoul, on the outskirts of Semey, when the town was still called Semipalatinsk, retraces the major stages in the life of the man considered to be the Kazakh man of letters par excellence. Having studied in Semipalatinsk, he took all his lessons in Russian, which later enabled him to translate numerous works by the great Russian poets and novelists, making them accessible to Kazakhs. As a member of the pantheon of great national figures, his museum is logically well-stocked, and visitors will be able to explore the rooms and corridors devoted to Abaï's childhood, his influences and his literary work, to familiarize themselves with a little-known author who has never been translated in France. Genealogy, writings, fellow travelers and family are presented in detail, then linked to the poems. There are also numerous drawings evoking the themes of Abaï's stories and poems in a pictorial way. Above all, however, it is Abaï's morality speeches that remain highly prized by Kazakhs to this day, whether in teaching, child-rearing or, more broadly, in everyday life. The tour ends with a small reproduction of a ^19th-century Kazakh interior, complete with bed, armchair, desk and cupboards. Unfortunately, there's no translation of the commentaries, which are all in Russian or Kazakh. Ask for the guided tour to fully appreciate the visit.

Set back from the main square, the museum can be spotted by the relief sculpture of the great writer wearing a beard, on the modern part of the building; it is next to the small log house that Lieutenant Dostoyevsky occupied between 1854 and 1859. It stands out enough from the surrounding architecture to be noticed. On the right is a statue of Dostoyevsky in uniform, chatting with Shokan Valikhanov, Kazakh ethnologist and historian, a contemporary of the Russian writer and considered the father of modern Kazakh historiography. The two men met in Omsk, and struck up a close friendship that lasted despite Dostoyevsky's exile.

The museum, housed in a beautiful setting with walls decorated with large pages of Dostoyevsky's handwriting, displays mainly period photographs and a number of books that marked, influenced or inspired the Russian author, just like Hugo, Byron or Balzac. Semey is also featured, with a historical model of the city and black-and-white photographs of its main monuments. In the center, a space evokes the world of the Gulag. Here, visitors can linger over drawings by Korsakova and Tolkacheva, depicting prisoners' faces with intensity.

The visit concludes with a tour of Dostoyevsky's home, which consists of an entrance hall adjacent to a small bedroom, a living room and a study. Period furniture has been arranged to recreate Dostoyevsky's everyday world during the five years he spent at Semey.

The Semey Museum of Fine Arts, opened in 1985 thanks to a donation from a wealthy Russian patron, featured 500 paintings from Russia and Europe. After a quarter-century of expansion, the museum has become one of the largest in Kazakhstan, and certainly one of the most interesting, with over 3,000 paintings, sculptures and other works of art collected in Kazakhstan, Russia, Italy and France. All date from the ^16th and ^17th centuries. A real godsend for art lovers in a country with relatively few museums of this kind!

Like the Almaty museum, the regional museum houses a "Golden Man". These are the golden weapons and armour of a Sarmatian chief discovered in the Atyrau region in 1999. Other highlights include the reconstruction of a yurt and its traditional interior, and a fresco depicting the region in the distant past when it was criss-crossed by Silk Road caravans. For the rest, there's nothing really exciting to discover.

Cabs to Fort-Shevchenko leave from the Aktau bus station in the north of the city.

It's a 250 km round trip, but well worth it. The fort occupies the tip of the Mangyshlak peninsula. A small local museum houses many works by the great Ukrainian poet exiled to the shores of the Caspian. The surrounding scenery is perfect for a stroll, provided you ignore the oil companies that occupy part of the coastline. It's all very photogenic.

It's especially worth a visit to discover the results of the many archaeological excavations carried out around Aktau, particularly at the Mangistau site. Ask the museum staff for a few explanations, as the presentation of the exhibits is a little lacking. For the rest, we'll pass quickly over the collections of small everyday objects dating from the ^19th and ^20th centuries and the stuffed animals. Mineral enthusiasts will delight in the fragments of meteorites and semi-precious stones gleaned here and there from the steppe.